meant only a nominal change of overlordship, and was further limited by a provision that certain “privileged fiefs” were still to be retained under the direct suzerainty of the French crown.  As to the eventual cessions, Alfonse and his wife were still alive and likely to live many years.  Even the cession of Gascony was hampered by a stipulation that the towns should take an “oath of security,” by which they pledged themselves to aid France against England in the event of the English king breaking the provisions of the treaty.  Perhaps the most solid advantage Henry gained by the treaty was financial, for he spent the sums granted to enable him to redeem his crusading vow in preparing for war against his own subjects.  It was, however, an immense advantage for England to be able during the critical years which followed to be free from French hostility.  If, therefore, the French complaints against the treaty were exaggerated, the English dissatisfaction was unreasonable.  The real difficulty for the future lay in the fact that the possession of Gascony by the king of a hostile nation was incompatible with the proper development of the French monarchy.  For fifty years, however, a chronic state of war had not given Gascony to the French; and Louis IX. was, perhaps, politic as well as scrupulous in abandoning the way of force and beginning a new method of gradual absorption, that in the end gained the Gascon fief for France more effectively than any conquest.  The treaty of Paris was not a final settlement.  It left a score of questions still open, and the problems of its gradual execution involved the two courts in constant disputes down to the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War.  For seventy years the whole history of the relations between the two nations is but a commentary on the treaty of Paris.

During his visit to Paris Henry arranged a marriage between his daughter Beatrice and John of Brittany, the son of the reigning duke.  In no hurry to get back to the tutelage of the fifteen, he prolonged his stay on the continent till the end of April, 1260.  Yet, abroad as at home, he could not be said to act as a free man.  It was not the king so much as Simon of Montfort who was the real author of the French treaty.  Indeed, it is from the conclusion of the Peace of Paris that Simon’s preponderance becomes evident.  He was at all stages the chief negotiator of the peace and, save when his personal interests stood in the way, he controlled every step of the proceedings.  If in 1258 he was but one of several leaders of the baronial party in England, he came back from France in 1260 assured of supremacy.  During his absence abroad, events had taken place in England which called for his presence.