Rival Queens (Part 1)

Noble Blood

iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Queen Brunhild married Sigeburt I of Austrasia. Her sister married Sigebert's brother. At least, they were married, until Brunhild's sister died under mysterious circumstances and he re-married three days later. His new queen, Fredegund, would have a bitter rivalry with Brunhild that would change the fate of both of their nations.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine you're scrolling through TikTok. You come across a video of a teenage girl and then a photo of the person suspected of killing her.
0:08.1	It was shocking. It was very shocking. Like that could have been my daughter. Like you never know.
0:12.6	I'm Jen Swan. I'm the host of a new podcast called My Friend Daisy. It's the story of how and why a group of teenagers turn to social media to help track down their friends' killer.
0:23.5	Listen to my friend Daisy on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:30.3	Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky.
0:36.7	Listener discretion advised.
0:40.8	A lone messenger galloped through the gates of Paris, urging his horse forward at a swift pace.
0:48.6	From a tower in the city's main palace, the queen eagerly watched the messenger's arrival. She took the messenger's urgency
0:56.8	as a positive sign. After all, Queen Brunhild and her husband, King Siegbert I of
1:03.8	Austria, were on the verge of a decisive victory that would unite two neighboring Frankish realms under their rule. So this sudden
1:14.5	incoming news must mean that the opposition had surrendered. Maybe the enemy king had even been
1:20.8	killed. 575 would certainly be a year to remember for Brunhild, but not for the reasons she had hoped.
1:30.7	The messenger confirmed that a king had been slain, but the victim was Brunhild's own husband.
1:39.3	Despite having a vastly superior army and a robust Kingsguard, Siegbert had apparently been assassinated.
1:48.4	Brunhild must have been stunned, but she knew she couldn't afford to panic or fully mourn,
1:55.1	what had been, by royal standards, a respectful and productive marriage. Being all too familiar with Francia's
2:03.3	fickle politics and the Merovingian dynasty's history of violent betrayal, she was well aware
2:10.6	that she could easily meet a similarly dire fate, as could her three young children, if she didn't play her hand exactly right.
2:21.6	In the following hours, as many of Brunhild's nobles defected and as she frantically strategized,
2:28.1	she likely had little doubt about who would have had the cunning to have engineered such a shocking murder.
2:36.3	This was not the first time Brunhild had felt the bitter sting of losing a family member
2:42.4	to the machinations of her main rival. And between the swirling rumors and peculiar
	...

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