1081), he received
the homage of Robert "Courteheuse" ("Curthose"), son of William the
Conqueror, for Maine. Later, he upheld Elias, lord of La Fleche, against
William Rufus, king of England, and on the recognition of Elias as count
of Maine in 1100, obtained for Fulk the Young, his son by Bertrade de
Montfort, the hand of Eremburge, Elias's daughter and sole heiress.

Fulk V. the Young (14th of April 1109-1129) succeeded to the countship
of Maine on the death of Elias (11th of July 1110); but this increase of
Angevin territory came into such direct collision with the interests of
Henry I., king of England, who was also duke of Normandy, that a
struggle between the two powers became inevitable. In 1112 it broke out,
and Fulk, being unable to prevent Henry I. from taking Alencon and
making Robert, lord of Belleme, prisoner, was forced, at the treaty of
Pierre Pecoulee, near Alencon (23rd of February 1113), to do homage to
Henry for Maine. In revenge for this, while Louis VI. was overrunning
the Vexin in 1118, he routed Henry's army at Alencon (November), and in
May 1119 Henry demanded a peace, which was sealed in June by the
marriage of his eldest son, William the Aetheling, with Matilda, Fulk's
daughter. William the Aetheling having perished in the wreck of the
"White Ship" (25th of November 1120), Fulk, on his return from a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1120-1121), married his second daughter
Sibyl, at the instigation of Louis VI., to William Clito, son of Robert
Courteheuse, and a claimant to the duchy of Normandy, giving her Maine
for a dowry (1122 or 1123). Henry I. managed to have the marriage
annulled, on the plea of kinship between the parties (1123 or 1124). But
in 1127 a new alliance was made, and on the 22nd of May at Rouen, Henry
I. betrothed his daughter Matilda, widow of the emperor Henry V., to
Geoffrey the Handsome, son of Fulk, the marriage being celebrated at Le
Mans on the 2nd of June 1129. Shortly after, on the invitation of
Baldwin II., king of Jerusalem, Fulk departed to the Holy Land for good,
married Melisinda, Baldwin's daughter and heiress, and succeeded to the
throne of Jerusalem (14th of September 1131). His eldest son, Geoffrey
IV. the Handsome or "Plantagenet," succeeded him as count of Anjou
(1129-7th of September 1151). From the first he tried to profit by his
marriage, and after the death of Henry I. (1st of December 1135), laid
the foundation of the conquest of Normandy by a series of camp