Negotiations were begun as early as 1257, and made some progress; but
the decisive step was taken immediately after the prorogation of the
reforming parliament in the spring of 1258. During May a strangely
constituted embassy treated for peace at Paris, where Montfort and Hugh
Bigod worked side by side with two of the Lusignans and Peter of Savoy.
They concluded a provisional treaty in time for the negotiators to take
their part in the Mad Parliament. The unsettled state of affairs in
England, however, delayed the ratification of the treaty. Arrangements
had been made for its publication at Cambrai, but the fifteen dared not
allow Henry to escape from their tutelage, and Louis refused to treat
save with the king himself. There were difficulties as to the relation
of the pope and the King of the Romans to the treaty, while Earl
Simon's wife Eleanor and her children refused to waive their very
remote claims to a share in the Norman and Angevin inheritances, which
her brother was prepared to renounce. As ever, Montfort held to his
personal rights with the utmost tenacity, and the self-seeking
obstinacy of the chief negotiator of the treaty caused both bad blood
and delay.
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