Henry III.'s cosmopolitan instincts led him to take as much part in foreign politics as his resources allowed. In 1235 he married his sister Isabella to Frederick II., and henceforth manifested a strong interest in the affairs of his imperial brother-in-law. His relations with France were still uneasy, and he hoped to find in Frederick's support a counterpoise to the steady pressure of French hostility. All England watched with interest the progress of the emperor's arms. Peter of Savoy led an English contingent to fight for Frederick against the Milanese, and Matthew Paris, the greatest of the English chroniclers, narrates the campaign of Corte Nuova with a detail exceeding that which he allows to the military enterprises of his own king. Frederick constantly corresponded with both the king and Richard of Cornwall, and it was nothing but solicitude for the safely of the heir to the throne that led the English magnates to reject the emperor's request that Richard should receive a high command under him. Even Frederick's breach with the pope in 1239 did not destroy his friendship with Henry. The situation became extremely complicated, since Innocent IV. derived large financial support for his crusade from the unwilling English clergy, while Henry still professed to be Frederick's friend. The king allowed Otto to proclaim Frederick's excommunication in England, and then urged the legate to quit the country because the emperor strongly protested against the presence of an avowed enemy at his brother-in-law's court. Neither pope nor emperor could rely upon the support of so half-hearted a prince. Renewed trouble with France explains in some measure the anxiety of Henry to remain in good relations with the emperor despite Frederick's quarrel with the pope.
The position of the French monarchy was far stronger than it had been when Henry first intervened in continental politics. Blanche of Castile had broken the back of the feudal coalition, and even Peter Mauclerc had made his peace with the monarchy at the price of his English earldom. Louis IX. attained his majority in 1235, and his first care was to strengthen his power in his newly won dominions. If Poitou were still in the hands of the Count of La Marche and the Viscount of Thouars, the royal seneschals of Beaucaire and Carcassonne after 1229 ruled over a large part of the old dominions of Raymond of Toulouse. In 1237 the treaty of Meaux was further carried out by the marriage of Raymond's daughter and heiress, Joan, to Alfonse, the brother of the French king. In 1241 Alfonse came of age, and Louis at once invested him with Poitou and Auvergne. The lords of Poitou saw that the same process which had destroyed the feudal liberties of Normandy now endangered their disorderly independence. Hugh of Lusignan and his wife had been present at Alfonse's investiture, and the widow of King John had gone away highly indignant at the slights put upon her dignity.[1] She bitterly reproached her husband with the ignominy involved in his submission. Easily moved to new treasons, Hugh became the soul of a league of Poitevin barons formed at Parthenay, which received the adhesion of Henry's seneschal of Gascony, Rostand de Sollers, and even of Alfonse's father-in-law, the depressed Raymond of Toulouse. At Christmas Hugh openly showed his hand. He renounced his homage to Alfonse, declared his adhesion to his step-son, Richard of Cornwall, the titular count of Poitou, and ostentatiously withdrew from the court with his wife. The rest of the winter was taken up with preparations for the forthcoming struggle.
[1] See the graphic letter of a citizen of La Rochelle to Blanche, published by M. Delisle in Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes, série ii., iv., 513-55 (1856).
Untaught by experience, Henry III. listened to the appeals of his mother and her husband. Richard of Cornwall, who came back from his crusade in January, 1242, was persuaded that he had another chance of realising his vain title of Count of Poitou. But the king had neither men nor money and the parliament of February 2 refused to grant him sums adequate for his need, so that, despairing of dealing with his barons in a body, Henry followed the legate's example of winning men over individually. He made a strong protest against the King of France's breach of the existing truce, and his step-father assured him that Poitou and Gascony would provide him with sufficient soldiers if he brought over enough money to pay them. Thereupon, leaving the Archbishop of York as regent, Henry took ship on May 9 at Portsmouth and landed on May 13 at Royan at the mouth of the Gironde. He was accompanied by Richard of Cornwall, seven earls, and 300 knights.
Meanwhile Louis IX. marshalled a vast host at Chinon, which from April to July overran the patrimony of the house of Lusignan, and forced many of the confederate barons to submit. Peter of Savoy and John Mansel, Henry's favourite clerk, then made seneschal of Gascony, assembled the Aquitanian levies, while Peter of Aigueblanche, the Savoyard Bishop of Hereford, went to Provence to negotiate the union between Earl Richard and Sanchia, and, if possible, to add Raymond Berengar to the coalition against the husband of his eldest daughter. Henry hoped to win tactical advantages by provoking Louis to break the truce, and mendaciously protested his surprise at being forced into an unexpected conflict with his brother-in-law. Towards the end of July, Louis, who had conquered all Poitou, advanced to the Charente, and occupied Taillebourg. If the Charente were once crossed, Saintonge would assuredly follow the destinies of Poitou; and the Anglo-Gascon army advanced from Saintes to dispute the passage of the river. On July 21 the two armies were in presence of each other, separated only by the Charente. Besides the stone bridge at Taillebourg, the French had erected a temporary wooden structure higher up the stream, and had collected a large number of boats to facilitate their passage. Seeing with dismay the oriflamme waving over the sea of tents which, "like a great and populous city," covered the right bank, the soldiers of Henry retreated precipitately to Saintes. There was imminent danger of their retreat being cut off, but Richard of Cornwall went to the French camp, and obtained an armistice of a few hours, which gave his brother time to reach the town.
