,--Goetz with the Iron Hand,
as he is named,--a robber baron whose history had been one of feud and
contest, and of the plunder alike of armed foes and unarmed travellers.
Goethe has honored him by making him the hero of a drama, and the
peasantry sought to honor him by making him the leader of their march of
destruction. This worthy had lost his hand during youth, and replaced it
with a hand of iron. He was bold, daring, and unscrupulous, but scarcely
fitted for generalship, his knowledge of war being confined to the
tactics of highway robbery. Nor can it be said that his leadership of
the peasants was voluntary. He was as much their prisoner as their
general, his service being an enforced one.

With the redoubtable Goetz at their head the insurgents poured onward,
spreading terror before them, leaving ruin behind them. Castles and
monasteries were destroyed, until throughout Thuringia, Franconia,
Swabia, and along the Rhine as far as Lorraine the homes of lords and
clergy were destroyed, and a universal scene of smoking ruins replaced
the formerly stately architectural piles.

We cannot go further into the details of this notable outbreak. The
revolt of the southern peasantry was at length brought to an end by an
army collected by the Swabian league, and headed by George Truchsess of
Waldburg. Had they marched against him in force he could not have
withstood their onset. But they occupied themselves in sieges,
disregarding the advice of their leaders, and permitted themselves to be
attacked and beaten in detail. Seeing that all was at an end, Goetz von
Berlichingen secretly fled from their ranks and took refuge in his
castle. Many of the bodies of peasantry dispersed. Others made head
against the troops and were beaten with great slaughter. All was at an
end.

Truchsess held a terrible court of justice in the city of Wuerzburg, in
which his jester Hans acted as executioner, and struck off the heads of
numbers of the prisoners, the bloody work being attended with laughter
and jests, which added doubly to its horror. All who acknowledged that
they had read the Bible, or even that they knew how to read and write,
were instantly beheaded. The priest of Schipf, a gouty old man who had
vigorously opposed the peasants, had himself carried by four of his men
to Truchsess to receive thanks for his services. Hans, fancying that he
was one of the rebels, slipped up behind him, and in an instant his head
was rolling on the flo