Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/208

 196 THE LATER MIDDLE AGES adding to the royal estate lands previously held by vassals, either by way of forfeiture, or occasionally by marriage. Thus Louis vi. penalised misconduct on the part of sundry of his vassals by claiming the right of forfeiture under feudal law. He attempted a still more effective stroke by marrying his son The Angevin to Eleanor, the heiress of Aquitaine, a district Dominion, composed of sundry duchies and counties, cover- 116 °- i n g a quarter of France. Unluckily for the Crown, Aquitaine was, after all, not converted into Crown territory, because Louis vn. and his queen quarrelled so seriously that they were divorced. It happened at this moment that the north-western quarter of France was practically all in the hands of one great feudatory. This was Henry of Anjou, who held sundry territories through his father, the Count of Anjou, and others through his mother, the heiress of Normandy, through whom he also claimed the English throne. When Louis divorced Eleanor, Henry seized his opportunity and married her, so that roughly the two western quarters of France, and in fact something more, were united under the Angevin dominion. Henry was Louis's vassal in respect of all these territories, but the vassal was quite as strong as the king. We may compare the position in Germany at much the same date, when Henry the Lion of Saxony held a dominion which could challenge the power of the emperor ; though in this case the sovereign proved himself more powerful than the vassal. Henry of Anjou, however, was also king, and a very powerful king, of England, and would certainly have proved himself altogether too strong for the King of France, if his own sons had not risen up against him. Henry was succeeded by his son Richard Coeur de Lion, and Louis by one of the ablest Philip an( * most unscrupulous of all the French kings, Augustus, Philip Augustus, or Philip n. It was Philip's 1180. great object to break the power of Richard by fair means or foul. Both the princes went on the third crusade, but Philip found excuse to return home, while Richard remained in Palestine. Fortune favoured him still further, when Richard was captured on his way home by his enemy, the Duke of Austria, and was held a prisoner for some time. Philip