In the summer of 1518 a diet was held at Augsburg at which the papal legate attended. The Pope was anxious to obtain its consent to the imposition of a heavy tax throughout the empire, to be applied ostensibly for the war against the Turks, but alleged to be wanted in reality for entirely other objects. The demand for a tax, however, was received with the utmost disfavor both by the diet and the empire; and a long-cherished bitterness of feeling now found expression. An anonymous pamphlet was circulated, from the pen of one Fischer, a prebendary of Wuerzburg, which bluntly declared that the avaricious lords of Rome only wished to cheat the "drunken Germans," and that the real Turks were to be looked for in Italy. This pamphlet reached Wittenberg and fell into the hands of Luther, whom now for the first time we hear denouncing "Roman cunning," though he only charged the Pope himself with allowing his grasping Florentine relations to deceive him. The diet seized the opportunity offered by this demand for a tax, to bring up a whole list of old grievances; the large sums drawn from German benefices by the Pope under the name of annates, or extorted under other pretexts; the illegal usurpation of ecclesiastical patronage in Germany; the constant infringement of concordats, and so on. The demand itself was refused; and in addition to this, an address was presented to the diet from the bishop and clergy of Liege, inveighing against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of the Romish minions, in such sharp and violent tones that Luther, on reading it afterward when printed, thought it only a hoax, and not really an episcopal remonstrance. This was reason enough why Cajetan, to avoid increasing the excitement, should not attempt to lay hands on the Wittenberg opponent of indulgences. The elector Frederick, from whose hands Cajetan would have to demand Luther, was one of the most powerful and personally respected princes of the empire, and his influence was especially important in view of the election of a new emperor. This Prince went now in person to Cajetan on Luther's behalf, and Cajetan promised him, at the very time that the brief was on its way to him from Rome, that he would hear Luther at Augsburg, treat him with fatherly kindness, and let him depart in safety. Luther accordingly was sent to Augsburg. It was an anxious time for himself and his friends when he had to leave for that distant place, where the Elector, with all his care, could not employ any physical means for his protection, and to stand accused as a heretic before that papal legate who, from his own theological principles, was bound to condemn him. "My thoughts on the way," said Luther afterward, "were now I must die; and I often lamented the disgrace I should be to my dear parents."