Governor Printzenskoeld had seen something brewing, but he was a fearless man, and despised the “peasant mob.”  However, he sent to Sweden for a troop of horsemen, the better to patrol the island and watch the people.  Early in December, 1658, just a year after Jens Kofoed, the trooper, had set out for his home on furlough, the governor went to Roenne, the chief city in the island, to start off a ship for the reinforcements.  The conspirators sought to waylay him at Hasle, where he stopped to give warning that all who had not paid the heavy war-tax would be sold out forthwith; but they were too late.  Master Poul and Jens Kofoed rode after him, expecting to meet a band of their fellows on the way, but missed them.  The parson stayed behind then to lay the fuse to the mine, while Kofoed kept on to town.  By the time he got there he had been joined by four others, Aage Svendsoen, Klavs Nielsen, Jens Laurssoen, and Niels Gummeloese.  The last two were town officers.  As soon as the report went around Roenne that they had come, Burgomaster Klaus Kam went to them openly.

The governor had ridden to the house of the other burgomaster, Per Larssoen, who was not in the plot.  His horse was tied outside and he just sitting down to supper when Jens Kofoed and his band crowded into the room, and took him prisoner.  They would have killed him there, but his host pleaded for his life.  However, when they took him out in the street, Printzenskoeld thought he saw a chance to escape in the crowd and the darkness, and sprang for his horse.  But his great size made him an easy mark.  He was shot through the head as he ran.  The man who shot him had loaded his pistol with a silver button torn from his vest.  That was sure death to any goblin on whom neither lead nor steel would bite, and it killed the governor all right.  The place is marked to this day in the pavement of the main street as the spot where fell the only tyrant who ever ruled the island against the people’s will.

The die was cast now, and there was need of haste.  Under cover of the night the little band rode through the island with the news, ringing the church bells far and near to call the people to arms.  Many were up and waiting; Master Poul had roused them already.  At Hammershus the Swedish garrison heard the clamor, and wondered what it meant.  They found out when at sunrise an army of half the population thundered on the castle gates summoning them to surrender.  Burgomaster Kam sat among them on the governor’s horse, wearing his uniform, and shouted to the officers in command that unless they surrendered, he, the governor, would be killed, and his head sent in to his wife in the castle.  The frightened woman’s tears decided the day.  The garrison surrendered, only to discover that they had been tricked.  Jens Kofoed took command in the castle.  The Swedish soldiers were set to doing chores for the farmers they had so lately harassed.  The ship that was to have fetched reenforcements from Sweden was sent to Denmark instead, with the heartening news.  They needed that kind there just then.