nate
hostilities on some moderate and reasonable conditions.

The two monarchs met between Trie and Gisors; and Henry had here the
mortification to see his three sons in the retinue of his mortal
enemy. As Lewis had no other pretence for war than supporting the
claims of the young princes, the king made them such offers as
children might be ashamed to insist on, and could be extorted from him
by nothing but his parental affection, or by the present necessity of
his affairs [c]. He insisted only on retaining the sovereign
authority in all his dominions; but offered young Henry half the
revenues of England, with some places of surety in that kingdom; or,
if he rather chose to reside in Normandy, half the revenues of that
duchy, with all those of Anjou. He made a like offer to Richard in
Guienne: he promised to resign Britany to Geoffrey; and if these
concessions were not deemed sufficient, he agreed to add to them
whatever the pope's legates, who were present, should require of him
[d]. The Earl of Leicester was also present at the negotiation; and
either from the impetuosity of his temper, or from a view of abruptly
breaking off a conference which must cover the allies with confusion,
he gave vent to the most violent reproaches against Henry, and he even
put his hand to his sword, as if he meant to attempt some violence
against him. This furious action threw the whole company into
confusion, and put an end to the treaty [e].
[FN [c] Hoveden, p. 538. [d] Ibid. p. 536. Brompton, p. 1088. [e]
Hoveden, p. 536.]

The chief hopes of Henry's enemies seemed now to depend on the state
of affairs in England, where his authority was exposed to the most
imminent danger. One article of Prince Henry's agreement with his
foreign confederates was, that he should resign Kent, with Dover, and
all its other fortresses, into the hands of the Earl of Flanders [f]:
yet so little national or public spirit prevailed among the
independent English nobility, so wholly bent were they on the
aggrandizement each of himself and his own family, that
notwithstanding this pernicious concession, which must have produced
the ruin of the kingdom, the greater part of them had conspired to
make an insurrection, and to support the prince's pretensions. The
king's principal resource lay in the church and the bishops, with whom
he was now in perfect agreement; whether that the decency of their
character made them ashamed of supporting so unnatural a