From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

Henceforward Protestantism must advance by way
of the stake. But, lacking these many heroic deaths,
these hundreds of thousands of martyrs, what a
splendor would have been lacking to
Protestantism!
The conferences at Ratisbon lasted a fortnight,
and when at length they came to an end, the
Archduke Ferdinand and the Papal legate
journeyed together to Vienna. On the road thither,
they came to an understanding as to the practical
steps for carrying out the league. The sword must
be unsheathed. Gaspard Tauber, of Vienna, whose
crime was the circulating of Luther's books, was
among the first to suffer. An idea got abroad that
he would recant. Two pulpits were erected in the
churchyard of St. Stephen's. From the one Tauber
was to read his recantation, and from the other a
priest was to magnify the act as a new trophy of the
power of the Roman Church. Tauber rose in
presence of the vast multitude assembled in the
graveyard, who awaited in deep silence the first
words of recantation.
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