[Sidenote: Mayor Ebroin. 660-81.] The man mainly responsible for the evil time of civil strife that followed was Ebroin, Mayor of the Palace in Neustria. He was a cruel, ambitious, vindictive noble, who aspired to much the same position that Pippin the Old and Grimoald had once occupied in Austrasia. Strong by the power of using the royal name, by his numerous _comitatus_, and by his unscrupulous readiness to strike down all who opposed him, he exercised for several years what the contemporary chroniclers called a ‘tyranny.’ He was, we are told, so greedy of money, that to him the man with the longer purse always seemed to have the better cause. Nor was greed his worst fault; however small the offence, any crime committed by a man that he suspected or envied brought the invariable penalty of death. His mandates were as capricious as they were harsh, for example he once issued an order that no Frank of Burgundy should approach the king’s person without the mayor’s express permission. This domination of Ebroin lasted until his young master, Chlothar III., of whose personal influence or character we hear naught, died on the verge of manhood in 670. The autocratic Mayor of the Palace at once raised on the shield Theuderich, Chlothar’s youngest brother. But the majority of the Neustrians saw their chance of getting rid of their tyrant. Rising under the leadership of Leodegar, bishop of Aûtun, they proclaimed Childerich of Austrasia king of the West, as well as of the East Franks, and called him in to their aid. The personal following of Ebroin was too weak to resist the Neustrian and Austrasian nobles combined. He and his puppet king were made captive, and both compelled to take monastic vows—Ebroin at Luxeuil, Theuderich at St. Denis. It might have been better in the end for the Franks if Leodegar had been less merciful to the vanquished Mayor: he was yet to give much trouble. For three years Childerich reigned over all the Franks: he reached manhood in this time, but the power of the kingship did not pass into his own hand. The Mayor Wulfoald ruled in Austrasia, while bishop Leodegar administered Neustria with some success ‘till the old enemy of mankind, whose wont it always is to foment discord, began to stir up against him the envy of the great men whom he had taken as his fellows at the helm, and to sow the tares of malice between him and the king.’ Leodegar was at last thrust by his envious colleagues into the monastery of Luxeuil, where he found his old enemy Ebroin awaiting his company. [Sidenote: Murder of Childerich I.] In the same year king Childerich was murdered: he had seized a free Frank named Bodolin, and without trial or judgment, bound him naked to a stake, and flogged him in the palace court. No sooner was the furious Neustrian freed from his bonds than he gathered a few friends, and slew the king in his bed.