The sum charged on the knight’s fee in Normandy was sixty shillings Angevin;[1470] in England it seems to have been two marks.[1471] The proceeds, with those of a similar tax levied upon Henry’s other dominions,[1472] amounted to some hundred and eighty thousand pounds,[1473] with which he hired an immense force of mercenaries.[1474] But his host did not consist of these alone. The great barons of Normandy and England, no less than those of Anjou, Aquitaine and Gascony, were eager to display their prowess under the leadership of such a mighty king. The muster at Poitiers was a brilliant gathering of Henry’s court, headed by the chancellor with a picked band of seven hundred knights of his own personal following,[1475] and by the first vassal of the English Crown, King Malcolm of Scotland,[1476] who came, it seems, to win the spurs which his cousin had refused to grant him twelve months ago, when they met at Carlisle just before Henry left England in June 1158.[1477] The other vassal state was represented by an unnamed Welsh prince;[1478] and the host was further reinforced by several important allies. One of these was Raymond Trencavel, viscount of Béziers and Carcassonne, a baron whom the count of Toulouse had despoiled, and who gladly seized the opportunity of vengeance.[1479] Another was William of Montpellier.[1480] The most valuable of all was the count of Barcelona, a potentate who ranked on an equality with kings.[1481] His county of Barcelona was simply the province which in Karolingian times had been known as the Spanish March—a strip of land with the Pyrenees for its backbone, which lay between Toulouse, Aragon, Gascony and the Mediterranean sea. It was a fief of the West-Frankish realm; but the facilities which every marchland in some degree possesses for attaching itself to whichever neighbour it may prefer, and so holding the balance between them as to keep itself virtually independent of them all, were specially great in the case of the Spanish March, whose rulers, as masters of the eastern passes of the Pyrenees, held the keys of both Gaul and Spain. During the last half-century they had, like the lords of another marchland, enormously strengthened their position by three politic marriages. Dulcia of Gévaudan, the wife of Raymond-Berengar III. of Barcelona, was heiress not only to her father’s county of Gévaudan, but also, through her mother, to the southern half of Provence, whose northern half fell to the share of Raymond of St.-Gilles. Her dower-lands were settled upon her younger son. He, in his turn, married an heiress, Beatrice of Melgueil, whose county lay between Gévaudan and the sea; and the dominions of the house of St.-Gilles were thus completely cut in twain, and their eastern half surrounded on two sides, by the territories of his son, the present count of Provence, Gévaudan and Melgueil.[1482] The elder son of Dulcia, having succeeded his father as Count Raymond-Berengar IV. of Barcelona, was chosen by the nobles of Aragon to wed their youthful queen Petronilla, the only child of King Ramirez the Monk. He had thus all the power of Aragon at his command, although, clinging with a generous pride to the old title which had come down to him from his fathers, he refused to share his wife’s crown, declaring that the count of Barcelona had no equal in his own degree, and that he would rather be first among counts than last among kings.[1483] A man with such a spirit, added to such territorial advantages, was an ally to be eagerly sought after and carefully secured. Henry therefore invited him to a meeting at Blaye in Gascony, and secured his co-operation against Toulouse on the understanding that the infant daughter of Raymond and Petronilla should in due time be married to Henry’s son Richard, and that the duchy of Aquitaine should then be ceded to the young couple.[1484]

A last attempt to avert the coming struggle was made early in June; the two kings met near the Norman border, but again without any result.[1485] Immediately after midsummer, therefore, Henry and his host set out from Poitiers and marched down to Périgueux. There, in “the Bishop’s Meadow,” Henry knighted his Scottish cousin, and Malcolm in his turn bestowed the same honour upon thirty noble youths of his suite.[1486] The expedition then advanced straight into the enemy’s country. The first place taken was Cahors; its dependent territory was speedily overrun;[1487] and while in the south Raymond Trencavel was winning back the castles of which the other Raymond had despoiled him, Henry led his main force towards the city of Toulouse itself.