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

Chapter 8
War of the Peasants
THE sun of the Reformation was mounting into
the sky, and promising to fill the world with light.
In a moment a cloud gathered, overspread the
firmament, and threatened to quench the young day
in the darkness of a horrible night.
The troubles that now arose had not been
foreseen by Luther. That the Pope, whom the
Reformation would despoil of the triple crown,
with all the spiritual glory and temporal power
attendant thereon, should anathematise it; that the
emperor, whose scheme of policy and ambition it
thwarted, should make war against it; and that the
numerous orders of the mitre and the cowl should
swell the opposition; was to be expected; but that
the people, from whose eyes it was to tear the
bandage of spiritual darkness, and from whose
arms it was to rend the fetters of temporal bondage,
should seek to destroy it, had not entered into
Luther's calculations. Yet now a terrible blow–the
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