6. Fredegonde Tossed Out Her Baby To Avoid Catching an Illness From Him
Any list of history’s meanest parents has to include Fredegonde (circa 545 – 597), as cartoonishly evil a mother as they come. She began her career as a servant of Audovera, the wife of Frankish king Chilperic I of Soissons, and eventually seduced the king. She convinced Chilperic to divorce Audovera and dump her into a convent, then became the royal mistress. At some point, Chilperic tired of Fredegonde and set her aside to marry a noblewoman, Galswintha. Fredegonde took care of that by personally strangling Galswintha to death.
Chilperic got the message, and Fredegonde resumed her place at his side as his official mistress and queen consort. In 580, the kingdom was swept by a dysentery epidemic, which struck king Chilperic and two of his sons with Fredegonde. She took that as a sign of divine displeasure for her sins, and for a while, she made some efforts to mend her ways. That did not last long, and she soon went back to being cartoonishly evil. While besieged in a city, another of her sons, this one an infant, came down with a serious illness. Fredegonde was not exactly the doting mother type: worried that she might catch whatever her baby had, she ordered the baby cast away, and let him die.