WALTER C. PERRY

BARRISTER-AT-LAW

DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY AND MASTER OF ARTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN

LONDON

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS AND ROBERTS

1S57

BRUNHILDA & FREDEGUND

Though Sigebert was an active and warlike prince, his name is far less prominent in history than that of his queen Brunhilda, a woman renowned for her beauty, talents, birth, and commanding influence, and more specifically for the long and successful struggle carried on with her rival Fredegunda  For her intrigues, her extraordinary adventures, the cruel insults to which she was subjected at the hands of her enemies, and lastly for her most horrible death. 

Sigebert sought her hand from an honourable motive, and there was nothing in the auspices which attended her union with him which could have prepared her for a long life of unceasing conflict, suffering, and a painful end. 

The practice of polygamy, common among the Frankish kings, tended to diminish both the honour and advantage of an alliance with them. Charibert, as we have seen, chose several wives during his brief reign, from among the lowest of his people. The Franks themselves at last became impatient of the disgrace which was brought upon their nation by the low amours of their monarchs and the brawls of their plebeian consorts. 

It was from a desire to gratify his people, as well as his own better taste, that Sigebert looked abroad among the families of contemporary sovereigns for a partner worthy of his throne. Having made his choice, he sent ambassadors to the court of Athanagildis, King of the Visigoths in Spain, and demanded his daughter Bruna in marriage. Athanagildis, agreed to the proposed alliance, and sent his daughter to Sigebert, with ambassadors, whom he loaded with presents for his future son-in-law. 

The name of the bride was changed to Brunhilda on the occasion of her marriage. The graces of her person, the great and highly cultivated powers of her mind, are celebrated by all who have mention her in her earlier years. 

Gregory of Tours, in particular, speaks of her in glowing terras, describing her as a maiden of elegant accomplishments, of charming aspect, honourable and decorous in her character and manners, wise in counsel, and bland in speech. 

She belonged indeed to an Arian house, but quickly yielded to the preaching of the Catholic clergy, and the exhortations of her royal spouse. This noble and beautiful woman became one of the leading spirits in an age of intrigue and blood, and is charged by her enemies with having instigated so many murders as to have fulfilled “the prophecy of Sibylla.” Bruna shall come from the parts of Spain, before whose face many nations shall perish. 

Her equally celebrated rival Fredegunda, the wife of Chilperic, rose to her lofty position from a very different sphere. 

The great eclat which attended the nuptials of Sigebert excited the emulation of Chilperic, the King of Soissons, who knew his own vile character so little as to suppose that he could live happily with one virtuous and high-born queen. He also sent ambassadors to the Visigothic court, and claimed the hand of Galsuintha, the sister of Brunhilda, solemnly engaging to dismiss his other wives and concubines, and to treat her as her origin and character. 

To the great grief of the royal maiden and her mother (for the reputation of Chilperic was known), his suit was successful; and the unwilling bride departed, with terrible forebodings and amid the lamentations of her family, to the court of her future husband. 

The principal among the concubines of Chilperic, was Fredegunde, a woman of the meanest birth, but fair, ingenious, and skilled in meretricious arts. For a short time she was thrown into the shade by the arrival of the royal bride, but having already supplanted a former queen of Chilperic, named Andovera, whose servant she had been, she did not despair of making the lascivious king forget his good intentions and his solemn vows. 

Galsuintha, who had none of the terrible energy which distinguished her sister, was rendered so unhappy by the persecution of her victorious rival and the open infidelity of her husband, that she begged to be allowed to return to her old home and affectionate parents, offering at the same time to leave behind her treasures she had brought. The king, who was not prepared for so open an exposure of his perfidy, temporised, and endeavoured to soothe her. 

Whatever feeble emotions of repentance he may have felt were soon effaced by the suggestion of the fiendish spirit in whose power he was and after a few days Galsuintha was strangled in her bed, by the command, or at least with the permission, of her husband. Chilperic publicly married Fredegunde a few days after the murder, to the great scandal of his subjects.

This event, which took place about 567 AD, confirmed and deepened the enmity which already existed between Sigebert and his brother, and kindled in the bosom of it. This was less difficult, as the unhappy Galsuintha was not (as we may fairly conclude from the silence of Gregory on this point) remarkable for personal charms. All that Gregory does say of her is that she was ” estate senior qa Brunehildis” , a doubtful advantage. 

WAR BETWEEN SIGEBERT AND CHILPERIC. 

Brunhilda’s feverish longing for revenge poisoned her naturally noble nature, and spread its deadly influence over the whole of her subsequent career. At that time Austrasia was hard pressed by the invading Huns, Chilperic had embraced the opportunity of seizing Rheims and other towns in the kingdom of Sigebert. The latter, however, no sooner found his hands at liberty, than he attacked and defeated the army of his brother, regained the captured towns, and made Chilperic’ s own son a prisoner. 

A hollow truce was then concluded, and the captive prince was restored to his father, enriched with gifts by his placeable and generous uncle, who only stipulated that he should not bear arms against his liberator. But Chilperic was one of those natures which know no ties but the bonds of appetite and lust, and was as incapable of acknowledging an obligation as of keeping an oath.

We are told that in consequence of the foul murder of the Visigothic princess and the disgraceful union with the suspected murderer, Chilperic was driven from the throne of Soissons. We may infer from this that the war which began between the brothers, on his restoration, was the result, in part at least, of the enmity of the rival queens. The immediate cause of the renewal of the conflict was an attack made by Chilperic upon Poitou and Touraine, which had fallen to Sigebert on the death of Charibert. 

It was a great object with the contending parties to secure the co-operation of Guntram, King of Burgundy, who, though inferior to the others in power, could throw a decisive weight into either scale. 

The great superiority of the Austrasian army lay in its exclusively German character. Sigebert drew together large forces on the right bank of the Rhine from Suabia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Thuringia, and, evidently mistrusting Guntram, marched to the Seine, and threatened the Burgundians with the whole weight of his resentment should they refuse him a passage through their country. Chilperic on his part pointed out to the King of Burgundy the danger of allowing “a rude and heathen people ” to enter the civilised and Christian Gaul.

So marked had the distinctions between the population of Austrasia and that of the rest of the Frankish Empire become, that they regarded each other as aliens. 

But if external civilisation was on the side of Neustria and Burgundy, the strength and marrow of the Franks represented by Sigebert and his Austrasians, and when the latter, more Germanorum, asked his perfidious enemy to fix a time and place for the battle, Chilperic sued for peace, and obtained it on condition of surrendering Poitou, Touraine, Limoges, and Quercy. 

He was also compelled to recall his son Theudebert, whom, in utter disregard of the promise made to Sigebert, he had sent with an army into Aquitaine. 

In 575 AD, Chilperic, incited as is supposed by the unsleeping malice of Fredegunde, and suffering under his recent loss of territory, determined once more to try the fortune of war against his generous conqueror. On this occasion he succeeded in persuading Guntram into an alliance against Sigebert, whom he called, “our enemy.’

Theudebert was sent with an army across the Loire, while Chilperic himself fell upon Champagne. The King of Burgundy appears to have given little more than his sympathy to the Romano-Gallic cause, and soon saw cogent reasons for concluding a separate peace with the Austrasians. The campaign ended as usual in the entire discomfiture of Chilperic, whose Frankish subjects, tired of following a treacherous and, unsuccessful leader, offered the kingdom of Soissons to Sigebert, and actually raised him on the shield, and proclaimed him king at Vitry. 

