Charlemagne marched immediately into the Saxon land: the rebels dispersed at his approach and Wittekind again became a fugitive. The Saxon nobles humbly renewed their submission, and tried to throw the whole responsibility of the rebellion upon Wittekind. Charlemagne was not satisfied: he had been mortified in his pride as a monarch, and for once he cast aside his usual moderation and prudence. He demanded that 4,500 Saxons, no doubt the most prominent among the people, should be given up to him, and then ordered them all to be beheaded on the same day. This deed of blood, instead of intimidating the Saxons, provoked them to fury. They arose as one man, and in 783 defeated Charlemagne near Detmold. He retreated to Paderborn, received reinforcements, and was enabled to venture a second battle, in which he was victorious. He remained for two years longer in Thuringia and Saxony, during which time he undertook a winter campaign, for which the people were not prepared. By the summer of 785, the Saxons, finding their homes destroyed and themselves rapidly diminishing in numbers, yielded to the mercy of the conqueror. Wittekind, who, the legend says, had stolen in disguise into Charlemagne's camp, was so impressed by the bearing of the king and the pomp of the religious services, that he also submitted and received baptism. One account states that Charlemagne named him Duke of the Saxons and was thenceforth his friend; another, that he sank into obscurity. [Sidenote: 788. SUBJECTION OF BAVARIA.] Charlemagne was now free to make another journey to Italy, where he suppressed some fresh troubles among the Lombards (as we must henceforth style the Longobards), and forced Aragis, the Duke of Benevento, to render his submission. Then, for the first time, he turned his attention to the Bavarians, whose Duke, Tassilo, had preserved an armed neutrality during the previous wars, but was suspected of secretly conspiring with the Lombards, Byzantines, and even the Avars, for help to enable him to throw off the Frank yoke. At a general diet of the whole empire, held in Worms in 787, Tassilo did not appear, and Charlemagne made this a pretext for invading Bavaria. Three armies, in Italy, Suabia and Thuringia, were set in motion at the same time, and resistance appeared so hopeless that Tassilo surrendered at once. Charlemagne pardoned him at first, under stipulations of stricter dependence, but he was convicted of conspiracy at a diet held the following year, when he and his sons were found guilty and sent into a monastery. His dynasty came to an end, and Bavaria was portioned out among a number of Frank Counts, the people, nevertheless, being allowed to retain their own political institutions.