the project counteracted the negotiations set on foot by Louis to
secure Frederick II. for his own side, and induced the Emperor to take
up a position of neutrality. An impostor appeared in Flanders who gave
out that he was the old Count Baldwin, sometime Latin Emperor of the
East, who had died in prison in Bulgaria twenty years before. Baldwin's
daughter, Joan, appealed to Louis for support against the false
Baldwin, whereupon Henry recognised his claims and sought his alliance.
Nothing but the capture and execution of the impostor prevented Henry
from effecting a powerful diversion in Flanders. Peter Mauclerc, Count
of Brittany, was won over by an offer of restitution to his earldom of
Richmond, and by a promise that Henry would marry his daughter Iolande.
Intrigues were entered into with the discontented Norman nobles, and
the pope was importuned to save Henry from French assaults at the same
moment that the king made a treaty of alliance with his first cousin,
the heretical Raymond VII. of Toulouse. Honorius gave his ward little
save sympathy and good advice. His special wish was to induce Louis to
lead a French expedition into Languedoc against the Albigensian
heretics. As soon as Louis resolved on this, the pope sought to prevent
Henry from entering into unholy alliance with Raymond. It was the
crusade of 1226, not the good-will of the Pope or the fine-drawn
English negotiations, which gave Gascony a short respite. Louis VIII.
died on November 8 in the course of his expedition, and the Capetian
monarchy became less dangerous during the troubles of a minority, in
which his widow, Blanche, strove as regent to uphold the throne of
their little son, Louis IX.

The first months of Louis IX.'s reign showed how unstable was any
edifice built upon the support of the treacherous lords of Poitou.
Within six weeks of Louis VIII.'s death, Hugh of Lusignan, the viscount
of Thouars, Savary de Mauléon, and many other Poitevin barons,