Many Reformation women participated actively in politics. In 1534 the German city of Münster, where women greatly outnumbered men, was under siege by its expelled bishop. Hille Feicken was inspired by the Biblical story of Judith who delivered Israel from a Babylonian siege by beheading Holofernes. On 16 June she attempted to slip into the besiegers’ camp to assassinate Bishop Franz von Waldeck. She was caught before she was able to carry out her mission but the idea of a female assassin shocked John of Leiden, the self-proclaimed "King of Münster," who mandated polygamy so that every woman in the city would be under the control of a husband.