Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/104

 to win Gloucester from the sons of Montfort (Ann. Dunst. p. 228). On 16 Dec. he signed the agreement to submit to the arbitration of St. Louis (Royal Letters, ii. 252).

Henceforth Henry remains a strong partisan of his uncle the king. He fought on 14 May 1264 at Lewes, sharing under his father the command of the second line, but apparently getting separated from him and joining Edward in his wild pursuit of the Londoners. Next day Henry surrendered, along with Edward, as hostages for the marchers and other recaptured royalist chiefs (Ann. Dunst. p. 232). They were sent from Lewes to Canterbury and thence to Dover, but must almost at once have been transferred to Wallingford, whence at the end of July they were moved to Kenilworth, though King Henry strongly urged their presence at Dover as likely to help the proposed negotiations with France (Royal Letters, ii. 263–4). Finally they were removed to Dover again. It was complained that they were harshly treated (, p. 152, ‘minus honeste quam decebat’). Yet on 4 Sept. Henry was let out of his prison at Dover (Fœdera, i. 446), and was allowed under stringent conditions to go to France to treat with King Louis. But nothing really resulted from these insincere attempts to renew the reference to French arbitration. In March 1265 Henry was formally transferred from the custody of Henry de Montfort to that of the king (ib. i. 452). On 14 April he was again commissioned to treat with the French, this time in conjunction with the abbot of Westminster (, p. 223). But when on 4 Aug. Montfort's power was destroyed at Evesham Henry was still in France, and nothing had been accomplished. He now returned home to share in his uncle's triumph. On 29 Oct. he received a grant of the manor of Gringley in Nottinghamshire, forfeited by the rebel William de Furnival (Fœdera, i. 465), where his bailiffs afterwards became involved in a quarrel with the prior of Worksop, whom they deprived of his tithes (Calendarium Genealogicum, p. 302). With Edward, Henry became a surety for the younger Simon when the latter surrendered at Axholme, and was forced to abjure the realm (Ann. Wav. p. 363;, p. 181). Henry was put at the head of the expedition to the north, which on 15 May took Robert, earl Ferrers [q. v.], prisoner at Chesterfield (, p. 188;, l. 11852). In October 1267 he and the legate were added by co-optation to the referees appointed under the Dictum de Kenilworth (Ann. Dunst. p. 243;, l. 11957). In 1267 he also acted as a mediator between Henry III and the Earl of Gloucester (, p. 205). Like Edward he now became a great patron and frequenter of tournaments (ib. p. 212).

On 24 June 1268 Henry took the cross, at the same time as his cousins Edward and Edmund and 120 other knights (, p. 218). On 19 May 1269 he married at Windsor Constance, daughter of Gaston, viscount of Béarn (Ann. Osney, p. 223; Ann. Winton. p. 107). This alliance gave him a great position in Gascony. Soon after he did homage to the Bishop of Agen for the lands held in right of his wife of that see (Fœdera, i. 480). In the same year Henry again shared in pacifying the unruly Gloucester, who had refused to attend parliament, and next year joined with Gloucester in prevailing on Earl Warenne to submit to justice for the murder of Alan la Zouche and to pay a large fine (, p. 234). In August 1269 he signed at Paris the agreement between Edward and Louis with regard to the crusade (Fœdera, i. 481).

On 15 Aug. 1270 Henry started on his crusade, following the footsteps of Edward. He first went to Gascony, where he left his wife, and thence proceeded to Aigues Mortes, where he joined Edward. The cousins arrived at Tunis only to find St. Louis dead and a peace made with the infidels. Henry then crossed over with Edward to Sicily, where he remained a short time. But when Edward departed for Syria he commissioned Henry, ‘who excelled the rest in wisdom’ (, p. 237), to return to the west to settle the disorderly affairs of Gascony. Henry willingly agreed to this, as he was tired of his long travels and anxious to get home to see his father, who was slowly dying. Henry therefore accompanied the kings of France and Sicily in their journey through southern and central Italy. They passed from Messina through Faro, Cosenza, and Rome (Mon. Germ. Scriptt. xviii. 269), and arrived at Viterbo on 9 March (ib. xxvi. 594).

Here the two kings remained, hoping to persuade the conclave, which was there assembled, to put an end to the scandal of the long vacancy in the papacy. Henry of Almaine remained there too, perhaps with an eye to securing some real recognition of his father as king of the Romans, and having also, it was believed, some hope of reconciling his cousins, Guy and Simon, the sons of Simon de Montfort (Fœdera, i. 501), who were in the neighbourhood. Guy, high in the confidence of Charles of Anjou, was then acting as his vicar in Tuscany. But the Montforts thought only of revenge, and with the help of Count Aldobrandino Rosso of the Maremma, Guy's father-in-law, they fitted out a large band of soldiers. It was now Lent.