Next day Louis advanced at his ease to the capital of Saintonge. The Anglo-Gascons went out to meet him, and, despite their inferior numbers, fought bravely amidst the vineyards and hollow lanes to the west of the city. But the English king was the first to flee, and victory soon attended the arms of the French. Immediately after the battle, the lords of Poitou abandoned Richard for Alfonse. Henry fled from Saintes to Pons, from Pons to Barbezieux, and thence sought a more secure refuge at Blaye, leaving his tent, the ornaments of his chapel, and the beer provided for his English soldiers as booty for the enemy. The outbreak of an epidemic in the French army alone prevented a siege of Bordeaux, by necessitating the return of St. Louis to the healthier north. Henry lingered at Bordeaux until September, when he returned to England.[1] Meanwhile the French dictated peace to the remaining allies of Henry. On the death of Raymond of Toulouse, in 1249, Alfonse quietly succeeded to his dominions. The next twenty years saw the gradual extension of the French administrative system to Poitou, Auvergne, and the Toulousain. English Gascony was reduced to little more than the districts round Bordeaux and Bayonne. Even a show of hostility was no longer useful, and on April 7, 1243, a five years' truce between Henry and Louis was signed at Bordeaux. The marriage of Beatrice of Provence, the youngest of the daughters of Raymond Berengar, to Charles of Anjou, Louis' younger brother, removed Provence from the sphere of English influence. On his father-in-law's death in 1245, Charles of Anjou succeeded to his dominions to the prejudice of his two English brothers-in-law, and became the founder of a Capetian line of counts of Provence, which brought the great fief of the empire under the same northern French influences which Alfonse of Poitiers was diffusing over the lost inheritances of Eleanor of Aquitaine and the house of Saint-Gilles.
[1] The only good modern account of this expedition is that by M. Charles Bémont, La campagne de Poitou, 1242-3, in Annales du Midi, v., 389-314 (1893). For the Lusignans see Boissonade, Quomodo comites Engolismenses erga reges Angliæ et Franciæ se gesserint, 1152-1328 (1893).
A minor result of Louis' triumph was the well-deserved ruin of Hugh of Lusignan and Isabella of Angoulême. The proud spirit of Isabella did not long tolerate her humiliation. She retired to Fontevraud and died there in 1246. Hugh X. followed her to the tomb in 1248. Their eldest son, Hugh XI., succeeded him, but the rest of their numerous family turned for support to the inexhaustible charity of the King of England. Thus in 1247 a Poitevin invasion of the king's half-brothers and sisters recalled to his much-tried subjects the Savoyard invasion of ten years earlier. In that single year three of the king's brothers and one of his sisters accepted his invitation to make a home in England. Of these, Guy, lord of Cognac, became proprietor of many estates. William, called from the Cistercian abbey in which he was born William of Valence, secured, with the hand of Joan of Munchensi, a claim to the great inheritance that was soon to be scattered by the extinction of the male line of the house of Marshal. Aymer of Valence, a very unclerical churchman, obtained in 1250 his election as bishop of Winchester, though his youth and the hostility of his chapter delayed his consecration for ten years. Alice their sister found a husband of high rank in the young John of Warenne, Earl of Warenne or Surrey, while a daughter of Hugh XI. married Robert of Ferrars, Earl of Ferrars or Derby. Others of their kindred flocked to the land of promise. Any Poitevin was welcome, even if not a member of the house of Lusignan. Thus the noble adventurer John du Plessis, came over to England, married the heiress of the Neufbourg Earls of Warwick, and in 1247 was created Earl of Warwick. The alien invasion took a newer and more grievous shape.
The expenses of the war were still to be paid; and in 1244 Henry assembled a council, declaring that, as he had gone to Gascony on the advice of his barons, they were bound to make him a liberal grant towards freeing him from the debts which he had incurred beyond sea. Prelates, earls, and barons each deliberated apart, and a joint committee, composed of four members of each order, drew up an uncompromising reply. The king had not observed the charters; previous grants had been misapplied, and the abeyance of the great offices of state made justice difficult and good administration impossible. The committee insisted that a justiciar, a chancellor, and a treasurer should forthwith be appointed. This was the last thing that the jealous king desired. Helpless against a united council, he strove to break up the solidarity between its lay and clerical elements by laying a papal order before the prelates to furnish him an adequate subsidy. The leader of the bishops was now Grosseteste, who from this time until his death in 1253 was the pillar of the opposition. "We must not," he declared, "be divided from the common counsel, for it is written that if we be divided we shall all die forthwith." At last a committee of twelve magnates was appointed to draw up a plan of reform. The unanimity of all orders was shown by the co-operation on this body of prelates such as Boniface of Savoy with patriots of the stamp of Grosseteste and Walter of Cantilupe, while among the secular lords, Richard of Cornwall and 'Simon of Leicester worked together with baronial leaders like Norfolk and Richard of Montfichet, a survivor of the twenty-five executors of Magna Carta. The obstinacy of the king may well have driven the estates into drawing up the remarkable paper constitution preserved for us by Matthew Paris.[1] By it the execution of the charters and the supervision of the administration were to be entrusted to four councillors, chosen from among the magnates, and irremovable except with their consent. It is unlikely that the scheme was ever carried out; but its conception shows an advance in the claims of the opposition, and anticipates the policy of restraining an incompetent ruler by a committee responsible to the estates, which, for the next two centuries, was the popular specific for royal maladministration. For the moment neither side gained a decided victory. Though the barons persisted in their refusal of an extraordinary grant, they agreed to pay an aid to marry the king's eldest daughter to the son of Frederick II.
[1] Chron. Maj., iv., 366-68.