Hartmann Grisar

PRINCELY MARRIAGES

1. Luther and Henry VIII of England. Bigamy instead of Divorce

In King Henry the Eighth’s celebrated matrimonial controversy the Roman See by its final decision was energetically to vindicate the cause of justice, in spite of the fear that this might lead to the loss of England to Catholicism. The considered judgment was clear and definite: Rather than countenance the King’s divorce from Queen Catherine, or admit bigamy as lawful, the Roman Church was prepared to see the falling away of the King and larger portion of the realm.[1]

In the summer, 1531, Luther was drawn into the controversy raging round the King’s marriage, by an agent of King Henry’s. Robert Barnes, an English Doctor of Divinity who had apostatised from the Church and was residing at Wittenberg, requested of Luther, probably at the King’s instigation, an opinion regarding the lawfulness of his sovereign’s divorce.

To Luther it was clear enough that there was no possibility of questioning the validity of Catherine’s marriage. It rightly appeared to him impossible that the Papal dispensation, by virtue of which Catherine of Aragon had married the King after having been the spouse of his deceased brother, should be represented as sufficient ground for a divorce. This view he expressed with praiseworthy frankness in the written answer he gave Barnes.[2]

At the same time, however, Luther pointed out to the King a loophole by which he might be able to succeed in obtaining the object of his desire; by this concession, unfortunately, he branded his action as a pandering to the passions of an adulterous King. At the conclusion of his memorandum to Barnes he has the following: “Should the Queen be unable to prevent the divorce, she must accept the great evil and most insulting injustice as a cross, but not in any way acquiesce in it or consent to it. Better were it for her to allow the King to wed another Queen, after the example of the Patriarchs, who, in the ages previous to the law, had many wives; but she must not consent to being excluded from her conjugal rights or to forfeiting the title of Queen of England.”[3]

It has been already pointed out that Luther, in consequence of his one-sided study of the Old Testament, had accustomed himself more and more to regard bigamy as something lawful.[4] That, however, he had so far ever given his formal consent to it in any particular instance there is no proof. In the case of Henry VIII, Luther felt less restraint than usual. His plain hint at bigamy as a way out of the difficulty was intended as a counsel (“suasimus”). Hence we can understand why he was anxious that his opinion should not be made too public.[5] When, in the same year (1531), he forwarded to the Landgrave of Hesse what purported to be a copy of the memorandum, the incriminating passage was carefully omitted.[6]

Melanchthon, too, had intervened in the affair, and had gone considerably further than Luther in recommending recourse to bigamy and in answering possible objections to polygamy.

In a memorandum of Aug. 23, Melanchthon declared that the King was entirely justified in seeking to obtain the male heirs with whom Catherine had failed to present him; this was demanded by the interests of the State. He endeavours to show that polygamy is not forbidden by Divine law; in order to avoid scandal it was, however, desirable that the King “should request the Pope to sanction his bigamy, permission being granted readily enough at Rome.” Should the Pope refuse to give the dispensation, then the King was simply and of his own authority to have recourse to bigamy, because in that case the Pope was not doing his duty, for he was “bound in charity to grant this dispensation.”[7] “Although I should be loath to allow polygamy generally, yet, in the present case, on account of the great advantage to the kingdom and perhaps to the King’s conscience, I would say: The King may, with a good conscience (‘tutissimum est regi’), take a second wife while retaining the first, because it is certain that polygamy is not forbidden by the Divine law, nor is it so very unusual.” Melanchthon’s ruthless manner of proceeding undoubtedly had a great influence on the other Wittenbergers, even though it cannot be maintained, as has been done, that he, and not Luther, was the originator of the whole theory; there are too many clear and definite earlier statements of Luther’s in favour of polygamy to disprove this. Still, it is true that the lax opinion broached by Melanchthon in favour of the King of England played a great part later in the matter of the bigamy of the Landgrave of Hesse.[8]

In the same year, however, there appeared a work on matrimony by the Lutheran theologian Johann Brenz in which, speaking generally and without reference to this particular case, he expressed himself very strongly against the lawfulness of polygamy. “The secular authorities,” so Brenz insists, “must not allow any of their subjects to have two or more wives,” they must, on the contrary, put into motion the “penalties of the Imperial Laws” against polygamy; no pastor may “bless or ratify” such marriages, but is bound to excommunicate the offenders.[9] Strange to say, the work appeared with a Preface by Luther in which, however, he neither praises nor blames this opinion.[10]

The Strasburg theologians, Bucer and Capito, as well as the Constance preacher, Ambrosius Blaurer, also stood up for the lawfulness of bigamy. When, however, this reached the ears of the Swiss theologians, Œcolampadius, in a letter of Aug. 20, exclaimed: “They were inclined to consent to the King’s bigamy! But far be it from us to hearken more to Mohammed in this matter than to Christ!”[11]

In spite of the alluring hint thrown out at Wittenberg, the adulterous King, as everyone knows, did not resort to bigamy. It was Henry the Eighth’s wish to be rid of his wife, and, having had her removed, he regarded himself as divorced. After the King had repudiated Catherine, Luther told his friends: “The Universities [i.e. those which sided with the English King] have declared that there must be a divorce. We, however, and the University of Louvain, decided differently.... We [viz. Luther and Melanchthon] advised the Englishman that it would be better for him to take a concubine than to distract his country and nation; yet in the end he put her away.”[12]

When Clement VII declared the first marriage to be valid and indissoluble, and also refused to countenance any bigamy, Henry VIII retorted by breaking with the Church of Rome, carrying his country with him. For a while Clement had hesitated on the question of bigamy, since, in view of Cardinal Cajetan’s opinion to the contrary, he found it difficult to convince himself that a dispensation could not be given, and because he was personally inclined to be indulgent and friendly; finally, however, he gave Bennet, the English envoy, clearly to understand that the dispensation was not in his power to grant.[13] That he himself was not sufficiently versed in Canon Law, the Pope repeatedly admitted. “It will never be possible to allege the attitude of Clement VII as any excuse for the Hessian affair” (Ehses). It is equally impossible to trace the suggestion of bigamy back to the opinions prevailing in mediÆval Catholicism.[14] No mediÆval pope or confessor can be instanced who sanctioned bigamy, while there are numbers of theologians who deny the Pope’s power to grant such dispensations; many even describe this negative opinion as the “sententia communis.”[15]

Of Cardinal Cajetan, the only theologian of note on the opposite side (see above, vol. iii., p. 261), W. KÖhler remarks, alluding particularly to the recent researches of N. Paulus: “It never entered Cardinal Cajetan’s head to deny that the ecclesiastical law categorically forbids polygamy.”[16] Further: “Like Paulus, we may unhesitatingly admit that, in this case, it would have been better for Luther had he had behind him the guiding authority of the Church.”[17]

Henry VIII, as was only natural, sought to make the best use of the friendship of the Wittenberg professors and Princes of the Schmalkalden League, against Rome and the Emperor. He despatched an embassy, though his overtures were not as successful as he might have wished.

We may describe briefly the facts of the case.

The Schmalkalden Leaguers, from the very inception of the League, had been seeking the support both of England and of France. In 1535 they made a determined effort to bring about closer relations with Henry VIII, and, at the Schmalkalden meeting, the latter made it known that he was not unwilling to “join the Christian League of the Electors and Princes.” Hereupon he was offered the “title and standing of patron and protector of the League.” The political negotiations nevertheless miscarried, owing to the King’s excessive demands for the event of an attack on his Kingdom.[18] The project of an alliance with the King of Denmark, the Duke of Prussia, and with Saxony and Hesse, for the purpose of a war against the Emperor, also came to nothing.

In these negotiations the Leaguers wanted first of all to reach an agreement with Henry in the matter of religion, whereas the latter insisted that political considerations should have the first place.

In the summer, 1535, Robert Barnes, the English plenipotentiary, was raising great and exaggerated hopes in Luther’s breast of Henry’s making common cause with the Wittenberg reformers.

Into his plans Luther entered with great zest, and consented to Melanchthon’s being sent to England as his representative, for the purpose of further negotiations. As we now know from a letter of recommendation of Sep. 12, 1535, first printed in 1894, he recommended Barnes to the Chancellor BrÜck for an interview with the Elector, and requested permission for Melanchthon to undertake the journey to England. Joyfully he points out that “now the King offers to accept the Evangel, to join the League of our Princes and to allow our ‘Apologia’ entry into his Kingdom.” Such an opportunity must not be allowed to slip, for “the Papists will be in high dudgeon.” Quite possibly God may have something in view.[19]

In England hopes were entertained that these favourable offers would induce a more friendly attitude towards the question of Henry’s divorce. Concerning this Luther merely says in the letter cited: “In the matter of the royal marriage, the ‘suspensio’ has already been decided,” without going into any further particulars; he, however, reserves the case to be dealt with by the theologians exclusively.

In August, 1535, Melanchthon had dedicated one of his writings to the King of England, and had, on this occasion, lavished high praise on him. It was probably about this time that the King sent the presents to Wittenberg, to which Catherine Bora casually alludes in the Table-Talk. “Philip received several gifts from the Englishman, in all five hundred pieces of gold; for our own part we got at least fifty.”[20]

Melanchthon took no offence at the cruel execution of Sir Thomas More or at the other acts of violence already perpetrated by Henry VIII; on the contrary, he gave his approval to the deeds of the royal tyrant, and described it as a commandment of God “to use strong measures against fanatical and godless men.”[21] The sanguinary action of the English tyrant led Luther to express the wish, that a similar fate might befall the heads of the Catholic Church at Rome. In the very year of Bishop Fisher’s execution he wrote to Melanchthon: “It is easy to lose our tempers when we see what traitors, thieves, robbers, nay devils incarnate the Cardinals, the Popes and their Legates are. Alas that there are not more Kings of England to put them to death!”[22] He also refers to the alleged horrors practised by the Pope’s tools in plundering the Church, and asks: “How can the Princes and Lords put up with it?”

In Dec., 1535, a convention of the Schmalkalden Leaguers, at Melanchthon’s instance, begged the envoys despatched by Henry, who were on their way to Wittenberg, to induce their master to promote the Confession of Augsburg—unless, indeed, as they added with unusual consideration, “they and the King should be unanimous in thinking that something in the Confession might be improved upon or made more in accordance with the Word of God.”[23]

Just as in the advances made by the King to Wittenberg “the main point had been to obtain a favourable pronouncement from the German theologians in the matter of his divorce,” so too in consenting to discuss the Confession of Augsburg he was actuated by the thought that this would lead to a discussion on the Papal power and the question of the divorce, i.e. to those points which the King had so much at heart.[24]

On the arrival immediately after of the envoys at Wittenberg they had the satisfaction of learning from Luther and his circle, that the theologians had already changed their minds in the King’s favour concerning the lawfulness of marriage with a brother’s widow. Owing to the influence of Osiander, whom Henry VIII had won over to his side, they now had come to regard such marriages as contrary to the natural moral law. Hence Henry’s new marriage might be considered valid. They were not, however, as yet ready to draw this last inference from the invalidity of the previous marriage between the King and Catherine.[25]

Luther, however, became more and more convinced that marriage with a brother’s widow was invalid; in 1542, for instance, on the assumption of the invalidity of such a union, he unhesitatingly annulled the marriage of a certain George Schud, as a “devilish abomination” (“abominatio diaboli”).[26]

The spokesman of the English mission, Bishop Edward Fox, demanded from Luther the admission that the King had separated from his first wife “on very just grounds.” Luther, however, would only agree that he had done so “on very many grounds.” He said later, in conversation, that his insistence on this verbal nicety had cost him three hundred Gulden, which he would have received from England in the event of his compliance. [27] He cannot indeed be accused of having been, from ecclesiastico-political motives, too hasty in gratifying the King’s demands in the matter of the divorce. Yet, on the other hand, it is not unlikely that the desire to pave the way for a practical understanding was one of the motives for his mode of action. His previous outspoken declarations against any dissolution of the Royal marriage compelled him to assume an attitude not too strongly at variance with his earlier opinion.

After the new marriage had taken place negotiations with England continued, principally with the object of securing such acceptance of the new doctrine as might lead to a politico-religious alliance between that country and the Schmalkalden Leaguers. Luther, however, stubbornly refused to concede anything to the King in the matter of his chief doctrines, for instance, regarding Justification or the rejection of the Mass.

