Throughout his reign, Henry III. too frequently made demands on the purses of his subjects, to supply his unbounded extravagance, and Queen Eleanor was no check to him in this respect. Their tastes were similar, and Henry had in his wife a congenial companion, interested, as he was, in literature and art. Her influence over him was unbounded, and he was never known to refuse any demand she made, no matter how unreasonable it was. Their first child was born at Westminster in 1239, and received the name of Edward, in honor of Edward the Confessor. An attempt was made on the king's life one night by a crazy man named Ribald, who concealed himself in the palace during the day and stole into the king's bed-chamber at midnight. Fortunately Henry spent the night in another apartment, otherwise the score of stabs that the madman inflicted on the bolster would certainly have put an end to his majesty. The shrieks of one of the queen's maids of honor, who heard the would-be murderer shouting horrible threats with each thrust of his dagger, aroused the household, and the wretch was taken into custody. [[A.D. 1241.]] In 1241, a year after the birth of her daughter Margaret, Queen Eleanor accompanied her husband to France, on an expedition against their brother-in-law, King Louis. After a series of defeats, they took refuge in Bordeaux, where many of Henry's knights and nobles forsook him and returned to England. He revenged himself by imposing upon them heavy fines,--his favorite mode of punishment {143} [Illustration: 0147] {145}Henry and Eleanor spent a merry winter at Bordeaux, amusing themselves with feasts and pageants that they could ill afford, and on their return to England, in 1243, Henry issued an order compelling the principal inhabitants of every town on the route to appear on horseback to give them welcome. [[A.D. 1243.]] The marriage of the queen's youngest sister, to the king's brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who had become a widower, was solemnized in England the following autumn. On that occasion Henry called upon his Jewish subjects to furnish funds for the sumptuous festivities that he saw fit to give, and he spared no expense, for the wedding-dinner alone consisted of thirty thousand dishes. But he remembered the poor as usual, and ordered all the children from the streets and highways of Windsor and its neighborhood to be collected together and feasted in the great hall of the palace, after which the royal children--of whom there were then three--were weighed, and silver coin placed in the balance was distributed among the destitute individuals present. The following year the threatened war between England and Scotland was averted by a contract of marriage between the infant Princess Margaret of England and the heir of Scotland.