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

a church in which the Gospel might be preached.
The Bishop of Spires stood aghast at the request.
Did the princes know what they asked? Was not
Lutheranism under the ban of the Empire? Had not
the Diet been assembled to suppress it, and uphold
the old religion? If then he should open a Lutheran
conventicle in the city, and set up a Lutheran pulpit
in the midst of the Diet, what would be thought of
his conduct at Rome? No? while the Church's oil
was upon him he would listen to no such proposal.
Well, replied the princes in effect, if a church
cannot be had, the Gospel will lose none of its
power by being preached outside cathedral. The
elector and landgrave, who had brought their
chaplains with them, opened their hotels for
worship. On one Sunday, it is said, as many as
8,000 assembled to the Protestant sermon. While
the saloons of the princes were thronged, the city
churches were deserted. If we except Ferdinand
and the Catholic princes, who thought it incumbent
upon them to countenance the old worship, scarce
in nave or aisle was there worshipper to be seen.
The priests were left alone at the foot of the altars.
The tracts of Luther, freely distributed in Spires,
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