During the seven years of his reign William de la Roche was the leading figure in Frankish Greece. Acknowledging the suzerainty of the Angevin kings of Naples, who had become overlords of Achaia by the treaty of Viterbo, he was appointed their viceroy in that principality, and in that capacity built the castle of Dematra, the site of which may be perhaps found at Kastri, between Tripolitsa and Sparta. Possessed of ample means, he spent his money liberally for the defence of Frankish Greece, alike in the Peloponnese and in Eubœa; and great was the grief of all men when his valiant career was cut short. Now, for the first time since the conquest, Athens was governed by a Greek, for Guy’s mother, Helene Angela of Neopatras, who has given her title to K. Rhanghaves’ drama, _The Duchess of Athens_, acted as regent for her infant son, Guy, until a second marriage with her late husband’s brother-in-law, Hugh de Brienne, provided him with a more powerful guardian. The family of Brienne was one of the most famous of that day. First heard of in Champagne during the reign of Hugh Capet, it had, in the thirteenth century, won an Imperial diadem at Constantinople, a royal crown at Jerusalem, and a count’s coronet at Lecce and at Jaffa; ere long it was destined to provide the last French Duke of Athens. The Burgundian duchy of Athens had now reached its zenith; and the ceremony of Guy II’s coming of age, which has been described for us in the picturesque Catalan chronicle of Muntaner, affords a striking proof of the splendour of the ducal Court at Thebes. The young duke had invited all the great men of his duchy; he had let it be known, too, throughout the Greek Empire and the Despotat of Epeiros and his mother’s home of Thessaly, that whosoever came should receive gifts and favours from his hands, “for he was one of the noblest men in all Romania who was not a king, and eke one of the richest.” When all the guests had assembled, Archbishop Nicholas of Thebes celebrated mass in the Theban minster; and then all eyes were fixed upon the Duke, to see whom he would ask to confer upon him the order of knighthood—“a duty which the King of France, or the Emperor himself, would have thought it a pleasure and an honour to perform.” What was the surprise of the brilliant throng when Guy, instead of calling upon such great nobles as Thomas of Salona or Othon of St Omer, co-owner with himself of Thebes, called to his side a young Eubœan knight, Boniface of Verona, lord of but a single castle, which he had sold the better to equip himself and his retinue. Yet no one made a braver show at the Theban Court; he always wore the richest clothes, and on the day of the ceremony none was more elegantly dressed than he, though every one had attired himself and his _jongleurs_ in the fairest apparel. This was the man whom the young duke bade dub him a knight, and upon whom, as a reward for this service, he bestowed the hand