quarrel was soon settled, and a marriage decided upon between Prince Edward, Henry's elder brother, and Princess Eleanor, daughter of Alphonse. But the king kept this happy consummation secret, in order to obtain fresh subsidies from his English subjects, under the pretence of continuing the war. He only came back to England when he found himself, as usual, reduced to beggary. The king's want of political foresight was as conspicuous as his prodigality and weakness. The King of Sicily, Frederick II., had been dead some time (1250). He had been excommunicated, and Pope Innocent IV. had claimed his kingdom as a fief of the Holy See. Frederic's son. Prince Conrad, supported generally by the people, was resisting this pretension by force of arms, and the Pope was casting about for a foreign prince who might be disposed to take up the quarrel. He offered the crown of Sicily to Richard, brother of the King of England, whose immense fortune, derived from the Cornish mines, rendered him more powerful even than King Henry himself; but he refused the tempting bait, although he was quite ready to be seduced, some months later, by the hope of gaining possession of the empire. The Pope then offered the kingdom of Sicily to the King of England for his second son Edmund, and the monarch joyfully accepted the offer, without troubling himself about the demands of his subjects or the state of his finances. {228} The Pope was borrowing of the Lombards and the Venetians, and raising troops in his name; but the Holy See was a hard and urgent creditor. Innocent IV. soon demanded back the money which he had spent, and ordered the English clergy to lend the necessary funds to the king. The clergy refused; the king levied enormous taxes on the abbeys and churches. The legate sent to England to recover the money encountered on all sides the most violent opposition. "I would rather die than pay so much money," said the Bishop of Worcester. "The king and the Pope are stronger than we," said the Bishop of London; "but if I am deprived of my mitre, I shall be able to wear a helmet." The legate returned, convinced that a storm was about to burst over England.