A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Bertha, or Betrade

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BERTHA, or BETRADE,

Wife of Pepin and mother of Charlemagne, Emperor of France, was a woman of great natural excellences, both of mind and heart. Charlemagne always showed her most profound respect and veneration, and there was never the slightest difficulty between them excepting when he divorced the daughter of Didier, King of the Lombards, whom he had married by her advice, to espouse Emergarde. Bertha died in 783. Her name has come down to posterity irradiated by the glory which surrounds that of her son; it is a borrowed light, but it shines upon a worthy object.