himself in a conspiracy whose primary and ostensible object was to be the overthrow of the duke, but which by uniting all its members in a sworn alliance with each other and therefore with its originator, Bertrand, should enable him to maintain his position as master of Hautefort. If Aimar of Limoges could be bound to Bertrand in a sworn league against Richard, Bertrand would be at once rid of one of his present antagonists, and another and a greater one would—so at least the allies might hope—soon have [Sidenote: 1181-2] his hands too full of other work to trouble himself further about Hautefort.[145] Aimar and his three half-brothers,[146] being already banded together against the duke for the preservation of Angoulême to the male line of Taillefer, were naturally quite ready to [Sidenote: =1181-2=] embrace Bertrand’s project—if indeed the project had originated with Bertrand. It seems to have first taken shape in a meeting at Limoges: “in an ancient minster of S. Martial,” says Bertrand, “many rich men swore to me on a missal.”[147] They seem to have sworn that no individual among them should make terms with Richard for himself independently of his allies.[148] Among the earliest members of the league thus formed were, besides the brothers of Angoulême and their half-brother of Limoges, the three other viscounts of the Limousin—Ventadour, Comborn, and Turenne—the count of Périgord, and William of Gourdon in Quercy.[149] To these were soon added “other barons of Périgord and of the Limousin and Quercy whom Richard was disinheriting.”[150] In one of his most vigorous sirventes Bertrand made a stirring appeal to the great nobles of Gascony, Gaston of Béarn, Vézian of Lomagne, Bernard of Armagnac, Peter of Dax, Centol of Bigorre: “if they will it, the count [of Poitou] will have enough to do in those parts; and then, since he is so valiant, let him come with his great host this way and measure himself with us!” The effect of Richard’s repressive measures in Saintonge and in Poitou are indirectly acknowledged in the poet’s next words: “If Taillebourg and Pons and Lusignan and Mauléon and Tonnay were fit for action, and if there were a stirring and stalwart viscount at Sivray, I will never believe that they would not help us. He of Thouars, too, whom the count has threatened, should join us if he be not a dastard.”[151] Of Richard’s relations at this period with Aimeric of Thouars, Ralf of Mauléon, and the lords of Tonnay and Sivray, we know nothing. The head of the house of Lusignan was that same Geoffrey who had been a prominent leader in the Poitevin rising of 1167, and had also [Sidenote: =1181-2=] joined in the revolt of 1173. Since then a new cause of strife had arisen between him and the Angevin rulers of Aquitaine. At the time when Adalbert of La Marche sold his county, according to his own statement, there was “no one protesting and indeed no one existing who had a right to protest” against the