liege homage for Britanny. To this neither of the brothers objected, and the homage was duly rendered and received.[175] Next, the father “used his utmost endeavours that the young king should grant the duchy of Aquitaine to his brother Richard, to be held by Richard and his heirs by an undisputable right.”[176] Richard at first declared he would do no homage to his brother, who was no more than his equal either in personal distinction or in nobility of birth; but afterwards, yielding to his father’s counsel,[177] he consented. Thereupon, however, the young king drew back.[178] He seems to have explained more fully the nature and extent of his entanglement with the malcontent barons of Aquitaine, and to have urged that he could not thus desert their cause without a guarantee that his father would make a settled peace between them and Richard. The final settlement between the brothers was therefore postponed till the Aquitanian barons could meet the king and his sons at Mirebeau. Henry promised that he would then confirm peace on the terms settled in the preceding summer, or, if this did not satisfy the barons, he would judge their cause in his own court. Geoffrey of Britanny was sent to invite or summon the barons to the meeting.[179] With these arrangements young Henry professed himself content, and he promised that he would, at Mirebeau, accept Richard’s homage, but on one further condition: that Richard should, after performing the homage, swear fealty to him on some holy relics. This last requirement, being a plain insinuation of lack of confidence in Richard’s honour, was an insult to which Richard could not submit. He “broke out in a white heat of passion,” and not only again refused to perform the homage at all, but—so it was said—declared that it was unmeet for him to acknowledge, by any kind of subjection, a superior in a brother born of the same parents, and that as their father’s property was the due heritage of the first-born, so he himself claimed to be, with equal justice, the lawful successor of their mother.[180] “Leaving nought but insults and threats behind him” he quitted the court, hurried into his own duchy, and prepared for defence.[181] His vehemence kindled the wrath of his father, who hastily bade the young king “rise up and subdue Richard’s pride,” and sent orders to Geoffrey to “stand faithfully by his eldest brother and liege lord.”[182]