By the efforts of the popish party at the second Diet of Spires in 1529, the edict issued against Luther at Worms in 1521 was confirmed, and all innovations in religion were forbidden. Against this decision the majority of the evangelical princes entered their solemn and deliberate protest. But not satisfied with merely expressing their dissent from the decree of the Diet, the protesters re-assembled immediately after its dissolution, and had a document drawn up in due form, in which they review what had passed in the assembly, state their grievances, assign reasons in justification of the step they had taken, and with respectful firmness re-assert the sacred rights of conscience on matters of salvation, and finally appeal to the Emperor and to a future General Council. The document concludes as follows: "We therefore appeal for ourselves, for our subjects, and for all who receive or who shall hereafter receive the word of God, from all past, present, or future vexatious measures, to his imperial majesty, and to a free and universal assembly of holy Christendom." This document filled twelve sheets of parchment; the signatures and seals, which were nearly the same as had been affixed to the protest, were now affixed to the appeal.
A copy of this remonstrance was immediately despatched to the Emperor under the charge of three deputies. Charles was then on his way from Spain to Italy. They found him at Placentia, but met with the most discouraging reception. He was much irritated with this freedom and daring opposition to his will. The spirited tone of the memorial wounded his pride, and in a rage he ordered the deputies to be placed under arrest, and commanded them not to leave their apartments, nor to write a line to the Protestant princes, on pain of death. But in a short time he softened down, set them at liberty, and went on his way to Bologna, where he spent several months with the pope, Clement VII.
Meanwhile the Protestant chiefs were not inactive; they were employing the most effectual means for the furtherance of the Reformation and for the strengthening of their own position with the people. On the fifth of May, eleven days after the appeal was drawn up, it was printed and published by the Landgrave, and on the thirteenth, by the Elector. The great question between the Catholics and the Protestants had now taken a definite form, and was fairly before all Christendom.