On May 3 Henry landed at St. Malo, and thence proceeded to Dinan, the meeting-place assigned for his army, the greater part of which landed at Port Blanc, a little north of Treguier.  Peter Mauclerc joined him, and a plan of operations was discussed.  The moment was favourable, for a great number of the French magnates were engaged in war against Theobald, the poet-count of Champagne, and the French army, which was assembled at Angers, represented but a fraction of the military strength of the land.  Fulk Paynel, a Norman baron who wished to revive the independence of the duchy, urged Henry to invade Normandy.  Hubert successfully withstood this rash proposal, and also Fulk’s fatal suggestion that Henry should divide his army and send two hundred knights for the invasion of Normandy.  Before long the English marched through Brittany to Nantes, where they wasted six weeks.  At last, on the advice of Hubert, they journeyed south into Poitou.  The innate Poitevin instability had again brought round the Lusignans, the house of Thouars, and their kind to the French side, and Henry found that his own mother did her best to obstruct his progress.  He was too strong to make open resistance safe, and his long progress from Nantes to Bordeaux was only once checked by the need to fight his way.  This opposition came from the little town and castle of Mirambeau, situated in Upper Saintonge, rather more than half-way between Saintes and Blaye.[1] From July 21 to 30 Mirambeau stoutly held out, but Henry’s army was reinforced by the chivalry of Gascony, and by a siege-train borrowed from Bordeaux and the loyal lords of the Garonne.  Against such appliances of warfare Mirambeau could not long resist.  On its capitulation Henry pushed on to Bordeaux.

    [1] E. Berger, Bibl.  Ecole des Chartes, 1893, pp. 35-36,
    shows that Mirambeau, not Mirebeau, was besieged by Henry; see
    also his Blanche de Castille (1895).

Useless as the march through Poitou had been, it was then repeated in the reverse way.  With scarcely a week’s rest, Henry left the Gascon capital on August 10, and on September 15 ended his inglorious campaign at Nantes.  Although he was unable to assert himself against the faithless Poitevins, the barons of the province were equally impotent to make head against him.  On reaching Brittany, Hubert once more stopped further military efforts.  After a few days’ rest at Nantes, Henry made his way by slow stages through the heart of Brittany.  It was said that his army had no better occupation than teaching the local nobles to drink deep after the English fashion.  The King had wasted all his treasure, and the poorer knights were compelled to sell or pawn their horses and arms to support themselves.  The farce ended when the King sailed from St. Pol de Leon, and late in October landed at Portsmouth.  He left a portion of his followers in Brittany, under the Earls of Chester and Pembroke.  Randolph himself,