These words of Luther were speedily fulfilled by the events. The Saxon princes, the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Counts of Mansfeld combined together before the mass of the peasants in Thuringia and Saxony had collected into a large army. On May 15 the forces of Münzer, numbering about 8,000 men, were defeated in the battle of Frankenhausen. Münzer himself was taken prisoner, and, crushed in mind and spirit, was executed like a criminal. A few days before, the main army of the Swabian peasants had been routed, and during the following weeks, one stronghold of the rebellion after another was reduced, and the horrors perpetrated by the peasants were repaid with fearful vengeance on their heads. The Landgrave Philip, and John, the new Elector of Saxony, distinguished themselves by their clemency in dismissing unpunished to their homes, after the victory, a number of the insurgent peasants. But Luther's violent denunciations now gave offence even to some of his friends. His Catholic opponents, and those even who saw no harm in burning heretics wholesale for no other reason than their faith, reproached him then, and do so even now, with horrible cruelty for this language. Luther replied to the 'complaints and questions about his pamphlet,' with a public 'Epistle on the harsh pamphlet against the peasants.' His excitement and irritation was increased by what he heard talked about his conduct. He maintained what he had said. But he also reminded his readers, that he had never, as his calumniators accused him, spoken of acting against the conquered and humbled, but solely of smiting those actually engaged in rebellion. He declared further, at the close of his new and forcible remarks on the use of the sword, that Christian authorities, at any rate were bound, if victorious, to 'show mercy not only to the innocent, but also to the guilty.' As for the 'furious raging and senseless tyrants, who even after the battle cannot satiate themselves with blood, and throughout their life never trouble themselves about Christ'--with these he will have nothing whatever to do. Similarly, in a small tract on Münzer, containing characteristic extracts from the writings of this 'bloodthirsty prophet,' as a warning to the people, Luther entreated the lords and civil authorities 'to be merciful to the prisoners and those who surrendered, ... so that the tables should not be turned upon the victors.' If we have now to lament, as we must, that after the rebellion was put down, nothing was done to remedy the real evils that caused it; nay, that those very evils were rather increased as a punishment for the vanquished, this reproach at least applies just as much to the Catholic lords, both spiritual and temporal, as to the Evangelical authorities or Luther.