ind. It is certain that they blushed a good deal to find that vhen I offered to debate with Luther under judges, he refused. Thus they invent the calumny about my being suborned. Why lon't you get his Imperial Majesty to force those counts,
- ecretly and quietly, to make depositions before a notary on
)ath? After their testimony has been taken, if it seem true ind favorable to us, it can be published to the great confusion >f Luther, but if against us it could be suppressed. I call jod to witness how freely I offered to debate with him, which le refused.
I do not remember the names of all the counts, but the Count of Mansfeld sat on my right, and Christopher von Schwartzenberg^ also. They can tell the others. . . . Let them be asked: i. Whether they ever heard me refuse to de- bate on equal terms. 2. Whether they heard me refuse to debate unless Luther renounced his safe-conduct. 3. Whether they did not hear me ask to debate before judges without peril to him, which the Emperor and nobles would have allowed. 4« Whether they did not hear Luther say : "I do not want to debate now." 5. Whether they did not hear Luther say he would like the judge to be a boy of eight or nine years, or one of the pages present whom he pointed out. . . .
Luther said among the nobles at Friedberg that the Emperor had sworn on the blood of Christ that "the monk should pay the penalty." The Lutherans trust only in arms.
475. ALEANDER TO VICE-CHANCELLOR CARDINAL DE'
MEDICI AT ROME.
Kalkof!: Aleander, 214. Worms (May 8), 1521.
After I had written and sealed my last letter, I received your Lordship's letter and the bull' in which Luther alone is mentioned by name and his followers in general; this was very welcome to me. If it had reached me somewhat sooner, I would, as the bull requires, have published it here and at
^Probably Guistopher Baron (Freiherr) von Schwartzenberg is meant, a son of John von Schwartzenberg, who died October 21, 1538. The father became a Lutheran, the son remained a Catholic, and a literary controversy between them took place in 1524. On this, Enders, iv. sf.
The bull Decet Pontificem Romanum, published in Magnum BuUorium RtnnaHum (Luxemburg, 17^7) f i- 6i4f. CU Smith, loif.
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