The year 1183 begins with a new phase. The young king had of late shown himself somewhat more dutiful. His father was now in his fiftieth year, and that was for the kings of those days a somewhat advanced maturity. The heir seemed to have learned that he might, as he must, bide his time. The arrangement which was to provide for the continued cohesion of the family estates was as yet uncompleted. Henry urged that the younger brothers should all do homage and swear fealty to the elder. Richard was with some difficulty prevailed on to do this; but almost as soon as it was done Henry took advantage of the discontent of the Poictevins, quarrelled with Richard about the custody of a petty castle, and headed a war party against him. Their father, who at first perhaps had intended that Henry should be allowed to enforce his superiority, soon saw that it was his bounden duty to maintain the cause of Richard. Geoffrey of Brittany joined his eldest brother. Whilst Richard and his father besieged Limoges, Henry and Geoffrey allowed their archers to shoot at their father; they ill-treated his messengers, drove him to desperation, and became desperate themselves. The younger Henry, after feigning reconciliation, and more than once cruelly and hypocritically deserting his father, tried to recruit his resources by plundering the rich shrines of the Aquitanian saints. The age saw in his fate speedy vengeance for his impiety, his own evil conscience found perhaps in his behaviour to his father a still greater burden. Before Limoges was taken, the wretched man--for at eight-and-twenty he was a boy no more--sickened and died at Martel, and left no issue. He passed away like foam on the water, no man regretting him; lamented only as his father’s enemy, and by that father who, with all his faults and his mismanagement, loved his sons far more than they deserved. [Sidenote: Distrust of Richard. ] [Sidenote: Death of Geoffrey. ] The death of the heir threw upon Richard the right, so far as it could be regarded as a right, of succession; it reopened also the question about the portion of Queen Margaret, the castles of the Vexin which Henry had so craftily got into his hands in consequence of the marriage. These castles he refused to restore to the king of France. Richard’s claim to the fealty of the barons he could not allow to be recognised, lest Richard should attempt to play against him the part which his elder brother had played. He wished also that the Aquitanian heritage should be made over to John, especially after the death of Geoffrey of Brittany, which occurred in 1186, no right of succession being allowed to the baby Arthur, born after his father’s death. Hence there were constant feuds and difficulties, mainly, however, on the French side of the Channel, Philip fomenting the family discord. [Sidenote: The house of Anjou at Jerusalem. ] [Sidenote: Jerusalem taken. ]