Louis VIII. died in November, 1226, leaving Blanche with eight children to care for; in addition to those already mentioned there were Isabelle, Etienne, and Charles, all born since the accession of Louis. The king, who had forced the submission of Languedoc during the expedition on which he died, made his barons swear to be true to his son Louis. Realizing that his devoted wife could not reach him before his death, he provided as best he could for her. With perfect confidence in her, a confidence fully justified by the event, he declared that Prince Louis, his heir, as well as the whole kingdom and all the rest of his children should be under the tutelage of Queen Blanche until they came of age; to this important portion of the king's will some of the great barons and high church dignitaries were witnesses. Blanche and her husband had loved each other tenderly and faithfully, and at first the widowed queen was looked upon with compassion. She was on her way to Louis's bedside, the younger children in a carriage and Prince Louis riding ahead, when she was met by the news of his death. Her grief was pitiable; but her sense of duty toward her children and her realization of the difficulties and dangers of her position gave her courage. She was not the kind of woman to succumb under grief for the loss of a well-loved husband or anxiety at finding herself obliged to govern a kingdom whose king was yet a boy. At first the old retainers of Louis were around her and faithful to her. She was politic enough to win the support of the only prince of the blood, Philippe, surnamed Hurepel, on account of the great mat of shaggy hair he had inherited from his father, Philippe Auguste. Ferrand, Count of Flanders, was her friend, and she could rely upon the support of most of the clergy, and especially upon that of the papal legate, Romain Frangipani, Cardinal of Saint Angelo. Her surest allies, however, were the immediate servants of the crown: the chancellor, Guerin, who was unfortunately not to live long; Archambaud de Bourbon, Count Amaury de Montfort, the chamberlain, Barthélémy de Roye, and the noble constable, Mathieu de Montmorency. With the aid of such friends, Blanche began her duties as regent. How long this regency was to last, how long it really did last, are matters not altogether easy to determine. In the first place, there were precedents, in the royal line as well as in feudal annals, for considering the age of majority as fourteen years; but there seems to have been authority equally as good for holding to the age of twenty-one. Louis was in his twelfth year when his father died. Blanche continued to act as regent for about ten years, and there was no protest based on the pretext that the young king should have been considered a major at fourteen years.