Saint Bathild, Queen of Burgundy

Another sainted queen of "France," Bathild lived c. 626-680.

I want to note here that many of the ladies in this series were not born French at all, and Bathild is one of them.  When my father visited and we walked around the park I told him about some of the queens, and he was surprised to find out that a lot of them either were non-French queens of France or French queens of some country that was not France.  Most of these women started out princesses or duchesses, and the main use for such a woman was to marry her to the powerful ruler of another land.  So, many queens of France were from England or Spain or German countries.  The French still consider them French - as they would have considered themselves French once they became a French queen or princess.  Conversely, French princesses who married and ruled elsewhere also would still be considered French due to their birth.

Anyway, that wasn't the case with our Bathild here.

We don't know a lot of hard facts about her life, as most of it is legend or comes from the writings put forward to help her cause for sainthood (obviously biased in her favor).

She was born English - or more accurately, at the time it would have been Anglo-Saxon - and probably a relative of a regional king.  When she was young the king she was affiliated with was ousted and she was sold into slavery in court in northwestern France.  The man who owned her was an important adviser to the king of that area (Burgundy plus Neustria), and took a fancy to her.  Balthild did not want to marry him so hid away until he married.  Somehow during this time the king also decided he liked her quite a bit and she later married him.

We don't know much about how all that went down, but we do know that her husband the king died when their eldest son was just five years old, and Bathild ruled as regent (extremely unusual for the time) for a few years in his stead.  During that time there was an uprising that she had to put down, and she also worked to end Christian slavery, especially of children who were captured in war.  One historian has accused her of arranging assassinations of bishops who did not support her agendas, but another historian's interpretation seems more likely: she used her money and influence to appoint and maintain bishops and other figures who supported her and her family.  Since she had some rebellions to deal with it was probably the most effective way of neutralizing their political enemies.  We know she did found at least two monasteries as their patroness.

The people rallying for her canonization predictably maintained that she was very beautiful, modest, pious, and charitable.  Some of these seem true (she was obviously charitable, and she seems to have joined a convent after her son became king in his own right) but there is no real way of knowing her personality.

What we do know about her though, is amusingly enough more than we know about her husband Clovis II.  Although he did die young it's clear that she had more political and religious influence than he ever did - and this from a woman who had been a slave at his court!

Her story seems a bit like a fairy tale to me: a highborn girl suffers a bunch of misfortunes but ends up marrying a prince/king and thanks to her goodness is remembered as a just and generous [co]ruler.  The truth must be more complicated than that, and I do wish we knew more about her.  She was one of the women I didn't know at all before looking them all up; I'm glad she's included here.