tempests arise; for, as a fact, this Lutheran movement sprang from much slighter causes. As far as I am concerned, I shall not cease to the last breath of my life to cherish the cause of Christian piety; and it will be the part of your Majesty's kindness constantly and continually to favor those who sincerely and stoutly defend the Church of God. Under the banners of Christ and your own I fight, and under them will I die; but I will die with a more satisfied mind if I may be first permitted to see tranquillity restored to the Church and to the whole of Christendom by your power, your wisdom, and your good fortune. I shall never cease to pray that God will grant us this through your efforts, and may He preserve your Majesty and prosper you always. Basle, September 2, 1527."

The Emperor wrote him a kind though very reserved letter, in which he expressed his gratitude that through the efforts of Erasmus Lutheranism had been checked, and said that Erasmus needed not to fear an examination of his works by the Inquisition, since if anything were found in them contrary to the teaching of the Church it would be very easy for him to correct it, and if nothing of that nature were found such examination would only redound to his glory. Wise young Emperor! Not even Erasmus was going to put him into an equivocal position. And, accordingly, in a few months Erasmus was engaged in defending himself against his Spanish critics as earnestly and as hard as he ever defended himself against Lee, Bedda, Stunica, Egmondanus, and the rest. Which leads us to insert here his gleeful announcement, in a letter to a friend, of the death of two at least of his tormentors: "Vincent is dead of an excruciating tympanites, while Nicholas Egmondanus, whom no one could endure, was suffocated while vomiting.'

99 9

We will close this chapter and the year 1527 by inserting some passages of a letter which he wrote to a certain good old monk who had sent him some little gifts:

. . I am afraid that you may be imposed upon by the specious deceptions of certain persons who are boasting in splendid phrases of the Gospel liberty of to-day. Believe me, if you understood more of this movement from close observation, you would not be tired of that life you are leading. I see a class of men coming forth from whom my soul earnestly shrinks. I see no one becoming better, but, as many as I have known, they are surely worse, so that I sincerely grieve that formerly in my works I advocated spiritual freedom, though I did it with good intentions, never suspecting that such people would arise. It was my desire that something of ceremony might be abated, so that true piety might thereby benefit. Now the ceremonies are abandoned in such a way that instead of spiritual liberty there has succeeded an uncontrolled license of the flesh. Some towns of Germany are filled with vagabonds, monks who have run away from their monasteries, priests who have married, most of them hungry and naked. There is Ibid., col. 1016F-1017B. • Ibid., col. 974C.

nothing going on amongst them but dancing, eating, drinking, and fornication. They neither teach nor study, and there is no sobriety nor sincerity of life. Wherever they are, all good order ceases together with piety. I would write you more about these matters if it were safe to commit it to paper. You have lived worthily for so many years in that community of yours, and now, as you say yourself, your life is verging towards its evening, although you are perhaps eight or nine years younger than I. You dwell in a most commodious locality, in a fine climate, where the conversation of learned men brings to you much of solace, where there is an abundance of books, where there is intelligence. What in this life can be sweeter than to spend your leisure in meadows of this sort? there tasting in advance, as it were, the felicity of celestial existence, especially in an age like the present, than which nothing can be depicted more turbulent or calamitous. I have known several of those who, having been deceived by the empty hope of liberty, have deserted their monasteries. Having changed their habit, they married; but, poverty-stricken and exiles, they became detestable to those to whom they were previously dear, and finally came to that state that, although there were those who wished to help them, it was not safe to do so. How their conscience troubles them, only the Lord knows; and how in their hearts their new surroundings suit them, is for them to see. What kind of liberty is that where it is not allowable to say prayers, where it is not permitted to say Mass, where it is not proper to fast, where it is not licit to abstain from meat? Think what could be more wretched than such things, even in these times? If a man be young and rich, he may for a few years enjoy the pleasures of this world, if indeed there be such here. But to seek to enjoy them when he is already advanced in years indicates insanity rather than mere folly. But you will say the rules and regulations are onerous, not to mention the jealousies and things of a similar nature. Whatever of such sort there may be present, it is the merest trifle to bear, provided that your disposition be good. In the world you would have to endure harsher things. So may God grant better sentiments to those people who by their wonderful tales are disturbing the tranquillity of your mind. May I die if I should not prefer to dwell with you there than to be the highest bishop in the palace of the Emperor, provided that this poor, weak body of mine had strength to live there. But you are not aware either of the happiness you are enjoying, or the misery of the times. . . . Hence, my dearest brother in the Lord, through our long and ancient friendship, and in the name of Christ, I beg, beseech, and entreat you to banish this weariness from your mind, and not to give ear to the deadly talk of men who will assist you not at all, but who will laugh at you rather when they have enticed you into the pit. If with all your heart you will despise the false attractions of this world, if you will give yourself entirely to Christ, if you will devote yourself to sacred literature and to meditating on the heavenly life, believe me, you will find more than abundant

