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In 1349 Lancaster led a foray to the gates of Toulouse, which wrought immense damage but led to no permanent results. There was incessant border warfare. The Anglo-Gascon forces spread beyond the limits of Edward's duchy and captured outposts in Poitou, Périgord, Quercy, and the Agenais.
These regions included Agen and the Agenais, Saintonge to the south of the Charente, and in addition the whole of Quercy, if it could be proved by inquest that it had been given by Richard I. to his sister Joan, grandmother of Joan of Poitiers, as her marriage portion.
Edward and his heirs were to receive in perpetuity, "and in the manner in which the kings of France had held them," an ample territory both in southern and northern France. All Aquitaine was henceforth to be English, including Poitou, Saintonge, Périgord, Angoumois, Limousin, Quercy, Rouergue, Agenais, and Bigorre.
La Réole, lost since 1325, was taken in January, and thence Earl Henry marched to the capture of many a town and fortress on the Garonne and the lower Lot. His most important acquisition was Aiguillon, commanding the junction of the Lot and the Garonne, for its possession opened up the way for the reconquest of the Agenais, the rich fruit of the last campaign of Charles of Valois.
But Charles IV. perpetrated a clever piece of trickery which showed how far off a real settlement still was. He "restored" to Edward those parts of Gascony which had been peacefully surrendered to him in the summer, and announced that he should keep the Agenais and La Réole, as belonging to France by right of Charles of Valois' recent conquest.
He retained in his hands Agen and the Agenais, and Bazas and the Bazadais, on the ground that Charles of Valois had won them by right of conquest in 1324. This policy reduced Edward's duchy to two portions of territory, very unequal in size and separated from each other by the lands conquered by the French king's uncle.
"I pass, and repass, not a soul I know, Not one Agenais in this hurrying crowd; No one salutes or shakes me by the hand." And yet, he says, what a grand world it is! how tasteful! how fashionable! There seem to be no poor. They are all ladies and gentlemen. Each day is a Sabbath; and under the trees the children play about the fountains. So different from Agen!
By it Philip recognised Eleanor as Countess of Ponthieu, and handed over a portion of the inheritance of Alfonse of Poitiers to Edward. Agen and the Agenais were ceded at once, and a commission was appointed to investigate Edward's claims over lower Quercy. In return for this Edward yielded up his illusory rights over the three bishoprics of Limoges, Périgueux, and Cahors.
In the east of the Agenais the two châtellenies of Penne and Puymirol formed a little enclave of ducal territory which extended from the Lot to the Garonne. But this second fragment of the ancient duchy was of no military and little commercial value, being commanded on all sides by the possessions of the French king.
By the treaty of Paris the English king should then have entered into possession of Saintonge south of the Charente, the Agenais, and lower Quercy. But the ministers of Philip III. laid hands upon the whole of Alfonse's inheritance and refused to surrender these districts to the English.
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