The result of this election would appear to show that it was only the work of a party, perhaps the Austrasian, or German party, against the wishes of the great mass of the nation. Chilperic in the meantime was closely besieged by Sigebert’s troops at Tournai, and everything seemed to threaten his utter downfall, when he was saved by the same bloody hand which had often led him into crime and danger. Fredegunde, maddened at the spectacle of her most hated foes sitting on the throne of her husband, and receiving the homage of those whom she herself had virtually ruled, sent two hired assassins to Vitry. 

Under the pretence of holding a secret conference with Sigebert, they gained access to him, and stabbed him in the side with their knives. Thus died the warlike and high-minded King of Austrasia in 575 AD. It is evident that the Neustrians were not sincere when they offered the crown to Sigebert, and that Fredegunda reckoned on the support of the Gallo-Romans. The daggers of her myrmidons did the work of many victories. No inquiry appears to have been instituted to discover the originators of the crime, and Chilperic and his queen, instead of suffering in public opinion or incurring the vengeance of Sigebert’s former friends, appear to have been released by this foul deed from the most imminent peril, and at once to have regained their power. 

No sooner had Sigebert fallen under the knives of Fredegunda’s assassins than Chilperic dispatched messengers to his friends at Paris to secure the capture of Brunhilda and her son and daughter, who were residing at that city. In the consternation and confusion on Sigebert’s sudden and unexpected death, no open resistance was offered by Brunhilda’s partisans, and she and her whole family were thrown into close confinement. 

Childebert, however, the heir to Sigebert’s crown, at this time about five years old, was saved by the fidelity and vigour of Gundobald, Duke of Campania, who caused him to be let down from the window of his prison in a sack, and escaped with him to Metz, where he was immediately proclaimed king by the Austrasian seigniors. 

Chilperic himself appeared in Paris soon afterwards, and sent Brunhilda to Rouen and her daughter to Meaux, and kept them both under strict surveillance. In order still further to improve the opportunity afforded by the removal of Sigebert, Chilperic sent part of his army under Roccolenus against Tours, which was speedily taken, and another division under his son Merovaeus against Poitou. 

The latter expedition terminated in a very unexpected manner. Merovaeus was little inclined to carry out any designs of his stepmother, Fredegunde, whom he hated, and least of all to the injury of Brunhilda, to whose extraordinary personal charms and varied accomplishments, to which even bishops were not insensible, his heart had fallen captive. Instead of executing his father’s orders at Poitou, he hastened to Rouen, and offered his hand in marriage to Brunhilda, whose forlorn condition inclined her to accept the homage and assistance thus proffered from the camp of her enemies. 

This strange turn of affairs appears greatly to have alarmed Fredegunde and Chilperic, who followed so quickly on the steps of his rebellious son, that the latter had barely time to escape into asylum in the church of St. Martin at Rouen, from which he could not be persuaded to come out until security was granted for his own life and that of Brunhilda.

Chilperic, it is said, received them kindly, and invited them to his table. Merovaeus was then transferred to Soissons, and carefully guarded, while Brunhilda, whether from a passing emotion of generosity in Chilperic’s mind or the fear of Guntram, who had espoused his nephew’s cause, was set at liberty and returned to Metz. Whatever motives led to her liberation, it was not likely to be accepted by Brunhilda as compensation for the murder of one husband and the imprisonment of another. 

Her first act after joining her son at Metz was to despatch an army to Soissons, which in the first instance had nearly taken Fredegunde prisoner, but was afterwards defeated by the Neustrians, the latter, in their turn, received a check from the forces of Guntram, and retreated with a loss of 20,000 men. Merovaeus, in the meantime, was shorn of his royal locks and compelled to become a monk. 

In 577 AD, he succeeded in escaping to the court of Brunhilda at Metz, but, although the queen received him gladly, he was compelled by a powerful faction of the Austrasian nobility, who were in close correspondence with Fredegunde, to quit the dominions of Childebert. 

After various adventures, he is said to have sought death at the hands of a faithful servant, to avoid falling into the power of his own father. 

Gregory of Tours, although he does not speak decidedly, evidently believes that he was treacherously ensnared by Egidius, Bishop of Rheims, Guntram-Boso, and other bitter enemies of Brunhilda, and murdered at the instigation of Fredegunde. Nothing in the history of the joint reigns of Sigebert, Chilperic, and Guntram is more astonishing and perplexing to the reader, than the suddenness with which they form and dissolve alliances with one another, —the fickleness of their mutual friendships, and the plausibility of their enmities. 

Within the space of ten years we find Guntram and Childebert in league against Chilperic, Chilperic and Childebert against Guntram, and Guntram and Chilperic against Childebert, and the parts were changed more than once in this short period. After a bloody war with his nephew Childebert, the Burgundian king adopts him as heir to all his dominions. After protecting the same nephew and his mother Brunhilda against Fredegunda, the same Guntram defends Fredegunde against Childebert, and stands as godfather to her son Clotaire, in utter defiance of the entreaties and threats of his adopted successor. 

At the death of Chilperic, too, no one wept more bitterly for his loss than his brother Guntram, though the greater part of their active manhood had been spent in plundering and laying waste in each other’s towns and fields. ” I am weary,” says Gregory of Tours, when speaking of the events which followed the death of Sigebert,” of relating the changeful events of the civil wars that wasted the Frankish nations and kingdoms, and in which, we behold the time predicted by our Lord; “as the beginning of sorrows, when the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child,” etc. 

Yet it would be wrong to ascribe the wars by which the Frankish Empire was harassed and wasted, solely or even chiefly to the covetousness, ambition, or malice of the brother kings, they were owing in a still greater degree to the intrigues of the rival queens, whose hatred never changed and never slept, to the endless feuds of the factious seigniors against each other, and their constant endeavours, as individuals and as a class, to make themselves independent of the crown. One of the principal objects of Fredegunde in the persecution and murder of Merovaeus (though his love for Brunhilda was alone sufficient to rouse her rival’s deadliest hatred) was to bring her own children nearer to the throne. 

A fatal epidemic which raged in 580 AD through nearly the whole of Gaul, after attacking Chilperic himself, carried off both the sons whom Fredegunda had borne to him. The only symptoms of the better feelings of our nature recorded by Fredegunde were called forth, as might be expected, by this event. The death of her children touched the heart and stirred the conscience of this perjured, bloody-minded adulteress, who through life had been steeped in crime. 

She called upon her husband to recognise with her the chastening hand of an offended God. She even sought, by burning the lists of those whom she had marked out as objects for an arbitrary and grinding taxation, to appease the wrath of Heaven. ” Often,” she said to Chilperic, ” has God afflicted us with fevers and other misfortunes, but no amendment on our part has followed. Lo! Now we have lost our children ! The tears of the poor, the lamentations of the widow, have destroyed them.” Her repentance, however, soon gave way before her more habitual feelings. 

Clovis, the son of Chilperic’s first queen or concubine, Andovera, alone remained as heir to the Neustrian throne. Unable to endure the thought that others might cherish hopes which she herself had lost, Fredegunde accused this prince of having poisoned her children and having induced the weak and wicked Chilperic to imprison him, she soon afterwards caused him to be murdered, together with Andovera herself. Guntram of Burgundy, as we have seen, aided in establishing Childebert on his father’s throne and in 576 AD, checked the victorious advance of Chilperic’s troops. 

But in 581 AD the party of Austrasian seigniors which was favourable to the Neustrian alliance, (chiefly in consequence of their enmity to Brunhilda) obtained the upper hand, and induced or forced their young king to ally himself with Chilperic against Burgundy. 

