In 590, Gontran, King of Burgundy, was hunting in the royal forest of the Vosges, when he found the remains of a stag which had been killed by some poacher. The game-keeper accused Cherndon the king’s chamberlain, who, being confronted with his accuser, stoutly denied the charge. Gontran immediately ordered a combat. A nephew of the chamberlain was his champion; and in the conflict the game-keeper received a wound from his lance, which pierced his foot: having fallen from the severity of the injury, his antagonist rushed upon him to despatch him, when the prostrate man drew out a knife and ripped up his antagonist’s belly. The two combatants remained on the field, and Cherndon endeavoured to seek refuge in the church of St. Marcel; but Gontran ordered him to be seized and stoned to death. A curious trial by battle took place in 626. Queen Gundeberge, the consort of Rharvald King of Lombardy, as much admired for her beauty and talents as her unimpeachable virtue, had thought it expedient to drive from her court a certain gossiping slanderous fellow of the name of Adalulf, who, it appears, had presumed to make some base proposal to her majesty. Adalulf forthwith, in a fit of revenge, hastened to the King, and informed him that the sharer of his bed had entered into a plot to poison him, and to marry the Duke Tason her paramour. The indignant Rharvald, without further inquiry, banishes the accused from his presence, and immures her in a castle, although she was nearly related to the Kings of the Francs. An emissary of Clotaire, however, indignant at the usage the Queen had received, urged the monarch to order a judicial contest; and Adalulf was therefore commanded to prepare himself to meet a cousin of the unfortunate Queen, of the name of Pithon, who having cut Adalulf’s throat, the innocence of Gundeberge was made manifest, to the entire satisfaction not only of her royal husband, but of all the gossips of the court of Burgundy. It was in consequence of this favourable and satisfactory result, that Grunvalt, in 668, made some alteration in the laws, by which it was enacted that ladies placed in a similar situation should enjoy the faculty of selecting their own champions.