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It was thus he had outwitted the heady barons of Aquitaine when little more than a lad, and had turned the hill forts into death-traps against their tenants. He had the secret of swift marching by night, of delivering assault upon assault, so that while you staggered under one blow you received another full.
This crime served only to strengthen Philip's cause. He seized on Normandy, which thenceforward was French, and Brittany, which became an immediate fief of the king . He took the other possessions of England in Northern Gaul. There were left to the English the duchy of Aquitaine, with Gascony and the Channel Islands. The lands south of the Loire John had inherited from his mother.
Once more Charles IV. pronounced the sequestration of the duchy, and despite Edward's efforts, his power crumbled away before the peaceful advent of the French troops, charged with the execution of their master's edict. Long before the last Gascon castles had opened their gates to Charles's officers, new developments at Paris made the question of Aquitaine a subordinate matter.
There she found refuge in the county of Hainault, whose lord, William II, of Avesnes, was won over to support her by a contract to marry the Duke of Aquitaine to his daughter Philippa. A large advance from Philippa's marriage portion was employed in hiring a troop of knights and squires of Hainault and Holland.
Next in point of time is the troubadour Cercamon, of whom we know very little; his poems, as we have them, seem to fall between the years 1137 and 1152; one of them is a lament upon the death of William X. of Aquitaine, the son of the notorious Count of Poitiers, and another alludes to the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the daughter of William X. According to the Provençal biography he was the instructor of a more interesting and original troubadour Marcabrun, whose active life extended from 1150 to 1195.
From the highest to the lowest his subjects must acknowledge their unconditional and immediate allegiance to his person; yet he tolerates the existence of tribal duchies, he revives the Lombard kingdom, and creates that of Aquitaine, as appanages for his younger sons.
In thirty years Philip had burst through to the sea, subdued the Duke of Burgundy and the great counts, wrested the sovereignty of Normandy, Brittany and Maine from the English Crown, won Poitou and Aquitaine, crushed the emperor and his vassals in the memorable battle of Bouvines, and become one of the greatest of European monarchs.
"By my head!" said he, addressing Lord D'Albret and speaking in French, which was, of course, the language of Aquitaine, "that will be very handsome." He then turned to some English nobles who were near, and speaking in English, said it was worth while to rule in a country where one baron could attend his lord with a thousand lances.
Therefore she had taken the Cross, not as many ladies had taken it, in lightness of heart, but earnestly, seeking a fair death on the field of honour for the hope of the life to come. "Yes," said the Queen, "he shall have the Cross of Aquitaine. Fetch me some gentleman or squire skilled with colours, and send for the Englishman's shield."
In the French king's case a restless ambition was spurred to action by insults which he had borne during the Crusade. He had availed himself of Richard's imprisonment to invade Normandy, while the lords of Aquitaine rose in open revolt under the troubadour Bertrand de Born.
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