As the price of this alliance (and he did nothing without being richly paid for it) Chilperic was allowed to take possession of Senlis, Poitou, and Meaux, while Childebert was amused with the shadowy prospect of succeeding to the kingdom of Paris. 

OPPOSITION OF SEIGNIORS TO BRUNHILDA

At the head of the faction above referred to, were Bishop Egidius, and the Dukes Ursio and Bertefried, the political and personal enemies of Brunhilda. The queen was ably though unsuccessfully supported by Duke Lupus, whose steady attachment to his royal mistress’s cause, even to his own destruction, inclines us to give more than usual credit to the eulogies of Fortunatus. The anarchy into which the state had fallen after the death of Sigebert, the pride and insolence of the seigniors, and the rancorous feelings with which they regarded Brunhilda are portrayed in vivid colours in the pages of Gregory. ” Lupus, Duke of Campania,” he says,  had for a long time been persecuted and plundered by his adversaries, especially by the two powerful dukes Ursio and Bertefried, who, determined to take his life, marched against him with an armed band of followers. 

Brunhilda, being informed of their intentions, and moved with pity by the persecutions to which her faithful adherent was subjected, rushed forth in male attire between the ranks of the enemy, crying out: “Refrain, refrain, from this evil deed, and do not persecute the innocent. Do not, on account of one man, commence a conflict by which the welfare of the country may be destroyed.” 

Ursio insolently answered the temperate words of the mother of his king: “Depart from us, woman ! Be content to have possessed the royal power under your husband. Your son now reigns, and his kingdom is preserved, not by your guardianship, but by ours. Retire from us, lest the hoofs of our horses should trample you under foot.” 

In 583 AD Guntram found it necessary to sue for peace, and was obliged, in order to gain it, to leave his brother Chilperic in possession of all the territory he had conquered in the course of the war. In the same year, however, an attempt of the Burgundians to recover that part of Marseilles of which the Austrasians were in possession of, afforded Egidius an opportunity of forming a fresh alliance between Childebert and Chilperic, and he himself headed an embassy to the Neustrian court with this object. 

Chilperic gladly accepted his nephew’s overtures, and prepared to attack Guntram. The fortune of war, however, which had hitherto enabled him to make large additions to his own territory at the expense of his kinsmen, now deserted him. He besieged Bourses without success. His general Desiderius was beaten by the Burgundians and when Chilperic hastened in person to meet his brother in the field, he suffered a reverse which greatly cooled his warlike and predatory ardour. Nor were his allies at all inclined to help him out of his difficulties. The great body of the Austrasians, and a party even among the seigniors, were averse to an alliance with Chilperic and Fredegunde, the real object of which they believed to be the increase of Neustrian — in other words Roman — influence in their own government. 

On the news of Chilperic’s discomfiture a violent mutiny broke out in the army of Childebert against the authors of the war, and especially against Egidius, who narrowly escaped the fury of the soldiers by the fleetness of his horse, leaving one of his slippers on the road in the hurry of his flight. Brunhilda for the time regained her ascendancy and Chilperic, expecting, as a matter of course, to see his late enemy, and his late ally, unite for his destruction, made great preparations to meet them. 

The look for attack was not made, but in the same year Chilperic himself died, or, as Gregory has it,” poured forth his wicked spirit” beneath the hand of an assassin, named Falca, as he was riding through a forest in the neighbourhood of Paris. Gregory of Tours appears to be ignorant of the instigators and perpetrators of this crime, but, according to a romantic story, the minuteness of which is very suspicious, Chilperic fell a victim to the treachery of her for whose sake he had dared and sinned so much. 

Among the numerous lovers of Fredegunde was Major-Domus Laudericus, whose intimate relation to his queen was accidentally discovered by Chilperic while on a hunting expedition at Chelles. 

Fredegunde quieted the fears of her lover by promising to send murderers to attack her husband as he was dismounting from his horse, which was done accordingly. Brunhilda, very naturally, wished to take the opportunity afforded by Chilperic’s death of making reprisals in the enemy’s country, and of avenging herself on her implacable and now widowed rival Fredegunde. 

But Guntram, who had good reasons for desiring that neither Austrasia nor Neustria should become too powerful, came forward on this occasion to protect one, whom at another time he had called “the enemy of God and man.” 

Shortly before Chilperic’s death (584 AD) Fredegunde had borne a son, whom, though the popular voice assigned him another father, Chilperic appears to have acknowledged as his heir. 

Her first endeavour therefore was to induce her brother-in-law to act as sponsor to this child, by which she thought that both his legitimacy would be established and his succession to the throne secured. Guntram did actually proceed, in the Christmas of 585 AD, from Orleans to Paris, to fulfil her wishes in this respect. 

But, according to Gregory’s account, when Guntram was prepared to take part in the ceremony, the child was not forthcoming. Three times was the Burgundian king summoned to be present at the baptism of Clotaire, and three times was he obliged to leave Paris, without seeing his intended godchild, and under these circumstances he thought himself justified in suspecting the infant king’s legitimacy. As he uttered in the most public manner his complaints of Fredegunde’s conduct, and his unfavourable impressions concerning the child, the queen, in the presence of three bishops, three hundred of the chief men in her kingdom, and probably of the King of Burgundy himself, solemnly swore that Clotaire was the son of Chilperic. The office of the young king’s guardian and administrator of the kingdom, and occupied Paris with his troops. 

Childebert, who hastened too late in the same direction, though grievously disappointed at the turn which things had taken, still hoped to induce his uncle to share the spoil that fortune had thrown in their way, and sent an embassy to Paris, which had become the Neustrian capital. He reminded Guntram through these envoys how much they had both suffered from the rapacity of Chilperic, and urged him at least to lend his aid in demanding back all that had been unjustly and violently taken from them. 

But Fredegunde in the meantime had not been idle. She had disclosed to Guntram the terms of a treaty which had no long time before been made between the seigniors of Childebert and the seigniors of Chilperic for the partition of Burgundy. He knew therefore the degree of confidence which could be placed in his nephew’s ambassadors. He was able to display before their astonished eyes the very document which proved them to be traitors to their own master, to himself, and in fact to the whole Merovingian Dynasty. They were dismissed with a decided refusal. 

Childebert sent the same persons back again to Paris to demand that ” the murderers of his father, uncle, aunt,” and others, should be delivered up to him for punishment. To this message Guntram replied with more respect, but still refused compliance, declaring his intention of referring the matter to a grand council to be held at Paris. In the meantime Clotaire was proclaimed king, probably at Vitry. The relations between Childebert and his uncle now became unfriendly, and actual hostilities were commenced, which appear to have resulted unfavourably for the former. 

The council which Guntram had summoned for 585 AD was eagerly looked forward to, and when it met, Egidius, Guntram-Boso, Sigewald and others, (who were now well known to be plotting the downfall of their own sovereign, and of the King of Burgundy, and whose real object was to separate them as widely as possible), appeared as the representatives of Childebert. 

They demanded, as before, the restoration of the territories which had belonged to Charibert, and the punishment of Fredegunde for her numerous crimes. As both parties had determined on their course beforehand, the discussion between Guntram and the Austrasian envoys soon degenerated into altercation and abuse and when the latter left the court with threats of vengeance, the enraged king ordered them to be pelted with horsedung, musty hay, and mud. 

