The duke and Grumbach became friends, insofar as the difference in their ranks as prince and knight allowed, and it was the beginning of a disastrous relationship in which each was strengthened in his plans, which led to dangerous undertakings and eventually to the abyss.
It happened to the knight as it had happened to Kohlhase, who had also suffered injustice and did not want to submit to it as Job had, fearing God, but rather took revenge, which itself brought with it more injustice. This was accompanied by a transformation of his, Grumbach’s, soul, and out of a righteous and equitable man would come a scheming and reckless adventurer who took advantage of the good-hearted and—it must be said—foolish John Frederick for his own purposes. And to help him came Chancellor Christian Brück, who understood perfectly how to influence the duke and use him for his own unworthy and ambitious plans. Duke William had called the chancellor a tyrannical, godless, money-grubbing, and unjust judge who often abused his position. Others said of him that he chased away God-fearing preachers and devastated both regiments, namely, the church and the secular authority in Thuringia, like a sow rumples a field.
A portent of his terrible fate was illustrated by the fact that he once played with a pumpkin, throwing it into the air several times, until it suddenly disintegrated into four pieces.
Grumbach made himself pleasant to the chancellor, whom everybody obeyed and through whom he gained influence over the duke. He quickly found out how much it pained the duke that his father had been forced to cede the electorship and a large part of his land to his Albertine relatives. The recovery of what had been lost was a constant obsession and had degenerated into foolish hopes and superstitious tendencies. And Grumbach—together with Chancellor Brück, who through a regained electoral dignity and recovered lands hoped to gain more power and influence and thus satisfy his excessive ambition—bedazzled, persuaded, and increasingly cajoled the poor but also fame-hungry prince. The three of them believed that with the help of the German knighthood as well as France and Sweden, the Wittenberg Capitulation could be reversed, and at the same time the duke could appear as the protector and savior of the oppressed German knighthood.
My brother Johannes, who, meanwhile, through his skillful behavior in the affair with the false Anna and his smooth handling of the chancellor had quite surpassed the influence of a mere chancery-councillor at court and with the duke, regarded these goings-on with apprehension.
I felt the danger of the duke’s dependence on Brück and Grumbach even more, because at almost every consultation with the duke, I had to listen to his ambitious plans, and I had to carefully, on the one hand, not reject them too completely in order not to make him angry and lose all influence and, on the other, try to advise at least a bit of moderation. In the latter, I failed completely, and if I now and then could sense a certain yielding or questioning, Grumbach and Brück, who were often present against my wishes, succeeded in bringing the duke back into line.
Johannes and I feared for the duke, his family, his dominion, and most of all for ourselves, and therefore I decided to take an active hand beyond just my medical activity.
For that, my former famulus, Thomas, who meanwhile had finished his study of medicine in Jena, would be of assistance. He had so far not found a medical position, so it was not difficult to get him to come to Gotha as my aide, pay him a small salary, and allow him to stay in a small room in my home.
My plan was this: if I was going to rescue the duke from his foolish designs, I would have to make his main influence, the knight Grumbach, appear untrustworthy. And it seemed to me that the most effective way to do so was to show that the boy named Hänsel Tausendschön, whom Grumbach was using to pursue his sinister plans, was nothing more than Grumbach’s instrument and tool.
Hänsel Tausendschön was a farm lad from Sundhausen near Gotha whose actual name was Hans Müller and who, in the taverns and markets, frequently pretended to be communicating with angels who disclosed to him the future. He was soon known as an angel seer, and the duke, with his tendency to superstition and the miraculous, summoned him.
He came into the ducal office when Grumbach and I happened to be present. I saw the boy for the first time, and Grumbach also greeted him as a stranger. But it seemed to me that something was wrong when Hänsel, who said he did not know the knight, addressed him as Herr Knight Grumbach. The good-natured duke did not notice this but instead allowed himself to listen to a couple of hearty prophecies. Above all, he listened eagerly as the boy said the elector Augustus of Saxony and the emperor would soon die, and an angel had shown him the elector’s hat, which John Frederick would soon be wearing. And the boy even took a crystal out of his pocket and allowed the duke to see the hat through it.
