Intoxicated with power, pride, hate, and revenge, she entered more violently every day into strife not only with the Austrasian laic chieftains, but with some of the principal bishops of Austrasia and Burgundy, among the rest with St.Didier, bishop of Vienne, who, at her instigation, was brutally murdered, and with the great Irish missionary St.Columba, who would not sanction by his blessing the fruits of the royal irregularities.

In 614, after thirty-nine years of wars, plots, murders, and political and personal vicissitudes, from the death of her husband Sigebert I., and under the reigns of her son Theodebert, and her grandsons Theodebert II.
and Thierry II., Queen Brunehaut, at the age of eighty years, fell into the hands of her mortal enemy, Clotaire II., son of Fredegonde, now sole king of the Franks.

After having grossly insulted her, he had her paraded, seated on a camel, in front of his whole army, and then ordered her to be tied by the hair, one foot, and one arm to the tail of an unbroken horse, that carried her away, and dashed her in pieces as he galloped and kicked, beneath the eyes of the ferocious spectators.
[Illustration: The Execution of Brunehaut----175] After the execution of Brunehaut and the death of Clotaire II., the history of the Franks becomes a little less dark and less bloody.

Not that murders and great irregularities, in the court and amongst the people, disappear altogether.

Dagobert I., for instance, the successor of Clotaire II., and grandson of Chilperic and Fredegonde, had no scruple, under the pressure of self-interest, in committing an iniquitous and barbarous act.