The importance of the position occupied by the mayor, and the great advantages he was able to bring to whatever side he espoused, were too evident to be overlooked by the enemies of the monarchy, and accordingly we find that one of the first uses made by the Austrasian seigniors of their victory over Brunhilda, was to make the mayoralty elective, and independent of the crown. This important change took place in both the great divisions of the Frankish empire, but many circumstances tended to render the development of the power of the mayors far more rapid and complete in Austrasia than in Neustria. 

In the latter kingdom the resistance which the seigniors could offer to the crown, was weaker, both because they were themselves in a less degree homogeneous than in the German portion of the empire, and because they could not reckon upon the sympathy and aid of the Romano-Gallic population.

SEIGNIORS UNITE AGAINST MONARCHY

Fredegunde underwent a mock trial on this occasion, and was of course acquitted. Though the suspicions of the whole assembly rested on herself, she was asked to name the person whom she believed to be the murderer of her husband. She fixed on Chilperic’s chamberlain Eberulf, out of revenge, as Gregory tells us, because he had refused to live with her. The unhappy man escaped into sanctuary for a time, but was subsequently seized and put to death by order of Guntram. 

It became evident at this time to the astute Burgundian, for reasons which we shall proceed to explain, that nothing but a real, hearty, and lasting alliance between himself and Childebert could save them from falling prey to the machinations of the turbulent and aspiring seigniors. The period at which we have now arrived is remarkable in Frankish history as that in which the rising Aristocracy began to try its strength against the Monarchy. 

The royal power of the Merovingians, forced, as will be seen hereafter, into rapid growth by peculiarly favourable circumstances, culminated in the joint reigns of Chilperic, Guntram, and Sigebert. The accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and the consequent loss of independence by the great mass of the poorer freemen, were fatal to the stability of the Merovingian throne. 

An order of nobility was in process of formation, and was at this time strong enough to wage a doubtful war against both king and people. The latter were on the side of the monarchy, and had the reins of government remained in able and energetic hands, the loyalty of the commons might have sustained the throne against all the attacks to which it was subjected. The murder of Sigebert had an extraordinary effect on the position of the contending parties, and did much to accelerate the downfall of the successors of Clovis. 

The enemies of Sigebert’s infant successor were those of his own household, (the great landowners, the dignified clergy, the high officials of the kingdom, who seized the opportunity) afforded by the minority of the crown by taking the entire administration into their own hands. The chief opponent of their wishes, by whose extraordinary vigour the downfall of the throne was retarded, though not prevented, was the widow of the murdered king: Brunhilda. 

The misfortunes and sufferings of her chequered life, and the horrible death by which it was closed, were mainly owing to the intense hatred she excited by her opposition to the ambitious designs of the seigniors. The deeply rooted attachment of the people to the long-haired Merovingian kings rendered it dangerous for any party, however powerful, to pursue openly their designs against the monarchy, and we find that in all the rebellions which broke out at this period, the malcontents were headed by some real or pretended scion of the Merovingian stock. (The people hated the seigniors, and frequently rebelled against their tyrannical authority.) 

The plan so frequently adopted by aristocracies in their struggle with royalty, of setting up a pretender to the crown, was resorted to during the minority of Sigebert’s son, Childebert II, and not without effect. The person fixed on this occasion was generally known by the name of Gundobald, though King Guntram asserted that his real name was Ballomer, and that he was the son of a miller or a woolcomber.

The account which Gregory of Tours gives of him is interesting, and inspires a doubt, to say the least, whether he was not really, as he assumed to be, the son of Clotaire I, by one of his numerous mistresses. The historian relates that Gundobald was born in Gaul, and carefully brought up according to the customs of the Merovingian family. His hair was allowed to grow long, as a mark of his royal descent, and, after he had received a liberal education, he was presented by his mother to king Childebert I, with these words: 

“Behold, here is your nephew, the son of King Clotaire. Since he is hated by his father, do you receive him, for he is your flesh and blood.” 

Childebert, who was childless, received him kindly, but when Clotaire heard of it, he sent for the youth, and declaring that he had ” never begotten him,” ordered him to be shorn. 

After the death of Clotaire I, Gundobald was patronised by King Charibert. Sigebert, however, once more cut off his hair, and sent him into custody at Cologne. Escaping from that place, and allowing his hair to grow long again, Gundobald took refuge with the imperial general Narses, who then commanded in Italy. 

There he married and had children, and went subsequently to Constantinople, where, as it would appear, he was received by the Greek Emperor with every mark of respect and friendship. He was then, according to his own account, invited by Guntram-Boso to come to Gaul, and, having landed at Marseilles, was received by Bishop Theodore and the Patrician Mummolus.

Such was the person fixed on by the mutinous grandees of Austrasia as a tool for the furtherance of their designs against the monarchy. Nor could they have found one better suited to their purpose. It is evident in the first place that he was himself fully persuaded of the justice of his own claims, a conviction which gave him a greater power of inspiring faith in others than the most consummate art. He was entirely dependent on the aid of the rebellious nobles for his chance of success, and would therefore, had he succeeded in effecting his purpose, have been bound by gratitude, as well as forced by circumstances, to consult the interests of those who had raised him to the throne. 

The fact of his residence at Constantinople, and the sanction of his claims by the Greek Emperor, were not without their weight. The prestige of the Roman Empire, had not yet entirely perished, nor had the Franks altogether ceased to look on Rome and Constantinople as the great fountains of power and honour. 

The nobles indeed intended that no one should really rule, but themselves, but as they could not do so in their own names, nothing would better have suited their views than to have a puppet king in nominal allegiance to a weak and distant emperor. Under such circumstances they alone, in the utter decay of the old German freedom and the popular institutions in which it lived, would have become possessors of the substantial power of the empire. 

The cause of Gundobald was much aided by the miserable jealousies existing between the different Frankish kings, who, instead of uniting their forces against their common enemy, (the rising aristocracy,) were eager to employ the pretender as a weapon of annoyance against each other. Among the chief actors in this conspiracy (though a secret one) was Guntram-Boso, a man whom Gregory quaintly describes as too much addicted to perjury, so that he never took an oath to any of his friends which he did not afterwards break. ” In other respects,” adds the historian, “he was a sane bonus! ” 

Gundobald relates, with every appearance of probability, that he met with Guntram-Boso while at Constantinople, and invited him to Gaul with the assurance that he was eagerly expected by all the Austrasian magnates. He gave him, says Gundobald, 

“magnificent presents, and he swore at twelve holy places that I might safely go to Gaul.” 

On his arrival at Marseilles in 582 AD, Gundobald was received by Bishop Theodore, who furnished him with horses, and by the Patrician Mummolus, whose conduct in withdrawing from the Burgundian court, and throwing himself with all his followers and treasures into the fortress of Avignon, had excited the suspicions of King Guntram. Gundobald joined him in that place, and was there besieged by the very man who had first invited him to Gaul, viz. Guntram-Boso. This double traitor had endeavoured to keep his treachery out of sight, and to stand well with both parties, until fortune should point out the stronger. 

His namesake Guntram of Burgundy, however, was not deceived, and took an opportunity of seizing Boso on his return from a journey to the court of Childebert. The Burgundian king openly charged him with having invited Gundobald to Gaul, and having gone to Constantinople for that very purpose. It now became necessary for Boso to take a decided part, and as the king would listen to no mere protestations, he offered to leave his son as a hostage, and himself to lead an army to attack Mummolus and Gundobald in Avignon. The Pretender and the Patrician, however, defended themselves with so much skill and courage, that Guntram-Boso, with all his now sincere endeavours to storm the town, could make no progress, and the siege was, singularly enough, raised by the troops of king Childebert II. 