My mistrust grew as the forecasts increasingly mirrored the ideas of Grumbach and at the same time reflected the most aggressive desires of the duke, which Tausendschön could never have so exactly known.
Again at home I summoned Thomas to me and made him aware of the court secrets and plans as well as the fantasies of the duke. I told him he should stay on the heels of the angel seer and note with whom he spoke and whatever else might be planned.
After only two days, Thomas gave me a report. He had followed Tausendschön when he came from Grimmenstein Castle and had seen him disappear into the inn called Zum Riesen on the market square. With the help of a few ducats, he had been able to convince the landlord, first, to show him the room in which Tausendschön was staying and, second, to reveal that the money for Tausendschön’s room came from a Moritz Hausener, who was unknown to him. But I knew that Hausener was the secretary for Grumbach.
I now instructed Thomas to take a room in the inn. He was to observe the angel seer, note with whom he spoke, and if possible eavesdrop on the conversation. The room that Thomas should occupy was above Tausendschön’s room, and an unused chimney traveled up through both rooms. Through a fortunate acoustic design, one could hear quite distinctly what was being said in Tausendschön’s room. Thomas kept paper and quills ready and waited for the coming of evening in his room in the inn.
Finally, on the third day, he heard the angel seer open the door for a visitor. There ensued a conversation in the course of which the visitor clearly handed over some ducats and said he should keep his connection and his service to Grumbach secret. Otherwise, he, the visitor, would tell the authorities that Tausendschön was guilty of making magic. And no one would believe that he had learned the magic from him, Grumbach’s secretary. Yes, it was these words, and I then knew who the secret visitor was. And finally came the most important discovery: the secretary told Tausendschön what he should tell the duke when he related the next message from the angels, which was to once more predict that he would be the next emperor after he had become the elector of Saxony and the two parts of the country had been united under his rule.
Thomas carefully wrote all this down, noting day and hour, and that was the beginning of a file that I planned to lay before the duke at the appropriate time.
On the next day, Chancellor Christian Brück summoned me. He wanted to know what my servant and assistant was up to, since he had taken a room at the Riesen and at the same time lived with me. I was surprised at how quickly the chancellor’s spies worked. Still, I was able to calm him by saying the young man had his eye on the landlord’s daughter and wanted to be near her as much as possible. Now the landlord actually did have a daughter of considerable body measurements, so my story was not unbelievable. Nevertheless, the chancellor did not seem entirely convinced. But I was once more sure that Brück and Grumbach were very much under the same blanket and pulling together in their efforts to influence the duke.
At my next consultation with the duke, this happened: Grumbach and Brück with a show of excitement brought Hans Tausendschön to the duke—they did not have to be announced since they had access to him at any time—and asked the fool to speak up. I wanted to take leave, but the duke, who knew my doubts about the prophecies of the boy, ordered me to remain. And
then I myself heard the words that Thomas by eavesdropping had noted in the Inn Zum Riesen. The misguided prince became elated and said to me, “Now, Dr. Luther, you have heard with your own ears what the future has in store for me. Not only for me, but for everyone who stays by me. And it is worth the fight. And as evidence that God will help us to victory, he has sent his angels with the black hats.” I was silent in order not to bring the ducal displeasure upon me.
A day later I succeeded in being alone with His Grace. I had said to him on the previous day that it seemed to me his eyes were slightly yellowish, and I would apply some eye drops. I hoped God would overlook my small white lie. I employed a dilute of dandelion juice recommended by Otto Brunfels in 1532, with which I had had good experience. By the way, the conclusions Brunfels drew from astrology to medicine did not meet with my approval.
Barely was I in the duke’s sitting room, even before I was able to apply my eye drops, let alone raise my actual concern about Grumbach, when the duke showed me a letter of Grumbach’s and wanted to know my opinion of it.