[1488] Count and people saw the net closing round them; they had seen it drawing near for months past, and one and all—bishop, nobles and citizens—had been writing passionate appeals to the king of France, imploring him, if not for the love of his sister, at least for the honour of his crown, to come and save one of its fairest jewels from the greedy grasp of the Angevin.[1489] Louis wavered till it was all but too late; he was evidently, and naturally, most unwilling to quarrel with the king of England. He began to move southward, but apparently without any definite aim; and it was not till after another fruitless conference with Henry in the beginning of July[1490] that he at last, for very shame, answered his brother-in-law’s appeal by throwing himself into Toulouse almost alone, as if to encourage its defenders by his presence, but without giving them any substantial aid.[1491] Perhaps he foresaw the result. Henry, on the point of laying siege to the city, paused when he heard that his overlord was within it. Dread of Louis’s military capacity he could have none; personal reverence for him he could have just as little. But he reverenced in a fellow-king the dignity of kingship; he reverenced in his own overlord the right to that feudal obedience which he exacted from his own vassals. He took counsel with his barons; they agreed with him that the siege should be postponed till Louis was out of the city—a decision which was equivalent to giving it up altogether.[1492] The soldiers grumbled loudly, and the chancellor loudest of all. Thomas had now completely “put off the deacon,” and flung himself with all his might into the pursuit of arms. His knights were the flower of the host, foremost in every fight, the bravest of the brave; and the life and soul of all their valour was the chancellor himself.[1493] The prospect of retreat filled him with dismay. He protested that Louis had forfeited his claim to Henry’s obedience by breaking his compact with him and joining his enemies, and he entreated his master to seize the opportunity of capturing Toulouse, city, count, king and all, before reinforcements could arrive.[1494] Henry however turned a deaf ear to his impetuous friend. Accompanied by the king of Scots and all his host, he retreated towards his own dominions just as a body of French troops were entering Toulouse.[1495]

He had, however, conquered the greater part of the county,[1496] and had no intention of abandoning his conquests; but the task of protecting them against Raymond and Louis together, without the support of Henry’s own presence, was a responsibility which all his great barons declined. Two faithful ministers accepted the duty: Thomas the chancellor and Henry of Essex the constable.[1497] Thomas fixed his head-quarters at Cahors;[1498] thence, with the constable’s aid, he undertook to hold the country by means of his own personal followers,[1499] backed by Raymond of Barcelona, Trencavel, and William of Montpellier.[1500] He ruled with a high hand, putting down by proscription and even with the sword every attempt at a rising against Henry’s authority storming towns and burning manors without mercy in his master’s service;[1501] in helm and hauberk he rode forth at the head of his troops to the capture of three castles which had hitherto been considered impregnable.[1502] Henry’s “superstition” (as it was called by a follower of Thomas)[1503] about bearing arms against his overlord applied only to a personal encounter in circumstances of special delicacy; he had no scruples in making war upon Louis indirectly, as he had done more than once before, and was now doing not only through Thomas but also at the opposite end of France. The English and Scottish kings had retired from Toulouse to Limoges, where they arrived about Michaelmas.[1504] Meanwhile Count Theobald of Blois, now an ally of Henry, was despatched by him “to disquiet the realm of France”—that is, doubtless, to make a diversion which should draw off the attention of the French from Toulouse and leave a clear field to the operations of Thomas. The French king’s brothers, Henry, bishop of Beauvais, and Robert, count of Dreux, retaliated by attacking the Norman frontier with fire and sword.[1505] Thomas, having chased away the enemies across the Garonne and secured the obedience of the conquered territory, hurried northward to join his sovereign, whom he apparently followed into Normandy. There he undertook the defence of the frontier. Besides his seven hundred picked knights, he maintained at his own cost for the space of forty days twelve hundred paid horsemen and four thousand foot in his master’s service against the king of France on the marches between Gisors, Trie and Courcelles; he not only headed his troops in person, but also met in single combat a valiant French knight of Trie, Engelram by name; and the layman went down before the lance of the warlike archdeacon, who carried off his opponent’s destrier as the trophy of his victory.