Saint Hermenegild

Ingund, accompanied by the principal lords of the court and followed by a great number of Frankish lords, was led into Spain; she was received there with great applause, and wherever she passed, she was rendered the honors due to her birth, her merit, and her rank. Prince Hermenegild, who considered her more attentively than anyone else, having noticed that she was accomplished, conceived a joy that cannot be expressed; he gave her at first all his love and all his esteem, and, from the first meeting, he felt his spirit won over by such a sweet violence that it seemed to him that this foreign princess had come to treat with him of a love quite other than that of flesh and blood. Ingund, who easily perceived this, insinuated herself even further into the mind of the prince her husband, and seeing finally that their friendship was so closely bound that nothing was capable of loosening or breaking it, she undertook his conversion. She began by representing to him that their union would never appear complete to her as long as she saw between them a wall of division that separated them in belief and sacraments. "For me," she said to him with tenderness, "if I saw the slightest ray of truth in the sect that you profess, and some hope of salvation, I would join it with a good heart to bind myself more to your person, whom I love after God more than all the things in the world; but it is certain that you are in error, that you follow a phantom instead of the truth, and that, dying in this state, you lose your soul, which I would wish to redeem at the price of all my blood."

Hermenegild did not know how to respond to the force of truth and love; he only said that this matter deserved that he should think about it, and that such changes, in persons of his quality, were subject to many censures if they did not have great reasons to explain their conduct. This princess, after having given him time to reflect on it, managed so well, through her skill, that she engaged him to treat of it with Saint Leander, Archbishop of Seville. This wise prelate managed the prince's mind so well that, with the assistance of God and the good offices of Ingund, who spared nothing for this conversion, he withdrew him from error. Thus was verified what Saint Paul says: "That the unbelieving man is won to God and sanctified by a believing wife." As soon as this generous prince saw himself enlightened by the truth, he wished to follow it. He therefore received the holy Baptism of the Catholics at the hands of Saint Leander, because that of the Arians, which was not administered in the name and by the invocation of the most holy Trinity, was null. The holy bishop gave him the name of John, although that of Herm eneg Jean Visigothic prince of Spain, martyr for the Catholic faith. ild, as the most known, always remained with him. He then administered to him the sacrament of Confirmation: the prince received it with such pomp and solemnity that he had gold coins struck expressly, upon which he had his image engraved, with these words: "Avoid the heretical man," to distribute them at this ceremony.

Goiswinth, Hermenegild's mother-in-law, irritated by this change and attributing it to Princess Ingund, who was indeed the cause, summoned her to her palace, hoping that she would have some power over her in her capacity as queen mother. She used every imaginable artifice to pervert her and make her a heretic; but seeing that after her efforts she had gained nothing, transported with anger and foaming with rage, she told her that "since she did not wish to be baptized in the Arian manner, she was preparing a baptism for her that would wash her from head to toe." Indeed, according to the report of Gregory of Tours and several others, after having dragged this poor princess by the hair herself, until blood was shed, she had her taken by two or three of her servants, and ordered them to strip her, to bind her with ropes under her arms, and to plunge her in this state into a fishpond, in a rather cold season.

It was a sight worthy of compassion to see the daughter of a King of France treated so indignantly, in the same place where shortly before she had entered with such magnificence. The impious Goiswinth was, however, on the edge of the fishpond; she presided over this unjust execution, commanding her wretched servants not to lower her all at once, but little by little, in order to make her endure a longer martyrdom. At every moment, the wicked queen shouted to her: "Say that you are an Arian, and you will be saved." But the holy princess, who did not fear death as much as the nakedness of her body, replied constantly: "I am a Catholic, and I wish to die a Catholic. Take my life upon this confession; neither water nor fire will ever have enough power over me to lead me to recant." She endured this torment for a long time: her constancy astonished this stepmother who was having her tormented. Finally, she put her clothes back on, having emerged from the water as from an amphitheater where she had gloriously fought and triumphed.

Hermenegild, learning of the cruel affront that his stepmother Goiswinth had inflicted upon his wife, was so stung by it that he first vented his anger with violence, resolved to avenge this injury done to the person in the world who was dearest to him. The father, a suspicious old man, felt greatly offended by his son's words, and the stepmother, who did not cease to incite him, soon brought matters to the last extremity.

Thus war was resolved; the father made great levies of armed men, the son fortified Seville and Cordoba and sent a famous embassy to the Emperor of Consta ntinople, who Constantinople City where the saint exercised his ministry and patriarchate. was then Tiberius II, in order to obtain great aid. Acts of hostility were committed on both sides; and, finally, Hermenegild was besieged in Seville and defended himself there vigorously for the space of two or three years.

