The invaders, deeming that an army
confronted them far stronger than their own, withdrew in haste, leaving
Grimoald master of the field.
We are further told of the king of the Lombards whose striking history
we have concisely given, that he gave many new laws to his country, and
that in his old age he was remarkable for his bald head and long white
beard. He died in 671, sixty years after the time when his mother acted
the traitress, and suffered miserably for her crime. After his death,
the exiled Bertarit was recalled to the throne of Lombardy, and Romuald
succeeded his father as Duke of Benevento, the city which he had held so
bravely against the Greeks.
_WITTEKIND, THE SAXON PATRIOT._
As Germany, in its wars with the Romans, found its hero in the great
Arminius, or Hermann; and as England, in its contest with the Normans,
found a heroic defender in the valiant Hereward; so Saxony, in its
struggle with Charlemagne, gave origin to a great soul, the indomitable
patriot Wittekind, who kept the war afoot years after the Saxons would
have yielded to their mighty foe, and, like Hereward, only gave up the
struggle when hope itself was at an end.
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