solace, and this little weariness of which you speak will vanish like smoke. If you take my advice and afterwards find that what I say is not true, then reproach me accordingly. And now, my dearest friend and brother in the Lord, may that same Lord fill your heart with every spiritual consolation. Basle, 1527.1o

This is a letter to be pondered over, since it sheds a flood of light on the character of Erasmus, or, to be more exact, on the opinions which he held towards the close of his life. We know not who was the disturbed and anxious brother who had written to him for advice as to what course he should pursue in the cataclysm brought about by Luther. It may very well have been one of the younger novices whom he had left behind him at Steyn when he himself was leaving its portals to enter the great world as secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai. Whoever he was, he had no doubt read and admired Erasmus, and had turned over in his mind what the great writer had said in depreciation of the monastic life. And now, when he was grown old and beheld Luther emptying the monasteries and convents and marrying off their inmates, his mind was filled with unrest and he was puzzled to know what it were best to do in his own case. So he had written to Erasmus, telling him of his mental indecision, and received the above letter in reply. This letter of Erasmus rings with sincerity and shows him to us at a moment when he was not thinking solely of himself. After a lifetime spent in disparaging the monastic institution, he is now in his sixtysecond year experiencing a change of heart, and so he tells the monk to stick to his monastery, that the liberty of the spirit promised by Luther was no liberty at all, that by implication spiritual liberty was to be found inside the convent walls; and from the authoritative lips of Erasmus the monk learns that it is good to fast, that it is good to read one's breviary, that it is good to take part in the ceremonies of the Church when conducted in the proper spirit. This is a new Erasmus entirely that we are now meeting at the end of 1527, ten years after Luther had first raised the standard of revolt in Germany which had so pleased him at the time; and we may believe him implicitly when he tells his inquiring brother that he is sorry for much of what he had written as to spiritual freedom, that, as far as lay in his power, he had tried to undo any harm he might have done his weaker brethren, and ended by beseeching him to remain in his monastery and serve God there as he had always done.