The letter was later used in the proceedings against Grumbach and Tausendschön, as part of the official facts, and a copy lies here before me. I include it here:
Written on Saturday after Christ’s birth, i.e., the 25th of December, 1563
Your Grace should quickly learn and acknowledge what the Lord God through His little angels has made known: the simplest and lowest of my servants will have to shoot a high lord, whose name they will soon make known. And now I will not conceal from Your Grace that it will be the emperor. Following God’s orders, I have today in the morning readied a gun and armed the servant with it, who will now await further instructions from the angels. I feel obliged to tell Your Grace submissively that the emperor had planned to go hunting on Christmas Eve, but something prevented him from this undertaking. So it was God’s order that His dear little angels should lead the servant with his gun to the hunt so that he could shoot the emperor straight into the heart that he fall dead at once. Now, as the emperor did not go hunting but God’s order had to be fulfilled, today in the morning my servant shot the emperor through heart and soul, and thus he was delivered into Satan’s power. This deadly shot, as the little angels have reported, was administered to him in his room. He fell down and shrieked and suffered a lot, and now neither he nor others know how he is, but he is to die under great pains.
The angels, so Grumbach had already told the duke, had appeared to Tausendschön as three-year-old children wearing ash-colored clothes and black hats on their heads and carrying white staffs in their hands, with voices like children. They came out of an underground vault and went back there again.
Now, instead of this nonsense—especially the wearing of the black hats—making the duke suspicious, it had rather served to reinforce Grumbach’s and Tausendschön’s credibility. I began at this point for the first time to think of the duke not only as good-natured and gullible but also as someone who was not quite in his right mind. And my love and loyalty began to weaken. I decided straightaway to search in my medical books for a means of addressing this madness.
But first I told the duke how horrified I was by Grumbach. This letter of Grumbach’s, which speculated about the murder of the emperor, was the highest treason and worthy of death. I also made the duke aware that the emperor was still alive. This objection the duke had also made to Grumbach, but he had only said that such actions were often delayed so that one could only guess why God lets these things happen. And even if it seemed at times like he, Grumbach, had written the angels’ note out of his own head and to his own advantage, he yet by his knight’s honor declared that everything had been revealed to him from the angels through the boy, and he had allowed no other words to be written.
I implored my princely lord to attend to my assistant Thomas’s notes and see the absurdity of the entire story of Tausendschön. Above all, I pointed out that Grumbach’s secretary had prompted Tausendschön in his prophesying.
I dared even, with considerable beating of the heart, to say that it was all a plot by Grumbach and the chancellor that served only the pursuit of their own selfish goals. The duke was angry but told me he wanted to use Thomas’s overheard conversations to show Grumbach and the chancellor that he had certain doubts. But I should also remember that my servant could have inserted the prophecy in his notes after Tausendschön had done them. With that he looked at me sternly.
I implored him not to tell Grumbach and Brück of my suspicions, or I would fear for Thomas’s and my lives, or at least our physical safety. The duke laughed at me and said that for him there could be no doubt concerning their honor and loyalty. With that, he dismissed me. But my fears were based on a terrible event that had recently happened.
The duke’s household had employed an old and loyal secretary, Johannes Rudolf, who had seen to it that Chancellor Brück could not acquire the fortress Kapellendorf, which the chancellor never forgot. On a suitable occasion, the secretary was accused by Brück of high treason and was taken prisoner, the accusation being that he had wanted to deliver the fortress Kapellendorf to the enemy, and twice he was so badly tortured that the jailer declared, if he were to stretch Rudolf any more, as the chancellor, who was standing by, requested, he would break like a string, especially since the blood had already spurted from the navel. His innocence was later confirmed by the elector of Saxony and Emperor Maximilian in 1568, after he had been set free. One sees the chancellor had such power that one must truly be fearful, and I confess that I had great fear.