The articles agreed upon at the lengthy conferences held during the early months of 1536—and made public only in 1905 (see above, p. 9, n. 4)—failed to satisfy the King, although they displayed a very conciliatory spirit. Melanchthon outdid himself in his endeavour to render the Wittenberg teaching acceptable. “It is true that the main points of faith were not sacrificed,” remarks the discoverer and editor of the articles in question, “but the desire to please noticeable in their form, even in such questions as those concerning the importance of good works, monasteries, etc., is nevertheless surprising.”[28] Luther himself, in a letter of April 29, 1536, to the Electoral Vice-Chancellor Burkhard, spoke of the concessions made in these articles as the final limit; to go further would be to concede to the King of England what had been refused to the Pope and the Emperor; “at Augsburg [in 1530] we might have come to terms more easily with the Pope and the Emperor, nay, perhaps we might do so even now.” To enter into an ecclesiastico-political alliance with the English would, he considers, be “dangerous,” for the Schmalkalden Leaguers “were not all of one mind”; hence the (theological) articles ought first to be accepted; the League was, however, a secular matter and therefore he would beg the “beloved Lords and my Gracious Master to consider” whether they could accept it without a previous agreement being reached on the point of theology.[29]

Though Luther and the Princes set great store on the projected alliance, on account of the increase of strength it would have brought the German Evangelicals, yet their hopes were to be shattered, for the articles above referred to did not find acceptance in England. Luther was later on to declare that everything had come to nought because King Henry wished to be head of the Protestants in Germany, which the Elector of Saxony would not permit: “Let the devil take the great Lords! This rogue (‘is nebulo’) wanted to be proclaimed head of our religion, but to this the Elector would in no wise agree; we did not even know what sort of belief he had.”[30] Probably the King demanded a paramount influence in the Schmalkalden League, and the German Princes were loath to be deprived of the direction of affairs.

After all hopes of an agreement had vanished Henry VIII made no secret of his antipathy for the Lutheran teaching.

The quondam Defender of the Faith even allowed himself to be carried away to acts of bloodshed. In 1540 he caused Luther’s friend, Robert Barnes, the agent already referred to, to be burnt at the stake as a heretic. Barnes had adopted the Lutheran doctrine of Justification. It was not on this account alone, however, that he was obnoxious to the King, but also because the latter had grown weary of Anne of Cleves, whom Barnes and Thomas Cromwell, the King’s favourite, had given him as a fourth consort, after Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. Cromwell, though not favourably disposed to Lutheranism, was executed a few days before. On April 9, 1536, Luther had written to Cromwell a very polite letter, couched in general terms,[31] in answer to a courteous missive from that statesman handed to him by Barnes. From Luther’s letter we see that Cromwell “had been described to him in too favourable a light,”[32] as though predisposed to the Lutheran doctrine or to regard Luther as a divinely sent teacher. Luther deceived himself if he fancied that Cromwell was ready to “work for the cause”; the latter remained as unfriendly to Lutheranism proper as the King himself.

In the year of Barnes’s execution Melanchthon wrote the letter to Veit Dietrich in which he expresses the pious wish, that God would send a brave murderer to bring the King to the end he deserved.[33]

Luther, on his side, declared: “The devil himself rides astride this King”; “I am glad that we have no part in his blasphemy.” He boasted, so Luther says, of being head of the Church of England, a title which no bishop, much less a King, had any right to, more particularly one who with his crew had “vexed and tortured Christ and His Church.”[34] In 1540 Luther spoke sarcastically of the King’s official title: “Under Christ the supreme head on earth of the English Church,”[35] remarking, that, in that case, “even the angels are excluded.”[36] Of Melanchthon’s dedication of some of his books to the King, Luther says, that this had been of little service. “In future I am not going to dedicate any of my books to anyone. It brought Philip no good in the case of the bishop [Albert of Mayence], of the Englishman, or of the Hessian [the Landgrave Philip].”[37] Still more fierce became his hatred and disappointment when he found the King consorting with his sworn enemies, Duke George, and Albert, Elector of Mayence.[38] When he heard the news of Barnes having been cast into prison, he said: “This King wants to make himself God. He lays down articles of faith and forbids marriage under pain of death, a thing which even the Pope scrupled to do. I am something of a prophet and, as what I prophesy comes true, I shall refrain from saying more.”[39]

Luther never expressed any regret regarding his readiness to humour the King’s lusts or regarding his suggestion of bigamy.

The Landgrave Philip of Hesse, however, referred directly to the proposal of bigamy made to the King of England, when he requested Luther’s consent to his own project of taking a second wife. The Landgrave had got to hear of the proposal in spite of the unlucky passage having been struck out of the deed.

The history of the Hessian bigamy is an incident which throws a curious light on Luther’s exceptional indulgence towards princely patrons of the Evangel in Germany.

2. The Bigamy of Philip of Hesse

As early as 1526 Philip of Hesse, whose conduct was far from being conspicuous for morality, had submitted to Luther the question whether Christians were allowed to have more than one wife. The Wittenberg Professor gave a reply tallying with his principles as already described;[40] instead of pointing out clearly that such a thing was divinely forbidden to all Christians, was not to be dispensed from by any earthly authority, and that such extra marriages would be entirely invalid, Luther refused to admit unconditionally the invalidity of such unions. Such marriages, he stated, gave scandal to Christians, “for without due cause and necessity even the old Patriarchs did not take more than one wife”; it was incumbent that we should be able “to appeal to the Word of God,” but no such Word existed in favour of polygamy, “by which the same could be proved to be well pleasing to God in the case of Christians”; “hence I am unable to recommend it, but would rather dissuade from it, especially for Christians, unless some great necessity existed, for instance were the wife to contract leprosy or become otherwise unfit.”[41] It is not clear whether Philip was interested in the matter for personal reasons, or simply because some of his subjects were believers in polygamy.

Luther’s communication, far from diverting the Prince from his project, could but serve to make him regard it as feasible; provided that the “great necessity” obtained and that he had “the Word of God on his side,” then the step could “not be prevented.” By dint of a judicious interpretation of Scripture and with expert theological aid, the obstacles might easily be removed.

The Hessian Prince also became acquainted with Luther’s statements on bigamy in his Commentary on Genesis published in the following year. To them the Landgrave Philip appealed expressly in 1540; the preacher Anton Corvinus having suggested that he should deny having committed bigamy, he replied indignantly: “Since you are so afraid of it, why do you not suppress what Luther wrote more than ten years ago on Genesis; did he and others not write publicly concerning bigamy: ‘Advise it I do not, forbid it I cannot’? If you are allowed to write thus of it publicly, you must expect that people will act up to your teaching.”[42]

The question became a pressing one for Luther, and began to cast a shadow over his wayward and utterly untraditional interpretation of the Bible, when, in 1539, the Landgrave resolved to take as an additional wife, besides Christina the daughter of George of Saxony, who had now grown distasteful to him, the more youthful Margeret von der Sale. From Luther Margeret’s mother desired a favourable pronouncement, in order to be able with a good conscience to give her consent to her daughter’s wedding.

Philip Seeks the Permission of Wittenberg.

Early in Nov., 1539, Gereon Sailer, an Augsburg physician famous for his skill in handling venereal cases, who had treated the Landgrave at Cassel, was sent by Philip to Bucer at Strasburg to instruct the latter to bring the matter before the theologians of Wittenberg. Sailer was a friend of the innovations, and Bucer was highly esteemed by the Landgrave as a theologian and clever diplomatist.

Bucer was at first sorely troubled in conscience and hesitated to undertake the commission; Sailer reported to the Landgrave that, on hearing of the plan, he had been “quite horrified” and had objected “the scandal such an innovation in a matter of so great importance and difficulty might cause among the weak followers of the Evangel.”[43] After thinking the matter over for three days Bucer, however, agreed to visit the Landgrave on Nov. 16 and receive his directions. A copy of the secret and elaborate instructions given him by Philip concerning the appeal he was to make to Luther still exists in the handwriting of Simon Bing, the Hessian Secretary, in the Marburg Archives together with several old copies,[44] as also the original rough draft in Philip’s own hand.[45] The envoy first betook himself to the meeting of the Schmalkalden Leaguers, held at Arnstadt on Nov. 20, to confer upon a new mission to be sent to England; on Dec. 4 he was at Weimar with the Elector of Saxony and on the 9th he had reached Wittenberg.

The assenting answer given by Luther and Melanchthon bears the date of the following day.[46] It is therefore quite true that the matter was settled “in haste,” as indeed the text of the reply states. Bucer doubtless did his utmost to prevent the theologians from having recourse to subterfuge or delay.

The above-mentioned instructions contain a sad account of the “dire necessity” which seemed to justify the second marriage: The Landgrave would otherwise be unable to lead a moral life; he was urged on by deep distress of conscience; not merely did he endure temptations of the flesh beyond all measure, but, so runs his actual confession, he was quite unable to refrain from “fornication, unchastity and adultery.”[47] The confession dealt with matters which were notorious. It also contains the admission, that he had not remained true to his wife for long, in fact not for more than “three weeks”; on account of his sense of sin he had “not been to the Sacrament.” As a matter of fact he had abstained from Communion from 1526 to 1539, viz. for thirteen years, and until his last attack of the venereal disease.

But were the scruples of conscience thus detailed to the Wittenbergers at all real? Recently they have been characterised as the “outcome of a bodily wreck.”

“I am unable to practise self-restraint,” Philip of Hesse had declared on another occasion, “I am forced to commit fornication or worse, with women.” His sister Elisabeth had already advised him to take a concubine in place of so many prostitutes. In all probability Philip would have abducted Margaret von der Sale had he not hoped to obtain her in marriage through the intervention of her relations and with Luther’s consent. A Protestant historian has recently pointed this out when dealing with Philip’s alleged “distress of conscience.”[48]

Bucer was well able to paint in dismal hues the weakness of his princely client; he pointed out, “how the Landgrave, owing to his wife’s deficiencies, was unable to remain chaste; how he had previously lived so and so, which was neither good nor Evangelical, especially in one of the mainstays of the party.”[49] In that very year Philip of Hesse had, as a matter of fact, been ailing from a certain malady brought upon him by his excesses; he himself spoke of it as a “severe attack of the French sickness [syphilis], which is the penalty of an immoral life.”[50]

True to his instructions, Bucer went on to say that the Landgrave had firmly “resolved” to make use against his unchastity—which he neither could nor would refrain from with his present wife—of “such means as God permitted and did not forbid,” viz. to wed a second wife. The two Wittenbergers had perforce to listen while Bucer, as the mouthpiece of the Landgrave, put forth as the grounds of his client’s firm resolve the very proofs from Scripture which they themselves had adduced in favour of polygamy; they were informed that, according to the tenor of a memorandum, “both Luther and Philip had counselled the King of England not to divorce his first wife, but rather to take another.”[51] It was accordingly the Landgrave’s desire that they should “give testimony” that his deed was not unjust, and that they should “make known in the press and from the pulpit what was the right course to pursue in such circumstances”; should they have scruples about doing this for fear of scandal or evil consequences, they were at least to give a declaration in writing: “That were I to do it secretly, yet I should not offend God, but that they regard it as a real marriage, and would meanwhile devise ways and means whereby the matter might be brought openly before the world”; otherwise, the instructions proceeded, the “wench” whom the Prince was about to take to himself might complain of being looked upon as an improper person; as “nothing can ever be kept secret,” “great scandal” would indeed arise were not the true state of the case known. Besides, he fully intended to retain his present wife and to consider her as a rightful spouse, and her children alone were to be the “lawful princes of the land”; nor would he ask for any more wives beyond this second one. The Landgrave even piously reminds Luther and Melanchthon “not to heed overmuch the opinion of the world, and human respect, but to look to God and what He has commanded or forbidden, bound or loosened”; he, for his part, was determined not to “remain any longer in the bonds of the devil.”

Philip was careful also to remind them that, if, after putting into execution his project, he was able to “live and die with a good conscience,” he would be “all the more free to fight for the Evangelical cause as befitted a Christian”; “whatever they [Luther and Melanchthon] shall tell me is right and Christian—whether it refers to monastic property or to other matters—that they will find me ready to carry out at their behest.” On the other hand, as an urgent motive for giving their consent to his plan, he broadly hinted, that, “should he not get any help from them” he would, “by means of an intermediary, seek permission of the Emperor, even though it should cost me a lot of money”; the Emperor would in all likelihood do nothing without a “dispensation from the Pope”; but in such a matter of conscience neither the Pope nor the Emperor were of any great account, since he was convinced that his “design was approved by God”; still, their consent (the Pope and Emperor’s) would help to overcome “human respect”; hence, should he be unable to obtain “consolation from this party [the Evangelical],” then the sanction of the other party was “not to be despised.” Concerning the request he felt impelled to address to the Emperor, he says, in words which seem to convey a threat, that although he would not for any reason on earth prove untrue to the Evangel, or aid in the onslaught on the Evangelical cause, yet, the Imperial party might “use and bind” him to do things “which would not be to the advantage of the cause.” Hence, it was in their interest to assist him in order that he might “not be forced to seek help in quarters where he had no wish to look for it.”

After again stating that he “took his stand on the Word of God” he concludes with a request for the desired “Christian, written” testimony, “in order that thereby I may amend my life, go to the Sacrament with a good conscience and further all the affairs of our religion with greater freedom and contentment. Given at Milsungen on the Sunday post Catharine anno etc. 39.”

