2024-12-12
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Queen Fredegund was very depressed, for she had been stripped of much of her power by her great rival, Queen Brunhild.
And yet she considered herself a much better woman than Brunhild.
In secret, then, she sent a cleric of her household who was to gain Brunhild's confidence by trickery and then assassinate her.
If only he could, on some pretence or other, be accepted as one of her retainers and so gain her confidence, she could then be dispatched.
When no one was about, the cleric went off to Brunhild and by the lies which he told, made his way into her good graces.
I am a fugitive from Queen Fredegunde, he said, and I seek your protection.
He began by behaving in a most humble manner to everyone, and so gave himself out as the obedient and trusty servant of the queen.
But not long afterwards they realized on what a treacherous errand he had been sent.
He was bound and flogged until he confessed his secret plan.
Then he was permitted to return to the queen who had sent him.
When he told Fredegunde what had happened and confessed that he had failed in his mission, she punished him by having his hands and feet cut off.
So that was Gregory of Tours in his History of the Franks, which is a great chronicle, often an eyewitness account, in fact, of what happened in Merovingian Gaul in the late 6th century.
So Gregory of Tour, Thomas.
I studied him at university.
He was a great Gallo Roman writer, descended from the kind of senatorial classes.
It's a wonderful book.
I know you're a big fan of the first line of that book, the greatest first line in all, in all history.