Hermenegild’s fate was destined to be a sad one. His father promised to restore him to his former place if he would abandon the orthodox faith, but he steadfastly refused, and was presently cast into prison. But chains had no more effect on his constancy than prayers and promises. His father grew angry, and bade him expect the worst if he persisted in his obstinacy. On Easter Day 585, he sent an Arian bishop to administer the sacrament to the prisoner. Hermenegild drove the heretical prelate from his cell with cries and imprecations. [Sidenote: Execution of Hermenegild, 585.] The news was brought to his father, who, in a moment of ungovernable rage, like that which induced our own Henry II. to order the death of Becket, bade his guards seize and behead his inflexible son. So perished Hermenegild, whom after generations, forgetting his undutiful rebellion, and remembering only his constancy in the orthodox faith, saluted as a saint. His wife and infant son were sent to Constantinople by the Roman governor of Malaga. Ingunthis died on the voyage, but the boy, Athanagild, lived and died obscurely at the court of the emperor Maurice. Leovigild had now to face the wrath of the Franks. Guntram, the uncle, and Theudebert, the brother of Ingunthis, took arms to avenge her husband’s execution. They sent a fleet to land a force in Galicia, and raise the newly-conquered Suevi, while a Burgundian army entered Septimania, and attacked Nismes and Carcassonne. But Leovigild’s military skill and constant good fortune in war did not fail him. While he himself cut to pieces the army which had landed in Galicia, his son, Reccared, drove the Burgundians out of Septimania, with the loss of their general and half their army. Father and son met in triumph at Toledo, but the hardships of a winter campaign had been too much for Leovigild, who died soon after his return to his capital, on the 13th of April 586, a year to the very day from the date of his eldest son’s execution, a coincidence which the orthodox did not fail to point out as marking the wrath of heaven.