The troubles of Leovigild, however, had not yet come to an end. His worst enemies were to be those of his own house. Before his accession to the throne he had married, contrary to Gothic custom, a noble Roman lady named Theodosia, daughter of Severianus, sometime governor of Carthagena. By her he had two sons, Hermenegild and Reccared. When she died he endeavoured to strengthen his position by marrying Godiswintha, the widow of his predecessor Athanagild; and some years later, when his son Hermenegild reached manhood, he determined to seek for him another bride from the family of Athanagild. Accordingly he asked for, and obtained the hand of his wife’s granddaughter, Ingunthis, the daughter of Sigibert of Austrasia and Brunhildis. At the age of thirteen she was wedded to Hermenegild. This marriage was destined to have the most unhappy results. The daughter of Brunhildis was fated to be as much the cause of woe to Spain as her mother had been to Gaul. She had been reared in Austrasia as a Catholic, and, in spite of her tender age, refused to conform to the Arian creed of the Visigoths. If the Frankish chronicles are to be believed, she was subjected to the most violent treatment by her grandmother Godiswintha, to force her to abandon the orthodox faith. But though beaten, starved, and flung into a fish-pond, she still refused to renounce the faith of her childhood. At last Leovigild, tired of the perpetual disputes between his wife and his daughter-in-law, which made his palace unbearable, sent off Hermenegild to Seville to govern part of Andalusia. This step proved most unfortunate. The young prince fell entirely under the influence of his wife and of his mother’s brother, Leander bishop of Seville. Won over by their pleadings, he declared himself a Catholic, and was rebaptized, and received into the orthodox church. [Sidenote: Rebellion of Hermenegild, 580.] He knew that his conversion would bring on him his father’s wrath, and the loss of his prospect of succeeding to the Visigothic crown, but he was unwilling to suffer degradation meekly, and promptly proclaimed himself king, allied himself with the Suevi and the East-Romans, and called the orthodox to arms all over Spain.