After heavy bombardment Sickingen was mortally wounded on May 6th, and the place was immediately surrendered.

The next day the princes entered the castle, where, in an underground chamber, their enemy lay dying.
He was so near his end that he could scarcely distinguish his three arch-enemies one from the other.

"My dear lord," he said to the Count Palatine, his feudal superior, "I had not thought that I should end thus," taking off his cap and giving him his hand.

"What has impelled thee, Franz," asked the Archbishop of Trier, "that thou hast so laid waste and harmed me and my poor people ?" "Of that it were too long to speak," answered Sickingen, "but I have done nought without cause.

I go now to stand before a greater Lord." Here it is worthy of remark that the princes treated Franz with all the knightliness and courtesy which were customary between social equals in the days of chivalry, addressing him at most rather as a rebellious child than as an insurgent subject.