Noble and Valiant Lord Hermann,

Over the last few days I have received from different sources copies of two rather different books. The first is from here in Cologne, issued on your instructions, in which there are two letters, one of them from Luther to the Most Serene King of England, etc, and the other from that same king, making a weighty and distinguished reply. I had in fact seen both letters before, not indeed without much joy and admiration. The other book came from Saxony, from Wittenberg indeed, and in it Luther responds in German to that weighty and stylishly latinate letter of the king's with mere piffle and blockheaded boasting. Now, although I am preoccupied with other matters, I cannot, for the infamy of the thing, refrain from snatching a few hours over a couple of days to try and show briefly how witless, lightweight, unscholarly and frankly bombastic this response of Luther's really is when set against the learned, elegant, heavyweight, and altogether heroic letter of the king’s. Not that I embark on this discussion of Luther's response because I think the king's letter needs any defence: it is so rock-solid in itself that it can scarcely be touched in any point by Luther, still less refuted. I merely mean to show ordinary people that there is absolutely no reason or merit in Luther's defence of his dogmas against his opponents, especially the English ones. He tried once before to answer His Most Serene Highness, but so ineffectually that not even his followers thought much of it. And he did his cause more harm by responding witlessly than he could have done by holding his peace. Then that Reverend Father, the most learned and upright Doctor John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, rebutted and refuted his teachings in numerous weighty tomes. But to this day neither Luther nor any of the Lutherans has found so much as a word to say in reply. Nor have any of the Lutherans replied to Thomas More, that man of the highest reputation, nor to that illustrious theologian John Powell, nor to William Melton, Chancellor of York Minster, nor to the many other scholarly Englishmen who have all written against the Lutheran faction.