The Wittenberg theologians now found themselves in a quandary. Luther says: “We were greatly taken aback at such a declaration on account of the frightful scandal which would follow.”[52] Apart from other considerations, the Landgrave had already been married sixteen years and had a number of sons and daughters by his wife; the execution of the project would also necessarily lead to difficulties at the Courts of the Duke of Saxony and of the Elector, and also, possibly, at that of the Duke of WÜrtemberg. They were unaware that Margaret von Sale had already been chosen as a second wife, that Philip had secured the consent of his wife Christina, and that the way for a settlement with the bride’s mother had already been paved.[53]

The view taken by Rockwell, viz. that the form of the memorandum to be signed by Luther and Melanchthon had already been drawn up in Hesse by order of Philip, is, however, erroneous; nor was the document they signed a copy of such a draft.[54]

It is much more likely that the lengthy favourable reply of the Wittenbergers was composed by Melanchthon. It was signed with the formula: “Wittenberg, Wednesday after St. Nicholas, 1539. Your Serene Highness’s willing and obedient servants [and the signatures] Martinus Luther, Philippus Melanchthon, Martinus Bucerus.”[55] The document is now among the Marburg archives.

Characteristically enough the idea that the Landgrave is, and must remain, the protector of the new religious system appears at the commencement as well as at the close of the document. The signatories begin by congratulating the Prince, that God “has again helped him out of sickness,” and pray that heaven may preserve him, for the “poor Church of Christ is small and forsaken, and indeed stands in need of pious lords and governors”; at the end God is again implored to guide and direct him; above all, the Landgrave must have nothing to do with the Imperialists.

The rest of the document, apart from pious admonitions, consists of the declaration, that they give their “testimony that, in a case of necessity,” they were “unable to condemn” bigamy, and that, accordingly, his “conscience may be at rest” should the Landgrave “utilise” the Divine dispensation. In so many words they sanction the request submitted to them, because “what was permitted concerning matrimony in the Mosaic Law was not prohibited in the Gospel.” Concerning the circumstances of the request they, however, declined “to give anything in print,” because otherwise the matter would be “understood and accepted as a general law and from it [i.e. a general sanction of polygamy] much grave scandal and complaint would arise.” The Landgrave’s wish that they should speak of the case from the pulpit, is also passed over in silence. Nor did they reply to his invitation to them to consider by what ways and means the matter might be brought publicly before the world. On the contrary, they appear to be intent on burying in discreet silence a marriage so distasteful to them. It even looks as though they were simple enough to think that such concealment would be possible, even in the long run. What they fear is, above all, the consequences of its becoming common property. In no way, so they declare, was any universal law, any “public precedent” possible, whereby a plurality of wives might be made lawful; according to its original institution marriage had signified “the union of two persons only, not of more”; but, in view of the examples of the Old Covenant, they “were unable to condemn it,” if, in a quite exceptional case, “recourse were had to a dispensation ... and a man, with the advice of his pastor, took another wife, not with the object of introducing a law, but to satisfy his need.”

As for instances of such permission having been given in the Church, they were able to quote only two: First, the purely legendary case of Count Ernest of Gleichen—then still regarded as historical—who, during his captivity among the Turks in 1228, had married his master’s daughter, and, then, after his escape, and after having learnt that his wife was still living, applied for and obtained a Papal dispensation for bigamy; secondly, the alleged practice in cases of prolonged and incurable illness, such as leprosy, to permit, occasionally, the man to take another wife. The latter, however, can only refer to Luther’s own practice, or to that followed by the teachers of the new faith.[56] In 1526 Luther had informed the Landgrave that this was allowable in case of “dire necessity,” “for instance, where the wife was leprous, or had been otherwise rendered unfit.”[57] Acting upon this theory he was soon to give a decision in a particular case;[58] in May or June, 1540, he even stated that he had several times, when one of the parties had contracted leprosy, privately sanctioned the bigamy of the healthy party, whether man or woman.[59]

They are at great pains to impress on the Landgrave that he must “take every possible care that this matter be not made public in the world,” otherwise the dispensation would be taken as a precedent by others, and also would be made to serve as a “weapon against them and the Evangel.” “Hence, seeing how great scandal would be caused, we humbly beg your Serene Highness to take this matter into serious consideration.”

They also admonish him “to avoid fornication and adultery”; they had learnt with “great sorrow” that the Landgrave “was burdened with such evil lusts, of which the consequences to be feared were the Divine punishment, illness and other perils”; such conduct, outside of matrimony, was “no small sin”—as they proceed to prove from Scripture; they rejoiced, however, that the Prince felt “pain and remorse” for what he had done. Although monogamy was in accordance with the original institution of marriage, yet it was their duty to tell him that, “seeing that your Serene Highness has informed us that you are not able to refrain from an immoral life, we would rather that your Highness should be in a better state before God, and live with a good conscience for your Highness’s own salvation and the good of your land and people. And, as your Serene Highness has determined to take another wife, we consider that this should be kept secret, no less than the dispensation, viz. that your Serene Highness and the lady in question, and a few other trustworthy persons, should be apprised of your Highness’s conscience and state of mind in the way of confession.”

“From this,” they continue, “no great gossip or scandal will result, for it is not unusual for Princes to keep ‘concubinas,’ and, though not everyone is aware of the circumstances, yet reasonable people will bear this in mind and be better pleased with such a manner of life than with adultery or dissolute and immoral living.”

Yet, once again, they point out that, were the bigamy to become a matter of public knowledge, the opinion would gain ground that polygamy was perfectly lawful to all, and that everyone might follow the precedent; the result would also be that the enemies of the Evangel would cry out that the Evangelicals were not one whit better than the Anabaptists, who were likewise polygamists and, in fact, just the same as the Turks. Further, the great Lords would be the first to give the example to private persons to do likewise. As it was, the Hessian aristocracy was bad enough, and many of its members were strongly opposed to the Evangel on earthly grounds; these would become still more hostile were the bigamy to become publicly known. Lastly, the Prince must bear in mind the injury to his “good name” which the tidings of his act would cause amongst foreign potentates.

A paragraph appended to the memorandum is, according to recent investigation, from Luther’s own pen and, at any rate, is quite in his style.[60] It refers to Philip’s threat to seek the Emperor’s intervention, a step which would not have been at all to the taste of the Wittenbergers, for it was obvious that this would cripple Philip’s action as Protector of the Evangelicals. This menace had plainly excited and troubled Luther. He declares in the concluding sentences, that the Emperor before whom the Prince threatened to lay the case, was a man who looked upon adultery as a small sin; there was great reason to fear that he shared the faith of the Pope, Cardinals, Italians, Spaniards and Saracens; he would pay no heed to the Prince’s request but only use him as a cat’s-paw. They had found him out to be a false and faithless man, who had forgotten the true German spirit. The Emperor, as the Landgrave might see for himself, did not trouble himself about any Christian concerns, left the Turks unopposed and was only interested in fomenting plots in Germany for the increase of the Burgundian power. Hence it was to be hoped that pious German Princes would have nothing to do with his faithless practices.

Such are the contents of Luther and Melanchthon’s written reply. Bucer, glad of the success achieved, at once proceeded with the memorandum to the Electoral Court.

This theological document, the like of which had never been seen, is unparalleled in the whole of Church history. Seldom indeed has exegetical waywardness been made to serve a more momentous purpose. The Elector, Johann Frederick of Saxony, was, at a later date, quite horrified, as he said, at “a business the like of which had not been heard of for many ages.”[61] Sidonie, the youthful Duchess of Saxony, complained subsequently, that, “since the Birth of Christ, no one had done such a thing.”[62] Bucer’s fears had not been groundless “of the scandal of such an innovation in a matter of so great importance and difficulty among the weak followers of the Evangel.”[63]

Besides this, the sanction of bigamy given in the document in question is treated almost as though it denoted the commencement of a more respectable mode of life incapable of giving any “particular scandal”; for amongst the common people the newly wedded wife would be looked upon as a concubine, and such it was quite usual for Princes to keep. Great stress is laid on the fact that the secret bigamy would prevent adultery and other immorality. Apart, however, from these circumstances, the sanctioning, largely on the strength of political considerations, of an exception to the universal New-Testament prohibition, is painful. Anyone, however desirous of finding extenuating circumstances for Luther’s decision, can scarcely fail to be shocked at this fact. The only excuse that might be advanced would be, that Philip, by his determination to take this step and his threat of becoming reconciled to the Emperor, exercised pressure tantamount to violence, and that the weight of years, his scorn for the Church’s matrimonial legislation and his excessive regard for his own interpretation of the Old Testament helped Luther to signify his assent to a plan so portentous.

The Bigamy is Consummated and made Public.

The object of Bucer’s hasty departure for the Court of the Elector Johann Frederick of Saxony was to dispose him favourably towards the impending marriage. In accordance with his instructions from Hesse, he was to submit to this Prince the same arguments which had served him with the two Wittenbergers, for the superscription of the instructions ran: “What Dr. Martin Bucer is to demand of D. Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, and, should he see fit, after that also of the Elector.”[64] In addition to this he had in the meantime received special instructions for this delicate mission to Weimar.[65]

The Landgrave looked upon an understanding with the Elector as necessary, not merely on account of his relationship with him and out of consideration for Christina his first wife, who belonged to the House of Saxony, but also on account of the ecclesiastico-political alliance in which they stood, which made the Elector’s support seem to him quite as essential as the sanction of the Wittenberg theologians.

Bucer treated with Johann Frederick at Weimar on 15 or 16 Dec. and reached some sort of understanding, as we learn from the Elector’s written reply to the Landgrave bearing the latter date. Bucer represents him as saying: If it is impossible to remove the scandal caused by the Landgrave’s life in any other way, he would ask, as a brother, that the plan should not be executed in any other way than “that contained in our—Dr. Luther’s, Philip’s and my own—writing”; upon this he was unable to improve; he was also ready to “lend him fraternal assistance in every way” should any complications arise from this step.[66] In return, in accordance with the special instructions given to Bucer, he received from the Landgrave various political concessions of great importance: viz. support in the matter of the Duke of Cleves, help in his difficulties about Magdeburg, the eventual renunciation of Philip’s title to the inheritance of his father-in-law, Duke George, and, finally, the promise to push his claims to the Imperial crown after the death of Charles V, or in the event of the partitioning of the Empire.

The Elector, like his theologians, was not aware that the “lady” (she is never actually named) had already been chosen. Margaret von der Sale, who was then only seventeen years of age, was the daughter of a lady-in-waiting to Philip’s sister, Elisabeth, Duchess of Rochlitz. Her mother, Anna von der Sale, an ambitious lady of the lower nobility, had informed the Landgrave that she must stipulate for certain privileges. As soon as Philip had received the replies from Wittenberg and Weimar, on Dec. 23, 1539, the demands of the mother were at once settled by persons vested with the necessary authority. Even before this, on the very day of the negotiations with Luther, Dec. 11, the Landgrave and his wife Christina had each drawn up a formal deed concerning what was about to take place: Christina agreed to Philip’s “taking another wedded wife” and promised that she would never on that account be unfriendly to the Landgrave, his second wife, or her children; Philip pledged himself not to countenance any claim to the Landgraviate on the part of any issue by the second wife during the lifetime of Christina’s two sons, but to provide for such issue by means of territories situated outside his own dominions.[67] Such was the assurance with which he proceeded towards the cherished goal.

Several Hessian theologians of the new faith, for instance, the preacher Dionysius Melander, a personal friend of the Landgrave’s, and Johann Lening were on his side.[68] To the memorandum composed by Luther and Melanchthon the signatures of both the above-mentioned were subsequently added, as well as those of Anton Corvinus, then pastor at Witzenhausen, of Adam Fuldensis (Kraft), then Superintendent at Marburg, of Justus Winther—since 1532 Court Schoolmaster at Cassel and, from 1542, Superintendent at Rotenburg on the Fulda—and of Balthasar Rhaide (Raid), pastor at Hersfeld, who, as Imperial Notary, certified the marriage. The signature of the last was, however, subsequently erased.[69]

About the middle of Jan., 1540, Philip informed the more prominent Councillors and theologians that he would soon carry out his project. When everything was ready the marriage was celebrated on March 4 in the Castle of Rotenburg on the Fulda by the Court Chaplain, Dionysius Melander, in the presence of Bucer and Melanchthon; were also present the Commandant of the Wartburg, Eberhard von der Thann, representing the Elector of Saxony, Pastor Balthasar Rhaide, the Hessian Chancellor Johann Feige of Lichtenau, the Marshal Hermann von Hundelshausen, Rudolf Schenk zu Schweinsberg (Landvogt of Eschwege on the Werra), Hermann von der Malsburg, a nobleman, and the mother of the bride, Anna von der Sale.[70] The draft of the short discourse still exists with which the Landgrave intended to open the ceremony. Melander delivered the formal wedding address. On the following day Melanchthon handed the Landgrave an “admonition,” i.e. a sort of petition, in which he warmly recommended to his care the welfare of education. It is possible that when summoned, to Rotenburg from a meeting of the Schmalkalden League at which he had been assisting, he was unaware of the object of the invitation. Subsequent explanations, furnished at the last moment, by Melander and Lening, seem to have drawn a protest from Melanchthon which roused the anger of the two preachers. This shows that “everything did not pass off smoothly at Rotenburg.”[71] Both were, not long after, stigmatised by Melanchthon as “ineruditi homines” and made chiefly responsible for the lax principles of the Landgrave.[72] Luther tried later to represent Lening, the “monster,” as the man by whom the idea of the bigamy, a source of extreme embarrassment to the Wittenbergers, had first been hatched.[73]

