Claimants to Royalty

by John Henry Ingram

After having thus endured the ups and downs of fickle fortune, this claimant, in hopes of ingratiating himself with the Franks, and at the suggestion of his ally Childebert, king of Metz, took upon himself the pseudo name of Clotaire, thus more distinctly marking his claim to the throne of his putative father Clotaire the First. But all the arts of the pretender were unavailable to obtain the assistance or recognition of Gontran, king of Orleans, who took up arms in defence of the real heir to the throne, the veritable Clotaire the Second, a child of tender years, and who, despite the fact that Gondebaud's forces were commanded by the best generals of the country, by fight or stratagem gradually deprived him of all his treasures, allies, and, finally, of his life. For the pretender's chief adherents finding that Gontran was determined to resist him to the uttermost, and probably seeing little prospect of his ultimately obtaining any permanent power in the country, determined to abandon Gondebaud to his fate; he was, however, so strongly fortified, and so well provided with every necessary of war in his stronghold, that his foes found the only method of dislodging him was by stratagem.

Gontran accordingly got Queen Brunechild, the mother of his adopted heir, Childebert, to write to our hero, under the pretence of her being secretly in his interest, and advise him to remove with all his treasure to Bordeaux, where he would have the command of both land and sea. Duped by this woman, the unfortunate claimant forsook his refuge, and put himself en route for Bordeaux. On the road he fell in with an ambuscade of the enemy's, which succeeded in stripping him of all the treasure he had accumulated, but did not prevent him arriving at his destination.

Bordeaux sustained a siege of some weeks on the pretender's account, but during the whole of that time traitors in and out of the city were bargaining for his betrayal. At last, his chief men, thinking to ransom their lives with his, persuaded the pseudo Clotaire to go outside the city to confer with the foe as to the terms of peace, and as soon as he was without the walls they closed the gates upon him, leaving him to his fate. He was seized by the besiegers and dragged on to a hillock outside their camp, where he was flung down by one of their commanders; and as the unhappy man was still rolling, the traitor Boson beat out his brains with a battle-axe. Thus perished this luckless pretender to the throne of the Franks, whether a son or not of Clotaire the First, equally unfortunate.

THE FALSE CLOVIS THE THIRD OF FRANCE.

A.D. 676.

When Clotaire the Third came to the French throne he was only five years old; consequently the affairs of the kingdom had to be entrusted to the guidance of a regent. The man selected to fill this post was Ebroin, and the choice appeared in every respect admirable. Ebroin was not only, apparently, fitted by birth and talent to sway the people, but he also possessed the qualification most desirable of all others for the time and clime in which he lived; that is to say, he was a valiant and experienced warrior.

Associated, however, with him in power, was Batilde, the queen dowager, a woman, according to all the priestly chroniclers, of great beauty and discretion, but doubtless much swayed by bigoted ecclesiastics. For some years the country enjoyed considerable prosperity: Batilde ruled with prudence and justice, and by keeping on good terms with the prelates has obtained no little historic fame; whilst Ebroin, having managed to quarrel with the Church, has left a reputation for all that is bad.

The queen dowager, either by compulsion or inclination, having resigned the cares of government, and taken refuge in the convent of Chelles, the chief minister, Ebroin, or Maire du Palais, as he was styled, was enabled to give full vent to all those evil qualities which circumstances had hitherto compelled him to conceal. Taking the entire power into his own hands, he killed and ill-treated, confiscated and exiled, with as much arrogance as a reigning king. In the year 668 the boy Clotaire died, aged about eighteen; and Ebroin, contrary to the wish of the nobles, placed Thierry, the younger brother of the deceased monarch, upon the throne, to the exclusion of the elder brother, Childerick, the next heir. He was induced to act thus in consequence of Thierry's youth, he being but eight, affording him a good opportunity of retaining the governing power in his own hands. In this act, however, he erred; for the nation, or at all events a powerful portion of it, revolted against his authority, overthrew him, and took both him and the prince Thierry prisoners. More merciful than was the wont in those days, the victors put neither of their prisoners to death, but contented themselves with shaving Ebroin's head—then deemed a terrible degradation—and confining him in a monastery, and with placing his youthful protégé under priestly surveillance.

In 973, Childerick the Second, and his wife and child, were assassinated by a gentleman whom he had had brutally beaten for remonstrating with him somewhat freely on the danger of an excessive imposition that he had wished to establish. Taking advantage of the confusion into which the country was thrown by this sudden event, Ebroin made his escape from the monastery in which he had been immured, and, aided by a large number of malcontents, set up the standard of revolt against Thierry the Third, who now, in consequence of his brother's death, became the legitimate king. Ebroin was joined by the Governor of Austrasia, by two deposed bishops, and by many other influential men, all of whom shared with him an intense hatred of Leger, Bishop of Autun, who now held the reins of power. In order to obtain more partisans amongst the people, Ebroin and his comrades brought forward a lad of about twelve or thirteen years of age, and asserted that he was a son of Clotaire the Third, who was believed to have died in 670, in his nineteenth year.