We left the whole[23] Frankish realm concentrated in the hands of the aged Chlothar, last surviving son of Chlodovech. [Sidenote: Second partition of the Frankish Realm, 561.] When, however, this hoary ruffian, fresh from the murder of his eldest son, sank into his grave, in the year 561, his four surviving children parted the kingdom once more among themselves, not without a preliminary fight, in which Chilperich, the youngest of the four, having laid hands on his father’s treasures, and raised an army with their aid, tried to put down his kinsmen, but failed. When he had been defeated and brought to submission, the realm was made into four shares. Charibert, the eldest son, took Paris and Aquitaine; Guntram the Burgundian kingdom; Sigibert the Ripuarian land on the Rhine, and the tributary Thuringian and Bavarian lands beyond it; lastly, the restless Chilperich was given his father’s original share, the old Salian land between Meuse and Somme, with certain districts farther south added to it, so that it extended nearly as far as the gates of Rouen and Rheims. Footnote 23: For genealogy of the house of Chlodovech see page 166. [Illustration: THE FRANKISH KINGDOMS. 575. ] Of these four brothers, Charibert died young, in 567. He is only remembered because his daughter Bertha married Ethelbert, the king of Kent, and was, twenty years later, the protector of the mission of St. Augustine. Charibert’s lands on the Seine and Loire were parted among his three brothers, Guntram and Chilperich each taking the part that lay nearest to his own frontier, while their distant Ripuarian brother, Sigibert, had Tours, Poictiers, and Bordeaux, separated from his other dominions by the whole breadth of Burgundy. The tale of the wars and tumults which the three surviving sons of Chlothar I. raised against each other is a long recital of objectless strife and treachery. The uneasiest spirit of the three was the wicked Chilperich, ‘the Nero and Herod of his time,’ as Gregory of Tours very rightly styles him. The usual fraternal hatred of the Merovings was embittered between him and Sigibert by an additional grievance. While Sigibert was away beyond the Rhine striving with the wild Avars, who had pushed their incursions along the Danube into Bavaria and Suabia, his brother, the king of Soissons, invaded Ripuaria, and tried to seize it for himself. Sigibert returned in haste, and succeeded in driving Chilperich back beyond the Meuse, and preserving his eastern border.