continues: “In the list of the kings let there be written down the duke of Aquitaine and Gascony, Richard, who has never been slack in deeds of prowess, and whose youth is distinguished by great strenuousness of life.”[129] A cessation of war between duke and barons in Aquitaine was usually followed by trouble with the mercenary troops who were always employed by one party or the other, sometimes by both parties, and who when such employment was lacking fell to raiding on their own account. This occurred in the summer of 1179 during Richard’s absence in England after the fall of Taillebourg. Bordeaux was ravaged and burnt by some “Basques, Navarrese, or Brabantines,” evidently soldiers of this class.[130] With the barons Richard seems to have had no particular trouble for the next two years or more. On July 7, 1179, old Count William of Angoulême and his stepson Aimar of Limoges, “with many others,” set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[131] William died a month later at Messina; Vulgrin, who had surrendered the city to Richard, thus became head of the family, but the dignity and authority of count of Angoulême seems to have been shared between him and his brothers.[132] The recent humiliation of Vulgrin and the absence of Aimar of Limoges and his fellow pilgrims may help to account for the fact that the year 1180 is almost a blank in the chronicles of Aquitaine. King Henry’s presence in Normandy from April 1180 to July 1181 may also have had a pacific effect throughout all his continental dominions. It is, moreover, probable that some of the pilgrims had come [Sidenote: 1180] to an agreement with Richard before they started; it seems almost certain that Aimar had done so, for when he returned, in December 1180, he was solemnly welcomed at Limoges on Christmas Day[133] in a manner which implies that he had been reinstated in his former position of authority there, and we hear of no further hostilities between him and Richard for more than six months.[134] We hear indeed of no [Sidenote: 1181] further military movements in Aquitaine till after King Henry’s return to England at the end of July 1181. Then Richard marched into Gascony and took possession of Lectoure, the chief town of the viscounty of Lomagne. He was seemingly on his way thence to Dax when Vézian of Lomagne, in the middle of August, came and submitted himself to him at S. Sever. Vézian was probably a very young man, for he was not yet a knight. His submission was not only accepted as frankly as it was offered, but it was rewarded by the bestowal of knighthood from Richard’s hand.[135] In November Richard joined his brothers in punishing the count of Sancerre for his rebellion against the young King Philip of France, whom Henry had charged his sons to protect and support during his own absence over-sea.[136]