y and to make reforms
impossible. The reason for this compendious evasion was that Leo,
prior to his election, had taken an oath to revoke the indulgence of
Julius II, and to supply otherwise the money required for St. Peters.
The capitulation was in March 1513. The breach of the capitulation,
in March 1515. It was not desirable to raise a controversy as to the
broken oath, or to let Luther appear as the supporter of the Cardinals
against the Pope, or of the Pope expecting the tiara against the Pope
in possession of it. The effect was to deprive Luther of the hope
that he was at issue with a too eager subordinate in Saxony, and to
transfer his attack to Rome. It was now officially declared that
whatever is is right, and that no improvement or reform is wanted in
high places.

A graver personage came upon the scene when it was agreed that Luther
should appear before the Legate at Augsburg. Cardinal Cajetan was the
weightiest divine of the Court of Rome, and a man of original mind,
who was denounced in his order as a dangerous innovator, and whose
writings could not be reprinted without large omissions. He is
commemorated, in political literature, among the advocates of
tyrannicide. He was more dexterous than Prierias, although he also
refused a revision of current practices. By putting forward a decree
of Clement VI, he drove Luther to declare that no papal decree was a
sufficient security for him. So that, having assailed authority in
that which it tolerated or ignored, he assailed it now in that which
it directly affirmed, and was no longer a mere intruder, proffering
unwelcome advice, but a barbarian thundering at the gates of Rome.
Cajetan dismissed him ungraciously; and having been warned that a
Dominican cardinal might be perilous company in the circumstances, he
went off secretly and made his way home. He was already a popular
figure in Germany, and the Diet of Augsburg had complained that the
drain caused by indulgences left no supplies for the Turkish war.

When Luther returned to Wittenberg he was aware that his ideas
extended much farther than he had supposed. Since the refusal to
listen to his remonstrance, he knew that he was involved in a conflict
in which Rome would be against him. He knew also that many of his
countrymen would be on his side. The same discovery was unexpectedly
made by the next papal emissary, Miltitz, a Saxon layman, who was sent
to convey the Golden Rose to Luther's patr