Page:The Queens of England.djvu/102

 84 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. formance of this engagement, and, in 1224, having made him- self master of La Rochelle, Henry, determined to attempt its recovery, demanded from parliament money to engage in a war for this purpose. The parliament assented to the demand, but made it an express condition that the charters should be strictly fulfilled. Henry consented, and issued orders to that effect throughout the kingdom. But these charters were not completed, and the king entering into long and disastrous wars with France covered himself with debts and difficulties. Both he and his queen became very unpopular. At home the weak infatuation of Henry for Simon de Mont- fort, whom he created Earl of Leicester, and gave him the hand of his sister, exasperated further the public dissatisfac- tion. This was heightened by Queen Eleanor procuring the see of Canterbury for her uncle Boniface, another foreigner. Henry continued his campaigns in France with signal dis- grace and loss of men, money, and territory. It was not until he had exhausted all the resources of the treasury at home that he could be persuaded to return to England. He then com- manded his nobles to meet him at Portsmouth, as if he were a conqueror returning to his kingdom in triumph, instead of coming back a defeated and dishonored sovereign, who had not only lost his possessions in Poitou, but had pledged himself to pay five thousand pounds a year to France. It was during this ill-fated war that Eleanor gave birth to a daughter at Bordeaux, named Beatrice. While Henry was occupied in feasting and amusements at Bordeaux, Eleanor was negotiating a marriage between, her sister Sancha and Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who had lost his wife some months before. In this prince the queen, his sister- in-law, had hitherto found an opponent to the influence she exercised over her weak husband, and the evil use to which she turned it. It was probably a desire to conciliate the oppo- sition of Richard that induced her to effect this marriage ; and if so, it succeeded. In a few months after the return of Henry and his queen from Bordeaux, the Countess of Provence accompanied the betrothed Sancha to England for the celebration of her nuptials. This event furnished a fresh occasion for expense ; and the finances of Henry being then in a state little calculated to defray it, he had recourse to one of those unprincipled