These wars had taken the lives of not only her grandfather king Thurisind, but also her uncle, Thurismund, both of which served to establish a long-standing hatred of the Lombards in her father, Cunimund, which he passed down to her.

Thus, Rosamund met with the king's arms bearer and her lover, Helmichis, who suggested using Peredeo,[2] "a very strong man",[1] to accomplish the assassination.

After the great feast, Alboin went to bed inebriated, at which point Rosamund ordered the king's sword bound to his bedpost, so that should he wake in the middle of the assassination attempt, he would be defenseless.

Due in part to the work of Paulus Diaconus, there seems to be some confusion about who actually killed Alboin, with both Helmichis and Peredeo assigned as sole murderer.

The conspiracy to murder Alboin also inspired the 1961/2 film Rosmunda e Alboino, aka Sword of the Conqueror etc., by Carlo Campogalliani.

In the English language, the story would also be considered a tragedy, albeit more often neglected than in the Italian tradition, but it was the subject of Robert Burton Rodney's mid 19th C. poem Alboin and Rosamond, and would be treated by the pre-Raphaelite poet Algernon Charles Swinburne in his 1899 work Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards.