Bertha is one of the most interesting and romantic characters in English history--our first Christian Queen--possessing apparently much the same influence over Ethelbert as Clotilda had done over Bertha's great ancestor, Clovis, and (though not able to convert him yet) without doubt disposing him favourably towards the new religion. It is variously conjectured that she was born about 555 or 561. We do not know much of her early life, but St. Gregory of Tours, in his contemporary pages, informs us that King Charibert took to wife, Ingoberga, by whom he had a daughter, who afterwards "married a husband in Kent." Charibert was not a man of good character, and being annoyed with his wife Ingoberga, he forsook her, and married Merofledis, the daughter of a certain poor woolmaker in the queen's service. The unfortunate queen was thereupon obliged to fly, and, taking up her abode at Tours, devoted herself to a life of religious seclusion, bringing up her daughter Bertha under the direction of Bishop Gregory, and preparing her thus for the part she afterwards filled in the conversion of England. We may mention here that King Charibert, after the death of Merofledis, proceeded to marry her sister, for which outrage he was solemnly excommunicated by St. Germanus; and, refusing to leave her, "perished, stricken by the just judgment of God." Ingoberga died at the age of seventy, in the year 589. Bertha was accompanied to England by her chaplain, Liudhard, who was sent with her to preserve her faith. Of Liudhard we know very little that is certain. His name is variously spelt Leotard, Liudhard, or even Liupard. By some he was supposed to be Bishop of Senlis, but his name does not occur in the list of bishops of that see, though it is inserted with a mark of interrogation in Gow's _Series Episcoporum_. By others he has been entitled Bishop of Soissons, though without any documentary authority. We may probably accept the notion that he was one of the "wandering bishops" who were very numerous at a later period in Gaul. Gocelin calls him the "faithful guardian of the queen." It seems strange that he, who could speak a language akin to that of the English, did not convert some of them previously to the coming of Augustine, who only spoke Latin, and was obliged to converse with them at first through the medium of an interpreter. However that may be, he was undoubtedly the "harbinger" of Augustine, and had probably endeavoured to stir up his brother prelates of Gaul on behalf of the English, since Pope Gregory, writing at this time to Theodoric and Theodebert, severely condemns the supineness of the Gallic Church, in neglecting to provide for the religious wants of their neighbours, whose "earnest longing for the grace of life had reached his ears."