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Count Ulrich of Lindburg, a novel by William H. G. Kingston |
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Chapter 1 |
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_ CHAPTER ONE On the banks of the river Saal, in Merseburg, forming part of Saxony, at the time of which we speak, governed by the aged and excellent Elector Frederick, stood the Castle of Lindburg. It was one of those feudal piles of the Middle Ages, impregnable to the engines of ancient warfare, but which were destined to crumble before the iron shots with which cannon assailed them, as the system they represented was compelled to succumb to the light of that truth which the Gospel was then diffusing over the greater part of Europe. Ulrich, Count von Lindburg, or the Knight of Lindburg, as he was often called, sat in a room in his Castle, with his arm resting on a table and a book before him, at which, however, his eyes seldom glanced; his looks were thoughtful and full of care. He had engaged in much hard fighting in his younger days, and now all he wished for was rest and quiet, though the state of the times gave him but little hope of enjoying them. In his own mind, too, he was troubled about many things. Four years before the time at which he is introduced to the reader, he had visited Worms, during the time the Diet, summoned by the Emperor Charles the Fifth, was sitting, and was among those who found their way into the great hall where the Emperor and the chief princes, bishops, and nobles of the land were sitting, when Dr Martin Luther, replied to the chancellor of Treves, the orator of the Diet, who demanded whether he would retract the opinions put forth in numerous books he had published and sermons he had preached. "Since your most serene majesty and your high mightinesses require from me a clear, simple, and precise answer, I will give you one, and it is this: I cannot submit my fate either to the Pope or to the councils, because it is clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless, therefore, I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the Word of God, _I cannot and will not retract_, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience." And then, looking round on that assembly before which he stood, and which held his life in its hands, he said, "HERE I STAND, I CAN DO NO OTHER. MAY GOD HELP ME! AMEN!" The assembly were thunderstruck. Many of the princes found it difficult to conceal their admiration; even the emperor exclaimed, "This monk speaks with an intrepid heart and unshaken courage." Truly he did. This is the weakness of God, which is stronger than man. God had brought together these kings and these prelates publicly to confound their wisdom. These bold words had had also a deep effect on the Knight of Lindburg, and he kept meditating on them as he rode homeward towards the north. Could it, then, be possible that the lowly monk--the peasant's son--should be right, and all those great persons, who wished to condemn him, wrong? Was that faith, in which he himself had been brought up, not the true one? Was there a purer and a better? He must consult Father Nicholas Keller, his confessor, and hear what he had to say on the subject. The Knight carried out his intention. Father Nicholas was puzzled; scarcely knew what answer to make. It was a dreadful thing to differ with the Church--to rebel against the Pope. Dr Martin was a learned man, but he opined that he was following too closely in the steps of John Huss, and the Knight, his patron, knew that they led to the stake. He had no wish that any one under his spiritual charge should go there. As to the Scriptures, he had read but very small portions of them, and he could not tell how far Dr Martin's opinions were formed from them. The Knight was not satisfied. He asked Father Nicholas to explain what was the Church, and if it was not founded on the Scriptures, on what was it founded? Father Nicholas replied that it was founded on Peter, and that the popes were Peter's successors, and that therefore the Church was founded on the Pope. The Knight remarked that from what he had heard of Peter he must have been a very different sort of person to Leo the Tenth, and he asked what we knew about Peter, and indeed the other apostles, except through the Scriptures? Father Nicholas, shaking his head at so preposterous a question, replied, "Through tradition." The Knight asked, "What is tradition?" Father Nicholas hesitated--coughed--hemmed--and then said, "My son, tradition--is tradition! And now let us change the subject, it is becoming dangerous." The Knight was not yet satisfied, and he determined to look more particularly into the matter. When, therefore, his son Eric came home, and expressed a strong desire to migrate to Wittemburg, that he might pursue his studies under the learned professors of that University, Drs. Martin Luther, Melancthon, Jerome Schurff, Jonas Armsdorff, Augustin Schurff, and others, he made no objection. Dame Margaret, his wife, however, and Father Nicholas, loudly protested against Eric's going among such a nest of heretics. "He will be perverted," they exclaimed; "he will share the fate of Huss." "I have promised him that he shall have his will, and perhaps he will be able to come back and tell us the meaning of tradition," answered the Knight, with a peculiar look at Father Nicholas. "There are, besides, two or three other things about which I want him to gain information for me." Dame Margaret knew from experience that when