"Further, I had hired a servant called Georg von Gaislingen, who had promised to enter my service, but who had been, when with his Junker Eustach von Lichtenstein, stabbed and severely wounded by the men of Nuremberg; his Junker had been so likewise, but survived. Although many others besides the Nurembergers were hostile to Fritz von Littwach, yet I never perceived any one who had 'belled the cat,' as they say, or had taken up the matter, except poor truehearted Goetz von Berlichingen: these are the grounds of offence that I have everywhere and in every way notified and proved against the Nurembergers, every day in which I have negotiated with them before the commissaries of his Imperial Majesty, and also before the ecclesiastical and temporal princes.[62] "I will now show further what happened to me and my relations in the Nuremberg feud. The States of the Empire ordered out four hundred horsemen against me, amongst whom were counts and lords, knights and vassals; their challenges are still in existence. I and my brother were put repeatedly under the ban of the Empire, and in certain cities the priests and monks fulminated fire and flame at me from the pulpit, and gave me up to be eaten by the birds of the air, and everything that we had was taken from us, so that we could not possess a foot's breadth of anything. There was no time for festivities; we were obliged to conceal ourselves, and yet I was able to do my enemies some injury, both to their possessions and otherwise, so that his Imperial Majesty several times interposed and directed his commissaries to negotiate between us, to regulate all things and bring about a reconciliation; thereby his Imperial Majesty hindered many of my projects, and occasioned me more than two hundred thousand gulden' worth of loss, for I intended to have carried off both gold and money from the Nurembergers. It was my project then, by God's help, to overthrow, beat, and imprison all the Nuremberg soldiers, and even the burgomaster himself, who wore a large gold chain about his neck, and held a mace in his hand, and also all their horsemen and their standard bearer, when they were on their way to Hohenkraehen; I was already prepared for it with horse and foot, so that it was quite certain I should have got them into my hands. But there were some good lords and friends of whom I took counsel, whether I should on the appointed day appear before his Imperial Majesty, or put my project in execution. Their true and faithful counsel was, that I should honour his Imperial Majesty with a visit that day, which counsel I followed to my great and evident loss.