so we find, that God is everywhere the same God.  And as it pleased him to punish the usurpation, and unnatural cruelty of Henry the First, and of our third Edward, in their children for many generations:  so dealt He with the sons of Louis Debonnaire, the son of Charles the Great, or Charlemagne.  For after such time as Debonnaire of France, had torn out the eyes of Bernard his nephew, the son of Pepin the eldest son of Charlemagne, and heir of the Empire, and then caused him to die in prison, as did our Henry to Robert his eldest brother:  there followed nothing but murders upon murders, poisoning, imprisonments, and civil war; till the whole race of that famous Emperor was extinguished.  And though Debonnaire, after he had rid himself of his nephew by a violent death; and of his bastard brothers by a civil death (having inclosed them with sure guard, all the days of their lives, within a monastery) held himself secure from all opposition:  yet God raised up against him (which he suspected not) his own sons, to vex him, to invade him, to take him prisoner, and to depose him; his own sons, with whom (to satisfy their ambition) he had shared his estate, and given them crowns to wear, and kingdoms to govern, during his own life.  Yea his eldest son, Lothair (for he had four, three by his first wife, and one by his second; to wit, Lothair, Pepin, Louis, and Charles), made it the cause of his deposition, that he had used violence towards his brothers and kinsmen; and that he had suffered his nephew (whom he might have delivered) to be slain.  “Eo quod,” saith the text,[7] “fratribus, et propinquis violentiam intulerit, et nepotem suum, quern ipse liberate poterat, interfici permiserit”:  “Because he used violence to his brothers and kinsmen, and suffered his nephew to be slain whom he might have delivered.”

Yet did he that which few kings do; namely, repent him of his cruelty.  For, among many other things which he performed in the General Assembly of the States, it follows:  “Post haec autem palam se errasse confessus, et imitatus Imperatoris Theodosii exemplum, poenitentiam spontaneam suscepit, tarn de his, quam quae in Bernardum proprium nepotem gesserat”:  “After this he did openly confess himself to have erred, and following the example of the Emperor Theodosius, he underwent voluntary penance, as well for his other offences, as for that which he had done against Bernard his own nephew.”

This he did; and it was praise-worthy.  But the blood that is unjustly spilt, is not again gathered up from the ground by repentance.  These medicines, ministered to the dead, have but dead rewards.

This king, as I have said, had four sons.  To Lothair his eldest he gave the Kingdom of Italy; as Charlemagne, his father, had done to Pepin, the father of Bernard, who was to succeed him in the Empire.  To Pepin the second son he gave the Kingdom of Aquitaine:  to Louis, the Kingdom of Bavaria:  and to Charles, whom he had by a second wife called Judith, the remainder of the Kingdom of France.  But this second wife, being a mother-in-law[8] to the rest, persuaded Debonnaire to cast his son Pepin out of Aquitaine, thereby to greaten Charles, which, after the death of his son Pepin, he prosecuted to effect, against his grandchild bearing the same name.  In the meanwhile, being invaded by his son Louis of Bavaria, he dies for grief.