Wullenweber's brother, Joachim, at that time one of the Council of Hamburg, was the first to be uneasy regarding Jürgen's fate, and he succeeded in ascertaining the fact of his imprisonment and the perpetrator of the deed. He addressed a letter to the archbishop, demanding an explanation of this breach of faith. The audacious prelate replied, that "Since it was notorious how designedly and presumptuously Jürgen had acted against the will of God, of the emperor, and of the spiritual rulers of Lübeck, and how he had spent a night in his, the archbishop's domains without his permission, his will or a safe conduct, he, as the emperor's relative and as prince of the empire, had held himself in duty bound towards his Church to take the man prisoner. Further reasons for this step would be made known in course of time." Armed with this insolent reply Joachim Wullenweber turned to King Henry VIII. of England in his sore strait, and implored him to befriend the man who had ever befriended him. To this request Henry lent a ready ear and he pleaded, but in vain, for his "faithful and honoured friend," with the Council of Hamburg and Bremen, and at last with the archbishop himself. But Brömse and his party were not the men to release their prey when once it had fallen into their hands. They were determined to have their revenge. They hated Wullenweber; Brömse, in particular, hated him so much that it was possible for a contemporary chronicler to declare that he even tore Wullenweber's flesh off his bones with his own teeth. This no doubt is a baseless charge. Nicholas Brömse, the patrician, with the delicate coquettish features of a woman, with the lily white hands that were noted among his contemporaries, is not likely to have done such a thing. He might be false and cruel, but he could not have been actively bestial and ferocious. What is certain is that Wullenweber's enemies were determined to destroy him. So great and powerful a man could not be simply put aside; he had to be sacrificed. A truly fiendish scheme of incrimination was opened against him; so painful and unfair that it awoke pity even in the breasts of his contemporaries. Among them, Maria, at that time regent of the Netherlands, was so deeply moved by the burgomaster's fate, that she felt herself called upon to demand that the prisoner should at least be brought before an imperial governor, in order that his case might have a more impartial consideration. But Wullenweber's foes would not listen to any mild or merciful counsels. Their chief endeavour was to spread abroad a belief that the dictator had acted in concert and sympathy with the Anabaptists, at that moment the bogey with which to scare both Catholics and Protestants. [Illustration: SCENE BEFORE A JUDGE.]