could not believe looks to me like truth.” Ungirding his sword, he turned to the French king and, “imploring his aid that he might not be deprived of his due rights,” did homage to him[313] as his “man” for the whole continental dominions of the Angevin house and swore fealty to him against all men, saving Henry’s right of tenure for life and the fidelity due from son to father.[314] Philip responded by promising that Châteauroux, Issoudun, and all the other castles, lands, and fiefs which he had taken from Henry in former wars should be restored to Richard.[315] Henry was, it seems, too thunderstruck to say or do anything except consent without more ado to a truce with Philip till S. Hilary’s day.[316] “Thus began the quarrel that never was fought out,”[317] says a contemporary poet of the fateful conference at Bonmoulins. The meeting had been held, according to custom, in the open air and in public, the two kings and Richard, with the Archbishop of Reims, standing in the middle of a wide and dense circle of their followers and other spectators. To some of these the symbolical action which accompanied homage must have been visible; and when the central group broke up and father, son, and lord paramount were seen to move away, each in a different direction, “all men marvelled.”[318] Richard’s homage to Philip was an act of filial undutifulness, since it was done in opposition to the known wishes of his father; but it involved no further breach of duty, if he really intended—and there is nothing to show that he did not, at that time, intend—to abide by the saving clause which reserved his father’s rights. Fairly interpreted with that clause, the homage would be merely prospective in its effect; and some prospective measure of this kind had been made almost necessary as a matter of self-protection on Richard’s part, by the conduct of both Henry and Philip. We cannot tell precisely to what it was that Richard alluded in the words which he spoke immediately before the homage; but it can only have been one, or both, of two things: the sinister rumours about Henry and Aloysia, and the suggestion that Henry aimed at making John his heir instead of Richard. As to the truth or falsehood of the former charge against Henry we have no means of judging; but of the truth of the latter charge it is impossible to doubt. The anathema said to have been pronounced by the Legate Henry of Albano against Richard as a disturber of the peace which the pope was anxious to secure for the furtherance of the Crusade[319] might have fallen more justly upon Richard’s father; perhaps, too, not less justly upon their overlord.