This extraordinary interference of the youthful King of Austrasia on behalf of a pretender to his own crown, can hardly receive a satisfactory explanation, and the historian Gregory himself throws no light upon the mystery. It is not impossible that the Austrasian magnates, who were almost all more or less interested in the success of the conspiracy, may have blinded both the king and his mother Brunhilda to the real objects of Gundobald, and we see that any one of the royal kinsmen would have gladly aided Gundobald, if they could have been sure that his claims were confined to the throne of his neighbours. 

The want of common action between the courts became still more evident in the sequel, and, but for the wisdom and vigour of Guntram, would have proved the ruin of the whole royal house.

 The murder of Chilperic in 584 AD renewed the hopes of Gundobald and his friends, by inflicting upon Neustria the same evils of a minority from which Austrasia had already suffered so severely. A numerous party, including many of the ablest and boldest of the Austrasian seigniors, were openly or secretly attached to the Pretender’s cause. He had gained possession of Angouleme, Perigord, Toulouse, and Bordeaux; and at Christmas 584 AD he was even raised on the shield at Brives (in Correze), and saluted with the royal title. 

The Burgundian king now plainly saw that not only the throne of Childebert, but the whole Merovingian Dynasty, and even Monarchy itself, were at stake, and that, if the suicidal feud between himself and his nephew continued much longer, the success of the Pretender was by no means an improbable result. His first object, therefore, was to conciliate Childebert, and to lessen the influence which Brunhilda, on the one hand, and the great party of Austrasian nobles, who secretly favoured Gundobald, on the other, had hitherto exercised over his young and inexperienced mind. 

Fortune threw in Guntram’s way the means of accomplishing his purpose. Since the death of Chilperic, and the acquittal of Fredegunde which had so greatly offended Brunhilda and her son, the cause of the Pretender was evidently prospering, and the greater part of the Austrasian seigniors were only waiting for a fair assurance of success to declare themselves openly in his favour. 

In 585 AD Gundobald was in a position to send to Guntram regular ambassadors, furnished, after the Frankish custom, with consecrated rods in token of inviolability, to demand of him a portion of the kingdom of their common father Clotaire. Should this be refused, they said, “Gundobald will invade these territories with a large army, for all the bravest men in Gaul beyond the Dordogne are in league with him. And then, added Gundobald, by the mouth of his messengers, when we meet on the field of battle, God will decide whether I am Clotaire’s son or not.”

Guntram, who was no less bold than cunning, and by no means scrupulous, put the envoys of Gundobald to the torture, and made them confess in their agony that all the grandees of Childebert’s kingdom were in secret understanding with the Pretender, and that Guntram-Boso had gone to Constantinople to invite him into Gaul. 

Nothing could be more opportune for Guntram’s purposes than this confession. He immediately reported it to his nephew, and begged him to come and hear it repeated by the unhappy envoys themselves. Childebert agreed to the proposed meeting, and heard, to his astonishment, the confirmation of his subjects’ treachery. 

With a welltimed generosity, Guntram not only gave up all the points on which he and Childebert had been divided, and restored important possessions to the Austrasian crown, but presented his nephew to the Burgundian people and army, as the future heir of his throne. 

Placing his spear, one of the ensigns of Frankish royalty, in the hand of the young king, “This, said he, is a sign that I have delivered my whole kingdom into your hands. Depart hence, and bring all my dominions under your sway, as if they were your own.”.

In a private conference he gave his nephew sound advice with respect to the choice of counsellors, warning him more particularly against Egidius, the traitorous bishop of Rheims, and against Brunhilda, his own mother. He also begged him to hold no communication of any kind with Gundobald. This alliance was felt by the conspirators to be fatal to their cause. 

Many immediately deserted Gundobald, and those who still remained by this person; the chief of whom were Bishop Sagittarius, Dukes Mummolus, Bladastes, and Waddo the Major-Domus, fled with him to a town called Convenae, strongly situated on an isolated hills in the Pyrenees.

The army of Guntram under Leudegisil, soon attacked the place with newly-constructed military engines, but with so little success, that, after a siege of some weeks, they found it necessary to offer terms to Mummolus and the other leaders, on condition of their betraying Gundobald. To this proposal no objection was raised by the conspirators, who thought only of their own safety. They went to the unhappy Pretender, and advised him to throw himself on his brother’s mercy, by whom they assured him he would be well received. Gundobald was not deceived by their specious representations. 

“By your invitation I came into Gaul but of my treasures, in which there is an immense weight of silver and gold and various costly rings, part is kept at Avignon and part has been stolen by Guntram-Boso. Next to God, I have based, all my hopes upon you, and have always expected to reign by your means. If ye have spoken falsely to me now, make up your account with God, for He himself shall judge my cause.” 

Mummolus assured him with an oath that he should take no harm, and persuaded him to leave the city, at the gate of which, he told him, brave men were waiting to receive him. He was then handed over to Olio, Count of Bourges, and Guntram-Boso, who murdered him in cold blood as he descended the precipitous hill on which the city stood. The besieging army was soon after admitted into the town, the inhabitants were put to the sword, and even the priests were slain at the altars. 

Nor did the traitors, who sought their own safety by sacrificing the victim of their arts, escape the punishment they deserved. Guntram paid no attention to the terms of their surrender, or the promise of pardon held out to them, but ordered them all to be put to death. Bishop Sagittarius and Mummolus suffered at once; the others met their fate at a later period. We have thought it worthwhile to give a more detailed account of this conspiracy, because it was one of the most remarkable attempts of the nascent aristocracy to bring the crown into subservience to themselves, an object in which, at a subsequent period, they fully succeeded. The account, too, of these transactions, as it stands in the pages of Gregory, gives us an insight into the state of society in that turbulent and chaotic period, when the bands of society were loosed, and treachery and violence were resorted to even those who were engaged to a certain degree on the side of justice and legal authority. 

The degradation of the Church and its ministers is also brought painfully before us in the history of these times. Priests and bishops are among the conspirators, the perjurers, and the murderers, and so completely lose their sacerdotal character in the eyes both of king and people, that they are condemned to death by the one, and slaughtered at their altars by the other. 

For the moment the cause of royalty was triumphant, and Brunhilda was enabled openly to take upon herself the guardianship of her still youthful son, and the administration of his kingdom. The spectacle of a woman reigning  and that woman Brunhilda, (the energetic champion of royalty) soon gave rise to a renewal of the struggle in which she was engaged until her death. 

Not more than two years after the death of Gundobald, the Austrasian and Neustrian nobles united in a new conspiracy, the object of which was to put Childebert to death, to deprive Guntram of his kingdom, and to place the infant sons of the former on the vacant thrones of Austrasia and Burgundy. The seigniors sought in fact to hasten that minority of the crown which afterwards occurred, and proved so advantageous to their cause. This fresh attempt was headed by Rauching, Ursio, and Bertefried (of whom we have spoken above), who intended to share the chief authority among themselves, under the pretence of administering the kingdom for the sons of Childebert. 

The increasing power of Brunhilda, and her well-known desire of revenge, and the insults she had received at their hands, served to quicken their movements, and drove them prematurely into rebellion. In this case, a pretence of hereditary claims was set up, Rauching having given out that he also was a son of Clotaire. But the watchfulness of Guntram, who employed their own treacherous arts against themselves, completely frustrated their designs. As soon as he had received secret intelligence of the plans of the conspirators, she sent a letter of warning to his nephew, who ordered Rauching to be summoned to the court, and had him killed as he left the royal chamber, where he had been received with treacherous kindness. The rebels appointed a new leader, but were unable to make headway against Childebert’s army. Ursio and Bertefried were defeated and slain Guntram-Boso Egidius having been found guilty of forgery, robbery, was deprived of his bishopric and sent into exile. 

