fortune shall
fall upon your heads.'" In the same document he denounces the bishops
as an accursed race, as "thieves, robbers, and usurers." Swine,
horses, stones, and wood were not so destitute of understanding as the
German people under the sway of them and their Pope. The religious
houses are similarly described as "brothels, low taverns, and murder
dens," He winds up this document, which he calls his "bull," by
proclaiming that "all who contribute body, goods, and honour that the
rule of the bishops may be destroyed are God's dear children and true
Christians, obeying God's command and fighting against the devil's
order"; and, on the other hand, that "all who give the bishops a
willing obedience are the devil's own servants, and fight against
God's order and law."[21]

No sooner, however, did things begin to look bad with Sickingen than
Luther promptly sought to disengage himself from all complicity or
even sympathy with him and his losing cause. So early as December 19,
1522, he writes to his friend Wenzel Link: "Franz von Sickingen has
begun war against the Palatine. It will be a very bad business."
(_Franciscus Sickingen Palatino bellum indixit, res pessima futura
est._) His colleague, Melanchthon, a few days later, hastened to
deprecate the insinuation that Luther had had any part or lot in
initiating the revolt. "Franz von Sickingen," he wrote, "by his great
ill-will injures the cause of Luther; and notwithstanding that he be
entirely dissevered from him, nevertheless whenever he undertaketh war
he wisheth to seem to act for the public benefit, and not for his own.
He doth even now pursue a most infamous course of plunder on the
Rhine." In another letter he says: "I know how this tumult grieveth
him (Luther),"[22] and this respecting the man who had shortly before
written of the princes that their tyranny and haughtiness were no
longer to be borne, alleging that God would not longer endure it, and
that the common man even was becoming intelligent enough to deal with
them by force if they did not mend their manners. A more telling
example of the "don't-put-him-in-the-horse-pond" attitude could
scarcely be desired. That it was characteristic of the "great
reformer" will be seen later on when we find him pursuing a similar
policy anent the revolt of the peasants.

After the fall of the Landstuhl all Sickingen's castles and most of
those of his immediate allies and friends were of course taken, and
the greater p