[1] The treaty had not been properly executed, and the
English had long complained that the French had not yielded up to
England their king's rights over the three bishoprics of Limoges,
Cahors, and Perigueux, which St. Louis had ceded. New complications
arose after the death of Alfonse of Poitiers in the course of the
Tunisian crusade. By the treaty of Paris the English king should then
have entered into possession of Saintonge south of the Charente, the
Agenais, and lower Quercy. But the ministers of Philip III. laid hands
upon the whole of Alfonse's inheritance and refused to surrender these
districts to the English. The welcome which Edward received from his
cousin at Paris could not blind him to the incompatibility of their
interests, nor to the impossibility of obtaining at the moment the
cession of the promised lands. He did not choose to tarry at Paris while
the diplomatists unravelled the tangled web of statecraft. Nor would he
tender an unconditional homage to the prince who withheld from him his
inheritance. Already a stickler for legal rights, even when used to his
own detriment, Edward was unable to deny his subjection to the overlord
of Aquitaine.
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