Note ib — Chapter V · THE YOUNG KING 1223–1227 (continued 2)

The accounts of the truces made between Henry and Louis in the winter of 1216–1217 are so conflicting that it seems impossible either to reconcile them or to arrive at a precise conclusion as to all the facts and dates. The documentary evidence on the subject is unluckily very scanty; it consists—so far as I have been able to ascertain—only of two entries in the Patent Roll of 1. Hen. III (Oct. 1216—Oct. 1217). The first of these is a notice, dated 28th December, 1216, from Henry to Louis, concerning claims of redress for injuries done “infra treugas inter nos captas” (Pat. Rolls, vol. i. p. 107). The second is a report, addressed by the Marshal and Council to Louis, of a meeting held “die Jovis in crastino S. Petri” between the emendatores treugae on both sides, “ad emendaciones capiendas et faciendas de interceptionibus factis in prima treuga et secunda, et ad treugam faciendum observari et tenere” (ib. p. 109). This letter is dateless; it is entered on the Roll between a letter dated 28th February and one dated 10th March. “Thursday the morrow of S. Peter” probably means 19th January, the day after the festival of S. Peter’s Chair at Rome, which festival fell on a Wednesday in 1217. The feast of S. Peter’s Chair at Antioch, 22nd February, was also a Wednesday in that year; but it is hardly possible that this talk about truces could have been going on as late as 23rd February, only five days before the “Crusaders” mustered at Dorking proclaimed their intention of expelling Louis from Rye (see above, p. 24).