childish oath an obvious and a most heinous enormity,--why, that, in a
sentence, and for all his coy verbosity, the new pontiff was perfectly
amenable to reason.

So in a month it was settled. Alphonso would give his sister to de
Gâtinais, and in exchange get the latter's vote to make Alphonso King of
Germany; and Gui Foulques of Sabionetta--now Clement, fourth Pope to
assume that name--would annul the previous marriage, and in exchange get
an armament to serve him against Manfred, the late and troublesome
tyrant of Sicily and Apulia. The scheme promised to each one of them
that which he in particular desired, and messengers were presently sent
into Ponthieu.

It is now time we put aside these Castilian matters and speak of other
things. In England, Prince Edward had fought, and won, a shrewd battle
at Evesham. People said, of course, that such behavior was less in the
manner of his nominal father, King Henry, than reminiscent of Count
Manuel of Poictesme, whose portraits certainly the Prince resembled to
an embarrassing extent. Either way, the barons' power was demolished,
there would be no more internecine war; and spurred by the unaccustomed
idleness, Prince Edward began to think of the foreign girl he had not
seen since the day he wedded her. She would be a woman by this, and it
was befitting that he claim his wife. He rode with Hawise Bulmer and her
baby to Ambresbury, and at the gate of the nunnery they parted, with
what agonies are immaterial to this history's progression; the tale
merely tells that, having thus decorously rid himself of his mistress,
the Prince went into Lower Picardy alone, riding at adventure as he
loved to do, and thus came to Entréchat, where his wife resided with her
mother, the Countess Johane.