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

the emperor, which he had prepared himself to
hear, but a bold justification of all the doctrines the
princes had professed, and all the steps they had
taken–in short, a flag of revolt unfurled at the very
foot of the imperial throne. Before punishing the
offenses of nine years ago by executing the Edict
of Worms, he must deal with this new development
of Lutheranism. If he should pass it over in silence,
on the pretext that it was an affair of dogmas
merely, he would be visually tolerating the
Protestant faith, and must nevermore mention the
Worms proscription. If, on the other hand, he
should call on the princes to retract, he must be
prepared with something like reasonable grounds
for demanding their submission, and, if need were,
extorting it. He must steer between the Scylla of
coercion and the Charybdis of toleration. This was
all as yet the Diet had done for him. It had brought
him new perplexities– more sleepless nights. It was
mortifying to have to write to Clement VII. that the
project they had spent a winter together at Bologna
in concocting was speeding so ill–was, in fact,
marching backwards.
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