that Edward
should act as mediator between Philip III. and Alfonso of Castile led
to difficulties that deeply incensed Edward, and embroiled him once
more both with France and Spain. Under Angevin influence, both Philip
and Alfonso rejected Edward's mediation in favour of that of the Prince
of Salerno, Charles of Anjou's eldest son. Disgust at this
unfriendliness made Edward again support the plans of Margaret of
Provence against the Angevins. In 1281 Margaret's intrigues formed a
combination of feudal magnates called the League of Macon, with the
object of prosecuting her claims over Provence by force of arms. Edward
and his mother, Eleanor, his Savoyard kinsfolk, and Edmund of Lancaster
all entered into the league. But it was hopeless for a disorderly crowd
of lesser chieftains, with the nominal support of a distant prince like
Edward, to conquer Provence in the teeth of the hostility of the
strongest and the ablest princes of the age. The League of Macon came
to nothing, like so many other ambitious combinations of a time in
which men's capacity to form plans transcended their capacity to
execute them.
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