The Historians' History of the World 07

Under these circumstances we cannot but be surprised that Ludwig thought the moment propitious for extensive military operations against Charles the Bald. In the kingdom of the West Franks, a terrible state of things prevailed, for not only did the Northmen ravage the most fertile regions—especially the lowlands of the Loire—almost every year, but in the interior of the kingdom the insubordinate nobles were at war with one another and with the king. The malcontents of the western kingdom had repeatedly turned their eyes towards the German king. When, therefore, in the year 858, he received an appeal from many persons of consequence in the kingdom of Charles the Bald to deliver them from the king’s tyranny and to protect their country from the incursions of the heathen, Ludwig gave up the idea of a campaign against the Slavs, for which he had already made preparations, and marched his army to the west, veiling his dastardly breach of the peace under many fine phrases. The emperor Lothair had died a short time before, and the intervening kingdom of Lorraine had descended to his son, Lothair II, a young and incapable ruler, and Ludwig had therefore good reason to hope that he might be able to reunite the major part of the dominions of Charlemagne under his own sceptre. He advanced with his forces as far as Orleans while Charles the Bald and his nephew Lothair were engaged in a joint struggle with the Normans on the banks of the Loire. Imagining himself already in secure possession of the western kingdom, the king dismissed the greater part of his army, which according to ancient custom, could demand to return home after three months service in the field. Then the temper of the people suddenly changed. The bulk of the Austrasian clergy had remained loyal to Charles the Bald, the temporal lords were ill pleased to see that Ludwig governed the country with a strong hand, and the soldiers of his army had been guilty of the grave error of allowing themselves to perpetrate acts of violence against the country folk. Ludwig suddenly found himself deserted by the Austrasian nobles, disaffection was rife about him on every side, while troops of vassals were gathering round his brother Charles. Suspecting treachery everywhere, he took his departure with all possible speed, having reaped nothing from the whole campaign beyond a considerable loss of prestige. After protracted negotiations a peace was ultimately concluded between Charles and Ludwig at Coblenz in 860. The latter was forced to rest content with being spared a public humiliation and with the grant of a pardon to the Austrasian nobles who had done homage to him.

THE END OF LOTHAIR

[860-869 A.D.]

From the year 860 onwards the affairs of Lorraine occupied the foreground of political attention for both the German and Austrasian kings. In 855 the emperor Lothair died in the monastery of Prüm, into which he had retired sick and world-weary. His unfilial conduct towards his father appears to have weighed heavily upon his spirit and estranged the hearts of others from him to such an extent that he never afterwards throve in men’s esteem. In accordance with ancient Frankish usage his three sons divided amongst them the dominions he had left. Italy and the imperial dignity fell to Ludwig II,[141] the Rhone provinces to Charles, who was yet a minor, and the most important share, Lorraine (Lotharingia) proper and Friesland, to Lothair II. From the time that he was little more than a boy the young king, Lothair, had lived with his father’s connivance in a sort of marriage relation with a lady of rank, Waldrada by name, who had borne him several sons. After his father’s death he took to wife, not the love of his youth, but Thietberga, the daughter of a distinguished Burgundian noble whose possessions lay in the Alpine valleys between Italy and the kingdom of the West Franks. There was no issue of the marriage, and the king conceived the desire to rid himself of his consort that he might marry Waldrada and so secure the kingdom to his children. With this object he caused all sorts of scandalous rumours to be disseminated about Thietberga, implying that before her marriage she had lived in incestuous intercourse with her own brother.

Charles the Bald