"unchristian cannon" forced him to retire from this city. On October
10 the Council of Regency declared him an outlaw. A league formed by
Treves, the Palatinate and Hesse, defeated him and captured his castle
at Landstuhl in May, 1523. Mortally wounded he died on May 7.

Alike unhurt and unhelped by such incidents as the revolt of the
knights, the main current of religious revolution swept onwards. Leo X
died on December 1, 1521, and in his place was elected Adrian of
Utrecht, a man of very different character. [Sidenote: Adrian VI,
1522-33] Though he had already taken a strong stand against Luther, he
was deeply resolved to reform the corruption of the church. To the
Diet called at Nuremberg [Sidenote: Diet of Nuremberg, 1522] in the
latter part of 1522 he sent as legate Chieregato with a brief demanding
the suppression of the schism. It was monstrous, said he, that one
little brother should seduce a whole nation from the path trodden by so
many martyrs and learned doctors. Do you suppose, he asked, that the
people will longer respect civil government if they are taught to
despise the canons and decrees of the spiritual power? At the same
time Adrian wrote to Chieregato:

Say that we frankly confess that God permits this
persecution of his church on account of the sins of men,
especially those of the priests and prelates. . . . We
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know that in this Holy See now for some years there have
been many abominations, abuses in spiritual things,
excesses in things commanded, in short, that all has become
perverted. . . . We have all turned aside in our ways,
nor was there, for a long time, any who did right,--no,
not one.

This confession rather strengthened the reform party, than otherwise,
making its demands seem justified; and all that the Diet did towards
the settlement of the religious question was to demand that a council,
with representation of the laity, should be called in a German city. A
long list of grievances against the church was again drawn up and laid
before the emperor.

The same Diet took up other matters. The need for reform and the
impotence of the Council of Regency had both been demonstrated by the
Sickingen affair. A law against monopolies was passed, limiting the
capital of any single company to fifty thousand gulden. In order to
provide money for the central government a customs duty of 4 per cent.
ad valorem was ordered. Both these measures weighed on