The Synod of Bishops did all they could on this occasion to save their erring brother who grovelled at the feet of Brunhilda with the most abject entreaties for his life, received at last the reward of his crimes. The house in which he had taken refuge with Magneric, Bishop of Treves, was set on fire by the order of King Guntram, and as he sought to escape, he was pierced by such a shower of javelins that his body stood erect, supported by the bristling shafts. 

Egidius alone contrived to buy impunity for his treason with costly presents. It was the fear of this new conspiracy of the seigniors that induced Guntram to draw still closer the bonds of amity and common interest which had of late united him to his nephew Childebert. In 587 AD they met again at Andely, near Chaumont, to which place the young king, who was then seventeen years old, brought his mother Brunhilda, his sister Chlodosuinth, his wife Faileuba, and two sons. 

After settling the long-pending disputes respecting the territory of Charibert, and other debatable points, the two monarchs and Brunhilda entered into a solemn compact of alliance and friendship. The rebellious seigniors were for the time completely tamed by these numerous defeats and losses, and both Guntram and Childebert ruled their dominions, and disposed of the great offices of the State. 

We return from the foregoing digression to the death of Chilperic, who fell, as we have seen, by the hand of an assassin in the forest of Chelles, in 584 AD. 

The Prince who thus miserably ended his life, though enslaved by his passions and unbridled lusts to a faithless and cruel woman, was not altogether wanting in qualities which, if well directed, might have procured for him a more honourable memory. 

From the ecclesiastical historians, indeed, he meets with little quarter yet even their strongly biassed account of him shows that he possessed a more original and cultivated intellect than was common among the princes of his time. The bitter denunciations of Gregory of Tours are evidently prompted by personal feelings, which it will not be difficult in some degree to account for. 

Mild and forgiving as we have found the historian to be in his judgement of monsters like Clovis and Clotaire, we cannot but read with astonishment the unmeasured terms of invective with which he speaks of Chilperic, especially as it was open to him, had he been charitably inclined, to have ascribed the majority of his evil deeds to the influence. He calls him ” the Nero and Herod of our times”, and says that he devastated whole regions with fire and sword, and derived the same pleasure from the misery he caused, as Nero from the flames of Rome. “He was given up to gluttony,” continues Gregory,  and his god was his belly, yet he maintained that no one was wiser than himself, and composed two books, in which he took the poet Sedulius as his model. His feeble verses accorded with no measure, since, from want of understanding, he put shorts for longs, and longs for shorts. He also wrote other works, as hymns and masses. 

The unpopularity of Chilperic among the ecclesiastical historians proceeded not entirely from the cruelty and lasciviousness of his character, but in a greater degree, perhaps, from the fact that he failed in the respect which the clergy exacted from the laity, and that he meddled with theological questions. 

Gregory himself came several times into direct collision with Chilperic, and certainly did not conceal his displeasure at the conduct and opinions of the king. “Against no one,” says Gregory, ” did he direct so much ridicule and so many jokes, in his private hours, as the bishops; one of them he called proud, another frivolous, another luxurious, hating nothing so much as the churches. 

For he frequently said,  Lo ! our treasury remains empty. Lo ! Our wealth is transferred to the churches. “None really reign but the bishops.”

Contemptuously as the historian speaks of his royal master’s prosody, and his other literary labours, it is evident from Gregory’s own pages that Chilperic was possessed of considerable erudition for the age in which he lived. Amongst other things, he added four new letters to the alphabet, and gave orders that they should be taught to the children throughout the kingdom, and that all ancient manuscripts should be rewritten in accordance with the new system, When Gregory himself was charged with treason, and of having accused the queen of committing adultery with the Archbishop of Bordeaux, the king addressed the council in such a manner,  “that all admired his wisdom and patience.” 

The Frankish king had indeed only three wives, and was directly concerned in the death of only one but, he was eminently lascivious, and inferior in personal and mental gifts to Fredegunde, or less deeply versed in meretricious arts, could have retained so long a hold upon his affections. Both kings were sensible to mental as well as sensual pleasures, and desirous of literary fame. Though they lived in the daily violation of God’s law and every principle of our Redeemer’s religion, they were both extremely concerned about the purity of Christian doctrines, and wrote works in support of their opinions. 

The theological career of our own king is well known to have been a most successful one. He made himself for the time the fountain of pure doctrine as well as honour, and those who differed from him had the fear of Smithfield before their eyes. It was far otherwise with the Frankish king, who lived in a very different age. Chilperic wrote a work upon the Trinity, from Gregory’s description of which it would seem that the king was inclined to the Sabellian heresy. He denied the distinction of persons in the Godhead, and declared that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were the same person. 

He was naturally desirous of having his doctrines preached throughout his dominions, and after causing his dissertations to be read to Gregory of Tours, he said, ” Thus I will that you and the other teachers of the Church should believe.” 

The bishop, however, on this as on many other occasions, steadily resisted the king, and endeavoured to refute him by argument. The king angrily declared that he would explain the matter to wiser men, who would, no doubt, agree with him. On which the bishop, with a freedom which is hardly consistent with his description of Chilperic as the Nero and Herod of his age, replied, “It will never be a wise man, but a fool, who is willing to assent to your proposition.” A few days afterwards, the king explained his opinions to Salvius, Bishop of Alby, who, so far from giving them a more favourable reception, declared that if he could but lay hands on the paper in which those writings were contained, he would tear them in pieces. ” And so,” adds the historian, ” the king desisted from his intentions.” So powerful, brave, and turbulent a nation as the Franks could not remain without making their influence felt beyond the limits of their own country and the state of Italy and the Eastern Empire was eminently favourable to their aggressive tendencies. 

About three years before the Treaty of Anlau, the Greek emperor, Maurice, being hard pressed in Italy by the Arian Langobards, applied for aid to the Franks, as the most orthodox and powerful of all the German tribes. He knew them too well, however, to rely solely on their theological predilections, and offered them 50,000 solidi if they would cross the Alps and come to his assistance, which they readily promised to do. 

There is something very exciting to the imagination in the account of the relation and intercourse between the pompous, formal, verbose, and over civilised Byzantine emperors—with their high-sounding but unmeaning titles, — and the rough and ready ” kings of the Franks, whose actual power was far greater than its external insignia announced. Childebert addressed the gorgeous but feeble monarch whom he is called upon to save from a kindred tribe of Germans, as ” Dominus gloriosus ac semper Augustus.” 

In still loftier style does the Greek emperor speak of himself, in the commencement of his letters, as “Imperator Caesar Flavius Mauricius Tiberius, Fidelis in Christo, Mansuetus, Maximus, lieneficus, Pacificus, Allemanicus, Gothicus, Anticus, Vandalicos, Erulicus, Epidicus, Africanus, Felix, Inclitus, Victor ac Triumphator semper Augustus !”

While Childebert is simply addressed

 “Childeberto viro glorioso regi Francorum.” 

Yet the position of these sublime Greek potentates was such that they were compelled to lean for support on a prop they were affected to despise. The policy they were pursuing, in this calling a warlike, ambitious, and unscrupulous people into Italy, was a critical one, but they had sufficient grounds for preferring the alliance of the Franks to that of the Lombards, both in the common Catholicity of the former, and in their distance from the imperial dominions, which made both their friendship and their enmity less dangerous. 

