These mildly humorous remarks obtained for both of them a free pardon.
The aspect of those parts of the country where the war had most heavily raged was deplorable in the extreme.

In addition to the many hundreds of castles and monasteries destroyed, almost as many villages and small towns had been levelled with the ground by one side or the other, especially by the Swabian League and the various princely forces.

Many places were annihilated for having taken part with the peasants, even when they had been compelled by force to do so.

Fields in these districts were everywhere laid waste or left uncultivated.
Enormous sums were exacted as indemnity.

In many of the villages peasants previously well-to-do were ruined.