"At news of this disaster," says Eginhard, "Charlemagne, without losing a moment, re-assembled an army and set out for Saxony.

He summoned into his presence all the chieftains of the Saxons and demanded of them who had been the promoters of the revolt.
All agreed in denouncing Wittikind as the author of this treason.

But as they could not deliver him up, because immediately after his sudden attack he had taken refuge with the Northmen, those who, at his instigation, had been accomplices in the crime, were placed, to the number of four thousand five hundred, in the hands of the king; and, by his order, all had their heads cut off the same day, at a place called Werden, on the river Aller.

After this deed of vengeance the king retired to Thionville to pass the winter there." [Illustration: A Battle between Franks and Saxons----216] But the vengeance did not put an end to the war.

"Blood calls for blood," were words spoken in the English parliament, in 1643, by Sir Benjamin Rudyard, one of the best citizens of his country in her hour of revolution.