When King Sigebert died, his son Dagobert II was only about 5 years old, mayor Grimoald took the first step in the bishops’ plan to usurp the reigning Merovingian house. To begin his plan, he kidnapped Dagobert, had him tonsured, and placed under the care of bishop Didon of Poitiers. Bishop Didon was a supporter of Dagoberts father Sigebert III, he took Dagobert to a convent in Ireland. 

He was conveyed to Hibernia (Ireland), where he lived in exile among the Scot Gaels. And instead of royal purple, to wear the frock and there changing his crown to that of a cleric. 

Over time Dagobert had taken to this quiet life and he knew where to be at any given time and on any given day, without having to consult anyone. He remained there until approaching the year 670 AD. when he finally was able to return to Austrasia.

Dagobert acquired in his exile the qualities necessary to govern wisely one day. This exile was a good school for him; there he learned to despise the lustre of a perishable throne in order to occupy himself with eternity. 

As he grew older, he studied the precepts of our holy religion, and made the Gospel the subject of his frequent meditations. He thus knew what true greatness consists, and these considerations led him to walk with courage in the path of virtue. 

“Happy, he said to himself, is the prince who, before commanding others, knows how to govern himself and exercise a severe empire over his own heart. And of what use would it be to him to make himself obeyed by thousands of subjects, if he himself were a slave to his passions, if his evil inclinations dominated him? And what benefit would it accrue to him to see his name celebrated in the history of the kings and conquerors of the earth, if the heavenly Father erased it from the book of immortality?“

Not expecting to see the young heir again, Grimoald had told Queen Immachilde that her son had died.

Dagobert travelled from Hibernia and came to throw himself into the hands of a Saint, hoping that under this guidance he would be protected and that this Saint would not refuse to give him the help he needed to get out of his oppression. This Saint was the great Archbishop of York named Wilfrid and who was therefore in great veneration in England for his ability and his versus.

Dagobert came to him and explained his misfortune to him, as the one who was taken advantage of by the simplicity of his age, to transport him to this country and to put him in a cloister the rest of his days, that he being the true and the only heir of the Kingdom of Austrasia, the son of  Sigisbert III who had been the last King of Austrasie. He asked Wilfred to help him to make it back there as he hoped to be able to end this situation and to be recognized as the rightful King of Austrasie. 

Some rumours spread that no one had questioned his death.  His enemies, having in fact published his death by assignment, saying that an unexpected death had suddenly removed him immediately after the death of his father.

The nobles of Austrasia didn’t take long to recover from their enthusiasm for the usurper. For the violences of Grimoald gradually alienated the spirits, and after a reign of seven months, they dethroned Childebert, and placed on the throne Clovis II, brother of Sigebert, who thus united the whole Kingdom of France under his sceptre, but he died in 656, and left the monarchy to Clotaire III, his eldest son, who was barely five years old. Clotaire III possessed Austrasia until 660, when it was given to Childeric, the second of the sons of Clovis, who governed this Kingdom under the regency of Himnehilde and married her daughter, the sister of Dagobert.

Dagobert, who was educated at Slane Monastery, near Dublin,  married the Gaelic Princess Matilde when he was fifteen. 

Subsequently, he went to York under the patronage of Saint Wilfred, but then Matilde died and Dagobert was able to return to France, where he appeared much to the amazement of his mother. In the meantime, Grimoald had placed his own son Childeric on the Austrasian throne, some Austrasian lords, attached to Himnehilde and full of veneration for the memory of Sigebert, thought of recalling him. They wrote to this effect to Saint Wilfrid and begged him to send them back their legitimate King, to place him on his father’s throne. 

The holy prelate collected a large sum of money in the country and urged the English princes to give him help to return to Austrasia. Dagobert left immediately, but was unable to regain his rights at first, so Himnehilde asked Childeric for Alsace and some cantons beyond the Rhine, where Dagobert came to reign rather as Childeric’s lieutenant than as a true sovereign. 

Wilfred of York and others spread word of the mayoral treachery and the House of Grimoald was duly discredited.

Grimoald was later expurgated from official Carolingian history, this may have been twofold: his coup against the Merovingian dynasty did not indicate that the mayors had always respected royal legitimacy. Possibly more important was the fact that he had been shamefully put to death by King Clovis II.

Dagobert who had remained more then ten years in this exile, one can say that he threw it into his blessed ones. The usurper, however, was grappling with Childeric, the second son of France, who claimed to be the only one to whom this crown belonged to by right of succession after his first cousin. 

So God favoured Childeric, who with assists from the arms of King Clotaire, his brother, who had enough reason to suspect the treason committed by Grimoald against this Royal blood, finally drove out Childebert, killed him in pitched battle and made his father Ebroin die in the midst of torments in a harsh prison, so that he became possessor of the Kingdom of Austrasia.

Finally, our illustrious exile, having been well instructed in his right to the Crown, travelled the seas, by means that Saint Wilfrid, Archbishop, who provided him with all he needed and appeared in his home states like a victorious sun over the shadows after night. 

Father Enskenius Jesuit, in his treatise on the three Dagoberts, and Étienne Hedius, in his history of England, say positively that he was recognized as being well received both by the Queen his mother and that of King Childeric, Prince debonair, who was willing first to inform him of the states of the Kingdom and him, agreeably, observed, until Childeric was called to the Crown of France, that Clotaire, his eldest, made it for him comfortable, by dying childless.

Dagobert II married in 666 AD. his first wife Mathilde, a Celtic Princess who was like him, very wise and virtuous, they had the consolation to see the blessings of Heaven falling on their marriage by quite a few children. 

His second marriage was with Gisèle of Razes, daughter of Bera, Count of Razes and his wife Gislica. Dagobert’s first wife Mathilde had died in 670 AD. and left him with 3 daughters. 

Saint Wilfrid, Bishop of York was a spiritual and temporal advisor to King Dagobert, and after the death of his first wife Matilda had suggested to the King to marry Gisèle of Razes who was from a noble Visigoth Family.

In 671 AD. he married Giselle de Razès, daughter of the Count of Razès and niece of King Wamba of the Visigoths. This united the Empires of the Visigoths and Merovingians. 

He married in the Magdalena church in the birthplace of the bride, Rhédae, later Rennes-le-Château. This valley was called the Kingdom of the Valley Noire d’Is; it was the former name of Rennes Les Bains in the middle ages.