Clotaire II.,
exterminated the chief part of the Saxons of Hanover and Westphalia;
and the historians of those barbarous times unanimously relate
that he caused to be beheaded every inhabitant of the vanquished
tribes who exceeded the height of his sword. The Saxon name was
thus nearly extinguished in those countries; and the remnant of
these various peoples adopted that of Frisons (Friesen), either
because they became really incorporated with that nation, or
merely that they recognized it for the most powerful of their
tribes. Friesland, to speak in the language of that age, extended
then from the Scheldt to the Weser, and formed a considerable
state. But the ascendency of France was every year becoming more
marked; and King Dagobert extended the limits of her power even
as far as Utrecht. The descendants of the Menapians, known at
that epoch by the different names of Menapians, Flemings, and
Toxandirans, fell one after another directly or indirectly under
the empire of the Merovingian princes; and the noblest family
which existed among the French--that which subsequently took the
name of Carlovingians--comprised in its dominions nearly the
whole of the southern and western parts of the Netherlands.

Between this family, whose chief was called duke of the Frontier
Marshes (_Dux_Brabantioe_), and the free tribes, united under
the common name of Frisons, the same struggle was maintained as
that which formerly existed between the Salians and the Saxons.
Toward the year 700, the French monarchy was torn by anarchy,
and, under "the lazy kings," lost much of its concentrated power;
but every dukedom formed an independent sovereignty, and of all
those that of Brabant was the most redoubtable. Nevertheless
the Frisons, under their king, Radbod, assumed for a moment the
superiority; and Utrecht, where the French had established
Christianity, fell again into the power of the pagans. Charles
Martell, at that time young, and but commencing his splendid
career, was defeated by the hostile king in the forest of the
Ardennes; and though, in subsequent conquests, he took an ample
revenge, Radbod still remained a powerful opponent. It is related
of this fierce monarch that he was converted by a Christian
missionary; but, at the moment in which he put his foot in the
water for the ceremony of baptism, he suddenly asked the priest
where all his old Frison companions in arms had gone after their
death? "To hell," replied the priest. "