Father and son are represented in gilt-bronze statues, opposite each other, in kneeling posture,
looking to the high altar; Charles V., with his wife Isabella, his daughter Maria, and his sisters
Eleonora and Maria; Philip II., with three of his wives, and his weak-minded and unfortunate son,
Don Carlos.
The Escorial, like Spain itself, is only a shadow of the past, inhabited by the ghost of its
founder, who entombed in it his own gloomy character.^328
§ 53. The Diet of Worms. 1521.
I. Sources. Acta et res gestae D. M. Luth. in Comitiis Principum Wormatiae. Anno 1521. 4°. Acta
Lutheri in Comitiis Wormatiae ed. Pollicarius, Vitb. 1546. These and other contemporary
documents are reprinted in the Jena ed. of Luther’s Opera (1557), vol. II.; in Walch’s German
ed., vols. XV., 2018–2325, and XXII., 2026 sqq.; and the Erlangen-Frankf. ed. of the Opera
Lat., vol. VI. (1872); Vermischte deutsche Schriften, vol. XII. (or Sämmtl. Werke, vol. LXIV.,
pub. 1855), pp. 366–383. Förstemann: Neues Urkundenbuch, 1842, vol. I. Luther’s Letters to
Spalatin, Cuspinianus, Lucas Cranach, Charles V., etc., see in De Wette, I. 586 sqq. Spalatin:
Ann. Spalatin is also, according to Köstlin, the author of the contemporary pamphlet: Etliche
wunderliche fleissige Handlung in D. M. Luther’s Sachen durch geistliche und weltliche Fürsten
des Reich’s; but Brieger (in his "Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch.," Gotha, 1886, p. 482 sqq.)
ascribes it to Rudolph von Watzdorf.
On the Roman-Cath. side, Cochläus (who was present at Worms): Pallavicini (who used the letters
of Aleander); and especially the letters and dispatches of Aleander, now published as follows:
Johann Friedrich: Der Reichstag zu Worms im Jahr 1521. Nach den Briefen des päpstlichen
Nuntius Hieronymus Aleander. In the "Abhandlungen der Bayer. Akad.," vol. XI. München,
- Pietro Balan (R. Cath.): Monumenta Reform. Lutheranae ex tabulariis S. Sedis secretis.
1521–1525. Ratisb. Fasc. I., 1883. Contains Aleander’s reports from the papal archives, and is
one of the first fruits of the liberal policy of Leo XIII. in opening the literary treasures of the
Vatican. Theod. Brieger (Prof. of Ch. Hist. in Leipzig): Aleander und Luther, 1521. Die
vervollständigten Aleander-Depeschen nebst Untersuchungen über den Wormser Reichstag. 1
Abth. Gotha, 1884 (315 pages). Gives the Aleander dispatches in Italian and Latin from a MS.
in the library of Trent, and supplements and partly corrects, in the chronology, the edition of
Balan.
II. Special Treatises. Boye: Luther zu Worms. Halle, 1817, 1824. Zimmer: Luther zu Worms.
Heidelb. 1521. Tuzschmann: Luther in Worms. Darmstadt, 1860. Soldan: Der Reichstag zu
Worms. Worms, 1863. Steitz: Die Melanchthon- und Luther-Herbergen zu Frankfurt-a.-M.
Frankf., 1861. Contains the reports of the Frankfurt delegate Fürstenberg, and other documents.
Hennes (R. Cath.): M. Luther’s Aufenthalt in Worms. Mainz, 1868. Waltz: Der Wormser
Reichstag und seine Beziehungen zur reformator. Bewegung, in the "Forschungen zur deutschen
(^328) The convent was robbed of its richest treasures by the French invaders in 1808, and by the Carlists in 1837. Some of the finest
pictures were removed to the museum of Madrid. There still remains a considerable library; the books are richly bound, but their gilt
backs are turned inside. The Rev. Fritz Fliedner, an active and hopeful Protestant evangelist in Madrid, with whom I visited the Escorial
in May, 1886, bought there the ruins of a house and garden, which was built and temporarily occupied by Philip II. (while the
palace-monastery was in process of construction), and fitted it up for an orphan-home, in which day by day the Scriptures are read, and
evangelical hymns are sung, in the Spanish tongue.