terms of the proposed alliance. They were at once rejected.

Luther owed much to Erasmus, but they could never combine. He looked
upon the purpose of the other as essentially rationalistic, Pelagian,
and pagan. He foresaw that the coming struggle would be not with the
old school, but with the new; that the obstacle to the Reformation was
the Renaissance, and the enemy's name Erasmus. The Franciscan's
profound and dazzling scheme miscarried, and Luther appeared before
the Diet. Prompted by Glapion, the Imperial spokesman took no notice
of Luther's own specific views, or of the Papal Bull against them.
But he invited him to dissociate himself from Wyclif and John Hus on
those matters which had been censured at Constance. That Council was
the venerated safeguard of Catholic and Imperial reformers, and the
strongest weapon of opposition to Rome. A Council which compelled the
Emperor to burn a divine alive, after giving him a safe-conduct, was in
no good odour just then with Luther, standing by the waves of the
Rhine, which swept the ashes of John Hus away into oblivion. They
then represented to Luther that the Diet was on his side, against
Roman encroachments and the theory of penance; they praised his
writings generally, and proposed that unsettled matters should be left
to the decision of a future Council. To this he was willing to agree.
But he stipulated that there should be no judgment except by the
standard of Scripture. They replied that it stood to reason, and
could not be made the object of a special condition. They meant
different things, and the discussion came to naught. But important
concessions had been made, and many opportunities had been offered,
for the Diet was drawing up "the grievances of the German nation," and
for that policy he was a desirable ally. Luther declined to concede
anything, and a month later the Emperor signed the sentence of
outlawry. In his Spanish dominions he was a jealous upholder of the
Inquisition, even against the Pope, and of all the princes at Worms,
secular or ecclesiastical, he was the most hostile and the most
impatient.

Meanwhile Luther had gone back to Saxony, had preached on his way to
the Benedictines of Hersfeld, and then disappeared in the Thuringian
Forest. It was reported that he was dead; that his body had been
found with a sword through it. When Charles V was dying, a baffled
and disappointed man, he is said to have lamented that he kept his
word