Charles Beard: Martin Luther and the Reformation: Ch.10-Diet of Worms, 4...

THE HEAT’S ON. Luther’s cavalcade arrives in Worms with Luther in a horse-drawn carriage and knightly escorts. News spreads fast and crowds of supporters applaud. Aleander is the grand marshal and writes the agenda to be pitched by Eck (a different Eck than the Leipzig debate). The audience was set for 4 PM. Two leading questions: are these your books and do you recant? We might add that Charles V was a young and uneducated layman—he will run with the Pope’s boys. The Electors are gathered including other prelates, princes, delegates of free cities and noblemen—Electors of Mainz, Koln, Trier, Saxon, Pfalz, Brandenburg, all representing the varying shades and colors of German and ecclesiastical opinions. Luther’s counsel asked, “What’s the list of books under review?” After owning authorship to the books, Luther seems to have equivocated and skirted around the second question, fearing he would injure the faith, true, believing souls and giving sanction to error and tyranny. The reaction? “Luther's first appearance before the Diet hardly increased his reputation in high places Charles himself is reported to have said : " This man will never make a heretic of me” (437). Luther asks for 24 hours to deliberate and is given permission. The hearing at 4 PM on 18 Apr was in a larger room, but it was more crowded and Electors had difficulty getting to their seats. Curiously, the Papal legates were absent. BTW, Wycliffe and Hus get disfavorable mention here. To the 2 basic questions, slightly altered but with the same malicious intent, Luther answered in Latin and German: “Unless I am convinced by witness of Scripture or plain reason (for I do not believe in the Pope or in Councils alone, since it is agreed that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am overcome by the Scriptures which I have adduced, and my conscience is caught in the word of God. I neither can nor will recant anything, for it is neither safe nor right to act against one's conscience” (440). The result? “Not even the most enthusiastic believer in compromise could any longer imagine that reconciliation between those hostile powers was possible; and the forces, that were to engage in a struggle to the death were already being marshalled” (441). After the rigged trial, on 19 Apr, Charles V summoned the Diet to deliberate on the matter; the Diet asked for more time. Meanwhile, Charles V gives his verdict (or Papal rehash).  THE HEAT’S ON.