The successors of these conquerors soon extended their empire from the Pyrenees to the Rhine.

They had continual contests with the free population of the Low Countries, and their nearest neighbors.

In the commencement of the seventh century, the French king, 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.