unsystematic manner for several years. In April, 1234, the barons and knights were ordered to Portsmouth, fully equipped for war, to proceed on service to Brittany;[1] in May, the barons of Hastings were called on for ten, and those of Hythe and Romney for five, ships each, properly manned, to carry troops to the same province.[2] On the other hand, on July 15th, in the same year, the Cinque Ports were ordered to restore all French ships that had been arrested.[3] A five years' truce was at length concluded between the two nations on February 3rd, 1236.[4]
In the meantime, what must have been a very splendid naval pageant crossed the North Sea. The king's youngest sister, Isabel, had been betrothed to the Emperor Friedrich II., and on March 24th, 1235, ten ships were ordered to be provided by the ports of Norfolk, and several other vessels by the Cinque Ports, for the princess's passage to the continent.[5] With them were probably joined "six good galleys," which, earlier in the year, had been ordered to be sent to England by the Justiciary of Ireland.[6] Henry escorted his sister to Sandwich, where, with a magnificent retinue, she embarked on May 11th, landing at Antwerp after a voyage of three days and three nights.[7]
Immediately after the conclusion of the truce with France, the peace of the Narrow Seas seems to have been very ill kept. In June, 1236, satisfaction was ordered to be made to the merchants of Flauders and Hainault for a ship of theirs which had been plundered off Portsmouth by no less a personage that Sir Philip d'Albini. who, a few years earlier, had gained so much renown in the battle of the South Foreland; and for other ships which had been pillaged by Englishmen returning from Brittany.[8] And at about the same time a regular war was unofficially carried on by the Cinque Ports with the inhabitants of Bayonne, until, in June, 1237, Henry intervened, and peremptorily ordered the truculent barons to leave the Bayonnais in peace.[9] It was as if an admiral, ex-second in command of the Channel Squadron, should betake himself to piracy in the Solent; and as if the actual commander-in-chief at the Nore should wage private hostilities with Hamburg; and the facts are sufficient to