The war could have lasted much longer, had the princess, weary of seeing these calamities born of an affront she had tried to conceal with prudence, not begged her husband, with tears, to reconcile with his father. This prince, feeling touched and completely changed inwardly, went to prostrate himself before the altar, to protest there, in the presence of God, that he was abandoning all the justice of his cause to the sole considerations of piety, and that he would rather die than continue these dissensions any longer to the prejudice of the respect he owed his father. This news gave much joy to Liuvigild, and he immediately dispatched his second son, named Reccared, who was in the army with him, so that he might win over his elder brother, knowing well that their characters sympathized greatly.

When this young prince entered Hermenegild's camp, he stopped short and shouted from afar: "My brother, before I embrace you, I want to know if I am coming to a friend or an enemy." But this good brother, without giving him any other answer, stepped forward and embraced him tenderly in the sight of his whole army. Reccared assured him that the king was waiting for him with impatience to embrace him, that he gave him his word on his life and on his honor. Hermenegild, after having given his brother marks of the goodwill he had always kept for him and for the king his father, came to the court. Reccared preceded him, in order to inform his father of the success of his mission, and to give news of his brother's arrival, of which the king testified to being extremely pleased. The prince followed soon after, threw himself at the king's feet and asked for his forgiveness. The king, whether he was concealing his passion or was truly touched, embraced him with much tenderness, saying to him: "Be welcome, my dearest son; where have you left the princess your wife?" The prince replied that she would soon be at court.

Goswintha did not fail to be there and to show her stepson every possible friendship. This so reassured Hermenegild's mind that, forgetting all past mistrust, he prepared to send for Ingund: nevertheless, a friend having whispered in his ear that he should not be so hasty, he secretly negotiated with the emperor's lieutenant to secure everything he held most dear in the world, and to have his wife Ingund, along with a son that God had given him, sent to Africa, and from there to Constantinople.

The word of this friend was only too true; the detestable Goswintha feared that if Hermenegild returned to his father's favor, as seemed likely, he would take revenge on her for the attack she had committed against the person of his wife, and that if she did not forestall him skillfully and diligently, he would discover her artifices and rally his party; she assembled a fatal council, where it was resolved to destroy this poor prince. She therefore won over venal souls, who made false reports to King Liuvigild; she corrupted witnesses, she had letters produced, and, joining imposture to slander, she pushed her passion to the point of assuring the king, her husband, that his son's reconciliation was only a feint to better achieve the goal of his designs: "He had sworn his father's ruin, and he had become so proud that he could not even suffer him to be associated with the kingdom; it was certain that all the Romans were carrying him to the throne, that he had made an alliance with the emperor of Constantinople, of which express letters were produced, and, as proof that it was a done deal, he had sent his own wife to Africa, who was an artful and restless spirit, to go from there to Constantinople and bring back all the forces of the empire to descend upon Spain; there was no other remedy than to forestall his design as soon as possible, and to make him feel what a despised gentleness can do."

She said so much, and her agents were so skillful at forging a thousand slanders that seemed to confirm this conspiracy, that finally Liuvigild declared his son guilty of high treason, had him promptly arrested, and indignantly thrown into a narrow prison. This prince was treated there with such cruelty that, after covering him with a hair shirt, they loaded him with chains: he was completely bent over by them, unable to lift his head. He knew well that he could not live long in this state, and that his hour must be near. Renouncing, therefore, all the preoccupations of life, he began to prepare himself courageously for death.

The king, accompanied by a few commissioners to whom he had given the task of conducting his son's trial, wished to see him; but as soon as he caught sight of him, giving way to furious outbursts of anger, he called him ungrateful, a parricide, and a villain. The Prince replied to him gently: "Sire, if I knew how to divine, I would well know what I have done and of what I am accused; but since nothing comes to my mind, I shall die in silence." The father replied that his guilty conscience told him enough, and that he knew all too well the designs he had had against the State and the life of his father; that he should speak freely, and if he had anything with which to justify himself, he would willingly hear it.

Hermenegild then made a fine apology for the whole course of his life, and complained of Goswintha's assault against the person of his wife, who, although the daughter, sister, and niece of kings, had been trampled underfoot by that stepmother and mistreated until she bled, like a criminal. But the father, who was a hot-headed spirit, interrupted him on this point and asked him where his wife was, and if he had not sent her to Africa and from there to Constantinople, to plot. The prince replied that he had sent her to Africa for the safety of her person, not knowing what outcome his affairs would have.

The king insisted and asked him if he had not made an alliance with the Emperor Tiberius; he replied that he had indeed asked him for troops, during the war, for the defense of his life; but that at the first opening of peace, he had dismissed them, and that he had made no treaty with him since that time. Finally, the father, seeing that he could not convince his son of the slightest move against him since their reconciliation, asked him if he was not a Roman Catholic? "That is what I confess, my father," said the prince, "what I proclaim and what I protest. I would like to die a hundred times for the glory of that beautiful name; one mouth is too little to give praise to God. Command, if you wish, that my body be torn for the confession of the faith, and then I shall have as many mouths as I receive wounds, in order to praise my Savior." The father told him that he had become mad and that no one hated his life, except the one who had made bad use of it. The son replied that it was in heresy that he had made bad use of it, and that he repented of it. He was taken back to prison, where he received so much consolation from the visits of God that he shared it with his dear Ingund in a letter he wrote to her on this subject.

