The Boys' Book of Famous Rulers

by Lydia Hoyt Farmer

The story of kings is too often a story of blood and cruelty, and the kingdom which the great Charlemagne inherited had been the scene of fearful and continual conflicts.

The Goths, one of the fierce German nations, had conquered a large part of Gaul after it had become a Roman province, and in the year 451, the Huns, a more terrible nation still, whose chief was the famous Attila, who called himself the “Scourge of God,” invaded Gaul with his army,—horrible looking men, whose faces had been gashed by their savage parents in their infancy, that they might look more dreadful. The poor Gauls thought rightly, that it was more fearful to fall into their hands than into those of the Franks; but the Huns came no further than Orleans, where an army, composed of Gauls, Franks, Goths, Burgundians, all under the Roman general Ætius, attacked the Huns at Châlons-sur-Marne, beat them, and drove them back. Châlons was the last victory in Gaul, won under the Roman banners, and now the poor Gauls were obliged to meet their enemies alone. The chief tribes of those warlike races, who swarmed over Europe, both north and south, were the Goths who conquered Rome, and settled in Spain; the Longbeards or Lombards, who spread over the north of Italy; the Burgundians, or town-livers, who held all the country around the Alps; the Swabians and Germans, who stayed in the middle of Europe; the Saxons, who dwelt south of the Baltic, and finally conquered South Britain; the Northmen, who found a home in Scandinavia; and the Franks, who had been long settled on the rivers Sale, Meuse, and Rhine. Their name meant freemen, and they were noted for using an axe, called after them. Of the Franks there were two noted tribes,—the Salian, from the river Sale, and the Ripuarian. They were great horsemen, and the Salians had a family of kings, who were supposed to have descended from one of their warlike gods, called Odin. Although the Franks were a ferocious and sometimes cruel race, they were in some respects superior to the other barbaric tribes, and were liked better by the Gauls than any other of those various nations.

THE HUNS AT CHÂLONS.

After Cæsar’s conquest many of the Romans had remained in Gaul, and had built and conquered cities, and lived under Roman laws. They taught the Gauls to speak Latin, and organized many schools and colleges among them. The Gauls adopted the Roman dress and religion. The religion of the ancient Gauls had been taught to the people by priests, called Druids. Druidism was a confusion of mingled ideas of Oriental dreams and traditions, borrowed from the mythologies of the East and the North; and although it was degraded by barbaric practices such as human sacrifices in honor of the gods or of the dead, it possessed one germ of truth, for the Druids believed in the immortality of the soul. Their priests were old and wise men, who had studied often for twenty years before they were considered wise enough to become “Men of the Oak,” as the chief Druids were called. They made laws for the people and settled questions of dispute. Once every year the Druids went out to look for the mistletoe, which they considered a sacred plant. When a mistletoe was found growing upon an oak, the people came from all parts of the country and stood around the tree. Then a Druid, clothed in white, climbed up the oak-tree, and cut off the sacred mistletoe with a golden sickle, and the much prized plant was caught by the other Druids below, in a white cloth, and was carried away to be preserved as a great treasure.

But the Gauls living in those provinces conquered by the Romans, had given up their old Druidical religion, and adopted that of their conquerors, which was no improvement, for it was also a paganism, and was such a mass of superstition and idolatry, derived from Grecian mythology and old traditions, that it did not even possess the vital force of the Druidical belief. For the Druids worshipped, as they thought, living deities, while the Græco-Roman paganism was a dead religion, with only dead gods, buried beneath their still standing altars. Such were the superstitions and false religions with which the Christians of the early centuries had to contend in laboring to convert the then known world to the worship of the one true and living God and His Son Jesus Christ, who had already lived his holy life upon this earth, and given himself a sacrifice for the salvation of mankind. Already the disciples of Christ had founded Christian churches in Asia Minor and Palestine, and many of them had died as martyrs for the faith. St. Paul had preached at Athens and at Rome, and having finished his glorious work he had received his crown of martyrdom. And all down these early centuries teachers had been sent out by the Christian churches, to endeavor to convert the heathen world around to a belief in the one true and only religion which could secure the salvation of the immortal soul. The Roman emperors had all persecuted the Christians and sought to uphold paganism. But when B.C. 312, the Emperor Constantine declared himself a Christian, “paganism fell, and Christianity mounted the throne.” Previous to the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, the Gauls had adopted Christianity, and when Hilperik, king of the Franks, conquered Paris and the surrounding country, and at his death left this kingdom to his son, named Hlodwig, or Clovis, there were many Christians and churches and monasteries in Gaul. Clovis conquered many of the surrounding provinces, and at last became the ruler of nearly the whole of Gaul. Clovis had married a Burgundian maiden, named Clothilda, and as she was a Christian he allowed her to worship God in the Christian churches. But in the great battle of Tolbiacum, which Clovis fought with the Germans, when it seemed as though the Franks would be defeated, Clovis took an oath that if the God of his wife would give him the victory he would become a Christian. The Franks were victorious, and Clovis was baptized with all his chief warriors.

“THRUST HIM AWAY, OR THOU DIEST IN HIS STEAD.”

