On the death of Clothair, sole king of the Franks, (A.D. 561), his dominions were divided amongst his four sons, Charibert, who became king of Paris and the adjacent country; Guntram, of Orleans; Chilperic, of Soissons; and Sigebert, of Austrasia. The reign of Charibert was unattended by any important event; he died at the expiration of eleven years from the date of his accession, leaving an only daughter, Bertha, who married Ethelbert, king of Kent, and converted him to Christianity. The brothers Sigebert and Chilperic were engaged in bloody wars with each other. Sigebert had espoused Brunhild, daughter of Athanagild, king of the Visigoths. Chilperic was married at three several periods to as many wives: first, to Audovera, by whom he had three sons; Theodebert, Meroveus, and Clovis; secondly, to Gailesuinth, sister of Brunhild, by whom he had a daughter. During the lifetime of his second queen, Chilperic became enamoured of Fredegund, and his passion led him to put Gailesuinth to death, and elevate her rival to the throne. This barbarous action induced Sigebert to take up arms against his brother, urged thereto by the vehement Brunhild, desirous of revenging the murder of her sister; and a destructive war ensued, in the course of which Chilperic and his guilty consort were driven from their country, and became exiles in a foreign land. At no very distant interval of time, in 575, Sigebert was assassinated by the directions of his unnatural brother. Brunhild, his widow, sued for protection to Meroveus, son of Chilperic by his first wife, who was at Rouen, where Chilperic had imprisoned her. Meroveus, dreading the power of Fredegund, who wished to secure the succession to the crown for her son, took up arms against his father, and making common cause with Brunhild, his aunt, married her.