because his government had been less oppressive; and, though there were disturbances, his readiness to make concessions soon pacified them, and he was able to come to the assistance of less fortunate Princes. Joining forces with the Dukes of Brunswick and Duke John of Saxony, who succeeded his brother Frederick as Elector of Saxony on May 5, Philip attacked Münzer at Frankenhausen on the 15th. According to Melanchthon, whose diatribe against Münzer has been usually accepted as the chief authority for the battle, the prophet guaranteed his followers immunity from the enemy's bullets, and they stood still singing hymns as the Princes' onslaught commenced. But their inaction seems also to have been due in part at least to the agitation of some of the insurgents for surrender. In any case there was scarcely a show of resistance; a brief cannonade demolished the line of waggons which they had, after the fashion of the Hussites, drawn up for their defence, and a few minutes later the whole force was in flight. Münzer himself was captured, and after torture and imprisonment wrote a letter, the genuineness of which has been doubted, admitting his errors and the justice of his condemnation to death. Pfeiffer and his party in Mühlhausen were now helpless, and their appeals to the Franconian insurgents, which fell upon deaf ears, would in any case have been unavailing. On the 24th Pfeiffer escaped from the city, which thereupon surrendered: he was overtaken near Eisenach, and met his inevitable fate with more courage than Münzer had shown. A like measure was meted out to the Burgomaster, Mühlhausen itself was deprived of its privileges as a free imperial city, and the revolt was easily suppressed at Erfurt and in other Thuringian districts.
The peasants had been crushed in the North, and they fared as ill in the South. Truchsess, after his truce with the Donauried, the Allgau, and the Lake contingents, had turned in the last week in April against the Black Forest bands, when he was ordered by the Swabian League to march to the relief of Württemberg, and so prevent a junction between the Franconian and Swabian rebels. On May 12 he came upon the peasants strongly entrenched on marshy ground near Böblingen. By means of an understanding with some of the leading burghers the gates of the town were opened, and Truchsess was enabled to plant artillery on the castle walls, whence it commanded the peasants' entrenchments. Compelled thus to come out into the open, they were cut to pieces by cavalry, though, with a courage which the peasants had not hitherto displayed, the Württemberg band prolonged its resistance for nearly four hours. Weinsberg next fell into Truchsess' hands and was burned to the ground, and Rohrbach was slowly roasted to death.
Truchsess' approach spread consternation in the camp at Würzburg. After the failure to storm the Frauenberg, Götz von Berlichingen deserted the peasants' cause, and about a fourth of his men returned to their homes. The remainder were detached from the camp at Würzburg
