e king. Her innocence was afterwards proved, and on the death
of Ariowald the Lombards treated her with the greatest respect, and
raised Rotharis, her second husband, to the throne. He, too, died, and
Aribert, uncle of the queen, was next made king. On his death, his two
sons, Bertarit and Godebert, disputed the succession. A struggle ensued
between the rival brothers, in the course of which Grimoald was brought
into the dispute.

The events here briefly described had taken place while Grimoald was
engaged in the Greek wars of his patron, Duke Arigil. When he succeeded
the latter in the ducal chair, the struggle between Bertarit and
Godebert was going on, and the new Duke of Benevento declared in favor
of the latter, who was his personal friend.

A scheme of treachery, of a singular character, put an end to their
friendship and to the life of Godebert. A man who was skilled in the
arts of dissimulation, and who was secretly in the pay of Bertarit,
persuaded Godebert that his seeming friend, Duke Grimoald, was really
his enemy, and was plotting his destruction. He told the same story to
Grimoald, making him believe that Godebert was his secret foe. In proof
of his words he told each of them that the other wore armor beneath his
clothes, through fear of assassination by his assumed friend.

The suspicion thus artfully aroused produced the very state of things
which the agent of mischief had declared to exist. Each of the friends
put on armor, as a protection against treachery from the other, and when
they sought to test the truth of the spy's story it seemed fully
confirmed. Each discovered that the other wore secret armor, without
learning that it had just been assumed.

The two close friends were thus converted by a plotting Iago into
distrustful enemies, each fearing and on guard against assassination by
the other. The affair ended tragically. Grimoald was no sooner fully
convinced of the truth of what had been told him than he slew his
supposed enemy, deeming it necessary to save his own life. The dark
scheme had succeeded. Treason and falsehood had sown death between two
friends.

Bertarit, his rival removed, deemed the throne now securely his. But the
truth underlying the tragedy we have described became known, and the
Lombards, convinced of the innocence of Grimoald, and scorning the
treachery by which he had been led on to murder, dismissed Bertarit's
pretensions and placed Grimoald on the throne. His career