Doomed Queens (15 page)

Chilperic with Galswintha’s successor. She wasn’t as nice as she was pretty.

Chilperic was renowned as a libertine who had bedded and impregnated more than a few miladies at court; rumor held that he was especially tight with his latest concubine, Fredegund, who was originally a serving maid. The historian and cleric Gregory of Tours described Chilperic as “the Nero and Herod of our time.” Despite these less-than-stellar portents, Galswintha’s father agreed to the match so he could scoop up additional Frankish support for Spain. The king mollified his conscience by asking Chilperic to clean up his act around his daughter.

Galswintha and Chilperic were married in Rouen. Initially Galswintha was received with great honor as queen—Chilperic was delighted with the treasures she had brought in her dowry. However, this felicitious state did not last long. Fredegund reappeared in the king’s bed and grabbed every opportunity to harass the new queen. Poor Galswintha begged to return to Toledo, even offering to forfeit her dowry. Chilperic refused.

A year after the wedding, Galswintha was discovered lifeless in her bed—Chilperic, influenced by the urgings of Fredegund, had ordered a slave to strangle his wife. Though the king wept crocodile tears, everyone knew the deal. He also flaunted his passion for his coconspirator, which didn’t deter suspicions.

Several days later, the funeral meats coldly furnished the marriage tables—King Chilperic wed Fredegund, making her queen of Neustria.

or

A Tale of Two Sisters

(and Two Brothers)

Two sisters marrying two brothers sounds so downright jovial, like the denouement of a Shakespearean comedy. In this instance, brotherly love proved deadly for both sisters, Galswintha directly and Brunhilde indirectly.

CAUTIONARY MORAL

Once a rat, always a rat.

613

he bonds of sisterhood transcend the grave. In the case of Brunhilde of Austrasia, it can also lead to it.

After her sister Galswintha’s murder in 568, Brunhilde was transformed from the wife of King Charming into a monarch with a mission—and the mission was revenge. To gain it, the queen of Austrasia incited a forty-year war between her realm and Neustria that made the Hatfields and the McCoys seem downright Merchant-Ivory.

How was a queen able to get armies marching over a victim of domestic violence? Ironically, it was Brunhilde’s happy marriage that did the trick. It was easy for her to sway her husband to her will, just as Fredegund’s whisperings had prodded Chilperic to uxoricide. It helped that King Charming wasn’t too fond of his brother in the first place. Nor were the rest of the Merovingian blue bloods, who joined en masse to dethrone black sheep Chilperic over the murder. One would have considered justice served, but Chilperic soon regained his crown, much to Brunhilde’s chagrin.

Every good fairy tale needs a wicked queen—Chilperic’s wife, Fredegund, made an exemplary one. As the conflict escalated, she revealed herself to be as unscrupulous in war as she was in peace. At one point, Fredegund sent a clerk to assassinate Brunhilde. When the clerk returned unsuccessful, she had his feet and hands cut off in punishment.

By 575, the war had claimed the life of King Charming—Fredegund persuaded two slaves to attack him with poisoned knives. Then Brunhilde was imprisoned in Rouen. All seemed lost until one of Chilperic’s excess sons from his philandering days visited her out of curiosity. Turned out that the queen still retained her allure, so he wed and bedded her. Before the forbidden marriage could be annulled by the church—after all, Brunhilde was his uncle’s widow—he helped her escape.

With Brunhilde free again to do as she wished, the war dragged on. As the decades passed, more royals lost their lives. Chilperic, the guy who started it all, was stabbed to death in 584, leaving Fredegund conveniently in charge. Then Fredegund died in 597, presumably of natural causes. Fredegund’s son Chlotar proved to be a chip off the old block when he took over his mom’s throne. By now, Brunhilde had lost any popularity she may have held—no one remembered the murder of her sister, only the copious bloodshed that had ensued.

In the end, Fredegund triumphed from beyond the grave over her old enemy: The armies of Austrasia and Neustria joined as one to overthrow Brunhilde. King Chlotar II arranged an execution for the conquered queen that would have brought tears of pride to his mother’s eyes. After torturing Brunhilde for three days, he paraded her on a camel before the entire army. Her limbs were chained to wild horses, who quartered her, and her remains thrown into a bonfire.

Thus was Brunhilde’s spirit conscribed to the great beyond. Hopefully she met Galswintha there, who high-fived her for her filial loyalty.

Drawing and Quartering

Call Brunhilde an unlucky exception to the rule: Women and royals usually weren’t executed by being drawn and quartered. This procedure was deployed on commoners guilty of various treasonous crimes. Nobles were granted the honor of a speedy death by beheading. Death by being drawn and quartered was far more prevalent in England and her colonies than in Europe during the Dark Ages.

The death was as horrible as it sounds. The condemned were usually hung before being dismembered by sword, rather than by horse—one would hope a much swifter and more merciful route to meeting the grim reaper.

Queen Brunhilde under stress.