have been powerless to secure his condemnation. The whole nation, wrote a canon of Worms, was of one mind with regard to clerical immorality, from Emperor down through all classes to the last man. Nine-tenths of Germany, declared the papal Nuncio, cried "Long live Luther," and the other tenth shouted " Death to the Church." Duke George of Saxony, the staunchest of Catholics, was calling for a General Council to reform abuses, and Gattinara, Charles' shrewdest adviser, echoed the recommendation. Even Jean Glapion, the Emperor's confessor, was believed to be not averse from an accommodation with Luther, provided that he would disavow the Babylonish Captivity, and in Worms itself the papal emissaries went about in fear of assassination. The Germans, wrote Tunstall to Wolsey from Worms, were everywhere so addicted to Luther that a hundred thousand of them would lay down their^ lives to save him from the penalties pronounced by the Pope.
This popular enthusiasm for Luther led Napoleon to express the belief that, had Charles adopted his cause, he could have conquered Europe at the head of a united Germany. But an imperial sanction of Lutheranism would not have killed the separatist tendencies of German politics, nor was it Lutheran doctrine which had captivated the hearts of the German people. He was the hero of the hour solely because he stood for the national opposition to Rome. The circumstances in Germany in 1521 were not very dissimilar from those in England in 1529. There was an almost universal repugnance to clerical privilege and to the Roman Curia, but the section of the nation which was prepared to repudiate Catholic dogma was still insignificant; and a really national government, which regarded national unity as of more importance than the immediate triumph of any religious party, would have pursued a policy something like that of Henry VIII in his later years. It would have kept the party of doctrinal revolution in due subordination to the national movement against the abuses of a corrupt clerical caste and an Italian domination; it would have endeavoured to satisfy the popular demand for practical reform, without alienating the majority by surrendering to a sectional agitation against Catholic dogma. But both the man and the forces were wanting. Charles often dallied with the idea of a limited practical reform, and he had already slighted the Papacy by allowing Luther to be heard at the Diet of Worms after his condemnation by the Pope, as if an imperial edict were of more effect in matters of faith than a papal Bull. He could hardly, however, be Reformer in Germany and reactionary in Spain, and the necessities of his dynastic position as well as his personal feelings tied him to the Catholic cause. His frequent and prolonged periods of absence and his absorption in other affairs prevented him from bestowing upon the government of Germany that vigilant and concentrated attention which alone enabled Henry VIII to effect his aims in England;