Although the Landgrave was careful to preserve secrecy concerning the new marriage—already known to so many persons,—permitting only the initiate to visit the “lady,” and even forbidding her to attend Divine Worship, still the news of what had taken place soon leaked out. “Palpable signs appeared in the building operations commenced at Weissenstein, and also in the despatch of a cask of wine to Luther.”[74] At Weissenstein, in the former monastery near Cassel, now WilhelmshÖhe, an imposing residence was fitted up for Margaret von der Sale. In a letter of May 24, 1540, to Philip, Luther expresses his thanks for the gift of wine: “I have received your Serene Highness’s present of the cask of Rhine wine and thank your Serene Highness most humbly. May our dear Lord God keep and preserve you body and soul. Amen.”[75] Katey also received a gift from the Prince, for which Luther returned thanks on Aug. 22, though without mentioning its nature.[76] On the cask of wine and its destination the Schultheiss of Lohra spoke “openly before all the peasants,” so Anton Corvinus informed the Landgrave on May 25, saying that: “Your Serene Highness has taken another wife, of which he was perfectly sure, and your Serene Highness is now sending a cask of wine to Luther because he gave your Serene Highness permission to do such a thing.”[77]

On June 9 Jonas wrote from Wittenberg, where he was staying with Luther—who himself was as silent as the tomb—to George of Anhalt: Both in the Meissen district and at Wittenberg there is “much gossip” (‘ingens fama’) of bigamy with a certain von Sale, though, probably, it was only “question of a concubine.”[78] Five days later, however, he relates, that “at WÜrzburg and similar [Catholic] localities the Papists and Canons were expressing huge delight” over the bigamy.[79]

The behaviour of the Landgrave’s sister had helped to spread the news. On March 13 the Landgrave, through Marshal von Hundelshausen, had informed the latter of the fact, as he had formally promised Margaret’s mother to do. The “lady began to weep, made a great outcry and abused Luther and Bucer as a pair of incarnate scamps.”[80] She was unable to reconcile herself to the bigamy or to refrain from complaining to others. “My angry sister has been unable to hold her tongue,” wrote the Landgrave Philip on June 8.[81] The Ducal Court of Saxony at Dresden was anxious for reliable information. Duke Henry was a patron of Lutheranism, but one of the motives for his curiosity in this matter is to be found in the fact that the Landgrave was claiming a portion of the inheritance of the late Duke George, who had died on April 17, 1539. In accordance with Henry’s orders Anna von der Sale, as a subject of the Saxon duchy, was removed by force on June 3 from her residence at SchÖnfeld and carried to Dresden. There the mother confessed everything and declared, not without pride, that her daughter Margaret “was as much the rightful wife of the Landgrave as Christina.”[82] About Whitsun the Landgrave personally admitted the fact to Maurice of Saxony.

The Court of Dresden at once informed the Elector of Saxony of its discovery and of the very unfavourable manner in which the news had been received, and the latter, in turn, communicated it, through Chancellor BrÜck, to Luther and Melanchthon.

The Elector Johann Frederick, in view of the change of circumstances, became more and more vexed with the marriage. To a certain extent he stood under the influence of Elisabeth Duchess of Rochlitz. In his case, too, the question of property played a part, viz. whether, in view of the understanding existing between Hesse and Saxony as to the succession, the children of the second wife were to become the heirs in the event of the death of the children of the first wife, this being what the Landgrave demanded. Above all, however, the cautious Elector was anxious about the attitude of the Empire and Emperor. He feared lest steps should be taken against the general scandal which had been given and to obviate the danger of the spread of polygamous ideas. Hence he was not far from withdrawing from Luther the favour he had hitherto shown him, the more so now that the Court of Dresden was intent on raising trouble against all who had furthered the Landgrave’s plan.

Meanwhile the news rapidly spread, partly owing to persons belonging to the Court. It reached King Ferdinand, and, by him, and still more by Morone, the Nuncio, it was carried to the Emperor.

Morone wrote on June 15, from the religious conference then proceeding at Hagenau, to Cardinal Farnese at Rome: “During the lifetime of his first wife, a daughter of Duke George of Saxony of good memory, the Landgrave of Hesse, has, as we hear, taken a second wife, a lady of distinction, von der Sale by name, a native of Saxony. It is said, his theologians teach that it is not forbidden to Christians to have several wives, except in the case of a Bishop, because there is no such prohibition in Holy Scripture. I can hardly credit it, but since God has ‘given them over to a reprobate mind’ [Rom. i. 28] and as the King has assured me that he has heard it from several quarters, I give you the report for what it is worth.”[83]

Philip of Hesse, who was already in disgrace with the Emperor on account of his expedition into WÜrtemberg and his support of Duke Ulrich, knew the penalties which he might expect unless he found some means of escape. The “Carolina” (1532) decreed “capital punishment” against bigamists, no less than against adulterers.[84] The Landgrave himself was even fully prepared to forfeit one-third of his possessions should it be impossible to arrive otherwise at a settlement.[85] He now openly declared—as he had already hinted he would—that, in case of necessity, he would make humble submission to the Emperor; if the worst came to the worst, then he would also make public the memorandum he had received from Wittenberg in order to exculpate himself—a threat which filled the Elector with alarm on account of his University and of Luther.

Bucer, the first to be summoned to the aid of the Hessian Court, advised the Landgrave to escape from his unfortunate predicament by downright lying. He wrote: If concealment and equivocation should prove of no avail, he was to state in writing that false rumours concerning his person had come into circulation, and that no Christian was allowed to have two wives at the same time; he was also to replace the marriage-contract by another contract in which Margaret might be described as a concubine—such as God had allowed to His beloved friends—and not as a wife within the meaning of the calamitous Imperial Law; an effort was also to be made to induce the Court of Dresden to keep silence, or to deny any knowledge of the business, and, in the meantime, the “lady” might be kept even more carefully secluded than before.[86]

The Landgrave’s reply was violent in the extreme. He indignantly rejected Bucer’s suggestion; the dissimulation alleged to have been practised by others, notably by the Patriarchs, Judges, Kings and Prophets, etc., in no wise proved the lawfulness of lying; Bucer had “been instigated to make such proposals by some worldly-wise persons and jurists whom we know well.”[87] Philip wrote to the same effect to the Lutheran theologians, Schnepf, Osiander and Brenz, who urged him to deny that Margaret was his lawful wife: “That, when once the matter has become quite public, we should assert that it was invalid, this we cannot bring ourselves to do. We cannot tell a lie, for to lie does not become any man. And, moreover, God has forbidden lying. So long as it is possible we shall certainly reply ‘dubitative’ or ‘per amphibologiam,’ but to say that it is invalid, such advice you may give to another, but not to us.”[88]

The “amphibologia” had been advised by the Hessian theologians, who had pointed out that Margaret could best be described to the Imperial Court of Justice as a “concubina,” since, in the language of the Old Testament, as also in that of the ancient Church, this word had sometimes been employed to describe a lawful wife.[89] They also wrote to Luther and Melanchthon, fearing that they might desert the Landgrave, telling them that they were expected to stand by their memorandum. Although they were in favour of secrecy, yet they wished that, in case of necessity, the Wittenbergers should publicly admit their share. Good care would be taken to guard against the general introduction of polygamy.[90]

Dispensation; Advice in Confession; a Confessor’s Secret?

Was the document signed by Luther, Melanchthon and Bucer a dispensation for bigamy?

It has been so described. But, even according to the very wording of the memorandum, the signatories had no intention of issuing a dispensation. On the contrary, according to the text, they, as learned theologians, declared that the Divine Law, as they understood it, gave a general sanction, according to which, in cases such as that of Philip of Hesse, polygamy was allowed. It is true that they and Philip himself repeatedly use the word “dispensation,” but by this they meant to describe the alleged general sanction in accordance with which the law admitted of exceptions in certain cases, hence their preference for the term “to use” the dispensation, instead of the more usual “to beg” or “to grant.” Philip is firmly resolved “to use” the dispensation brought to his knowledge by Luther’s writings, and the theologians, taking their cue from him, likewise speak of his “using” it in his own case.[91]

It was the same with the “dispensation” which the Wittenbergers proposed to Henry VIII of England. (See above, p. 4 f.) They had no wish to invest him with an authority which, according to their ideas, he did not possess, but they simply drew his attention to the freedom common to all, and declared by them to be bestowed by God, viz. in his case, of taking a second wife, telling him that he was free to have recourse to this dispensation. In other words, they gave him the power to dispense himself, regardless of ecclesiastical laws and authorities.

Another question: How far was the substance of the advice given in the Hessian case to be regarded as a secret? Can it really be spoken of as a “counsel given in confession,” or as a “secret of the confessional”?

This question later became of importance in the negotiations which turned upon the memorandum. In order to answer it without prejudice it is essential in the first place to point out, that the subsequent interpretations and evasions must not here be taken into account. The actual wording of the document and its attendant historical circumstances have alone to be taken into consideration, abstraction being made of the fine distinctions and meanings afterwards read into it.

First, there is no doubt that both the Landgrave’s request for the Wittenberg testimony and its granting were intended to be confidential and not public. Philip naturally assumed that the most punctilious secrecy would be preserved so long as no decision had been arrived at, seeing that he had made confidential disclosures concerning his immorality in pleading for a second marriage. The Wittenbergers, as they explicitly state, gave their reply not merely unwillingly, with repugnance and with great apprehension of the scandal which might ensue, but also most urgently recommended Philip to keep the bigamy to himself. Both the request and the theological testimony accordingly came under the natural obligation of silence, i.e. under the so-called confidential seal of secrecy. This, however, was of course broken when the suppliant on his part allowed the matter to become public; in such a case no one could grudge the theologians the natural right of bringing forward everything that was required for their justification, even to the reasons which had determined them to give their consent, though of course they were in honour bound to show the utmost consideration; for this the petitioner himself was alone to blame.

As a matter of fact, however, strange though it may seem, Philip’s intention all along had been ultimately to make the marriage public. It cannot be proved that he ever made any written promise to observe the recommendation of absolute secrecy made by the theologians. Those who drew up the memorandum disregarded his wish for publicity, and, on the contrary, “advised” that the matter should be kept a dead secret. Yet ought they not to have foreseen that a Prince so notoriously unscrupulous would be likely to disregard their “advice”? The theologians were certainly no men of the world if they really believed that the Landgrave’s bigamy—and their memorandum by which it was justified—would or could remain concealed. They themselves had allowed a number of other parties to be initiated into the secret, nor was it difficult to foresee that Philip, and Margaret’s ambitious mother, would not allow the stigma of concubinage to rest permanently on the newly wedded bride. The mother had expressly stipulated that Margaret should be treated as a lawful wife and given this title, and not as a concubine, though of this the Wittenbergers were not aware.

Further, the theological grounds for the Wittenberg “advice” must not be lost sight of in considering the question of the obligation of silence or secrecy. The theologians based their decision on a doctrine which they had already openly proclaimed. Nor did Luther ever withdraw from the standpoint that polygamy was lawful; he even proclaimed it during the height of the controversy raised by the Hessian bigamy, though he was careful to restrict it to very rare and exceptional cases and to make its use dependent on the consent of the authorities. Thus the grounds for the step he had taken in Philip’s favour were universally and publicly known just as much as his other theological doctrines. If, however, his teaching on this matter was true, then, strictly speaking, people had as much right to it as to every other piece of truth; in fact, it was the more urgent that this Evangelical discovery should not be put under a bushel, seeing that it would have been a veritable godsend to many who groaned in the bonds of matrimony. Hence everything, both on Philip’s side and on that of the theologians, pointed to publicity. But may, perhaps, the Wittenberg “advice” have been esteemed a sort of “counsel given in Confession,” and did its contents accordingly fall under the “secret of Confession”?

The word “Confession,” in its sacramental meaning, was never used in connection with the affair dealt with at Wittenberg, either in Philip’s instructions to Bucer or in the theologians’ memorandum, nor does it occur in any of the few documents relating to the bigamy until about six months later. “Confession” is first alleged in the letter of excuse given below which Luther addressed to the Elector of Saxony. It is true that the expression “in the way of Confession” occurs once in the memorandum, but there it is used in an entirely different sense and in no way stamps the business as a matter of Confession. There it is stated (above, p. 21), that those who were to be apprised of the bigamy were to learn it “in the way of Confession.” Here the word Confession is employed by metonymy and merely emphasises the need of discretion. Here there was naturally no idea of the sacramental seal, or of the making of a real Confession. In the Middle Ages the term Confession was not seldom used to denote the imparting of an ordinary confidential secret, just as the word to confess originally meant to admit, to acknowledge, or to communicate something secret. This, however, was not the meaning attached to it by those who sought to shelter themselves behind the term in the controversies which ensued after the bigamy had become generally known. To vindicate the keeping secret of his so-called “advice in Confession,” Luther falls back upon his Catholic recollections of the entire secrecy required of the Confessor, in other words, on the sacramental “seal.”

