Philip, however, was diplomatic enough to temper all this with friendly assurances. “We esteem you,” he says, “as a very eminent theologian, nor shall we doubt you, so long as God continues to give you His Spirit, which Spirit we still recognise in you.... We find no fault with you personally and consider you a man who looks to God. As to our other thoughts, they are just thoughts, and come and go duty free.” These “duty-free” thoughts, as we readily gather from the letter, concerned the Courts of Saxony, whose influence on Luther was a thorn in the Landgrave’s flesh. There was the “haughty old Vashti” at Dresden (Duchess Catherine), without whom the “matter would not have gone so far”; then, again, there was Luther’s “Lord, the Elector.” The “cunning of the children of the world,” which the Landgrave feared would infect Luther, had its head-quarters at these Courts. But if it came to the point, such things would be “disclosed and manifested” by him, the Landgrave, to the Elector and “many other princes and nobles,” that “you would have to excuse us, because what we did was not done merely from love, but for conscience’s sake and in order to escape eternal damnation; and your Lord, the Elector, will have to admit it too and be our witness.” And in still stronger language, he “cites” the Elector, or, rather, both the Elector and himself, to appear before Luther: “If this be not sufficient, then demand of us, and of your master, that we tell you in confession such things as will satisfy you concerning us. They would, however, sound ill, so help me God, and we hope to God that He will by all means preserve us from such in future. You wish to learn it, then learn it, and do not look for anything good but for the worst, and if we do not speak the truth, may God strike us”; “to prove it” we are quite ready. Other things (see below, xxiv., 2) make it probable, that the Elector is here accused as being Philip’s partner in some very serious sin. It looks as though Philip’s intention was to frighten him and prevent his proceeding further against him. Since Luther in all probability brought the letter to the cognisance of the Elector, the step was, politically, well thought out. _Melanchthon’s Complaints._ Melanchthon, as was usual with him, adopted a different tone from Luther’s in the matter. He was very sad, and wrote lengthy letters of advice.