fty
thousand marks a year.

** M. Paris, p. 451. The customs were part of Henry's
revenue, and amounted to six thousand pounds a year: they
were at first email sums paid by the merchants for the use
of the king's ware-houses, measures, weights, etc. See
Gilbert's History of the Exch p. 214.

*** M. Paris, p. 460.

**** M. Paris, p. 480. Ann. Burt. p. 305, 573.

***** M. Paris, p. 474.

****** M. Paris, p. 476.

{1255.} But the most oppressive expedient employed by the pope, was the
embarking of Henry in a project for the conquest of Naples, or Sicily
on this side the Fare, as it was called; an enterprise which threw
much dishonor on the king, and involved him, during some years, in great
trouble and expense. The Romish church, taking advantage of favorable
incidents, had reduced the kingdom of Sicily to the same state of feudal
vassalage which she pretended to extend over England; and which, by
reason of the distance, as well as high spirit of this latter kingdom,
she was not able to maintain. After the death of the emperor Frederic
II., the succession of Sicily devolved to Conradine, grandson of that
monarch; and Mainfroy, his natural son, under pretence of governing
the kingdom during the minority of the prince, had formed a scheme
of establishing his own authority. Pope Innocent, who had carried
on violent war against the emperor Frederic, and had endeavored to
dispossess him of his Italian dominions, still continued hostilities
against his grandson; but being disappointed in all his schemes by the
activity and artifices of Mainfroy, he found that his own force alone
was not sufficient to bring to a happy issue so great an enterprise.
He pretended to dispose of the Sicilian crown, both as superior lord of
that particular kingdom, and as vicar of Christ, to whom all kingdoms of
the earth were subjected; and he made a tender of it to Richard, earl of
Cornwall, whose immense riches, he flattered himself, would be able to
support the military operations against Mainfroy. As Richard had the
prudence to refuse the present,[*] he applied to the king, whose levity
and thoughtless disposition gave Innocent more hopes of success; and he
offered him the crown of Sicily for his second son, Edmond.[**]
Henry, allured by so magnificent a present, without reflecting on
the consequences, without consulting either with his brother or the
parliament, accepted of the insidious p