the knight, who was an old soldier and wont to rule in his own house, said a thing, he meant it. She therefore held her peace, and it was finally arranged that Eric should forthwith set off for Wittemburg. Dame Margaret was a very well-meaning woman. She could not prevent her son from going to the heretical University, but she hoped by her admonitions and warnings that she might prevent him from imbibing the dangerous principles which she understood were taught there. She consulted Father Nicholas on the subject; indeed she never failed to consult him on all subjects, temporal as well as spiritual, connected with her family, so that the father had a good deal of influence in the household. He did not give her any great hopes of success. "With all respect be it spoken of a son of yours, Eric has ever been obstinate and dull-headed, and turned a deaf ear to all my ghostly counsels and exhortations. Very like his father, the knight, I regret to say," he observed; "however, there can be no harm in warning him. Tell him all I have told you about that heresiarch, Dr Martin, and if he believes what you say, you may thus have the happiness of counteracting the effects of the evil and abominable instructions he will receive." This was a bright idea. Father Nicholas had been accustomed to say a good many hard things of Dr Luther and his friends. The plan must succeed. While, like a good mother as she really wished to be, Dame Margaret was preparing Eric's shirts and hosen, a new cloak, and other things for his journey, she sent for her son that she might talk to him. She was alone; Eric kissed her hand affectionately, as he entered, and stood respectfully before her-- "You are going away for a long period from your father and me, and from our esteemed Father Nicholas, and you will be exposed to countless perils and dangers, my son," she began. "You have a desire to go among those people, holding new-fangled doctrines, for the sake of the novelty and excitement; that is but natural, so I scarcely blame you; but beware, my son, this Dr Martin himself is, I hear, a wild, unstable character, a roisterer and wine-bibber, who desires to overthrow our holy Father, the Pope, for the sake of ruling, by his wicked incantations and devices, in his stead." "Others speak very differently of him, my mother," answered Eric, humbly; "but I shall know more about him when I have been to Wittemburg and heard what he and his friends have to say for themselves." "Alas, it may be too late when you once get into his toils," sighed Dame Margaret. "They say that he has a compact with the Evil One, and he it is who gives him the wonderful power he possesses over men's minds and makes them oppose our Father, the Pope, and our holy mother Church." "I have not heard that Dr Martin Luther has been guilty of any deeds such as those in which the Evil One especially takes delight, and we must judge of people by the works they perform," answered Eric, in the gentle tone which his affectionate respect for his mother induced him to employ. "I know that Dr Martin is a learned man; he desires to introduce learning and a pure literature into our fatherland, and he is moreover an earnest seeker after the truth, and has sincerely at heart the eternal interests of his fellow-men. He is bold and brave because he believes his cause to be righteous and favoured by God. That is the account I have heard of him; I shall know whether it is the true one when I get to Wittemburg." "They say that he preaches that the convents should be thrown open, and the priests allowed to marry, because he himself wants to take a wife. They say that the motives for all he does are very evident," continued Dame Margaret, not listening to her son's remark. "I should have thought that had he been plotting from the first to oppose the power of the Pope for the sake of marrying he would have taken a wife long ago. There has been nothing to hinder him. Certainly not many 'pfaffen' would have been so scrupulous. He himself has remained single, and is a man, several of my friends who know him assure me, singularly abstemious; often he goes a whole day or more without food, and his usual meals are of the simplest kind. It is true that when he mixes with his fellow-men his heart expands and he does not refuse the wine cup or the generous food placed before him. His is no churlish spirit to turn away from the good things kind Heaven has provided for man. God sends us trials, but He intends us to enjoy what He has in His loving mercy given us in this world, and never throws temptations to sin in our way, as some foolish teachers would make us believe. But as to Dr Martin's mode of life, I shall be able to tell you more about it when I have been to Wittemburg." Dame Margaret sighed deeply, she had not yet quite said her say, that is, what Father Nicholas had told her to say. "My son," she continued, "I am informed that evil people are saying many wrong things against our Holy Father, the Pope; that he has no business to call himself head of the Christian Church; that he is an extravagant, worldly man; that many predecessors have been as bad as bad could be. Indeed I cannot repeat all the dreadful things said of him." "But suppose, dear mother, that all the things said of him are true; suppose that Saint Peter never was at Rome, that he did not found a Church there, and was never Bishop of Rome; that designing men, for their own ambitious ends, have assumed that he was, and pretended to be his successors, and finally, finding the success of their first