When Clovis died, he left four sons, among whom he divided his kingdom. One was the king of Paris; another, king of Orleans; a third, king of Soissons; and the fourth, who reigned over that part of Gaul nearest Germany and the Rhine, was called king of Metz. In a battle with the Burgundians, the king of Orleans, Clodomir, was killed, leaving three young sons who were placed in the care of their grandmother Clothilda. At length the kings of Paris and Soissons became jealous of these children of their elder brother Clodomir, and sent for the children, under pretence of placing them upon the throne of their father. But as soon as they had them in their cruel power, they sent a pair of scissors and a sword to Clothilda, with a message, saying: “We wait thy wishes as to the three children; shall they be slain or shorn?” meaning, shall they be killed or shut up in monasteries? Clothilda, in despair, cried out: “Slain, rather than shorn!” and the messengers, not waiting to hear her further words, returned to the cruel kings, and announced that they had secured the consent of Clothilda for the shocking deed. The wicked kings then hastily entered the room where the three helpless boys were imprisoned, and having slain the eldest, the second one clung to the knees of his uncle Childebert, king of Paris, who was for a moment moved with pity, and asked his brother Clotaire to spare the boy. But the wicked Clotaire, king of Soissons, exclaimed in wrath, “Thrust him away or thou diest in his stead!” Whereupon, Childebert tried no more to save him, and Clotaire seized the poor boy, who was now shrieking with terror, and plunged a hunting-knife into his side, as he had his brother’s, and slew him. These murdered children were only ten and seven years old. The third brother was snatched up by some brave friends, and hidden away where the cruel uncles could not find him. He was afterwards placed in a monastery, and became a monk, and founded a monastery near Paris, called after him, St. Cloud. After the sons of Clovis there followed a line of kings in France called the Meerwings, or long-haired kings, known in history as the Merovingians; and only two of them are important enough to be mentioned, and those only on account of their crimes. One of the sons of Clovis left four sons; and two of these, named Hilperik and Siegbert, married the two daughters of the king of the Goths, in Spain. These sisters were called Galswinth and Brunehild. Hilperik loved a slave girl he owned, named Fredegond, and either with or without his consent, his wife Galswinth was found strangled in her bed, and he afterwards married the murderess, Fredegond, who, though most atrociously wicked, became a powerful queen. Brunehild persuaded her husband Siegbert to make war upon Hilperik, to avenge the death of her sister. Hilperik was defeated, but the Queen Fredegond contrived to have Siegbert murdered, and afterwards killed her husband’s other children, thus leaving her own son heir to the throne. She then ordered her husband also to be put to death, so that she could reign alone in the name of her infant son. The four kingdoms left by Clovis had been now merged into three,—Neustria, which is now the north of France; Austrasia, which is now the north-east corner of France, and part of Belgium, and part of the western side of Germany; and the third kingdom was called Burgundy. The Neustrians and the Austrasians were usually at war with each other, the Burgundians taking now one side of the quarrel and now the other. Queen Fredegond’s part of Gaul was Neustria, while Queen Brunehild governed Austrasia. But Brunehild quarrelled with the chiefs of the country; and after many years of wars, plots, and murders, she was at last brutally killed by the son of Fredegond, who became king of all the Franks; and in Neustria every one obeyed him; but in Austrasia the great chiefs and bishops were opposed to him. The bishops had by this time become rich and powerful, for a great amount of land had been left to the church by the wills of dying Christians, or as gifts from kings and chiefs. When Clotaire, son of Fredegond, died, he left two sons; one of them named Dagobert made himself master of Neustria and Austrasia, and gave his brother land in the south part of the country, which had not been visited before by a Frankish king. Dagobert took Paris for his chief town; he made himself a splendid court, took journeys through his kingdom, doing justice to his subjects, and encouraged the building of churches, and had copies of the old Frankish laws written out and sent throughout his kingdom. The people liked him; but the powerful chiefs and the bishops, who had become so worldly that they thought a great deal more about piling up riches than in turning the people to Christianity, were filled with dismay to have so wise and just a king, who was fast gaining a great power over the people. After ten years Dagobert died and left two sons; one was king of Austrasia; and the younger king of Neustria. After these, there followed three more kings in Neustria, and four in Austrasia, but they had no power, and were only called kings, while the government was really in the hands of a new set of men, from which line the illustrious Charlemagne sprang. The chief man next the king in these countries was called the Mayor of the Palace. He had the chief command in times of war, and at last became in truth the sovereign ruler; and they only put up one of their do-nothing kings as a figure-head. After the death of Dagobert, there was no other Frankish king of any importance in the line of the Merovingians. The Fainéants, or do-nothing kings, as they were called, sat on the throne and pretended to rule, but the mayor of the palace told them what they must say to the people and what they must do. This went on for nearly a hundred years. When Dagobert died, the mayor of the palace was named Pepin, and through several reigns he really governed both Austrasia and Neustria. He made war against the Germans, and sometimes when they were very troublesome he went with an army and subdued them; and at other times he sent monks to try and convert them to Christianity. When Pepin died, his son Karl became the mayor of the palace. Now Karl wished to secure money to give to his chiefs, so that they would fight for him, and so he took away from the bishops the rich lands which belonged to the church, and gave them to his warriors. Karl had first to fight the Saxons, whom he defeated, and then there appeared a new foe. The Arabs lived in Arabia, on the east side of the Red Sea, in Asia.

They had always been a poor, wandering people. But about one hundred and fifty years before this time, an Arab had appeared among his countrymen, claiming to be a mighty prophet, and teaching them a new religion. It was not the Christian religion; but this man, who was named Mohammed, claimed that he had been sent by God to teach the people; and so the religion he proclaimed was called Mohammedanism. Now the Arabs had never left their own country before, but they determined to go forth and conquer the world, and make all the nations Mohammedans. They conquered Persia, Egypt, Spain, and a part of Africa. When they overcame any nation, if the people would consent to become Mohammedans, the Arabs treated them with kindness; but if they refused, they made slaves of them, and sometimes put them to death. Having conquered Spain, the Arabs wished to become masters of France.