Undoubtedly the Seal of Confession is inexorable; according to the Catholic view it possesses a sacramental sanction and surrounds, like a protecting rampart, the sanctuary of the Sacrament of Penance, which otherwise would be shunned by all. But this absolute and sacramental obligation of silence attends only the administration of the Sacrament of Penance.

The idea that Luther and his comrades when signing the “advice” were dispensing the Sacrament of Penance cannot but raise a smile. In connection with this matter non-Catholic theologians and historians would never have spoken as they have done of Luther as a Confessor, had they been better acquainted with the usages of the older Church. In the case of such writers all that is known of the system of Confession is often a few distorted quotations from casuists. Even under its altered form, as then in use among the Protestants, Confession could only mean an admission of one’s sins, made to obtain absolution. In Lutheranism, confession, so far as it was retained at all, meant the awakening and animating of faith by means of some sort of self-accusation completed by the assurance given by the preacher of the Divine promise and forgiveness, a process which bears no analogy to the “testimony” given by the theologians to Philip of Hesse. In the Catholic Church, moreover, in whose practice Luther seems anxious to take refuge, Confession involves an accusation of all grievous sins, contrition, a firm resolve to amend, satisfaction and absolution. What was there of all this in the Landgrave’s so-called Confession?[92] Where was the authority to absolve, even had this been what the Landgrave sought? How then could there come into play the Seal of Confession, i.e. any sacramental obligation apart from the purely natural obligation of keeping silence concerning a communication made in confidence? Again, Confession, even according to Lutheran ideas, is not made at a distance, or to several persons simultaneously, or with the object of securing a signed document.

Apart from all this one may even question whether the Landgrave’s disclosures were really honestly meant. Not everyone would have taken them from the outset as intended seriously, or have regarded them as above suspicion. Melanchthon, for instance, soon began to have doubts. (See below.) The readiness, nay, eagerness, shown by Philip later to repeat his Confession to others, to reinforce it by even more appalling admissions of wickedness, and to give it the fullest publicity, is really not favourable to the “Confession” idea; on the contrary, it reminds us of the morbid pleasure which persons habituated to vice and who have lost all respect whether for themselves or for the virtue of others, take in speaking openly of their moral lapses. The most important point to bear in mind is, however, the fact, that with Philip of Hesse it was a question of a marriage which he intended should be kept secret only for a time, and further that the Wittenbergers were aware of Philip’s readiness to lay his case before the Emperor, nay, even the Pope should necessity arise.[93] Owing to this they could not be blind to the possibility of the marriage, and, incidentally, of the Landgrave’s admission of moral necessity, and further of their own “advice” being all disclosed. Thus the “Seal of Confession” was threatened from the very first. Philip himself never recognised a binding obligation of secrecy on the part of the Wittenbergers; on the contrary, his invitation to them was: Speak out freely, now that the step has been taken with your sanction! What was Luther’s answer? He appealed to the Secret of the Confessional and refused to defend the act before the world and the Empire, but merely “before God”; all he was willing to do was to vindicate it “before God, by examples such as that of Abraham, etc., and to conceal it as much as possible.” And yet, to forestall what will be related below, full publicity would surely have been the best thing for himself, as then the world would at least have learnt that he was not desirous of introducing polygamy generally, and that the whole business had only been made common property through Philip’s disregard of the recommendation of secrecy. Instead of this, however, he preferred to profess his readiness (it was probably no more than a threat) to admit publicly that he had been in the wrong all along and had acted foolishly; here again, had he been true to his word, the “Secret of the Confessional” would assuredly have fared badly.

Even in his letter of excuse to the Elector Johann Frederick concerning his sanction of the bigamy, Luther explained so much of the incident, that the “Seal of Confession” was practically violated; quite unmindful of the inviolability of the Seal he here declared, that he would have preferred to say nothing of the “counsel given in Confession had not necessity” forced him to do so. But what kind of Seal of Confession was this, we may ask, which could thus be set aside in case of necessity?

Melanchthon acted differently. He, without any necessity, at once recounted everything that had happened to a friend in a letter eloquent with grief. He, the author of the “Counsel of Confession,” felt under no obligation to regard the Seal. He considers himself liberated, by Philip’s behaviour, from the obligation even of confidential secrecy.[94] Bucer expressed himself on Aug. 8, 1540, in a similar fashion concerning the counsel given to the Landgrave “in Confession”: Luther would certainly publish and defend it, should the “marriage have to be admitted” through no fault of the Landgrave’s.[95] No one, in fact, displayed the slightest scruple regarding the secrecy of the Confession—except Luther and those who re-echo his sentiments.

According to the above we are justified in saying that the term “Counsel given in Confession” is in no wise descriptive of the Wittenberg document. The word “testimony,” or “certificate,” used both in Philip’s instructions and in an important passage of the document signed by Luther, Melanchthon and Bucer, is historically more correct; the terms “opinion” or “memorandum” are equally applicable.

The Wittenbergers gave their testimony or opinion—such is the upshot of the matter—but no Dispensation or Counsel in Confession in the sense just determined. They gave a testimony, which was asked for that it might be made public, but which was given in confidence, which was moreover based on their openly expressed teaching, though it actually dealt only with Philip’s own case, a testimony which no longer involved them in any obligation of secrecy once the marriage had been made public by Philip, and once the latter had declared his intention of making the testimony public should circumstances demand it.

Luther’s Embarrassment on the Bigamy becoming Public.

At the commencement of June, 1540, Luther was in great distress on account of the Hessian bigamy. His embarrassment and excitement increased as the tidings flew far and wide, particularly when the Court of Dresden and his own Elector began to take fright at the scandal, and the danger of complications arising with the Emperor. On the other hand, Luther was not unaware of the Landgrave’s doubts as to whether he would stand by his written declaration. Jonas wrote from Wittenberg on June 10 to George of Anhalt: “Philip is much upset and Dr. Martin full of thought.”[96]

On that very day BrÜck, the Electoral Chancellor, discussed the matter with both of them at Wittenberg. He acquainted them with his sovereign’s fears. They had gone too far, and the publication of the affair had had the most disastrous results; a young Princess and Landgravine had appeared on the scene, which was not at all what the Elector had expected; the Court of Dresden was loud in its complaints and spared not even the Elector; the Dresden people were bringing forward against Luther what he had taught in favour of polygamy thirteen years before; the door had now been opened wide to polygamists.

Not long after Luther wrote, that, were it necessary, he would know how to “extricate himself.”[97] Even before dropping this curious remark he had shown himself very anxious to make his position secure. It was with this object in view, that, after his interview with BrÜck, probably on the same day, he proceeded to explain the case to his sovereign in the lengthy letter[98] in which he appeals to Confession and its secrecy.

“Before the world and against the laws of the Empire it cannot be defended,” but “we were desirous of glossing it over before God as much as possible with examples, such as that of Abraham, etc. All this was done and treated of as in Confession, so that we cannot be charged as though we had done it willingly and gladly, or with joy and pleasure.... I took into consideration the unavoidable necessity and weakness, and the danger to his conscience which Master Bucer had set forth.”

This uncalled-for introduction of Confession was intended to save him from being obliged to admit his consent publicly; it was meant to reassure so weak a theologian as the Elector, who dreaded the scandal arising from Luther’s advice to commit bigamy, and the discussion of the case before the Imperial Court of Justice; possibly he also hoped it would serve against that other princely theologian, viz. the Landgrave, and cause him to withdraw his demand for a public acknowledgment of the sanction given. His tactics here remind us of Luther’s later denial, when he professed himself ready simply to deny the bigamy and his share in it—because everything had been merely a matter of Confession.

Even in this first letter dealing with the question, he is clearly on the look-out for a loophole by which he may escape from the calamitous business.

The publication of the “testimony” was to be prevented at all costs. But, as a matter of fact, not only did the “Seal of Confession” present no obstacle, but even the common secrecy referred to above (p. 31) was no longer binding. This had been cancelled by the indiscretion of the Landgrave. Moreover, apart from this, the natural obligation of secrecy did not extend to certain extreme cases which might have been foreseen by both parties and in the event of which both would recover their freedom. It should be noted, that Luther hardly made any appeal to this natural obligation of secrecy, probably because it could not be turned to account so easily. The Seal of Confession promised to serve him better in circles so little acquainted with theology.

In the second letter dealing with the bigamy, dated June 27, 1540, and addressed to Philip’s intimate, Eberhard von der Thann, Luther speaks with an eye on Hesse.[101] Thann, through Chancellor BrÜck, had informed him of what was being said of him there, and had asked what Luther would advise the Hessian Prince, and whether, in order to obviate other cases of polygamy in Hesse, it would be advisable for the authorities to issue an edict against the universal lawfulness of having several wives. Luther replied, that he agreed with the Landgrave’s intention as announced by Thann concerning his second marriage, viz. to wait until the Emperor “should approach His Serene Highness on the subject”; and then to write to the Emperor: “That he had taken a concubine but that he would be perfectly ready to put her away again if other Princes and Lords would set a good example.” If the Emperor were compelled “to regard the ‘lady’ as a concubine,” “no one else would dare to speak or think differently”; in this wise the real state of things would be “covered over and kept secret.” On the other hand, it would not be at all advisable to issue any edict, or to speak of the matter, for then “there would be no end or limit to gossip and suspicions.”

Here belongs the third letter of Luther’s which we have on the subject and which was despatched to Hesse before the middle of July. It is addressed to “a Hessian Councillor” who has been identified, with some probability, as the Hessian Chancellor Johann Feige.[102]

To the addressee, who was acquainted with the whole matter and had applied to Luther for his opinion on behalf of the Landgrave, the writer defines his own position still more clearly; if people say openly that the Landgrave has contracted a second marriage, all one need answer is, that this is not true, although it is true that he has contracted a secret union; hence he himself was wont to say, “the Landgrave’s other marriage is all nonsense.”

Hence if the Landgrave, so Luther concludes, “will not forsake the sweetheart” on whom “he has so set his heart that she has become a need to him,” and if, moreover, he will “keep her out of the way,” then “we theologians and confessors shall vindicate it before God, as a case of necessity to be excused by the examples of Genesis. But defend it before the world and ‘iure nunc regente,’ that we cannot and shall not do. Short of this the Landgrave may count upon our best service.”

The Landgrave was, however, not satisfied with either of these letters, both of which came into his hands. He wanted from Luther a clear and public admission of his share in the business, which, to the Prince’s peril, had now become as good as public, and threatened to constitute a precedent. By this invitation the Prince naturally released Luther from all obligation of secrecy. Even the making public of the immorality, which had served as a pretext for the new marriage, he did not mind in the least, for his laxity in morals was already a matter of common knowledge; he discussed his lapses with the theologians as openly as though all of them had been his confessors and spiritual directors; he was also quite ready to repeat his admissions, “as in Confession,” before secular witnesses. Such was the depth of depravity into which his passions had brought him.

Yielding to pressure brought to bear on him by Saxony, Luther had meanwhile conceived the idea of publishing a work against polygamy. The new expedient had indeed been foreshadowed in his last letter. On June 17, 1540, Jonas wrote to George of Anhalt that Luther might be expected to write a work “Contra polygamiam.”[104] Martin Beyer of Schaffhausen, on his return from Wittenberg, also brought the news, so Bullinger was informed, that “Luther was being compelled by the Hessian business to write a work against the plurality of wives.”[105]

The project was, however, never realised, probably on account of the insuperable difficulties it involved.

But though this work never saw the light, history has preserved for us a number of Luther’s familiar conversations, dating from this period and taken down directly from his lips, utterances which have every claim to consideration and faithfully mirror his thoughts.

Luther’s Private Utterances Regarding the Bigamy.

The Table-Talk, dating from the height of the hubbub caused by the bigamy, affords us a vivid psychological picture of Luther.

