with the relics of their patron saints as in the days of the heathen Northmen.[196] Meanwhile King Henry had called up the feudal forces of his other continental dominions[197] to deal with the rebels in Limoges. On Shrove Tuesday, March 1, he entered the city, broke down the bridge behind him, and disposed his forces for a siege of the town. That siege dragged on till midsummer. Shortly before Easter (March 17) the young king went to secure Angoulême by filling it with “a crowd of malignants,” hired with the proceeds of a forcible seizure of the treasures of S. Martial’s Abbey. On account of this sacrilege the town guard of S. Martial’s castle, when he returned thither, pelted him ignominiously away;[198] but Aimar and Geoffrey continued to hold the place.[199] Richard had accompanied his father to the siege,[200] but soon left it for more active work. He set himself to recover Saintonge and the Angoumois from the Routiers and the rebels; and he seems to have not only succeeded in this, but to have chased the marauders out of Saintonge northward across western Poitou right over the frontier of Britanny.[201] This campaign, ignored by the chroniclers, won for him a striking tribute from his most determined enemy; Bertrand de Born, composing a _sirventes_ in behalf of the league and actually at the request of the young king, could not refrain from expressing his admiration for the courage and persistence of the count of Poitou. “When this game is played out we shall know which of the king’s sons is to have the land. The young king would have soon conquered it if the count were not so well practised at the game; but he shuts them (his enemies) in so fast and presses them so hard that he has recovered Saintonge by force, and delivered the Angoumois as far as the border of Finisterre.... Hunted and wounded wild boar saw we never more furious than he is, yet he never swerves from his course.”[202] On the other hand, two of the most powerful feudataries of the French Crown, the duke of Burgundy and the count of Toulouse, had by this time definitely pledged themselves to the league. Both of them met young Henry at Uzerche on May 24 and brought reinforcements to his cause.[203] Bertrand’s boast that the war begun in the Limousin should involve France, Normandy and Flanders before it was ended[204] might yet have been fulfilled, but for an unexpected catastrophe: early in June young Henry fell sick, and on the 11th he died.[205]