courtiers of the king) foes to the Holy Virgin Mary, the patroness of Hungary, and as such, punishable with death and confiscation of their property. The persecutions against the adherents of the new faith began immediately. Luther’s works and writings, which had been largely imported into Hungary, were seized and consigned to the flames. The Reformation, nevertheless, steadily gained ground. In the diets which, owing to the attacks threatening the country from abroad and troubles at home, were then held three or four times annually, the national party, headed by John Szapolyai, one of the most powerful lords of the land, was constantly urging the cause of the Catholic Church. But there were other political reasons, besides their antipathy to the German courtiers, which determined the national party to persist in their antagonism to the new faith. The Osmanlis were continually harassing the southern frontiers, and the country was always on the brink of a war with them. The nobility, representing the nation, felt instinctively that a catastrophe was near at hand, which Hungary, by her unaided strength alone, would be unable to avert. They had to look for foreign aid, and effective help from abroad could be expected only from the two most powerful rulers in Christendom, the pope and the emperor of Germany, both of whom were Luther’s most determined opponents. They succeeded in securing the good-will of the pope, who, having no armies at his disposal to aid Hungary, assisted the country by abundant supplies of money. In return the nobility deemed it their sacred duty to keep a faithful watch and ward over the interests of the Catholic Church, and, in order to do so effectively, they inaugurated relentless measures against the Lutheran heretics. In 1525 another law was passed against the votaries of the new creed, ordering their extermination throughout the country, and declaring that Lutherans, wherever they were found, should suffer death by fire. This cruel law began its abominable work, and the funeral stakes soon sent forth their lurid flames. The religious persecutions thus inaugurated hastened the downfall of the Hungarian kingdom.