Europe in the Age of the Reformation

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Martin Luther

Luther Disappears

What happened next is a bit comical, though the participants were in deadly earnest. When Luther reached Saxony, some of his friends staged "kidnapping" while he was on the road. He was taken to Wartburg Castle, which belonged to Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony. Then, for ten months, no one heard anything. Luther had vanished.

Charles had his suspicions, of course. He wrote several times to Frederick the Wise. The Elector politely wrote back that he had no knowledge of the whereabouts of one Martin Luther, and that was true so far as it went. Frederick had given careful instructions that his people were to hide Luther and were not to tell him where he was. Thus he was able to reply to his emperor with perfect honesty.

Frederick was a curious but crucial player in this drama. He himself remained Catholic and never converted to Luther's position. Yet he protected Luther consistently, running a very real risk of war with the Empire. We have no documents that let us look into Frederick's innermost thoughts, but it appears that in this instance political considerations took precedence over religious. Frederick would not allow an emperor and a pope to come in and arrest one of his own citizens when the elector believed the man had done no wrong. He was not strong enough to defy Charles openly, so he did the next best thing. He pretended ignorance.