Childeric II

Childeric was the second son of King Clovis II and Saint Balthild, still a child when warriors hoisted him on shields and proclaimed him King of Austrasia in 662. His elder brother Chlothar III had given him the eastern kingdom while keeping Neustria and Burgundy, but when Chlothar died in 673, Burgundian nobles rebelled against their new king Theuderic III and invited Childeric to invade - which he did, displacing his youngest brother and becoming sole king of all three realms. He married his cousin Bilichild and had two sons, Dagobert and Chilperic, but quickly alienated his new subjects by installing his Austrasian mayor of the palace over Burgundy and Neustria, a move the local magnates resented. In 675, after Childeric ordered illegal corporal punishment of a Neustrian nobleman named Bodilo, the humiliated aristocrat and two friends conspired to kill him. They struck while he hunted in the forest of Livry, murdering Childeric, Bilichild, and young Dagobert together - only the younger son Chilperic, absent that day, survived to grow up in a monastery and later become king himself.