Childeric I. (c. 437-481), king of the Salian Franks, succeeded his father Merwich (Merwing) as king about. 457. With his tribe he was established around the town of Tournai, on lands which he had received as a foederatus of the Romans, and for some time he kept the peace with his allies. About 463, in conjunction with the Roman general Egidius, he fought against the Visigoths, who hoped to extend their dominion along the banks of the Loire; after the death of Egidius he assisted Count Paul in attempting to check an invasion of the Saxons. Paul having perished in the struggle, Childeric delivered Angers from some Saxons, followed them to the islands at the mouth of the Loire, and massacred them there. He also stopped a band of the Alamanni who wished to invade Italy. These are all the facts known about him. The stories of his expulsion by the Franks; of his stay of eight years in Thuringia with King Basin and his wife Basine; of his return when a faithful servant advised him that he could safely do so by sending to him half of a piece of gold which he had broken with him; and of the arrival at Tournai of Queen Basine, whom he married, are entirely legendary. After the fall of the Western Empire in 476 there is no doubt that Childeric regarded himself as freed from his engagements towards Rome. He died in 481 and was buried at Tournai, leaving a son Clovis (q.v.), afterwards king of the Franks. His tomb was discovered in 1653, when numerous precious objects, arms, jewels, coins and a ring with a figure of the king, were found.
Childeric II. (c. 653-673), king of Austrasia, was a son of the Frankish king Clovis II., and in 660, although a child, was proclaimed king of Austrasia, while his brother, Clotaire III., ruled over the rest of the dominions of Clovis. After the death of Clotaire in 670 he became ruler of the three Frankish kingdoms, Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy, but soon quarrelled with some supporters in Neustria, and was assassinated whilst hunting. He was buried at St Germain near Paris.
Childeric III. (d. c. 751), king of the Franks, was the last king of the Merovingian dynasty. The throne had been vacant for seven years when the mayors of the palace, Carloman and Pippin the Short, decided in 743 to recognize Childeric as king. We cannot say whose son he was, or what bonds bound him to the Merovingian family. He took no part in public business, which was directed, as before, by the mayors of the palace. When in 747 Carloman retired into a monastery, Pippin resolved to take the royal crown for himself; taking the decisive step in 751 after having received the celebrated answer of Pope Zacharias that it were better to name king him who possessed the power than him who possessed it not. Childeric was dethroned and placed in the monastery of St Omer; his son, Theuderich, was imprisoned at Saint-Wandrille.
See W. Junghans, Die Geschichte der fränkischen Könige Childerich und Clodovech (Göttingen, 1857); J.J. Chiflet, Anastasis Childerici I. Francorum regis (Antwerp, 1655); J.B.D. Cochet, Le Tombeau de Childeric I, roi des Francs (Paris, 1859); and E. Lavisse, Histoire de France, tome ii. (Paris, 1903).
CHILDERS, HUGH CULLING EARDLEY (1827-1896), British statesman, was born in London on the 25th of June 1827. On leaving Cambridge he went out to Australia (1850), and became a member of the government of Victoria, but in 1857 returned to England as agent-general of the colony. Entering parliament in 1860 as Liberal member for Pontefract (a seat that he continued to hold till 1885), he became civil lord of the admiralty in 1864, and in 1865 financial secretary to the treasury. Childers occupied a succession of prominent posts in the various Gladstone ministries. He was first lord of the admiralty from 1868 to 1871, and as such inaugurated a policy of retrenchment. Ill-health compelled his resignation of office in 1871, but next year he returned to the ministry as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. From 1880 to 1882 he was secretary for war, a post he accepted somewhat unwillingly; and in that position he had to bear the responsibility for the reforms which were introduced into the war office under the parsimonious conditions which were then part of the Liberal creed. During his term of office the Egyptian War occurred, in which Childers acted with creditable energy; and also the Boer War, in which he and his colleagues showed to less advantage. From 1882 to 1885 he was chancellor of the exchequer, and the beer and spirit duty in his budget of the latter year was the occasion of the government’s fall. Defeated at the general election at Pontefract, he was returned as a Home Ruler (one of the few Liberals who adopted this policy before Mr Gladstone’s conversion) in 1886 for South Edinburgh, and was home secretary in the ministry of 1886. When the first Home Rule bill was introduced he demurred privately to its financial clauses, and their withdrawal was largely due to his threat of resignation. He retired from parliament in 1892, and died on the 29th of January 1896, his last piece of work being the drafting of a report for the royal commission on Irish financial relations, of which he was chairman. Childers was a capable and industrious administrator of the old Liberal school, and he did his best, in the political conditions then prevailing, to improve the naval and military administration while he was at the admiralty and war office. His own bent was towards finance, but no striking reform is associated with his name. His most ambitious effort was his attempt to effect a conversion of consols in 1884, but the scheme proved a failure, though it paved the way for the subsequent conversion in 1888.
The Life (1901) of Mr Childers, by his son, throws some interesting side-lights on the inner history of more than one Gladstonian cabinet.
CHILDERS, ROBERT CAESAR (1838-1876), English Oriental scholar, son of the Rev. Charles Childers, English chaplain at Nice, was born in 1838. In 1860 he received an appointment in the civil service of Ceylon, which he retained until 1864, when he was compelled to return to England owing to ill-health. He had studied Pāli during his residence in Ceylon, under Yátrámullé Unnánsé, a learned Buddhist for whom he cherished a life-long respect, and he had gained an insight into the Sinhalese character and ways of thought. In 1869 he published the first Pāli text ever printed in England, and began to prepare a Pāli dictionary, the first volume of which was published in 1872, and the second and concluding volume in 1875. In the following year it was awarded the Volney prize by the Institute of France, as being the most important philological work of the year. He was a frequent contributor to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, in which he published the Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta, the Pāli text giving the account of the last days of Buddha’s life. In 1872 he was appointed sub-librarian at the India Office, and in the following year he became the first professor of Pāli and Buddhist literature at University College, London. He died in London on the 25th of July 1876.