Anxious to secure his succession, and conscious probably that his kingdom was too large to be held by one hand, he had caused his eldest son to be crowned, thus exciting the envy of his brothers; while, at the same time, he had given them large duchies, which rendered them nearly independent of him. In addition to this, his dislike for his wife had rendered her a constant enemy, while his foolish affection for his youngest son John gave still further cause of offence. When therefore, as was likely to happen, any of his sons determined to oppose him, they were certain of assistance from France, and of bad advice from their mother. [Sidenote: First war; against young Henry. 1183.] It is difficult to arrange the constant brief wars which characterized the close of his reign, complicated as they are by the rising interests in the affairs of the East, which were gradually bringing on the third Crusade. They may perhaps be divided into four; the first extending to the death of young Henry; the second to the death of Geoffrey of Brittany; the third from 1184 to a peace negotiated in the interests of the crusades in 1188; and the last, the quarrel with Richard and John, which terminated with the King’s death. The first of these broke out in 1183. Richard had entered with zest into the wild feudal life of Poitou and Aquitaine, and had been very successful there. He had even pushed his arms to Bayonne, in the territories of the Basques, and to the borders of Navarre. This had aroused the envy of his elder brother. This young prince, who regarded himself, and was regarded by many, as the flower of knighthood, was capable of any amount of hypocrisy and double dealing, and seems to have so far cajoled his father as to persuade him to demand from his younger brothers homage to the elder. This Richard positively refused to give. But his arbitrary rule in Poitou and Aquitaine had made him many enemies, at the head of whom was the wild intriguing noble, at once warrior and troubadour, Bertram de Born. With these young Henry allied himself, and, with the aid of his brother from Brittany, pressed so heavily upon Richard, that the old king had to come to his assistance. At this crisis the young king caught a fever and died, forgiven but unvisited by his father. The King took advantage of his son’s death to pursue his success, and succeeded in subjugating the refractory barons, and re-establishing peace. Conscious that the young King Philip II. of France, who had succeeded to the throne in 1180, and over whom he had once had much influence, had been mixed in his son’s rebellion, Henry tried to make peace with him too. Philip met the request by a demand for the restitution of Gisors and the dower of his sister Margaret, young Henry’s widow, and it was with much difficulty that temporary peace was patched up; but it was finally arranged that part of the dowry should be restored, and Gisors transferred to Richard on his marriage with the Princess Alice.