Jürgen's friend and ally Max Meyer had not survived him. He too fell a victim to treachery and cruelty. Vardberg's walls were subjected to hot bombardment, from which sacks stuffed full of wool taken in booty could not preserve them. Then too the hired soldiery had grown restive, their wages being in arrear, owing to the delay with which supplies arrived from England. In the month of May, 1536, the castle was forced to surrender and open its gates to the enemy. Max Meyer was promised a safe pass, a promise that in accordance with the usages of the time was broken. The whilom blacksmith was delivered over into the hands of King Christian III., who caused him to be put in irons. He was then accused of all manner of offences, many of them, as in the case of Wullenweber, purely imaginary; was tortured, and made to confess to fictitious crime; and finally, given over to the keeping of the Danish governor from whose guardianship he had months before escaped by his happy ruse. On June 17, 1536, Max Meyer was beheaded at Helsingoer, and his body quartered and torn upon the wheel. So ended this handsome adventurer, and with his death, and that of his friend Jürgen Wullenweber, ended also an important and picturesque episode in Hanseatic history. IV. THE HANSA LOSES ITS COLONIES. The prominence which we have had to accord to the history of Lübeck in the preceding chapters would almost make it appear as though we were dealing with the adverse fortunes of only one town, of a town moreover that was fighting mainly for its private and special interests and that succumbed in the combat. But this conception would be wholly erroneous. In those days the German Empire had no maritime commerce save that carried on by the Hansa; this commerce had no protection save that afforded to it by the League. The League was only powerful so long as Lübeck with a firm hand and high spirit held together its various members and led and encouraged their more feeble and often vacillating steps. For there were few among the cities that heartily supported the Queen of the Hansa in these latter days. At the cost of great and real sacrifices she insisted that the prerogatives of the League should be maintained, and if in return she also asked for some privileges for herself, this can scarcely excite wonder. It is therefore obvious that the declining power of Lübeck necessarily brought with it an enfeeblement of the whole federation.