Chlothar II

Chlothar II, sometimes called "the Young" (French: le Jeune), (May/June 584 – 18 October 629) was king of the Franks, ruling Neustria (584–629), Burgundy (613–629) and Austrasia (613–623).

The son of Chilperic I and his third wife, Fredegund, he started his reign as an infant under the regency of his mother, who was in an uneasy alliance with Chlothar's uncle King Guntram of Burgundy, who died in 592. Chlothar took power upon the death of his mother in 597; though rich, his realm was one of the smallest portions of Francia. He continued his mother's feud with Queen Brunhilda with equal viciousness and bloodshed, finally achieving her execution by dismemberment in 613, after winning the battle that enabled Chlothar to unite Francia under his rule. Like his father, he built up his territories by seizing lands after the deaths of other kings.

His reign was long by contemporary standards, but saw the continuing erosion of royal power to the French nobility and the church against a backdrop of feuding among the Merovingians. The Edict of Paris in 614, concerned with several aspects of appointments to offices and the administration of the kingdom, has been interpreted in different ways by modern historians. In 617 he made the mayor of the Palace a role held for life, an important step in the progress of this office from being first the manager of the royal household to the effective head of government, and eventually the monarch, under Pepin the Short in 751. Chlothar was forced to cede rule over Austrasia to his young son Dagobert I in 623.

Unusually for a Merovingian monarch, he practised monogamy, though early deaths meant that he had three wives. He was generally an ally of the church and, perhaps inspired by the example of his uncle Guntram, his reign seems to lack outrageous acts of murder, the execution of Brunhilda excepted.