In 584 AD, when he was not above fourteen years of age, Childebert proceeded to perform his part in the contract with the Emperor Maurice, and led an army across the Alps with the intention of attacking the Langobards. 

The latter were no match for the Franks, nor did they imagine themselves to be so. They saw at once that they could only avoid destruction by bending to the storm, and disarming hostility by complete submission. Childebert and his followers were plied with magnificent gifts, to which the Franks, like all half-civilised nations, were peculiarly susceptible, and not only refrained from doing any injury to the Langobards, but contracted a friendly alliance with them. 

The Emperor Maurice heard, to his astonishment, that the Franks had retired into Gaul without striking a blow, enriched by presents from both parties. Incensed at their treachery, he applied for restitution of the 50,000 solidi paid in advance for the expulsion of the Langobards. To this application Childebert returned no answer at all,  a course which, under the circumstances, was perhaps not the worst he could have taken. In the following year, however, the Austrasian king, who was quite impartial in his bad faith, sent word to the emperor, that he was now ready to perform his promise. Accordingly, after a vain attempt to induce his uncle Guntram to take part in the expedition, he advanced alone against his newly-made friends, the Langobards, from whom he had so lately parted in perfect amity. The latter, however, far from giving themselves up to fancied security, had spent the interval in preparing for the attack of their venal and fickle friends. 

The Franks, on the other hand, had fallen into the error of despising an enemy who had so unresistingly yielded to them in the former year. They advanced with confidence into Italy, hoping, perhaps, to return as before laden with the price of their forbearance, but they were miserably deceived. 

On their approach, King Autharis and his Langobards advanced to meet them in good order and with great alacrity, and gave the overconfident Austrasians a bloody and decisive defeat.  A fresh invasion of Italy by the Franks took place in 590 AD, when Childebert is said to have sent twenty generals at the head of as many divisions of his army. Yet even this great effort, though at first apparently successful, was without any lasting results. 

After the greater part of the invading force had perished by famine and dysentery, a peace was made through the good offices of King Guntram who had wisely kept himself aloof. In the same year in which this peace was concluded, Autharis, King of the Langobards, died, and was succeeded by Agilulf, whom the nation placed upon the throne.

The expulsion of Brunhilda by the King of Austrasia and her favourable reception by his brother was followed, as we have seen, by no immediate breach of their good understanding. Yet directly differences arose between them, as they were ascribed to their unfortunate grandmother! Whatever part she may have played in the ensuing tragedy, it is plain that the main cause of their hostility was, as usual, mutual jealousy and covetousness. The ceded territory in Alsace and Lorraine, which Theudebert now wished to reunite with Austrasia, became an apple of discord between the brothers. 

Theodoric was compelled by a sudden inroad of the Austrasians to yield to their demands in 610 AD, in revenge for which he spread a report that Theudebert was not the real son of Childebert, but a changeling. He also bought the neutrality of Clotaire, who was not ill-pleased to see his rivals exhausting themselves in their efforts to destroy one another. He then boldly marched into Austrasia, and was met by Theudebert at the head of all his forces in the neighbourhood of Tull (or Toul), not far from Langres in Champagne. Theudebert was defeated in a great battle which ensued, and fled through the Vosges mountains to Cologne. 

He was quickly followed by his brother, who, in accordance with the advice of Lunisius, Bishop of Mayence, “beatus et Apostolicus” to destroy him utterly, led his forces through the forest of Ardennes, and took post at Ziilpich. Theudebert, meanwhile, well aware that he could hope nothing even from entire submission, collected his scattered powers, and, having received reinforcements from the Saxon Thuringians, determined to hazard another battle. 

The conflict was long and doubtful, and bloody beyond the measure even of Frankish contests. Yet we can hardly receive literally the turgid expressions of Fredegar, who relates that the slaughter was so great, that the dying could not fall to the ground, but were propped up in an erect position between the heaps of slain. Theodoric, ” Domino prceeedente” was again victorious, and having taken his brother captive, and stripped him of all the insignia of royalty, sent him to Chalons, where he was shortly afterwards put to death by the order, as some say, of Brunhilda. 

Merovaeus, the infant son of the defeated king, was at the same time dashed to pieces against a rock. Theodoric now took full possession of Austrasia, and was meditating an attack, with the united forces of his two kingdoms, upon Clotaire, when his further progress was stayed and the aspect of affairs entirely changed, by his sudden decease at Metz, in 613 AD, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. Nothing could be more unpromising for the future peace and strength of the united kingdoms of Austrasia and Burgundy than the circumstances in which they were placed at the death of Theoderic. 

He left behind him four sons; Sigebert, Childebert, Corvus, and Merovaeus, the eldest of whom was born when his father was only fourteen years of age. 

The power of the seigniors had greatly increased during the late reign, and they now felt themselves strong enough to come boldly forward in resistance to the royal power. The extraordinary prolongation of the regency of Brunhilda, who now began to act as guardian of her great-grandchildren, was above all things hateful to the powerful and unscrupulous party, who knew her constancy and energy, and were ever on the watch for an opportunity to feed their vengeance on her ruin. They feared, or pretended to fear, that the young princes were but tools in the hands of the queen for the accomplishment of her own will, and the gratification of her cruelty and pride. 

They again accused her of purposely undermining the bodily and mental vigour of her youthful charges by making them early acquainted with every enervating vice. The state of anarchy into which the kingdom had gradually been falling. 

While the power of the Merovingians had been greatly weakened, that of the mayors of the palace was not sufficiently established to ensure the blessing of a strong government, and to make the personal character of the king a matter of small importance. 

The people at large, indeed, still clung with singular devotion to the Merovingian dynasty and a long succession of royal weaklings and idiots, designedly paraded before them in all their imbecility, was needed to make them untrue to the house under whose earlier members their vast empire had been acquired, and their military glory spread throughout the world. The wish of Brunhilda was to place the eldest of Theoderic’s sons upon the throne, but the party opposed to her was too strong, and too thoroughly roused into action by the prospect of a continuance of her regency, to allow her a chance of success. 

She had the mortification too, while she herself was declining in years and strength, of seeing her enemies united under the leadership of the ablest and most influential men in the empire, Bishop Arnulph and Pepin, both of whom held subsequently the office of major-domus. The fear and hatred which Brunhilda inspired among the seigniors were strong enough to overcome the antipathy existing between the Austrasians and Neustrians and when the Austrasian seigniors found themselves not scruples to call upon Clotaire II for aid, with the promise of making him monarch of the whole Frankish empire. 

Their objects in these traitorous measures are evident: they hoped, on the one hand, to weaken the monarchy by arraying the different branches of the royal family against each other, and on the other, to acquire for themselves, under a ruler whose residence was in Neustria, the virtual possession of the government of Austrasia. 

The strong assurances of support which were made to Clotaire by Arnulph and Pepin, in the name of their party, were sufficient to induce him to lead his army to Andernach on the Rhine. Brunhilda and her great-grandchildren were then at Worms. The aged queen was not deceived as to the real state of things, and knew too well the strength which the invading army derived from the treachery of her own subjects. At first, therefore, she made an appeal to the enemy’s forbearance, and sending an embassy to the king at Andernach she besought him to retire from the territory which Theoderic had bequeathed to his children. 

