lead a force through Maine and Touraine into Berry. On receiving his father’s instructions he did so, and laid siege to Châteauroux, which surrendered to him at once.[83] He did not, however, gain possession of the little heiress or of the rest of her lands; for the matter now became complicated by the intervention of the supreme lord of Berry and of Aquitaine, King Louis. For more than eight years, ever since January 1169, Aloysia of France had been in Henry’s guardianship as the destined bride of Richard. According to one of the best informed English writers of the time, Louis, when this engagement was made, had promised that on the marriage of the young couple he would make over to Richard, as Aloysia’s dowry, the city of Bourges with all its appurtenances;[84] that is, the portion of Berry the ownership of [Sidenote: =1176-7=] which was in dispute between France and Aquitaine. Ten years before—in the year of Aloysia’s birth—he had promised to King Henry a like cession of the Vexin, the disputed border-land of France and Normandy, as the dowry of Aloysia’s sister Margaret on her intended marriage with Henry’s eldest son, and Henry had taken advantage of the ambiguous wording of a clause in the treaty to have the two children—contrary to Louis’s intention—at once formally married in church; whereby he gained immediate possession, not indeed of the whole Vexin, but of that portion of it which had once been Norman and which contained its most valuable fortresses, these being surrendered to him by the Templars, who were by the treaty to have them in custody till the marriage should take place. That marriage, nevertheless, had brought more advantage to Louis than to Henry, by bringing Margaret’s husband, as soon as he reached manhood, under the influence of his father-in-law in opposition to his own father. There was but too much reason to fear a like result in the case of Richard; and the dangers of such a result were even greater in this case than in the former one, owing to special circumstances connected with the betrothal of Richard and Aloysia. That betrothal was the price, or part of the price, paid by Henry at Montmirail in 1169 for Louis’s sanction, as overlord, to the scheme devised by Henry for securing a certain distribution of his dominions among his sons. Henry’s own renewal of homage to Louis on that occasion for all his continental territories was a token that he did not intend to renounce his personal rights over any of his lands, but merely to secure for himself the power of sharing those rights with his sons whenever he might choose to do so, and for the boys an unquestionable right of succession at his death to their respective shares of the Angevin heritage. But, somewhat like Louis nine years before, Henry made a mistake which rendered it possible for his adversary to put another construction upon the matter. He secured young Henry’s claims to the future possession of the heritage of Geoffrey of Anjou and