Of this Table-Talk we have the detailed and authentic notes from the pen of Johann Mathesius, who was present. These notes, in their best form, became known only in 1903, thanks to Kroker’s edition, but, for the better understanding of Luther’s personality, his intimate descriptions of what was passing in his mind are of inestimable value. Conjointly with the principal passage, which probably dates from June 18, 1540, other sayings dropped regarding the same matter may be considered.[106]

“Should the Landgrave fall away from us.”—This fear lest Philip should desert their party Luther had expressed in some rather earlier utterances in 1540, when he had described more particularly the Landgrave’s character and attitude. “A strange man!” he says of him. “He was born under a star. He is bent upon having his own way, and so fancies he will obtain the approval of Emperor and Pope. It may be that he will fall away from us on account of this affair.... He is a real Hessian; he cannot be still nor does he know how to yield. When once this business is over he will be hatching something else. But perhaps death will carry him, or her (Margaret), off before.” A Hessian Councillor who was present quite bore out what Luther had said: Nothing was of any avail with the Landgrave, “what he once undertakes he cannot be induced to give up.” In proof of this those present instanced the violence and utter injustice of the raid made on WÜrtemberg. “Because he is such a strange character,” Luther remarked, “I must let it pass. The Emperor, moreover, will certainly not let him have his way.”[113] “No sensible man would have undertaken that campaign, but he, carried away by fury, managed it quite well. Only wait a little! It [the new scandal] will pass!” Luther was also ready to acknowledge that the Landgrave, in spite of the promises and offers of the Emperor and Duke of Saxony, had remained so far “very faithful” to the Evangel.[114]

In the conversation on June 18, Luther adopts a forcedly light view of the matter: “It is only a three-months’ affair, then the whole thing will fizzle out. Would to God Philip would look at it in this light instead of grieving so over it! The Papists are now Demeas and I Mitio”; with these words commences a string of word-for-word quotations from Terence’s play “Adelphi,” all concerning the harsh and violent Demeas, whom Luther takes as a figure of the Catholic Church, and the mild and peaceable Mitio, in whom Luther sees himself. In the Notes the sentences are given almost unaltered: “The prostitute and the matron living in one house.” “A son is born.” “Margaret has no dowry.” “I, Mitio, say: ‘May the gods direct all for the best!’” “Man’s life is like a throw of the dice.”[115]

“I overlook much worse things than this,” he continues. “If anyone says to me: Are you pleased with what has taken place? I reply: No; oh, would that I could alter it. Since I cannot, I am resolved to bear it with equanimity. I commit it all to our dear God. Let Him preserve His Church as it now stands in order that it may remain in the unity of faith and doctrine and the pure confession of the Word; all I hope for is that it may never grow worse!”

“On rising from the table he said cheerfully: I will not give the devil and the Papists the satisfaction of thinking that I am troubled about the matter. God will see to it. To Him we commend the whole.”

In thus shifting the responsibility from his own shoulders and putting it on God—Whose chosen instrument, even at the most critical juncture, he would still persuade himself he was—he finds the most convenient escape from anxiety and difficulty. It has all been laid upon us by God: “We must put up with the devil and his filth as long as we live.” Therefore, forward against the Papists, who seek to conceal their “sodomitic vices” behind this bigamy! “We may not and shall not yield. Let them do their dirty work and let us lay odds on.”[116] With these words he is again quite himself. He is again the inspired prophet, oblivious of all save his mission to champion God’s cause; all his difficulties have vanished and even his worst moral faults have disappeared. But in this frame of mind Luther was not always able to persevere.

“All I hope for is that it may never grow worse.” The depressing thought implied in these words lingered in the depths of his soul in spite of all his forced merriment and bravado. “Alas, my God, what have we not to put up with from fanatics and scandals! One follows on the heels of the other; when this [the bigamy] has been adjusted, then it is certain that something else will spring up, and many new sects will also arise.... But God will preserve His Christendom.”[117]

Meanwhile the remarkably speedy recovery of his friend Melanchthon consoled him. Soon after the arrival of the letters mentioned above Luther set out for Weimar. His attentions to the sick man, and particularly his words of encouragement, succeeded, so to say, in recalling him to life. Luther speaks of it in his letters at that time as a “manifest miracle of God,” which puts our unbelief to shame.[118] The fanciful embellishment which he gave to the incident when narrating it, making it into a sort of miracle, has left its traces in his friend Ratzeberger’s account.[119]

Confident as Luther’s language here seems, when it is a question of infusing new courage into himself, still he admits plainly enough one point, concerning which he has not a word to say in his correspondence with strangers or in his public utterances: A sin, over and above all his previous crimes, now weighed upon the Hessian and his party owing to what had taken place. He repeatedly uses the words “sin,” “scandal,” “offence” when speaking of the bigamy; he feels the need of seeking consolation in the “unpardonable” sins of the Catholics for the moral failings of his own party, which, after all, would be remitted by God. Nor does the Landgrave’s sin consist in his carelessness about keeping the matter secret. Luther compares his sin to David’s, whose adultery had been forgiven by God, and reckons Philip’s new sin amongst the sins of his co-religionists, who, for all their failings, were destined, with God’s help, to overthrow the Papal Antichrist. “Would that I could alter it!” Such an admission he would not at any price make before the princely Courts concerned, or before the world. Still less would he have admitted publicly, that they were obliged “to put up with the devil’s filth.” It is therefore quite correct when KÖstlin, in his Biography of Luther, points out, speaking of the Table-Talk: “That there had been sin and scandal, his words by no means deny.”[120] Concerning the whole affair KÖstlin moreover remarks: “Philip’s bigamy is the greatest blot on the history of the Reformation, and remains a blot in Luther’s life in spite of everything that can be alleged in explanation or excuse.”[121]

F. W. Hassencamp, another Protestant, says in his “Hessische Kirchengeschichte”: “His statements at that time concerning his share in the Landgrave’s bigamy prove that, mentally, he was on the verge of despair. Low pleasantry and vulgarity are mixed up with threats and words of prayer.” “Nowhere does the great Reformer appear so small as here.”[122]—In the “Historisch-politische BlÄtter,” in 1846, K. E. Jarcke wrote of the Table-Talk concerning the bigamy: “Rarely has any man, however coarse-minded, however blinded by hate and hardened by years of combat against his own conscience, expressed himself more hideously or with greater vulgarity.”[123]

“After so repeatedly describing himself as the prophet of the Germans,” says A. Hausrath, “he ought not to have had the weakness to seek a compromise between morality and policy, but, like the preacher robed in camels’ hair, he should have boldly told the Hessian Princelet: It is not lawful for you to have her.” Hausrath, in 1904, is voicing the opinion of many earlier Protestant historians when he regrets “that, owing to weariness and pressure from without,” Luther “sanctioned an exception to God’s unconditional command.” “The band of Protestant leaders, once so valiant and upright,” so he says, “had for once been caught sleeping. Evening was approaching and the day was drawing in, and the Lord their God had left them.”[124]

Luther at the Conference of Eisenach.
The Landgrave’s Indignation.

An official conference of theologians and Councillors from Hesse and the Electorate of Saxony met at Eisenach at the instance of Philip on July 15, 1540, in order to deliberate on the best means of escaping the legal difficulty and of satisfying Philip’s demand, that the theologians should give him their open support. Luther, too, put in an appearance and lost no time in entering into the debate with his wonted bluster.

According to one account, on their first arrival, he bitterly reproached (“acerbissimis verbis”)[125] the Hessian theologians. The report of the Landgrave’s sister says, that his long talk with Philip’s Chancellor so affected the latter that the “tears streamed down his cheeks,” particularly when Luther rounded on the Hessian Court officials for their too great inclination towards polygamy.[126] Though these reports of the effect of his strictures and exhortations may be exaggerated, no less than the remark of Jonas, who says, that the “Hessians went home from Eisenach with long faces,”[127] still it is quite likely that Luther made a great impression on many by his behaviour, particularly by the energy with which he now stood up for the cause of monogamy and appealed to the New Testament on its behalf.

Without denying the possibility of an exception in certain rare cases, he now insisted very strongly on the general prohibition.

The instructions given to the Hessians showed him plainly that the Landgrave was determined not to conceal his bigamy any longer, or to have it branded as mere concubinage; the theologians, so the document declares, would surely never have advised him to have recourse to sinful concubinage. That he was not married to his second wife was a lie, which he would not consent to tell were he to be asked point-blank; his bigamy was really a dispensation “permitted by God, admitted by the learned, and consented to by his wife.” If “hard pressed” he must disclose it. To introduce polygamy generally was of course quite a different matter, and was not to be thought of.[128]—Needless to say, Luther was ready enough to back up this last stipulation, for his own sake as much as for the Landgrave’s.

During the first session of the conference, held in the Rathaus at Eisenach, Luther formally and publicly committed himself to the expedient at which he had faintly hinted even previously. He unreservedly proposed the telling of a lie. Should a situation arise where it was necessary to reply “yes” or “no,” then they must resign themselves to a downright “No.” “What harm would it do,” he said on July 15, according to quite trustworthy notes,[129] “if a man told a good, lusty lie in a worthy cause and for the sake of the Christian Churches?” Similarly he said on July 17: “To lie in case of necessity, or for convenience, or in excuse, such lying would not be against God; He was ready to take such lies on Himself.”[130]

The Protestant historian of the Hessian Bigamy says in excuse of this: “Luther was faced by the problem whether a lie told in case of necessity could be regarded as a sin at all”; he did not have recourse to the “expedient of a mental reservation [as he had done when recommending an ambiguous reply]”; he merely absolved “the ‘mendacium officiosum’ [the useful lie] of sinfulness. This done, Luther could with a good conscience advise the telling of such a lie.”[131]

Nevertheless Luther felt called upon again to return to the alleged Confession made. He is even anxious to make out that his memorandum had been an Absolution coming under the Seal of Confession, and that the Absolution might not be “revealed”: “If the Confession was to be regarded as secret, then the Absolution also must be secret.”[132] “He considered the reply given in Confession as an Absolution,” says Rockwell.[133] Moreover he gave it to be understood, that, should the Landgrave say he had committed bigamy as a right to which he was entitled, and not as a favour, then he, Luther, was quit of all responsibility; it was not the confessor’s business to give public testimony concerning what had taken place in Confession.[134]

Practically, however, according to the notes of the conference, his advice still was that the Landgrave should conceal the bigamy behind the ambiguous declaration that: “Margaret is a concubine.” Under the influence of the hostility to the bigamy shown by the Saxon Courts he urged so strongly the Bible arguments against polygamy, that the Hessians began to fear his withdrawal from his older standpoint.

The Saxon representatives present at the Conference were, however, ready to follow the course indicated by Luther in case of necessity, viz. to tell a downright lie; rather than that the Prince should be forced to vindicate openly his position it was better to deny it flatly. They declared, without, however, convincing the Conference, “that a flat denial was less culpable before God and in conscience—as could be proved by many examples from Scripture—than to cause a great scandal and lamentable falling away of many good people by a plain and open admission and vindication.”[139]

Philip of Hesse was not particularly edified by the result of the Eisenach Conference. Of all the reports which gradually reached him, those which most aroused his resentment were, first, that Luther should expect him to tell a lie and deny the second marriage, and, secondly, his threat to withdraw the testimony, as issued in error.

Luther had, so far, avoided all direct correspondence with the Landgrave concerning the disastrous affair. Now, however, he was forced to make some statement in reply to a not very friendly letter addressed to him by the Prince.[140]

In this Philip, alluding to the invitation to tell a lie, says: “I will not lie, for lying has an evil sound and no Apostle or even Christian has ever taught it, nay, Christ has forbidden it and said we should keep to yea and nay. That I should declare the lady to be a whore, that I refuse to do, for your advice does not permit of it. I should surely have had no need of your advice to take a whore, neither does it do you credit.” Yet he declares himself ready to give an “obscure reply,” i.e. an ambiguous one; without need he would not disclose the marriage.

Nor does Luther’s threat of retracting the advice and of saying that he had “acted foolishly” affright him. The threat he unceremoniously calls a bit of foolery. “As to what you told my Councillors, viz. that, rather than reveal my reasons, you would say you had acted foolishly, please don’t commit such folly on my account, for then I will confess the reasons, and, in case of necessity, prove them now or later, unless the witnesses die in the meantime.” “Nothing more dreadful has ever come to my ears than that it should have occurred to a brave man to retract what he had granted by a written dispensation to a troubled conscience. If you can answer for it to God, why do you fear and shrink from the world? If the matter is right ‘in conscientia’ before the Almighty, the Eternal and Immortal God, what does the accursed, sodomitic, usurious and besotted world matter?” Here he is using the very words in which Luther was wont to speak of the world and of the contempt with which it should be met. He proceeds with a touch of sarcasm: “Would to God that you and your like would inveigh against and punish those in whom you see such things daily, i.e. adultery, usury and drunkenness—and who yet are supposed to be members of the Church—not merely in writings and sermons but with serious considerations and the ban which the Apostles employed, in order that the whole world may not be scandalised. You see these things, yet what do you and the others do?” In thus finding fault with the Wittenberg habits, he would appear to include the Elector of Saxony, who had a reputation for intemperance. He knew that Luther’s present attitude was in part determined by consideration for his sovereign. In his irritation he also has a sly hit at the Wittenberg theologians: At Eisenach his love for the “lady” (Margaret) had been looked upon askance; “I confess that I love her, but in all honour.... But that I should have taken her because she pleased me, that is only natural, for I see that you holy people also take those that please you. Therefore you may well bear with me, a poor sinner.”

Luther replied on July 24,[141] that he had not deserved that the Landgrave should write to him in so angry a tone. The latter was wrong in supposing, that he wanted to get his neck out of the noose and was not doing all that he could to “serve the Prince humbly and faithfully.” It was not no his own account that he wished to keep his advice secret; “for though all the devils wished the advice to be made public, I would give them by God’s Grace such an answer that they would not find any fault in it.”

Faced by such unbounded defiance Philip and his luckless bigamy, in spite of the assurance he saw fit to assume, seemed indeed in a bad way. One can feel how Luther despised the man. In spite of his painful embarrassment, he is aware of his advantage. He indeed stood in need of the Landgrave’s assistance in the matter of the new Church system, but the latter was entirely dependent on Luther’s help in his disastrous affair.

