my commands, two days before,
supplied himself with three Landsknechte, certain blunderbusses and
hand-guns of my son's at Bissingen, and with powder and shot. So he
awaited the storm, as he hoped for a father's reward from me for his
knightly truth and faith. He himself went out to these nobles, and
answered them with threatening words; if Count _Igel_ would come in a
neighbourly and friendly manner, like his brothers, he should partake
with him of his sour wine; but coming in such a fashion, he could not
open his house; he had a house for himself, and not for the Count of
Oettingen, and the Count would find he had to deal with a soldier. Each
party withdrew behind his defences, but the Count entrenched himself in
the outer court, and by the fire of his artillery destroyed the
battlements of the towers, all the windows, roofs, and chimneys, and
two persons. On the other hand, Ludwig Schaertlin defended himself
valiantly, shot the master-gunner of the Count's artillery and another
person, and wounded besides many of the soldiers, of whom some
afterwards died. Thus they fought from seven o'clock in the morning
till six in the evening. In the night Ludwig caused the Count great
alarm and disquiet; meanwhile he fortified himself, and again on the
morrow defended himself valiantly. But when I, Sebastian Schaertlin,
Knight, learned these things, I hastily sent on to Bissingen,
according to the advice of Count Albrecht of Bavaria, four hundred
soldiers, amongst them good marksmen from Augsburg, with powder and
shot, iron cramps, and good material of war. Then I scraped together
six-and-twenty thousand gulden, and provided helmets, powder and shot,
also certain waggons and guns from the city of Memmingen; a great troop
of Landsknechte and horsemen all appointed to be at Burtenbach on the
fourth, and I myself came there in the evening, after I had put
everything in motion. That same night, Count Wolf and Count Lothar came
to me at Burtenbach in a friendly way, and complained to me that their
brother, Count Ludwig, had also deprived them of their parental
inheritance, and they entreated me to unite myself with them. So we
made a written and sealed compact, that both the Counts and their
brother Friedrich, with his marksmen, and all their power of horse and
foot, should unite themselves with us, and I was to provide five
thousand vassals, or other horsemen, and bear the expense of the war.
But if I should restore the young Counts