In the early part of the sixteenth century the fate of Europe was in
the hands of three men--Charles V., Emperor of Germany; Francis I.,
King of France, and Henry VIII., King of England.
Charles was half Fleming and half Spaniard, with the grasping
acquisitiveness of the one nation, and the proud, fanatical cruelty of
the other. Small of stature, plain in feature, sedate, quiet, crafty,
he was playing a desperate game with Francis I. for supremacy in Europe.
Francis, handsome as an Apollo, accomplished, fascinating, profligate,
was fully his match in ambition. Covering his worst qualities with a
gorgeous mantle of generosity and chivalrous sense of honor, he was the
insidious corrupter of morals in France; creating a sentiment which
laughed at virtue and innocence as qualities belonging to a lower class
of society.
Each of these men was striving to enlist Henry VIII. upon his side, by
appealing to the cruel caprices of that vain, ostentatious, arrogant
king, who in turn tried to use them for the furthering of his own
desires and purposes.
It was a sort of triangular game between the three monarchs--a game
full of finesse and far-reaching designs. If Charles attacked Francis,
Henry attacked Charles. While the astute Charles, knowing well the
desire of the English king to repudiate Katharine and make Anne Boleyn
his queen, whispered seductive promises of the papal chair to Wolsey,
who was in turn to establish his own influence over his royal master by
bringing about the marriage with Anne, upon which the king's heart was
set, and then be rewarded by securing Henry's promise of neutrality for
Charles, in his designs of over-reaching Francis--and after that, the
road to Rome for the aspiring cardinal would be a straight one!
It was an intricate diplomatic net-work, in which the thread of Henry's
desire for the fair Anne was mingled with Wolsey's desire for
preferment, and both interlaced with the ambitious, far-reaching
purposes of the other two monarchs.
All these events were very absorbing, and while they were splendidly
gilding the surface of Europe in the first half of the sixteenth
century, it seemed a small matter that an obscure monk was denouncing
the pope and defying the power of the Catholic Church. Little did
Charles suspect that when his victories and edicts were forgotten, the
words of the insolent heretic would still be echoing down the ages.
A few years later, and the Apollo-like beauty and false heart of
Francis I. were dissolving in the grave--Henry VIII. had gone to
another world, to meet his reward--and his wives--and Charles V. was
sadly counting his beads in the monastery of St. Jerome, at Yuste,
reflecting upon the vanity of human ambitions--but the murmur of
protest from the unknown monk had become a roar--the rivulet had
swollen into a threatening torrent. As it is the invisible forces that
are the most powerful in nature, so it is the obscure and least
observed events that have accomplished the most tremendous revolutions
in human affairs.
In the year 1517, when it had not yet occurred to Henry's sensitive
conscience that his marriage with Katharine, his brother's widow, was
illegal, and while Charles V., that sedate young man, who "looked so
modest, and soared so high," was revolving plans for the extension of
his empire, Pope Leo X., the pious Vicar of Christ upon earth, and
elegant patron of Michael Angelo and Raphael, found his income all too
small for his magnificent tastes. It does not seem to have occurred to
him that his tastes were too costly for his income; he simply
recognized that something must be done, and at once, to fill his empty
purse. But what should it be? A simple and ingenious expedient solved
the perplexing problem. He would issue a proclamation to his "loving,
faithful children," that he would grant absolution for all sorts of
crimes, the prices graduated to suit the enormity of the offence. We
have not seen the proclamation, but doubt not it was in most caressing
Latin, for can anything exceed the velvety softness of the gloves worn
on the hands which sign papal decrees?
Simple lying and slander were cheap; perjury and sins against chastity
more costly; while the use of the stiletto, of poison, and the hired
assassin could be enjoyed only by the richest. It worked well. In the
hopeful words of a pious dignitary, "as soon as the money chinks in the
coffer, the soul springs out of purgatory." Who could resist such
promise? Money flowed in swollen streams into the thirsty coffers,
many even paying in advance for crimes they intended to commit!
Martin Luther was the one man who dared to stand up and denounce this
tax upon crime, this papal trade in vice. The people had at last found
a voice and a leader.
Protestantism sprang into existence without the slow process of growth.
It had long been maturing in silence and darkness, and at the trumpet
tones of Luther, declared itself a power upon the earth. Here was a
revolt beyond the reach of thumbscrew and stake! You could not burn a
million people!