Luther it is true admitted to Brück, the electoral chancellor, that certain people at Wittenberg did not consider the Elector’s claims at all well-founded.[719] At the Landgrave’s instigation he also addressed a friendly request to the Elector, “not to be too hard and stiff”; of the temporal rights of the case he was ignorant; seeing, however, that there was a dispute the question could not be clear; at any rate Duke Maurice was acting wrongfully in “pressing his rights by so bloodthirsty an undertaking. At times there may be a good reason for pulling one’s foot out of the tracks of a mad dog or for burning a couple of tapers at the devil’s altar.”[720] But on the whole he took the part of his Elector against Maurice, who, even before this, had appeared to him lax and wavering in his support of the new faith. In his history of Maurice of Saxony, G. Voigt gives as his opinion that: “In this matter Luther neither showed himself unbiased nor did he act uprightly and honourably.”[721] To Amsdorf, who had helped to fan the flame of mutual hate, Luther speaks of Duke Maurice as “a proud and furious young fellow, in whom we undoubtedly see the direct work of Satan”; it is not he (Luther) or Amsdorf who have to reproach themselves with the conflagration; he is to be quite at rest on this score. Rather, it is Christ Who—by His Word—has given rise to the mischief and to all the hatred of the demons against us. His Word alone is to blame, not we, that so many confessors of our faith have been slain, drowned and burnt. “In vain do they impute to us the bloody deeds which have taken place owing to Münzer, Carlstadt, Zwingli and the [Anabaptist] King of Münster.” “At first Maurice was not regarded by Luther, Melanchthon and most of their contemporaries as of such importance, whether for good or for evil, as he soon after showed himself to be; they fancied him far more dependent on his nobles and councillors than he really was.”[722] Luther thought he detected the evil influence of the councillors in the twin businesses of Wurzen and Meissen. In his reply to the Landgrave concerning the attempt to bring the matter to a peaceful issue, without having as yet examined the cause, he speaks of Duke Maurice as a “stupid bloodhound.”[723] To his own Court he wrote, on April 12, as though the Duke were without question in the wrong: “May God strengthen, console and preserve my most Gracious Lord and you all in His Grace and in a good conscience, and bring down on the heads of the hypocritical bloodhound of Meissen what Cain and Absalom, Judas and Herodes deserved. Amen and again Amen, to the glory of His name Whom Duke Maurice is outraging to the utmost by this abominable scandal, and singing meanwhile so blasphemous a hymn of praise to the devil and all the foes of God.”[724]