A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Theodelinda
THEODELINDA,
Queen of the Lombards, was the daughter of Garibaldo, Duke of Bavaria. She was betrothed to Childebert, but rejected by his mother, the haughty Brunechild. She afterwards, in 589, married Anturi, King of the Lombards, with whom she lived in great affection; when In 690 he died, not without suspicion of poison. The people were very much attached to her; but that turbulent age seemed to require a stronger hand than that of a young girl to sway the rod of empire. She therefore found it expedient to contract a second marriage with Flavius Agilulphus, who, as her husband, was invested with the ensigns of royalty before a general congress at Milan. She was destined to be a second time a widow. Agilulphus died in 615. From that time she assumed the government as regent, which she maintained with vigour and prosperity; she encouraged and improved agriculture; endowed charitable foundations; and. in accordance with what the piety of that age required, built monasteries. What was more extraordinary, and seems to have been rarely thought of by the men sovereigns of that day. she reduced the taxes, and tried to soften the miseries of the inferior classes. She died in 628, bitterly lamented by her subjects. Few men have exhibited powers of mind so well balanced as were those of Theodelinda; and this natural sense of the just and true fitted her for the duties of government.