At the close of 1175 or early in 1176 Louis, it seems, reminded Henry that, Richard being now in his nineteenth [Sidenote: 1175-6] year and Aloysia in her sixteenth, it was full time for the contract of marriage between them to be carried into effect; but the answer which he received was so unsatisfactory that he referred the matter to the Pope. We have no actual record of any communication between the kings on the subject at this time, but something of the kind must have [Sidenote: 1176] taken place to cause the Pope’s action. In May 1176 Alexander bade Cardinal Peter, then legate in France, lay the whole of Henry’s lands on both sides of the sea under Interdict “unless he (Henry) would permit Richard and Aloysia to be married without delay.”[85] The legate, however, seems to have done nothing in the matter for more than a year. Probably the two kings were negotiating; [Sidenote: 1177] but we hear nothing of their negotiations till June 1177, when Henry sent an embassy to France to “convene” Louis about the dowries which he had promised to give with his two daughters to the young king and to Richard—to wit, the Vexin (that is, its eastern or “French” part, which was still in Louis’s hands) and the viscounty of Bourges.[86] It seems that Henry, having found Margaret’s marriage fail to give him the control over her promised lands, demanded to be put in possession of those of Aloysia before he would allow her to marry Richard. But meanwhile the Pope had in May renewed the injunctions which he had issued to Cardinal Peter eleven months before; and on July 12 the English envoys returned with the news that Peter was instructed to lay the whole of their sovereign’s dominions, insular and continental, under Interdict, unless Richard were at once permitted to take for his wife the maiden whom Henry “had so long already, and longer than had been agreed, had in his custody for the said Richard.”[87] Henry at once made the English bishops appeal to the Pope. Illness detained him in England for nearly five weeks;[88] then he went to Normandy (August 18), and on September 21 met Louis and the legate at Nonancourt.[89] In the legate’s presence he promised that Richard should wed Aloysia, if Louis gave Bourges to Richard and the Vexin to the young king as previously agreed.[90] Whether the wedding or the cession was to take place first, however, seems to have been left an open question; and four days later the whole matter was again postponed indefinitely by a treaty whereby the two elder kings pledged themselves to take the Cross and go to the Holy Land together, and meanwhile, as brother Crusaders, to lay aside all mutual strife and make no claims or demands upon each other’s possessions as they held them at that moment, except with regard to Auvergne and to any encroachments which the men of either party might have made upon those of the other in the territory of Châteauroux or of the lesser fiefs on the border of their respective lands in Berry.