The feast of Easter arrived some time later, and this unhappy father sent him an Arian bishop to administer communion with his own hand, infor ming him, says Saint saint Grégoire, pape Pope contemporary to Saint Psalmodius. Gregory, Pope, that this was the only way to return to his friendship and be reconciled with him. Hermenegild reproached this bishop for his heresy, and protested to him that, although bowed under the weight of his chains, his mind was free enough to confess the true faith with constancy. The bishop went to report this response to Leovigild, who, transported with anger, sent the ministers of his cruelty into the prison to immolate his son to the resentment of his rage and passion. This Prince, learning the sentence that his father had just pronounced against him, thanked God for it in these terms:

"My God, my Lord, I render You immortal thanks that, having given me, through my father, a frail and miserable life, which I shared with gnats and ants, You grant me through his decrees a noble, happy, and eternal life." According to some authors, he prayed that a Catholic priest be brought to him to hear his confession and prepare him for death. He was told that the king had very expressly forbidden it; but that, if he wanted an Arian bishop, he could have whichever one he wished: "No," replied the Saint, "for I have detested and still detest Arianism; since my father refuses me a grace that is customarily granted to criminals, I shall die with no other witness than that of my conscience."

He knelt a second time, and made his confession to God, prayed for his father, his stepmother, and his enemies; he even pronounced the name of his dear Ingund at his death, acknowledging that he owed her infinite obligations; and, after having commended his soul to God, and invoked the Most Holy Virgin and his good Angel, he had his head severed with a blow of an axe, on April 13, in the year 586, 587, or 588.

Thus did this Prince receive the crown of martyrdom; for a mortal scepter that his father's rigor caused him to lose in the world, he acquired an immortal glory. His glory shone forth through extraordinary prodigies; according to the account of the great Pope Saint Gregory, one heard, in the silence of the night, the singing of a celestial psalmody around the body of this martyr king. Many, the same Pope adds, affirm that one also saw, in the midst of the darkness, lighted torches appear, to make known to the faithful that they owed him the honors due to Martyrs. The greatest of all the wonders that one could wish for was the conversion of this unnatural father, who had thus caused his son to lose his life; and indeed, seeing the miracles that were performed around his body and elsewhere, to prove the truth of the Catholic faith, he recognized his crime and was horrified by the cruelty he had exercised against his own blood; but he did not have enough courage to make a public abjuration of Arianism, and died in heresy. Saint Gregory says only that, being on his deathbed, he recommended to Saint Leander, whom he had recently recalled from exile, to do for his second son Reccared what he had done for Hermenegild; and Reccared, assisted by the spirit of God and the intercession of his brother Saint Hermenegild, abjured the heresy and re-established the Catholic faith throughout his kingdom of Spain, and was a very good king, as we have seen previously in the life of the same Saint Leander, Archbishop of Seville.

As for Princess Ingund, history says that, upon receiving the news of the death of her blessed husband, with the last letter he wrote to her from his prison, she no longer wished to live; for seeing that martyrdom had snatched her dear spouse from her, and that an illness was also taking away her son Hermenegild, the only pledge of his love that remained to her, she prayed to Our Lord that He might withdraw her from this world, to go and enjoy in heaven the company of the one she had not had the freedom to possess on earth. She was heard; and, a few days later, completely consumed by love and labors, she died in Africa.

Saint Hermenegild is depicted with the features of a handsome and tall young man. Long hair, comparable to that of the Nazarenes, falls upon his shoulders. The halo of the Saints crowns his noble and proud head. The royal mantle is fastened on his chest and falls in undulating folds to the ground. In his right hand, he holds the palm of the Martyrs, and with his left hand, he points to the monogram of Jesus Christ God, the Alpha and the Omega (λ + α), traced upon his heart. This attribute of the chrism specifically designates those who fought against Arianism. Finally, at his feet lies the murderous axe and the earthly crown that he is about to exchange for an immortal crown.

The Roman Martyrology and three others commemorate Saint Herm enegild Sixte V Pope who edited the works of Ambrose. ; Pope Sixtus V permitted his office to be celebrated, as that of a Martyr, in all the churche Urbain VIII Pope who beatified Josaphat. s of Spain. Urban VIII ordered it to be made a semi-double throughout the entire Church, with proper lessons, hymns, and a collect, which he had added to the Breviary. — Acta Sanctorum.