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 Bibliotheque de l’Ecole
    des Chartes, serie 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.