But Clotaire was equally well informed with herself of the state of the Austrasian army, and was not likely to feel much compunction for the children of one who had threatened to dethrone him. His answer to Brunhilda’s message was a significant hint at her want of power to withstand him. ” Whatever, he sent word back,” the Franks themselves, by the guidance of God, shall determine upon, I am ready to. 

The answer was understood, and Brunliilda wasted no more time in negotiations useful only to her enemies. She felt that all was lost but her own indomitable spirit, which neither age, nor the enmity of foes, nor the treachery of friends, were able to subdue. She dispatched Yerner, the Australian Major-Domus, with the young prince Sigebert, across the Rhine, to bring up the Thuringian Germans, in whose courage and fidelity she had reason to confide. 

But Yerner himself had been tampered with, and purposely neglected to fulfil his mission. As a last resource, Brunhilda fled into Burgundy, but there too, the chief men both of the Church and the laity, were banded together against her and readily entered into a conspiracy with the traitor Yerner for the destruction of the whole royal house of Austrasia. Sigebert, meanwhile, unconscious perhaps of the falsehood of those in whom he trusted for the protection of his helpless boyhood, advanced with his army against Clotaire, and encountered him between Chalons-sur-Marne and the river Aisne. 

Many of the Austrasian seigniors were at this time actually in the camp of the enemy, and of those who followed Sigebert multitudes were eager to desert. At the decisive moment, when an attempt was made to lead them into action, the Austrasians turned their backs without striking a blow, and, marching off the field, retreated to the Saone, closely followed by Clotaire, who had good reasons for not attacking them. On the river Saone the mutiny in the camp of Sigebert became open and declared. 

The boy-king and his brothers were delivered up by their own soldiers into the hands of their enemies. Sigebert and Corvus were immediately put to death, Childebert escaped, and disappears from the page of history, while Merovaeus, on account of some religious scruples in the mind of Clotaire, who was his godfather, was spared, and educated in a manner befitting his rank. 

Nothing, however, was effected in the eyes of the rebellious and now triumphant seigniors, and their hated enemy Brunhilda remained alive. 

Though she could not at this time have been much less than seventy years old, she was an object of fear as well as hatred to thousands of mail-clad warriors in the full flush of victory. While the tragic fate of the young king was being decided on the banks of the Saone, Brunhilda was at Urba in Burgundy, with her grand-daughter Theodelinda. 

The defection of Werner and the mutiny of Sigebert’s troops had left her without resources, and she was delivered up by the Constable Herpo into the hands of Clotaire and her numerous enemies who, not content with simply putting her to death, glutted their eyes upon her agonies during three days of cruel torture.

 She was led round the camp upon a camel, and exposed to the derision of the multitude, and at last being bound hand and foot to a vicious horse, she was left to perish miserably. We have already remarked upon the extreme difficulty of forming a fair judgement of the character of Brunhilda, arising from the unfavourable bias against her in the minds of the ecclesiastical writers of her day. 

We must remember that she had incurred the bitter hostility of the great dignitaries of the Church, no less than of the lay seigniors, by her endeavours to check the growth of their inordinate wealth, and to curb their rising spirit of insubordination.

The account given by Fredegar of her conflict with Saint Columban, the Irish missionary, conveys to us a very clear idea of the feelings of the clergy towards her, and to offend the clergy, the only chroniclers of that age, was to ensure historical damnation and an infamous immortality. 

Brunhilda’s case, the zeal of her enemies outruns their discretion, and the very extravagance of their charges both excites suspicion and furnishes materials for their refutation. Fredegar, in his chronicle, calls her ” another Jezebel,” and says that Clotaire’s inordinate hatred of her arose from her having killed ten Frankish kings and princes. Fortunately for the reputation of the accused, Fredegar has mentioned the names of these ten royal victims, but of these there is not one whose murder has not been ascribed to some other and far more probable agent, by better authorities than Fredegar. ” Clotaire,” says Montesquieu, reproached her with the death of ten kings, two of whom he had put to death himself, the death of some others must be charged upon the fate or wickedness of another queen and the nation which had allowed Fredegunde to die in her bed, and choose a suitable place for a monastery. 

Columban fixed on Bregentz, which was at that time inhabited by Suabian people. Soon after his arrival, while exploring the country, he came upon some of the inhabitants while they were in the act of performing a heathen sacrifice. They had a large vessel which they called cupa (kufe) which held about twenty pailsfull, filled with beer, standing in the midst of them. In reply to Columban’s question what they going to do with it, they replied that they were going to sacrifice to Wodan (whom some call Mercury). When the Saint heard of this horrible work he blew on the cask, and, lo! it was loose, and flew into pieces with a loud noise, so that all the beer ran out. This made it evident that the Devil was in the cask, who wished to ensnare the souls of the sacrificers by earthly drinks. When the heathens saw this they were astonished, and said that Columban had a strong breath to burst a strongly bound cask. But he rebuked them in the words of the Gospel, and bid them go home. 

Opposed to the punishment of her flagrant crimes, should have beheld with the greatest calmness the sides of a Brunhilda. Amidst such palpable misrepresentations, it is difficult to know what to believe, and hazardous to fix upon her any of the specific crimes with which she has been charged, To say that she was guilty of intrigue and violence is to say that she lived and struggled in an age and in a court where these were the only means of self-preservation. We see that she was ambitious, and crime was at that period more peculiarly the companion and assessor of power. 

Her desire of vengeance was roused at the very commencement of her career by injuries which only a saint could have forgiven. She had to struggle through her whole life with antagonists who beset her path with the dagger and the poison cup, and against whom she could not possibly have held her ground without sometimes turning their own detestable weapons against themselves. That she committed many crimes, therefore, which nothing can justify, though the circumstances of her life may in some degree palliate them, we cannot reasonably doubt. Yet even through the dark veil which hostile chroniclers have thrown over the character of Brunhilda, many traces may be discerned of what is noble, generous, and even tender, in her disposition. Nor can we, while we read her history, suppress the thought, that she who died a death of torture amidst exulting foes, had that within her which in better times would have made her the ornament and the blessing of the country over which she ruled, and ensured her a niclie in the vast catacombs of history among the wise, the great, and good. 

It is evident from the fact that the greatest possible publicity was given to the horrid spectacle of Brunhilda’s execution, that the hatred against her was not only intense but general, for otherwise her enemies would not have run the risk of exciting the sympathy of the multitude in her nameless sufferings. And yet she would seem to have had all the qualities calculated to excite the enthusiastic partiality of subjects towards their rulers. She was the daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother of kings, and had, moreover, beauty and intellect enough to raise a peasant to a throne. Her indomitable courage, her ceaseless activity, and extraordinary skill in the conduct of affairs, enabled her to carry on with wonderful success a conflict with the powerful seigniors, and to postpone for many years the downfall of the monarchy. 

Her mental and personal graces attracted the attention and admiration of Pope Gregory the Great, who praises her for her Christian devotion, and uprightness of heart, skills in government, and the careful education she bestowed upon her children.

REDEEMING QUALITIES OF BRUNHILDA 

Excluding the feeling of mercy from her heart, she proved this by ransoming at her own expense some Longobardian prisoners, and still more by dismissing unhurt the wretched priest who was sent to betray and murder her. At a time when intrigue and plunder occupied the thoughts of all around her, she turned her attention to the erection of public works, which have been pronounced worthy of a Roman edile or proconsul and yet thousands of her own countrymen rejoiced to see her torn limb from limb, and could not satisfy their rage until they had burned her lacerated body, and scattered her ashes to the dust.