Hence Philip, in his reply, is more amiable, though he really demolishes Luther’s objections. This reply he sent the day after receiving Luther’s letter.[142]

Certain words which had been let fall at Eisenach had “enraged and maddened” him (Philip). He had, however, good “scriptural warrant for his action,” and Luther should not forget that, “what we did, we did with a good conscience.” There was thus no need for the Prince to bow before the Wittenbergers. “We are well aware that you and Philip [Melanchthon] cannot defend us against the secular powers, nor have we ever asked this of you.” “That Margaret should not be looked upon as a prostitute, this we demand and insist upon, and the presence of pious men [Melanchthon, etc.] at the wedding, your advice, and the marriage contract, will prove what she is.” “In fine, we will allow it to remain a secret marriage and dispensation, and will give a reply which shall conceal the matter, and be neither yea nor nay, as long as we can and may.” He insists, however, that, “if we cannot prevent it,” then we shall bring the Wittenberg advice “into the light of day.”

As to telling a downright lie, that was impossible, because the marriage contract was in the hands of his second wife’s friends, who would at once take him to task.

“It was not our intention to enter upon a wordy conflict, or to set your pen to work.” Luther had said, that he would know how to get out of a tight corner, but what business was that of Philip’s: “We care not whether you get out or in.” As to Luther’s malicious allusion to his love for the beautiful Margaret, he says: “Since she took a fancy to us, we were fonder of her than of another, but, had she not liked us, then we should have taken another.” Hence he would have committed bigamy in any case. He waxes sarcastic about Luther’s remark, that the world would never acknowledge her as his wife, hinting that Luther’s own wife, and the consorts of the other preachers who had formerly been monks or priests, were likewise not regarded by the imperial lawyers as lawful wedded wives. He looked upon Margaret as his “wife according to God’s Word and your advice; such is God’s will; the world may regard our wife, yours and the other preachers’ as it pleases.”

Philip, however, was diplomatic enough to temper all this with friendly assurances. “We esteem you,” he says, “as a very eminent theologian, nor shall we doubt you, so long as God continues to give you His Spirit, which Spirit we still recognise in you.... We find no fault with you personally and consider you a man who looks to God. As to our other thoughts, they are just thoughts, and come and go duty free.”

These “duty-free” thoughts, as we readily gather from the letter, concerned the Courts of Saxony, whose influence on Luther was a thorn in the Landgrave’s flesh. There was the “haughty old Vashti” at Dresden (Duchess Catherine), without whom the “matter would not have gone so far”; then, again, there was Luther’s “Lord, the Elector.” The “cunning of the children of the world,” which the Landgrave feared would infect Luther, had its head-quarters at these Courts. But if it came to the point, such things would be “disclosed and manifested” by him, the Landgrave, to the Elector and “many other princes and nobles,” that “you would have to excuse us, because what we did was not done merely from love, but for conscience’s sake and in order to escape eternal damnation; and your Lord, the Elector, will have to admit it too and be our witness.” And in still stronger language, he “cites” the Elector, or, rather, both the Elector and himself, to appear before Luther: “If this be not sufficient, then demand of us, and of your master, that we tell you in confession such things as will satisfy you concerning us. They would, however, sound ill, so help me God, and we hope to God that He will by all means preserve us from such in future. You wish to learn it, then learn it, and do not look for anything good but for the worst, and if we do not speak the truth, may God strike us”; “to prove it” we are quite ready. Other things (see below, xxiv., 2) make it probable, that the Elector is here accused as being Philip’s partner in some very serious sin. It looks as though Philip’s intention was to frighten him and prevent his proceeding further against him. Since Luther in all probability brought the letter to the cognisance of the Elector, the step was, politically, well thought out.

Melanchthon’s Complaints.

Melanchthon, as was usual with him, adopted a different tone from Luther’s in the matter. He was very sad, and wrote lengthy letters of advice.

As early as June 15, to ease his mind, he sent one to the Elector Johann Frederick, containing numerous arguments against polygamy, but leaving open the possibility of secret bigamy.[143] Friends informed the Landgrave that anxiety about the bigamy was the cause of Melanchthon’s serious illness. Philip, on the other hand, wrote, that it was the Saxon Courts which were worrying him.[144] Owing to his weakness he was unable to take part in the negotiations at Eisenach. On his return to Wittenberg he declared aloud that he and Luther had been outwitted by the malice of Philip of Hesse. The latter’s want of secrecy seemed to show the treasonable character of the intrigue. To Camerarius he wrote on Aug. 24: “We are disgraced by a horrid business concerning which I must say nothing. I will give you the details in due time.”[145] On Sep. 1, he admits in a letter to Veit Dietrich: “We have been deceived, under a semblance of piety, by another Jason, who protested conscientious motives in seeking our assistance, and who even swore that this expedient was essential for him.”[146] He thus gives his friend a peep into the Wittenberg advice, of which he was the draughtsman, and in which he, unlike Luther, could see nothing that came under the Seal of Confession. The name of the deceitful polygamist Jason he borrows from Terence, on whom he was then lecturing. Since Luther, about the same time, also quotes from Terence when speaking at table about Philip’s bigamy, we may infer that he and Melanchthon had exchanged ideas on the work in question (the “Adelphi”). Melanchthon was also fond of dubbing the Hessian “Alcibiades” on account of his dissembling and cunning.[147]

Most remarkable, however, is the assertion he makes in his annoyance, viz. that the Landgrave was on the point of losing his reason: “This is the beginning of his insanity.”[148] Luther, too, had said he feared he was going crazy, as it ran in the family.[149] Philip’s father, Landgrave William II, had succumbed to melancholia as the result of syphilis. The latter’s brother, William I, had also been insane. Philip’s son, William IV, sought to explain the family trouble by a spell cast over one of his ancestors by the “courtisans” at Venice.[150] In 1538, previous to the bigamy scandal, Henry of Brunswick had written, that the Landgrave, owing to the French disease, was able to sleep but little, and would soon go mad.[151]

Melanchthon became very sensitive to any mention of the Hessian bigamy. At table, on one occasion in Aug., 1540, Luther spoke of love; no one was quite devoid of love because all at least desired enjoyment; one loved his wife, another his children, others, like Carlstadt, loved honour. When Bugenhagen, with an allusion to the Landgrave, quoted the passage from Virgil’s “Bucolica”: “Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori,” Melanchthon jumped up and cried: “Pastor, leave out that passage.”[152]

Brooding over the permission given, the scholar sought earnestly for grounds of excuse for the bigamy. “I looked well into it beforehand,” he writes in 1543, “I also told the Doctor [Luther] to weigh well whether he could be mixed up in the affair. There are, however, circumstances of which the women [their Ducal opponents at Meissen] are not aware, and understand not. The man [the Landgrave] has many strange ideas on the Deity. He also confided to me things which I have told no one but Dr. Martin; on account of all this we have had no small trouble.”[153] We must not press the contradiction this presents to Melanchthon’s other statement concerning the Prince’s hypocrisy.

Melanchthon’s earlier letter dated Sep. 1, 1540, Camerarius ventured to publish in the collection of his friend’s letters only with omissions and additions which altered the meaning.

Literary Feud with Duke Henry of Brunswick.

Prominent amongst those who censured the bigamy was the Landgrave’s violent opponent Duke Henry of Brunswick-WolfenbÜttel. The Duke, a leader of the Catholic Alliance formed to resist the Schmalkalden Leaguers in North Germany, published in the early ‘forties several controversial works against Philip of Hesse. This brisk and active opponent, whose own character was, however, by no means unblemished, seems to have had a hand in the attacks of other penmen upon the Landgrave. Little by little he secured fairly accurate accounts of the proceedings in Hesse and at Wittenberg, and, as early as July 22, 1540, made a general and public reference to what had taken place.[155]

In a tract published on Nov. 3, he said quite openly that the Landgrave had “two wives at the same time, and had thus rendered himself liable to the penalties against double marriage.” The Elector of Saxony had, however, permitted “his biblical experts at the University of Wittenberg to assist in dealing with these nice affairs,” nay, had himself concurred in the bigamy.[156]

In consequence of these and other charges contained in the Duke’s screed, Luther wrote the violent libel entitled “Wider Hans Worst,” of which the still existing manuscript shows in what haste and frame of mind the work was dashed off. All his exasperation at the events connected with the bigamy now become public boils up in his attack on the “Bloodhound, and incendiary Harry” of Brunswick, and the “clerical devil’s whores in the Popish robbers’ cave.”[157] Of Henry’s charge he speaks in a way which is almost more than a mere concealing of the bigamy.[158] He adds: “The very name of Harry stinks like devil’s ordure freshly dropped in Germany. Did he perchance desire that not he alone should stink so horribly in the nostrils of others, but that he should make other honourable princes to stink also?” He was a renegade and a coward, who did everything like an assassin. “He ought to be set up like a eunuch, dressed in cap and bells, with a feather-brush in his hand to guard the women and that part on account of which they are called women, as the rude Germans say.” “Assassin-adultery, assassin-arson indeed became this ‘wild cat,’” etc.

Even before this work was finished, in February, 1541, a pseudonymous attack upon the Landgrave appeared which “horrified Cruciger,”[159] who was with Luther at Wittenberg. The Landgrave is here upbraided with the bigamy, the reproaches culminating in the following: “I cannot but believe that the devil resides in your Serene Highness, and that the MÜnster habit has infected your S.H., so that your S.H. thinks that you may take as many wives as you please, even as the King of MÜnster did.”

An anonymous reply to this screed penned by the pastor of Melsungen, Johann Lening, is the first attempt at a public justification of Philip’s bigamy. The author only disclaims the charge that the Landgrave had intended to “introduce a new ‘ius.’”[160]

Henry of Brunswick replied to “Hans Worst” and to this vindication of the bigamy in his “QuadruplicÆ” of May 31, 1541. He said there of Luther’s “Hans Worst”: “That we should have roused Luther, the arch-knave, arch-heretic, desperate scoundrel and godless arch-miscreant, to put forth his impious, false, unchristian, lousy and rascally work is due to the scamp [on the throne] of Saxony.” “We have told the truth so plainly to his MÜnsterite brother, the Landgrave, concerning his bigamy, that he has been unable to deny it, but admits it, only that he considers that he did not act dishonourably, but rightly and in a Christian fashion, which, however, is a lie and utterly untrue.” In some of his allegations then and later, such as that the Landgrave was thinking of taking a third wife “in addition to his numerous concubines,” and that he had submitted to re-baptism, the princely knight-errant was going too far. A reply and defence of the Landgrave, published in 1544, asserts with unconscious humour that the Landgrave knew how to take seriously “to heart what God had commanded concerning marriage ... and also the demands of conjugal fidelity and love.”

Johann Lening, pastor of Melsungen, formerly a Carthusian in the monastery of Eppenberg, had been the most zealous promoter of the bigamy. He was also very active in rendering literary service in its defence. The string of Bible proofs alleged by Philip in his letter to Luther of July 18 (above, p. 55 f.) can undoubtedly be traced to his inspiration. In October, 1541, he was at Augsburg with Gereon Sailer,[161] the physician so skilled in the treatment of syphilis; a little later Veit Dietrich informed Melanchthon of his venereal trouble.[162] He was much disliked by the Saxons and the Wittenbergers on account of his defence of his master. Chancellor BrÜck speaks of him as a “violent, bitter man”; Luther calls him the “Melsingen nebulo” and the “monstrum Carthusianum”;[163] Frederick Myconius speaks of the “lenones Leningi” and fears he will catch the “Dionysiorum vesania.”

Such was the author of the “Dialogue of Huldericus Neobulus,” which has become famous in the history of the Hessian Bigamy; it appeared in 1541, towards the end of summer, being printed at Marburg at Philip’s expense.

The book was to answer in the affirmative the question contained in the sub-title: “Whether it be in accordance with or contrary to the Divine, natural, Imperial and ecclesiastical law, to have simultaneously more than one wife.” The author, however, clothed his affirmation in so pedantic and involved a form as to make it unintelligible to the uninitiate so that Philip could say that, “it would be a temptation to nobody to follow his example,” and that it tended rather to dissuade from bigamy than to induce people to commit it.[164]

This work was very distasteful to the Courts of Saxony, and Luther soon made up his mind to write against it.

