[Footnote 127: Goisvintha successively married two kings of the
Visigoths: Athanigild, to whom she bore Brunechild, the mother of
Ingundis; and Leovigild, whose two sons, Hermenegild and Recared, were
the issue of a former marriage.]

[Footnote 128: Iracundiae furore succensa, adprehensam per comam capitis
puellam in terram conlidit, et diu calcibus verberatam, ac sanguins
cruentatam, jussit exspoliari, et piscinae immergi. Greg. Turon. l. v.
c. 39. in tom. ii. p. 255. Gregory is one of our best originals for this
portion of history.]

[Footnote 129: The Catholics who admitted the baptism of heretics
repeated the rite, or, as it was afterwards styled, the sacrament,
of confirmation, to which they ascribed many mystic and marvellous
prerogatives both visible and invisible. See Chardon. Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. 1. p. 405-552.] His son and successor, Recared, the
first Catholic king of Spain, had imbibed the faith of his unfortunate
brother, which he supported with more prudence and success. Instead of
revolting against his father, Recared patiently expected the hour of his
death. Instead of condemning his memory, he piously supposed, that the
dying monarch had abjured the errors of Arianism, and recommended to
his son the conversion of the Gothic nation. To accomplish that salutary
end, Recared convened an assembly of the Arian clergy and nobles,
declared himself a Catholic, and exhorted them to imitate the example
of their prince. The laborious interpretation of doubtful texts, or the
curious pursuit of metaphysical arguments, would have excited an endless
controversy; and the monarch discreetly proposed to his illiterate
audience two substantial and visible arguments,--the testimony of Earth,
and of Heaven. The Earth had submitted to the Nicene synod: the Romans,
the Barbarians, and the inhabitants of Spain, unanimously professed
the same orthodox creed; and the Visigoths resisted, almost alone, the
consent of the Christian world. A superstitious age was prepared to
reverence, as the testimony of Heaven, the preternatural cures, which
were performed by the skill or virtue of the Catholic clergy; the
baptismal fonts of Osset in Boetica, [130] which were spontaneously
replenished every year, on the vigil of Easter; [131] and the miraculous
shrine of St. Martin of Tours, which had already converted the Suevic
prince and people of Gallicia. [132] The Catholic king encountered
some difficulties on this important change of