Lutheran States—among them Sleidan the historian—presented themselves at Trent to request the safe-conduct for the divines, and to settle the terms on which these divines were to be present. The differences between the intentions of one party and the expectations of the other became at once apparent. The ambassadors gave in a series of propositions on which their representatives expected to be heard. The Papal legates wondered at the indecency of a desire to argue where the only fit course was submission. The safe-conduct was drawn and signed; but it was altered from the Bohemian pattern, and the ambassadors would not receive it. The Archbishop of Toledo, who was acting for the Emperor, endeavoured to persuade them; but he could only prevail upon them to refer to Maurice, and Maurice ordered them to stand to their demands, and not to yield an inch. Fearful of provoking the Emperor, the fathers consented to grant the ambassadors a private audience, in which the Lutheran views could be generally stated.[1] The ambassador of Wurtemburg required a reconstitution of the council; the Pope, he said, was a party to the suit, and was no fit judge in his own cause. The ambassador of Saxe insisted most on the safe-conduct, with an express allusion to Constance and the declaration of the bishops there that faith need not be kept with heretics.[2] The so-called heretics, he said, further, must
- ↑ Sleidan.
- ↑ Pallavicino exclaims angrily that the bishops at Constance declared nothing of the kind. They ruled only that safe-conducts granted by temporal princes did not bind ecclesiastical judges. The modern Romanist will, perhaps, decline all defence of a council which he regards as half heretical.