fraud, have claimed the right of ruling over the whole Christian world. But, however, when I go to Wittemburg I shall better know the truth of these things, and if they are calumnies, learn how to refute them." "Oh! my son! my son! how can you even venture to utter such dreadful heresies?" shrieked Dame Margaret, even before Eric had finished speaking; then, hearing his last words, she added, "Of course they are calumnies; of course you will refute them, and you will come back here, after you have completed your studies, and be the brave opponent of this Dr Martin and all his schismatic crew. But, my son, one of my chief objects in sending for you was to bestow on you a most invaluable relic, which will prove a sure and certain charm against all the dangers, more especially the spiritual ones, by which you may be surrounded. Neither Dr Martin nor even the Spirit of Evil himself will be able to prevail against you if you firmly trust to it, Father Nicholas assures me; for it contains not only a bit of the true cross, but a part of one of Saint Peter's fishing-hooks, and a portion of the thumb-nail of Saint James. Let me put it round your neck, my son, and thus armed I shall, with confidence, see you go forth to combat with the world, the flesh and the devil." Dame Margaret spoke seriously; she was merely giving expression to the common belief in relics entertained, not only by ignorant peasants but by the highest nobility and the great mass of the population, a belief encouraged by the priests, who thus secured a sure market for their own manufactures. The excellent Elector Frederick, who became one of the great champions of the Reformation, had a short time before employed several dignitaries of the Church to collect relics for him, and had purchased a considerable number for very large sums. In the war between France and Spain, every Spanish soldier who was killed or taken prisoner was found to have a relic round his neck with a certificate from the priest who had sold it, that it would render his body invulnerable to the bullets or swords of the enemy. There is a very considerable sale of such articles, even to the present day, in Roman Catholic countries. Eric was therefore well aware of the value his mother would attach to the one she desired to bestow on him, yet he had already imbibed too large a portion of truth from the writings of Dr Luther and others, and the portions of Scripture he had read, not to look on the imposition with the contempt it deserved; still he was too dutiful a son to treat his mother's offer with disrespect. He thought a minute or more, and then replied slowly-- "I will not take your relic, mother, for I am already provided with a protection which will be sufficient for all the dangers I am likely to encounter. I will say nothing now as to the relic. When I have been to Wittemburg I may be able to tell you something more of its actual value." Nothing that Dame Margaret could say would induce him to take the article. On repeating the conversation with her son to Father Nicholas, she expressed a hope that Eric was not possessed of an evil spirit, which had induced him so pertinaciously to refuse the proffered gift. Father Nicholas bit his lip, frowned, said he could not say, it might possibly be an embryo one, such as had clearly entered into Dr Martin and many other persons at that time. It would certainly be safe to exorcise him, but the difficulty would be to get so obstinate a young man as Eric to submit to the operation. He would think about it, and try and devise some means by which the ceremony might be performed without the patient having the power to resist. This promise afforded a considerable amount of comfort to Dame Margaret, who had felt very uneasy ever since the idea had seized her, for she could not otherwise account for her son's refusing so inestimable a gift. The last night Eric slept at home he had a dream, at least he was not quite certain whether he was awake or dreaming. He opened his eyes and saw a light in the room, and his mother and Father Nicholas, and his sister Laneta, and his father's old henchman, Hans Bosch, who had often carried him in his arms, when he was a child, and still looked on him in the light of one, standing round his bed. His mother held a basin, and Hans a book, and the priest a censer, which he was swinging to and fro, and muttering words, in very doggerel Latin, while ever and anon, he sprinkled him with water from the basin. What Laneta was about, he could not exactly make out, but he thought that she had a box in her hands, which she held open. Had he not been very sleepy and tired he would have jumped up and ascertained whether what he saw was a vision or a reality; but, shutting his eyes, he went off soundly to sleep again, and sometime afterwards, when he awoke, the room was in darkness and he was alone. His mother, the next morning, regarded him with much more contented looks than her countenance had worn for the last day or two. It may as well be here mentioned that Eric discovered during his journey the precious relic, which he had declined taking, fastened into the collar of his cloak. He sighed and said to himself-- "Then, poor mother, let it be; should I take it out and should any misfortune happen to me she will say it was for want of the relic; if it remains and I receive damage I may the better prove to her the worthlessness of the thing. No wonder the sheep go astray when they have so ignorant a pastor as Father Nicholas." _ |
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