Clovis: First King of France

Cunning, ruthless and cruel, he created a united French kingdom and gave his name (as Louis) to 18 later kings

Clovis, the first king of a united France, died on 27th November 511. Born in about 466, he was 15 or thereabouts when his father, king of the Salian Franks, died. This was a small kingdom centred on the town of Tournai, which is now in western Belgium. Clovis must therefore be included on the select list of “famous Belgians”.

King Clovis of France

Clovis was determined to expand the borders of his realm, and he did so in no uncertain style. By the time of his death, some 30 years later, his kingdom resembled an inverted “L” that incorporated much of present-day France, Belgium and northwest Germany.

His methods of conquest included cunning and brutality. He persuaded a prince named Chlodoric to murder his father, the king of the Rhineland Franks, with the promise that he would support Chlodoric as king. However, Chlodoric was immediately murdered on Clovis’s orders and the Rhineland became incorporated into Clovis’s empire.

When Clovis conquered his cousin Ragnacaire, the King of Cambrai, he executed the latter in person, on the grounds that Ragnacaire had tainted the family’s blood by allowing…