CHAPTER XIX

EUROPE IN TURMOIL: ERASMUS AMID THE STORM; TROUBLE OVER WRITINGS IN SPAIN

The world was in an uproar in the year of grace 1528. In France, the Constable of Bourbon had deserted his own king Francis I and had gone over to Emperor Charles, with whom Francis was at enmity. Two years after this, the armies of the two monarchs met in mortal combat at Pavia, where Francis was taken prisoner and his army destroyed. In Germany, the peasants had risen against their feudal lords, and their progress for several years was marked with fire and slaughter. At Rome, the pontifical throne was occupied by Clement VII, a Pope whose private life was unblemished, but whose political career seems by the consent of almost all historians to have been a series of tactical errors. As one writer puts it, "He was an Italian prince, a de' Medici, and a diplomat first, and a spiritual ruler afterwards. His intelligence was of a high order, though his diplomacy was feeble and irresolute.' He had concluded a secret treaty with France, notwithstanding that the Emperor had smashed Francis's power and had held him prisoner until he had signed a treaty satisfactory to himself. The Emperor had desired a compact with Clement, but that Pope thought he saw a greater advantage in making friends with that monarch's enemy, the ruler of the French. As a consequence, the troops of the Emperor, under the command of the disloyal Constable of Bourbon, had on May 6, 1527, fallen upon Rome, which city they sacked and burned with the utmost cruelty and destruction, putting many of the inhabitants to the sword, and even shutting up Pope Clement in the Castle of St. Angelo for several months. At last the Emperor's messenger, Veyre, arrived in Rome, bearing to the Pope an offer of his liberty, provided that he would not side with the Emperor's enemies, that he would agree to a general peace, and that he would call a general council of the Church for the purpose of reforms. The Pope signed this agreement, but, unchastened by his reverses, he escaped from Rome two weeks later, and again put himself in communication with Francis. But the tide of battle went against the French, and Clement beholding Italy decimated by war and pestilence and his own pontifical city little more than a ruin, at last gave way to the Emperor. But the Landsknechte of the Constable of Bourbon, who were mostly Lutherans, had done their work only too well, and had glutted their hatred of all things Roman by sparing neither the animate nor the inanimate, and too late Clement realized the tactical error he had made in allying the fortunes of the Papacy to those of France. To all this war and turmoil must 1 See article in Cath. Ency., art. "Clement VII."

be added the impending disorders of the Anabaptist movement which Erasmus very justly feared might bring disaster to Germany, a fear which was only too well realized in the following years. He dwells on the state of things in a letter to More, begging him to thank King Henry for his kindness in inviting him to come and reside in England, another proof that his work On Freewill had somewhat restored him to the estimation of a few of his English friends:

In the numerous difficulties with which I am surrounded, the letter of the king, couched as it was in the kindliest terms, inviting me to England and promising everything worthy of such a benign prince, afforded me the greatest solace. He reminded me of what I had formerly written to him, that I had selected England as an abode for my old age. But now, my dear More, things are in such a state that I ought rather to be looking around for a place to lay my bones where it will be permissible for me to repose in death, since I perceive that such is not possible for me anywhere while I live. All men predict that a great revolt is upon us. The heretical sect of the Anabaptists, which is more widely spread than anyone thinks, is meditating an eruption. You will learn of my own troubles from my messenger Quirinus, a youth of tried reliability, whom I have decided to send to England because he knows all my affairs, so that I might arrange with my friends there as to what could be done, or what was best to be done. I would have rendered thanks to the king for his kindness, but, half-dead as I am from so many toils, and having no leisure, I preferred not to write at all to such a monarch than in a perfunctory way. If you will be so good, you can declare to him my gratitude, and that I am not ignorant or unmindful of the exceeding generosity which he has so often manifested in my behalf, though I feel I merit it not at all. I trust that you, and all those who are most dear to you, are well. Basle, February 28, 1528.*

In his present unsettled and anxious state of mind he cast longing glances towards England, now almost the only country in Europe where active warfare was not going on. In addition to writing the above letter to More, he wrote another one to Richard Pace, who, he had just heard, had returned to England. In it he tells him that he had sent the abovementioned Quirinus Talesius to England for two purposes, to stop the further plundering of the pension which he derived from Archbishop Warham, and to consult wth his friends there whether he might profitably accept the king's invitation to reside in that favored land; for, as he tells Pace, "I may have to get out of here [Basle] nolens volens.' Writing to the Count Neuenahr, he speaks again of the storms which. are impending over Europe, but his fear seems to be mainly for himself, as he tells the Count that he can see no place to which to betake himself; for, although he has been invited to England by both the king and Archbishop Warham, matters will not be very convenient

2

* Eras. Ep. (LB) col. 1062D-F.

3

Ibid., col. 1060F.