He wrote on Jan. 10, 1542, to Justus Menius, who had sent him a reply of his own, intended for the press: “Your book will go to the printers, but mine is already waiting publication; your turn will come next.... How this man disgusts me with the insipid, foolish and worthless arguments he excretes.” To this Pandora all the Hessian gods must have contributed. “Bucer smells bad enough already on account of the Ratisbon dealings.... May Christ keep us well disposed towards Him and steadfast in His Holy Word. Amen.”[165] From what Luther says he was not incensed at the Dialogue of Neobulus so much on account of its favouring polygamy itself, but because, not content with allowing bigamy conditionally, and before the tribunal of conscience, it sought also to erect it into a public law. When, however, both Elector and Landgrave[166] begged him to refrain from publishing his reply, he agreed and stopped the printers, though only after a part of it had already left the press.[167]

His opinion concerning the permissibility of bigamy in certain cases he never changed in spite of the opposition it met with. But, in Luther’s life, hardly an instance can be cited of his having shrunk back when attacked. Rarely if ever did his defiance—which some admire—prove more momentous than on this occasion. An upright man is not unwilling to allow that he may have been mistaken in a given instance, and, when better informed, to retract. Luther, too, might well have appealed to the shortness of the time allowed him for the consideration of the counsel he had given at Wittenberg. Without a doubt his hand had been forced. Further, it might have been alleged in excuse for his act, that misapprehension of the Bible story of the patriarchs had dragged him to consequences which he had not foreseen. It would have been necessary for him to revise completely his Old-Testament exegesis on this point, and to free it from the influence of his disregard of ecclesiastical tradition and the existing limitations on matrimony. In place of this, consideration for the exalted rank of his petitioners induced him to yield to the plausible reasons brought forward by a smooth-tongued agent and to remain silent.

The tract of Menius, on the same political grounds, was likewise either not published at all or withdrawn later. The truth was, that it was desirable that the Hessian affair should come under discussion as little as possible, so that no grounds should be given “to increase the gossip,” as Luther put it in 1542; “I would rather it were left to settle as it began, than that the filth should be stirred up under the noses of the whole world.”[168]

The work of Neobulus caused much heart-burning among the Swiss reformers; of this we hear from Bullinger, who also, in his Commentary on Matthew, in 1542, expressed himself strongly against the tract.[169] His successor, Rudolf Gualther, Zwingli’s son-in-law, wrote that it was shocking that a Christian Prince should have been guilty of such a thing and that theologians should have been found to father, advocate and defend it.[170]

In time, however, less was heard of the matter and the rumours died down. A peace was even patched up between the Landgrave and the Emperor, chiefly because the Elector of Saxony was against the Schmalkalden League being involved in the Hessian affair. Without admitting the reality of the bigamy, and without even mentioning it, Philip concluded with Charles V a treaty which secured for him safety. Therein he made to the Emperor political concessions of such importance[171] as to arouse great discontent and grave suspicions in the ranks of the Evangelicals. At a time when the German Protestants were on the point of appealing to France for assistance against Charles V, he promised to do his best to hinder the French and to support the Imperial interests. In the matter of the Emperor’s feud with JÜlich, he pledged himself to neutrality, thus ensuring the Emperor’s success. After receiving the Imperial pardon on Jan. 24, 1541, his complete reconciliation was guaranteed by the secret compact of Ratisbon on June 13 of the same year. He had every reason to be content, and as the editor of Philip’s correspondence with Bucer writes,[172] what better could even the Emperor desire? The great danger which threatened was a league of the German Protestants with France. And now the Prince, who alone was able to bring this about, withdrew from the opposition party, laid his cards on the table, left the road open to Guelders, offered his powerful support both within and outside of the Empire, and, in return, asked for nothing but the Emperor’s favour. The Landgrave’s princely allies in the faith were pained to see him forsake “the opposition [to the Emperor]. For their success the political situation was far more promising than in the preceding winter. An alliance with France offered [the Protestants] a much greater prospect of success than one with England, for FranÇois I was far more opposed to the Emperor than was Henry VIII.... Of the German Princes, William of JÜlich had already pledged himself absolutely to the French King.”[173]

Philip was even secretly set on obtaining the Pope’s sanction to the bigamy. Through Georg von Carlowitz and Julius Pflug he sought to enter into negotiations with Rome; they were not to grudge an outlay of from 3000 to 4000 gulden as an “offering.”[174] As early as the end of 1541 Chancellor Feige received definite instructions in the matter.

The Hessian Court had, however, in the meantime been informed, that Cardinal Contarini had given it to be understood that “no advice or assistance need be looked for from the Pope.”[175]

Landgravine Christina died in 1549, and, after her death, the unfortunate marriage was gradually buried in oblivion.—But did Landgrave Philip, after the conclusion of the second marriage, cease from immoral intercourse with women as he had so solemnly promised Luther he would?

In the Protestant periodical, “Die christliche Welt,”[176] attention was drawn to a Repertory of the archives of Philip of Hesse, published in 1904,[177] in which a document is mentioned which would seem to show that Philip was unfaithful even subsequent to his marriage with Margaret. The all too brief description of the document is as follows: “Suit of Johann Meckbach against Landgrave Philip on behalf of Lady Margaret; the Landgrave’s infidelity; Margaret’s demand that her marriage be made public.” “This sounds suspicious,” remarks W. KÖhler, “we have always taken it for granted that the bigamy was moral only in so far as the Landgrave Philip refrained from conjugal infidelity after its conclusion, and now we are confronted with this charge. Is it founded?” Concerning this new document N. Paulus remarks: “In order to be able properly to appreciate its importance, we should have to know more of the suit. At any rate Margaret would not have caused representations to be made to her ‘husband’ concerning his infidelity without very weighty reasons.”[178]

In the Landgrave’s family great dissatisfaction continued to be felt with Luther. When, in 1575, Philip’s son and successor, Landgrave William IV, was entertaining Palsgravine Elisabeth, a zealous friend of Lutheranism, he spoke to her about Luther, as she relates in a letter.[179] “He called Dr. Luther a rascal, because he had persuaded his father to take two wives, and generally made out Dr. Luther to be very wicked. Whereat I said that it could not be true that Luther had done such a thing.”—So completely had the fact become shrouded in obscurity. William, however, fetched her the original of the Wittenberg testimony. Although she was unwilling to look at it lest her reverence for Luther should suffer, yet she was forced to hear it. In her own words: “He locked me in the room and there I had to remain; he gave it me to read, and my husband [the Palsgrave Johann Casimir] who was also with me, and likewise a Zwinglian Doctor both abused Dr. Luther loudly and said we simply looked upon him as an idol and that he was our god. The Landgrave brought out the document and made the Doctor read it aloud so that I might hear it; but I refused to listen to it and thought of something else; seeing I refused to listen the Landgrave gave me a frightful scolding, but afterwards he was sorry and craved pardon.”

There is no doubt that William’s dislike for Luther, here displayed, played a part in his refusal to accept the formula of Concord in 1580.[180]

So meagre were the proofs made public of Luther’s share in the step which Philip of Hesse had taken, that, even in Hesse, the Giessen professor Michael Siricius was able to declare in a writing of 1679, entitled “Uxor una” that Luther’s supposed memorandum was an invention.[181]

Of the Wittenberg “advice” only one, fairly long, but quite apocryphal version, was put in circulation during Melanchthon’s lifetime; it appeared in the work of Erasmus Sarcerius, “On the holy married state,” of which the Preface is dated in 1553. It is so worded as to leave the reader under the impression that its authors had refused outright to give their consent. Out of caution, moreover, neither the authors nor the addressee are named.[182] In this version, supposed to be Luther’s actual text, it was embodied, in 1661, in the Altenburg edition of his works, then in the Leipzig reprint of the same (1729 ff.) and again in Walch’s edition (Halle, 1740 ff.).[183] Yet Lorenz Beger, in his work “DaphnÆus Arcuarius” (1679), had supplied the real text, together with Bucer’s instructions and the marriage contract, from “a prominent Imperial Chancery.” The importance of these documents was first perceived in France. Bossuet used them in his “Histoire des variations des Églises protestantes” (1688).[184] He was also aware that Landgrave Ernest, of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg, who returned to the Catholic Church in 1652, had supplied copies of the three documents (to Elector Carl Ludwig of the Palatine). In more recent times Max Lenz’s publication of the Hessian archives has verified these documents and supplied a wealth of other material which we have duly utilised in the above.

Opinions Old and New Regarding the Bigamy.

As more light began to be thrown on the history of the bigamy, Protestant historians, even apart from those already mentioned, were not slow in expressing their strong condemnation, as indeed was only to be expected.

Yet, notably in modern theological literature, some Protestants have seemed anxious to palliate the affair. An attempt is made to place the Wittenberg advice and Luther’s subsequent conduct in a more favourable light by emphasising more than heretofore the secrecy of the advice given, which Luther did not consider himself justified in revealing under any circumstances, and the publication of which the Landgrave was unjustly demanding. It is also urged, that the ecclesiastical influence of the Middle Ages played its part in Luther’s sanction of the bigamy. One author even writes: “the determining factor may have been,” that “at the critical moment the reformer made way for the priest and confessor”; elsewhere the same author says: “Thus the Reformation begins with a mediÆval scene.” Another Protestant theologian thinks that “the tendency, taken over from the Catholic Church,” to treat the marriage prohibitions as aspects of the natural law was really responsible; in Luther’s evangelical morality “there was a good lump of Romish morality, worthless quartz mingled with good metal”; “Catholic scruples” had dimmed Luther’s judgment in the matter of polygamy; to us the idea of bigamy appears “simply monstrous,” “but this is a result of age-long habits”; in the 16th century people thought “very differently.”

In the face of the detailed quotations from actual sources already given in the present chapter, all such opinions—not merely Luther’s own appeal to a “secret of confession,” invented by himself—are seen to be utterly unhistorical. Particularly so is the reference to the Catholic Middle Ages. It was just the Middle Ages, and the ecclesiastical tradition of earlier times, which excited among Luther’s contemporaries, even those of his own party, such opposition to the bigamy wherever news of the same penetrated in any shape or form.[190]

In the following we shall quote a few opinions of 16th-century Protestants not yet mentioned. With the historian their unanimous verdict must weigh more heavily in the scale than modern theories, which, other considerations apart, labour under the disadvantage of having been brought forward long after the event and the expressions of opinion which accompanied it, to bolster up views commonly held to-day.[191]

All there now remains to do is to illustrate, by statements made by Protestants in earlier and more recent times, two important points connected with the Hessian episode; viz. the unhappy part which politics played in Luther’s attitude, and what he said on lying. Here, again, during the last ten years there has been a movement in Luther’s favour amongst many Protestant theologians.

Concerning the part of politics W. Rockwell, the historian of the bigamy, openly admits, that: “By his threat of seeking protection from the Emperor for his bigamy, Philip overcame the unwillingness of the Wittenbergers to grant the requested dispensation.”[201] “It is clear,” he also says, “that political pressure was brought to bear on the Wittenbergers by the Landgrave, and that to this pressure they yielded.”[202]

That consideration for the effect his decision was likely to have on the attitude of the Landgrave weighed heavily in the balance with Luther in the matter of his “testimony,” it is scarcely possible to deny, after what we have seen. “The Hessian may fall away from us” (above, p. 46), such was one of the fears which undoubtedly had something to do with his compliance. To inspire such fear was plainly the object of Philip’s threat, that, should the Wittenbergers not prove amenable, he would make advances to the Emperor and the Pope, and the repeated allusions made by Luther and his friends to their dread of such a step, and of his falling away, show how his threat continued to ring in their ears.[203]

The result was all the more tragic. The compliance wrung from the Wittenbergers failed to protect the party from the evil they were so desirous of warding off. Philip’s reconciliation with the Emperor, as already pointed out, was very detrimental to the Schmalkalden League, however insincere his motives may have been.

This indignant language on the part of the Heidelberg historian of the Church has recently been described by a learned theologian on the Protestant side as both “offensive” and uncalled for. Considering Luther’s bold character it is surely very improbable, that an attempt to intimidate him would have had any effect except “to arouse his spirit of defiance”; not under the influence of mere “opportunism” did he act, but, rather, after having, as a confessor, heard “the cry of deep distress” he sought to come to “the aid of a suffering conscience.”—In answer to this we must refer the reader to what has gone before, where this view, which seems a favourite with some moderns, has already sufficiently been dealt with. It need only be added, that the learned author says of the bigamy, that “a fatal blunder” was made by Luther ... but only because the mediÆval confessor intervened. “The reformer was not able in every season and situation to assert the new religious principle which we owe to him; hence we have merely one of many instances of failure, though one that may well be termed grotesque and is scarcely to be matched.” “Nothing did more to hinder the triumphal progress of the Reformation than the Landgrave’s ‘Turkish marriage.’” As to the argument drawn from Luther’s boldness and defiance, a Protestant has pointed out, that we are not compelled to regard any compliance from motives of policy as “absolutely precluded”; to say that “political expediency played no part whatever in Luther’s case” is “going a little too far.” “Did then Luther never allow any room to political considerations? Even, for instance, in the question of armed resistance to the Emperor?”[211]

Referring to Luther’s notorious utterance on lying, G. Ellinger, the Protestant biographer of Melanchthon, says: Luther’s readiness to deny what had taken place is “one of the most unpleasing episodes in his life and bears sad testimony to the frailty of human nature.” His statements at the Eisenach Conference “show how even a great man was driven from the path of rectitude by the blending of politics with religion. He advised a ‘good, downright lie’ that the world might be saved from a scandal.... It is sad to see a great man thus led astray, though at the same time we must remember, that, from the very start, the whole transaction had been falsified by the proposal to conceal it.”[212]

Th. Kolde says in a similar strain, in a work which is otherwise decidedly favourable to Luther, “Greater offence than that given by the ‘advice’ itself is given by the attitude which the reformers took up towards it at a later date.”[213]