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 Bemont, La campagne de Poitou, 1242-3, in Annales du Midi, v., 389-314 (1893).  For the Lusignans see Boissonade, Quomodo comites Engolismenses erga reges Angliae et Franciae se gesserint, 1152-1328 (1893).

A minor result of Louis’ triumph was the well-deserved ruin of Hugh of Lusignan and Isabella of Angouleme.  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.