[1506] The king himself marched into the Beauvaisis, stormed Gerberoi, and harried the surrounding country till he gained a valuable assistant in Count Simon of Montfort, who surrendered to him all his French possessions, including the castles of Montfort, Rochefort and Epernon. As these places lay directly in the way from Paris to Etampes and Orléans, Louis found himself completely cut off from the southern part of his domain, and was compelled to ask for a truce. It was made in December, to last till the octave of Pentecost.[1507] Henry’s wife had now joined him; they kept Christmas together at Falaise,[1508] and Henry used the interval of tranquillity to make some reforms in the Norman judicature.[1509] When the truce expired the two kings made a treaty of peace,[1510] negotiated as usual by the indefatigable chancellor;[1511] the betrothal of little Henry and Margaret was confirmed, and the Vexin was settled upon the infant couple. As for the Aquitanian quarrel, Louis formally restored to Henry all the rights and holdings of the count of Poitou, except Toulouse itself; Henry and Raymond making a truce for a year, during which both were to keep their present possessions, and complete freedom of action was left to their respective allies.[1512]

This imperfect settlement, as far as Toulouse was concerned, advanced no further towards completion during the next thirteen years. Henry’s expedition could hardly be called a success; and whatever advantage he had gained over Raymond was dearly purchased at the cost of a quarrel with Louis. There can be little doubt that Henry had fallen into a trap; Louis had misled him into lighting the torch of war, and then turned against him in such a way as to cast upon him the blame of the subsequent conflagration. The elements of strife between the two kings could hardly have failed to burst sooner or later into a blaze; the question was whose hand should kindle it. In spite of Henry’s Angevin wariness, Louis had contrived to shift upon him the fatal responsibility; and for the rest of his life the fire went smouldering on, breaking out at intervals in various directions, smothered now and then for a moment, but never thoroughly quenched; consuming the plans and hopes of its involuntary originator, while the real incendiary sheltered himself to the last behind his mask of injured innocence.

For six months all was quiet. In October the two kings held another meeting; the treaty was ratified, and little Henry, who had lately come over from England with his mother, was made to do homage to Louis for the duchy of Normandy.[1513] About the same time the queen of France died, leaving to her husband another infant daughter.[1514] Disappointed for the fourth time in his hopes of a son, Louis in his impatience set decency at defiance; before Constance had been a fortnight in her grave he married a third wife, Adela of Blois, daughter of Theobald the Great, and sister of the two young counts who were betrothed to the king’s own elder daughters.[1515] His subjects, sharing his anxiety for an heir, easily forgave his unseemly haste and welcomed the new queen, who in birth, mind and person was all that could be desired.[1516] It would, however, have been scarcely possible to find a choice more irritating to Henry of Anjou. On either side of the sea, the house of Blois seemed to be always in some way or other crossing his path; in their lives or in their deaths, they were perpetually giving him trouble. At that very time the death of Stephen’s last surviving son, Earl William of Warren,[1517] had led to a quarrel between the king and his dearest friend. William was childless, and the sole heir to his county of Boulogne was his sister Mary, abbess of Romsey. This lady was now brought out of her convent to be married by Papal dispensation to Matthew, second son of the count of Flanders.[1518] The scheme, devised by King Henry,[1519] was strongly opposed by the bridegroom’s father,[1520] and also by Henry’s own chancellor. Thomas, somewhat unexpectedly perhaps, started up as a vindicator of monastic discipline, remonstrated vehemently against the marriage of a nun, and used all his influence at Rome to hinder the dispensation; he gained, however, nothing save the enmity of Matthew, and a foretaste of that kingly wrath[1521] which was to burst upon him with all its fury three years later. Even without allowing for Henry’s probable frame of mind in consequence of this affair, the French king’s triple alliance with the hereditary rivals of the Angevin house would naturally appear to him in the light of a provocation and a menace. The chancellor seems to have made his peace by suggesting an answer to it.