nces cast greedy eyes on the defenceless duchy. In
particular, Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile, who succeeded his father
Ferdinand in 1252, renewed his father's claims to Gascony.

The only way to save the duchy was for Henry to go there in person.
Long delays ensued before the royal visit took place, and it was not
until August, 1253, that Bordeaux saw her hereditary duke sail up the
Gironde to her quays. The Gascon capital remained faithful, but within
a few miles of her walls the rebels were everywhere triumphant. It
required a long siege to reduce Benauge to submission, and months
elapsed before the towns and castles of the lower Garonne and Dordogne
opened their gates. Even then La Reole, whither all the worst enemies
of Montfort had fled, held out obstinately. Despairing of military
success, Henry fell back upon diplomacy. The strength of the Gascon
revolt did not lie in the power of the rebels themselves but in the
support of the neighbouring princes and the French crown. By renewing
the truce with the representatives of Louis, Henry protected himself
from the danger of French intervention, and at the same time he cut off
a more direct source of support to the rebels by negotiating treaties
with such magnates as the lord of Albret, the Counts of Comminges and
Armagnac, and the Viscount of Bearn. His master-stroke was the
conclusion, in April, 1254, of a peace with Alfonso of Castile, whereby
the Spanish king abandoned his Gascon allies and renounced his claims
on the duchy. In return it was agreed that the lord Edward should marry
Alfonso's half-sister, Eleanor, heiress of the county of Ponthieu
through her mother, Joan, whom Henry had once sought for his queen. As
Edward's appanage included Aquitaine, Alfonso, in renouncing his
personal claims, might seem to be but transferring them to his sister.

In May, 1254, Queen Eleanor joined Henry at Bordeaux. With her went her
two sons, Edward and Edmund, her uncle, Archbishop Boniface, and a great
crowd of magnates. In August Edward went with his mother to Alfonso's
court at Burgos, where he was welcomed with all honour and dubbed to
knighthood by the King of Castile, and in October he and Eleanor were
married at the Cistercian monastery of Las Huelgas. His appanage
included all Ireland, the earldom of Chester, the king's lands in Wales,
the Channel Islands, the whole of Gascony, and whatsoever rights his
father still had over the lands taken from him and King John b