ssed; the possessions of the clergy were to
be secularized, to indemnify the princes and provide for the wants of
the empire; taxes were to be abolished, with the exception of a tribute
payable every ten years; the imperial power was to subsist alone, as
being recognized by the New Testament; all the other princes were to
cease to reign; sixty-four free tribunals were to be established, in
which men of all classes should have a seat; all ranks were to return to
their primitive condition; the clergy were to be henceforward merely the
pastors of the churches; princes and knights were to be simply the
defenders of the weak; uniformity in weights and measures was to be
introduced, and only one kind of money was to be coined throughout the
empire.

Meanwhile the princes had shaken off their first lethargy, and George
von Truchsess, commander-in-chief of the imperial army, was advancing on
the side of the Lake of Constance. On the 2d of May he defeated the
peasants at Beblingen; then marched on the town of Weinsberg, where the
unhappy Count of Helfenstein had perished, burned and razed it to the
ground, giving orders that the ruins should be left as an eternal
monument of the treason of its inhabitants. At Fairfeld he united with
the Elector Palatine and the Elector of Treves, and all three moved
toward Franconia.

The Frauenburg, the citadel of Wuerzburg, held out for the princes, and
the main army of the peasants still lay before its walls. As soon as
they heard of the Truchsess' march, they resolved on an assault, and at
nine o'clock at night on the 15th of May the trumpets sounded, the
tricolor flag was unfurled, and the peasants rushed to the attack with
horrible shouts. Sebastian von Rotenhan, one of the warmest partisans of
the Reformation, was governor of the castle. He had put the fortress in
a formidable state of defence, and, having exhorted the garrison to
repel the assault with courage, the soldiers, holding up three fingers,
had all sworn to do so. A most terrible conflict took place. To the
vigor and despair of the insurgents, the fortress replied from its walls
and towers by petards, showers of sulphur and boiling pitch and the
discharges of artillery. The peasants, thus struck by their unseen
enemies, were staggered for a moment; but in an instant their fury grew
more violent. The struggle was prolonged as the night advanced. The
fortress, lit up by a thousand battle-fires, appeared in the darkness
like a t