electrified Germany by the deed. Rome had now done its utmost to get rid of Luther by way of ecclesiastical repression. If he was to be overthrown, if the new religious movement and the national uprising which enclosed it, were to be stifled, this could only be done by the aid of the highest secular power. The Roman Curia-turned to the Emperor.
Maximilian had died suddenly on the 12th of January, 1519. After some months of intriguing, the papal diplomacy being very tortuous, his grandson, Charles V, the young King of Spain, was unanimously chosen to be his successor (June 28). Troubles in Spain prevented him from leaving that country at once to take possession of his new dignities. He was crowned at Aachen on the 23rd of October, 1520, and opened his first German Diet on January 22, 1521.
The proceedings of this Diet were of great importance apart from its relation to Luther; but to the common people of Germany, to the papal Nuncios, Aleander and Caraccioli, and to the foreign envoys, the issues raised by Luther's revolt against Rome were the matters of absorbing interest. Girolamo Aleander had been specially selected by Pope Leo X to secure Luther's condemnation by the Emperor. He was a cultivated Churchman, who knew Germany well, and had been in intimate relations with many of the German humanists. His despatches and those of the envoys of England, Spain, and Venice witness to the extraordinary excitement among the people of all classes. Aleander had been in Germany ten years earlier, and had found no people so devoted to the Papacy as the Germans. Now all things were changed. The legion of poor nobles, the German lawyers and canonists, the professors and students, the men of learning and the poets, were all on Luther's side. Most of the monks, a large portion of the clergy, many of the Bishops, supported Luther, His friends had the audacity to establish a printing-press in Worms, whence issued quantities of the forbidden writings, which were hawked about in the market-place, on the streets, and even within the Emperor's palace. These books were eagerly bought and read with avidity; large prices were sometimes given for them.
Aleander could not induce the Emperor to consent to Luther's immediate condemnation. Charles must have felt the difficulties of the situation. His position as head of the Holy Roman Empire, the traditional policy of the Habsburg family, his own deeply rooted personal convictions, which found outcome in the brief statement read to the Princes on the day after Luther's appearance, all go to prove that he had not the slightest sympathy with the Reformer and that he had resolved that he should be condemned. But the Diet's consent was necessary before the imperial ban could be issued; and besides Charles had his own bargain to make with the Pope, and this matter of Luther might help him to make a good one. The Diet resolved that Luther should be heard; a safe-conduct was sent along with the summons to attend; Luther travelled to Worms in what seemed like a triumphal
