A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Brunehaut
BRUNEHAUT,
Younger daughter of Athanagilde, king of the Visigoths of Spain, married, in 565, Siegbert, the Frankish king of Metz or Austrasia. Siegbert had resolved to have but one wife, and to choose her from a royal family; his choice fell on Brunehaut, who fully justified his preference. She was beautiful, elegant in her deportment, modest and dignified in her conduct, and conversed not only agreeably, but with a great deal of wisdom. Her husband soon became exceedingly attached to her.
Her elder sister, Galsuinda, had married Chilperic, Siegbert's brother, and king of Normandy. Galsuinda was murdered, through the instigation of Fredegonde, Chilperic's mistress, who then induced Chilperic to marry her. Brunehaut, to avenge her sister's death, persuaded Siegbert to make war upon his brother; and he had succeeded in wresting Chilperic's territories from him, and besieging him in Tournai, when two assassins, hired by Fredegonde, murdered Siegbert in his camp, in 575.
As soon as Brunehaut heard of this misfortune, she hastened to save her son, the little Childebert, heir to the kingdom of Austrasia. She hid him in a basket, which was let down out of a window of the palace she occupied in Paris, and confided him to a servant of the Austrasian Duke Grondebald, who carried him behind him on horseback to Metz, where he was proclaimed king, on Christmas day, 575. When Chilperic and Fredegonde arrived at Paris, they found only Brunehaut, with her two daughters and the royal treasure. Her property was taken from her, her daughters were exiled to Meaux, and she was sent to Rouen.
After this she married her nephew, Chilperic's younger son, became a second time a widow, entered into a war with the nobles of Austrasia, was for a while successful, then defeated, and driven out of the kingdom. She found refuge with her grandson, Theodorick. King of Burgundy, whom she incited to take up arms against his brother Theodebert, whom he pursued to Cologne, and there assassinated. His children, one of whom was an infant, were slain by order of Brunehaut. Theodoric died in 613, and Brunehaut, betrayed by her subjects, and abandoned by her nobles, fell into the hands of Clotaire, son of Fredegonde. He loaded her with insults, accused her of having caused the death of ten kings, or sons of kings, and gave her up to the vengeance of his infuriated soldiery. This Queen, then eighty years old, was carried naked on a litter for three days, and then bound by one arm and one leg 10 the tail of an unbroken colt, which dragged her over rocks and stones till she was nothing but a shapeless mass. Her remains were then burnt.