The Saxons did not find it easy, however, to accept a new king a new religion, and they soon found a leader to express their discontent. His name was Wittekind. A high-born warrior from Westphalia, which had bowed to Charlemagne only after the king attacked it mercilessly, Wittekind devised a strategy for catching the Franks off their guard. He knew that Charlemagne had obligations in widely scattered parts of his kingdom, and whenever the Frankish king was occupied in a region far from Saxony, Wittekind massed his men and attacked Frankish settlements.
In 779 Charlemagne led a punitive expedition up to the banks of the Weser, and the next year, he resumed attack against the Ostphalians. In 782 the Saxons, apparently defeated, convened an assembly at Lippe to surrender. Charlemagne accepted their fealty, and, convinced that his Saxon troubles were over, he assigned one of his men to supervise his forces in the area and left. In the king’s absence, the Frankish army pushed eastwards against the Slavic tribes and gave the watchful Wittekind the opportunity he had been waiting for. He led the Saxons in revolt and massacred the surprised Franks at Mount Suntel.
Charlemagne, enraged at this, defeated the Saxons at Verdun and massacred forty-five hundred prisoners, finally ending the Saxon revolts.