This would become even greater when, two days later, Thomas did not appear as usual to assist me, nor was he in his room. I went to the inn, and the landlord said that on the previous evening two of the duke’s guards had appeared and taken him. I started some inquiries on the quiet, but no one could give me any further details. This caused me great concern, because I had involved him in my business and political plans, and I swore if I myself survived this whole thing, I would as far as possible make reparation to his parents in Neustadt if Thomas did not reappear. For a time I did not hear of him again. From then on, I sought a way to escape from the duke’s service and the power of the chancellor and Grumbach without damaging my reputation or my family.
Fate began to take its course. In spite of warnings from his father-in-law and the elector of Brandenburg and also the emperor, who actually wished the duke no evil but also could not withdraw his demands and his ban without weakening his imperial reputation, the duke insisted on his own judgment and the protection and accommodation of Grumbach.
Now the emperor lost his patience. On the 13th of May, 1566, Maximilian II proclaimed publicly in Augsburg a renewed and strengthened mandate of outlawry and sent it to the elector of Saxony for wider distribution.
Who in the future would house or hide the outlaws should without further notification become an outlaw themselves.
Before the enactment of this stronger mandate, my brother Johannes had informed me, to my dismay, that he had, with the duke’s permission, applied for furlough in order to visit our sister, Margarethe von Kunheim, in Mohrungen in the Duchy of Prussia. Our lord had hesitated to let him go at first but finally had given in, and he departed on the 3rd of May in 1566.
My brother’s actual reason, however, was the craving for his new, second wife, Elisabeth von Schlieben, whom he had married in 1563 after spending a year in East Prussia. Ever since his student days, Johannes had forged connections in East Prussia, so one did not wonder that he had married there. His second wife was also a widow, and Johannes told me such widows are ahead of young women in terms of experience and therefore are well suited to become wives.
Now I was alone but greatly relieved because in the coming confrontation the worst would certainly have befallen my brother as councillor and subordinate of the infamous chancellor Christian Brück.
How cloudy my lord John Frederick’s thinking had become is shown by his belief that the emperor would abstain from real enforcement of the ban.
But the displeasure of the emperor was only strengthened, and so the lands ruled by both brothers were entrusted as fief to John William alone. Still there were attempts, especially from John William, to get his brother John Frederick to relent.
Also the rector and the professors at Jena University, even a legation comprised of the electors of Mainz and the Palatinate, the archbishop of Salzburg, the bishop of Augsburg, Count Palatine Wolfgang of Zweibrücken, Duke Christoph of Württemberg, and a number of counts attempted with serious arguments and reprimands to bring John Frederick to reason. All was in vain, even though they pointed out what he could expect from the emperor’s anger, which in the end really happened. The duke sometimes wavered, but Grumbach then would again awaken in him the delusory hopes with an adventurous plan for the duke to once more obtain the electorship: In Westphalian and on the Rhine troops could be recruited, which at first were to plunder the bishoprics on the Rhine, then invade Franconia, rob the bishop of Würzburg of everything he had, drive the elector of Saxony into a corner, and pillage the cities of Mühlhausen, Nordhausen, und Erfurt. At the same time, several regiments would be raised in Brandenburg and Pomerania and with them fall upon the elector and hunt him out of his lands. Then the way would be clear for Duke John Frederick to become elector in Wittenberg and, if he united both armies, perhaps proclaimed emperor.
An event then occurred that was highly detrimental for Grumbach and the duke. Near Dresden, because of thefts, a former servant of Grumbach, Hans Böhm from Freiberg, had been seized. In the interrogation on the 5th of June, 1566, he had said freely and without being asked that he had been repeatedly hired by Grumbach and his crony Stein to ambush Elector Augustus on a hunt and to shoot him. After he had told his patrons about having a cousin in the service of the elector, he said he had been handed by the duke himself and by Grumbach and Stein a gray poison powder with the order to go to his cousin and induce him to get into the kitchen, befriend the cooks, and throw the poison into the food. In a second interrogation, Böhm withdrew the statement. After having been tortured, though, he said his first statement was correct. He held to this statement until his execution.
Shadows of My Father Page 22
