; and the tender attachment which he is proved to have
manifested towards his wife, Mrs Sinnett argues, was quite inconsistent
with the licentious course attributed to him.

The charge of cowardice, which is so conspicuously brought forward by Dr
Robertson, seems also to have but slender foundation. The "difficulty with
which he was persuaded to take the field," resolves itself into the having
been a degree more prudent, or a degree less rash, than his headstrong
companion, Pfeiffer; who, having had a dream wherein "he saw himself in a
barn, surrounded by a vast multitude of mice, on which he made a
tremendous onslaught," concluded that he should obtain as easy a victory
over the princes and nobles now arrayed against the fanatics of
Muhlhausen, and, therefore, urged Munzer to take the field. When the day
of trial came, "he who had never so much as seen a battle," found himself
the leader of an undisciplined, discordant multitude, who, even in point
of numbers, were not equal to the military force which was being led, by
experienced generals, against him. At this moment he behaved with
desperate energy; he quelled the treachery of one portion of his followers
by the immediate execution of the priest who had ventured to be their
spokesman; and he raised the rest from the consternation that had seized
them, by one of his violent harangues, and by that fortunate allusion,
which all historians have noticed, to a rainbow that suddenly appeared in
the sky, and which happened to be the device painted on his banner.

That the ensuing battle should be converted speedily into a rout was
inevitable. That Munzer, in the general flight, sought to conceal himself
from his pursuers, by hiding in a loft, can be considered no fair proof of
cowardice. It is what the bravest men have been reduced to do in the day
of disaster. No one who wears the oak leaf on King Charles's day thinks
that he is commemorating an act of cowardice in that prince, because he
concealed himself in the tree rather than show himself to his enemies. How
he comported himself in the last scene of all, does not here appear; but
it seems that the victors made a cruel use of their power. "He was given
over to the fierce Count Ernst of Mansfield, who 'went horribly to work
with him.' (_ist grauelich mit ihm umgegangen._)"

What can be done for the restoration of Thomas Munzer's character, Mrs
Sinnett is entitled to praise for having performed. But we must be
permitted