426 ENGLISHMEN AT WITTENBERG July of the protestants against the pope took the leading place. Henry, determined, if possible, to prevent the German protestants from attending the council lately summoned by Paul III, instructed his ambassadors to take this matter up with the reformers. Barnes, accordingly, took an active part in a great debate on the authority of general councils, held at Wittenberg on 10 October 1536 ; and two days later he attended a banquet at Luther's house, where the same subject was discussed amidst copious potations of wine. 1 When, shortly after this, the papal nuncio Vergerio came to Wittenberg, he tried to meet Barnes, but the latter declined his invitation, and he also tried, without much success, to draw out Luther's opinion on the plans of the English monarch. 2 Barnes continued to discuss in private with Luther the lawfulness of resisting the pope in calling a council in which the protestants were sure to be condemned, 3 and when Fox arrived he brought with him an important manifesto on the subject. It is significant, though not heretofore noticed, that this was at once reprinted in Wittenberg, 4 and that another letter of Henry on the same subject, urging Christian princes not to appear at the future papal council, was at once translated into German by Justus Jonas. 5 But all these negotiations, inspired by Cromwell and sealed by the marriage with Anne of Cleves, eventually came to nothing. Each side entertained a deep suspicion of each other, and in July 1539 Melanchthon wrote to Camerarius of the cruel edicts of the tyrant, as reported by English married priests who had come to Germany. 6 Besides the official envoys a good many Englishmen drifted to Wittenberg to profit by the society of the reformers. Some of these were decent men, some were fanatics, some knaves. 20 June 1536, that Henry had executed Anne for incest, adding, * talem exitium habet matrimonium illud execrabile ' ; see S. A. Gabbema, Epistularum ab illustribus et Claris Viris scriptarum Centuriae Tres, 1664, p. 22. Albert Pighius, provost of Utrecht, wrote against the divorce in 1539-40; see Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte, xx. 115, 118, 123. Osiander's opinion is in a newly found letter to Luther, in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1918, p. 293. For Brenz on the divorce, see H. Grisar, Luther, 1912, ii. 376. 1 Difcws, Disputationen, pp. 99, 106. 2 P. Smith, Life and Letters of Martin Luther, 1911, p. 304; W. Friedensburg, Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland, i. 1892, p. 538 ; Corpus Reformatorum, ii. 987 ; Bindseil, Lutheri Colloquia, iii. 89. 3 Bindseil, Lutheri Colloquia, i. 362.
- Illustrissimi ac potentissimi Regis, Senatus, populique Angliae sententia & de eo
Concilio, quod Paulus Episcopus Romanus Mantuae futurum simulavit, & de ea bulla quae ad Calendas Novembres id prorogavit. Vitembergae apud Iohannem Luft. MDXXXVTI. A copy of this extremely rare work is in my possession. 5 Unfortunately I have been unable to see this, but a copy of it, printed at ' Wittem- berg durch Joseph Klug, 1539 ', has been advertised for sale in Mr. Francis Edwards's Catalogue 322, no. 333. 6 Druffel, * Melanchthon-Handschriften aus der Chigi-Bibliothek ', Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munchen, Sitzungsberichte, 1876, p. 511.
