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Henry III to Innocent concerning the oppressions of the church. The answer was received in a great council held at Winchester in July. The pope urged his claim. For a while Henry forbade anything being paid to him, but he grew terrified, listened to the persuasions of Richard of Cornwall, and gave way. In the spring Henry levied a heavy tallage from the Londoners, who indignantly declared that he was the ‘lynx with eyes that pierced all things’ of Merlin's prophecy.

A fresh protest, in which the king joined, against papal exactions from the clergy was made in the council of 3 Feb. 1247, but at the Easter parliament at Oxford the opposition was withdrawn, and the clergy paid an aid of eleven thousand marks. In the course of the year more foreigners came to the court. Peter of Savoy brought over several young ladies that the king might give them in marriage to his noble wards, which much offended his own people. Henry's half-brothers, Guy of Lusignan, William de Valence, and Aymer de Valence [q. v.], and his half-sister Alicia, came over by his invitation, for their mother had lately died, and in their train came a crowd of greedy Poitevins. For William he at once found a rich heiress; his half-sister he married to the young Earl of Warrenne, and he gave Provençal brides to two young English nobles, his wards, who, it is said, were unwilling to receive them. He enriched all three of his brothers, providing for Aymer out of the revenues of the church. Before long Beatrice, the widowed countess of Provence, his mother-in-law, and Thomas of Savoy, came to replenish their purses at his expense. This influx of foreigners, and his lavish gifts to them, again stirred up opposition to his misrule; the coinage had suffered mutilation; robbery and violence were rife, and the loss of Gascony, from which a large revenue was received, seemed certain. When Henry asked the parliament of 9 Feb. 1249 for an aid, the lords reproved him for his extravagance and exactions, complaining chiefly of the aliens, of the disparagement of his noble wards by marriage, and of his governing without a justiciar, chancellor, or treasurer appointed by the common council of the realm. The king obtained a delay until 8 July, and had the coinage altered to prevent mutilation, effecting the change in such a manner as to cause much distress. Meanwhile Richard of Cornwall pressed his brother for payment of his debts to him, which amounted to 20,000l.; Henry satisfied him by farming the mint to him. In July he refused to allow the election of ministers, telling the nobles that they were trying to make a servant of their lord. They accordingly refused an aid, and he sold his plate to the Londoners. He said that the city was an inexhaustible well of riches, exacted large sums from the citizens, and aggrieved them in various ways. He borrowed wherever he could, and oppressed the Jews heavily, taking from Aaron of York between 1243 and 1250 three thousand marks of silver and two hundred marks of ‘queen's gold.’ In 1250 he made a short-lived effort to reform his ways; on 6 March he took the cross and asked pardon of the Londoners for his oppressions, and ordered that his household expenses should be curtailed, and that less money should be spent on alms and candles for shrines. At the same time he spent much on his half-brothers, and obtained the see of Winchester for Aymer by personal intercession. Gascony had been secured by Simon de Montfort, whom he had appointed his vicegerent in 1248. The earl had hard work to reduce the rebels to obedience, and received most insufficient supplies. He came to Henry in January 1251 and urged him to give him the needful help for carrying on his work. The king swore ‘by God's head’ that Simon had done him good service, and promised him supplies, though he told him that there were complaints against his government. His effort at economy seems to have ended; his gifts to his foreign relatives and friends went on; and he raised money by loans and extortions, chiefly from churchmen and religious bodies. Christmas he kept at York, where he gave his daughter Margaret in marriage to Alexander III of Scotland. Alexander did homage for ‘Lothian,’ the estates which he held in England in virtue of the treaty of 1230, the question of homage for Scotland being raised and laid aside.

Although Simon de Montfort was doing great things for him in Gascony, Henry readily listened to complaints against him from the disaffected party there, and in May 1252 held a kind of trial, in which he confronted the earl and his accusers. Hot words passed between the king and the earl; Henry called Simon a ‘usurper and a traitor,’ and the earl gave him the lie. Richard of Cornwall and other nobles took the earl's part, and he returned to Gascony and remained there a short time longer. In consequence of a letter from Innocent IV Henry showed much, probably sincere, interest in the crusade, and swore publicly that he would go in person in the course of the next three years. On 13 Oct. 1252 he laid before the prelates a papal mandate requiring them to pay him a tenth of the church revenues for three years for the expenses of his crusade. Led by Bishop Grosseteste they refused. Henry changed his