Chap.  IV.]  SENTIMENTS  OF  THE  EMPEROR  539

be  rooted  out."  In  the  spring  of  1528,  the  imperial  vice-chancellor,
provost  Waldkirchen,  repaired  to  Germany,  with  a  view  to  reviving  the
catholic  spirit.  As  he  travelled  from  town  to  town,  and  from  one  prince's
court  to  another,  it  was  universally  believed  that  his  intention  was  to
form  a  league  against  the  evangelical  party.1  The  exhortations  of  the
pope  to  that  effect  grew  more  and  more  earnest  and  vehement.  We
possess  a  letter  of  Sanga's,  dated  October,  1528,  in  which  he  tells  the
nuncio  at  the  imperial  court,  to  press  the  emperor  in  the  most  urgent
manner  to  devote  himself  more  than  heretofore  to  the  affairs  of  religion  :
already,  he  said,  there  were  people  who  went  further  than  Luther ;
already  they  denied  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  and  infant  bap-
tism : — what  would  posterity  say,  when  it  read  that,  under  the  greatest
emperor  who  had  governed  it  for  centuries,  Germany  swarmed  with
heresies  ?2

Of  the  emperor's  antipathy  to  them  there  could  be  no  doubt.  The
executions  which  took  place  in  the  Netherlands,  where  he  was  absolute
master,  afforded  sufficient  proof  of  it.  Erasmus,  who  knew  him  well,
was  persuaded  that  he  would  not  think  himself  emperor,  if  he  did  not
succeed  in  suppressing  Lutheranism.3

And  at  this  juncture  events  occurred  which  rendered  it  probable  that
he  would  acquire  the  power  of  doing  so.
We  saw  how  warlike  and  menacing  was  the  aspect  of  things,  even  so
late  as  the  beginning  of  the  year  1529  ;  but  the  emperor's  good  fortune
frustrated  the  schemes,  and  broke  the  spirit,  of  his  enemies.
