Amalaric was the first Gothic king who established his court in Spain, in the city of Seville. To Athalaric, the successor of Theodoric, he ceded that portion of France which lies between the Rhone and the Alps, and received in return his father’s treasures, which Theodoric had removed from Carcassonne to Ravenna: in the rest of Gothic Gaul, with all Spain, he was solemnly confirmed by Athalaric. To secure his possessions in Gaul against the formidable Franks, Amalaric demanded and obtained the hand of Clotilda, the sister of the royal sons of Clovis. But the union was unfortunate. The king was a violent partisan of Arius; the queen as obstinate a professor of orthodoxy: at first each attempted to convert the other; but finding their efforts ineffectual, the one was filled with rage, the other with contempt. Childebert marched against his brother-in-law; the result was fatal to Amalaric, who fell by the swords of the Franks, whether on the field of battle, as Procopius[o] asserts, or afterwards as he was seeking sanctuary in a church, must forever remain undecided. The battle in question appears to have been fought, not in Gothic Gaul, but in Catalonia. Childebert returned to France with his sister and the immense treasures which he had seized in the Arian churches. With Amalaric ended the royal line of the mighty Alaric. Theudes was unanimously elected to the vacant throne (531). He appears to have been engaged in hostilities for some years with the vindictive or ambitious sons of Clovis. Gothic Gaul he was compelled to abandon to its fate, but he vigorously defended his peninsular dominions, which were invaded and laid waste by Childebert and Clotaire. Elated with his successes, the victorious Theudes passed the straits of Gibraltar, and laid siege to Ceuta, then in possession of the imperial troops. The place was invested with vigour; and this recent conquest of Belisarius would soon have passed to the Visigoths or the Vandals, but for the pious scruples of the king. Though an Arian, he revered the Sabbath; on which he not only refrained from hostile operations, but with his soldiers was occupied in public worship. Less strict than their foe, the besieged issued from the walls, fell on the Goths at the hour of prayer, and committed on them a carnage so horrible that the king had some difficulty to escape. He did not long survive this disaster. An assassin contrived to penetrate into the recesses of his palace, and with a poniard to deprive him of life. Before he expired, he is said to have ordered that the murderer should not be punished, as in his death he recognised the hand of heaven, which thus chastised him for a similar crime he had himself committed many years before. He left behind him the character of a just, a valiant, and an able ruler, who secured to his kingdom the blessings of internal peace by avoiding all invidious preference of his own religious sect, and treating the orthodox with as much favour as his Arian brethren.