maybeasignthatHenry’sinfluence over Edward Balliol was earlier,
andfirmer, than we might think.
All this also provides a backdrop to the enormous amount of journey-
ing, to and fro across the Channel, that Henry did in the early 1330s.^71 It
is worth dwelling, for a moment, on the‘official reason’for one of these
trips: to negotiate a settlement with the new king of France, Philip VI,
that would include a marriage between Edward III’s young heir and one
of Philip’s daughters.^72 Henry was not the only member of the house of
Brienne who played a leading role in these discussions. It will be recalled
that the constable of France, Raoul III of Eu, also had claims to a number
of estates in England and Ireland that he wanted to make good. In the
early summer of 1329, Raoul was in charge of welcoming Edward III
when the young king came to Amiens to do homage for Aquitaine and for
all his other possessions in France. Unsurprisingly, Raoul took advantage
of the opportunity to do obeisance, to Edward, for his English and Irish
estates. As we have already seen, Philip VI was far from disconcerted by
this. Indeed, he appears to have recognized that Raoul was now excep-
tionally well-placed to serve as a link between France and England,
precisely because he served both kings.^73 Moreover, there is evidence
that, for his part, King Edward came to think very highly of Raoul. After
the marriage project promoted by Henry of Beaumont fell apart, a
replacement scheme emerged, in which Edward’s younger brother, John
of Cornwall, would wed Raoul’s daughter, Jeanne.^74 Afinal point can
serve to complete the tangled skein of Brienne involvement in all of this.
Since this plan, in turn, did not come off, Jeanne eventually became the
second wife of Walter VI of Brienne, as we shall see.^75
Yet it is hard to escape the feeling that, underneath all this, Henry’s
chief goal was to recruit Edward Balliol as thefigure-head for a cam-
paign in Scotland. A remarkable account of how this took place is
preserved in the chronicle known as theBrut.According to this particu-
lar source, Edward Balliol was actually in prison in France when Henry
firstcametomakecontactwithhim.Henrythennegotiatedwiththe
French king to get Edward released on parole. There is a great deal that
does not ring true in this version of events (not least, the name of the
king of France is wrong), but the basic message seems to be correct.
‘The said Henry took [Edward Balliol] with him, and led him into
(^71) These trips are neatly summarized in R. G. Nicholson,Edward III and the Scots: The
Formative Years of a Military Career, 1327– 1335 (London, 1965), 70–1.
(^72) Foedera,ii, part 2, 822;The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, iv, 155–6. See also
73 Ormrod,Edward III, 180–1.
74 See Lebailly,‘Raoul d’Eu, connétable de France et seigneur anglais et irlandais’, 244.
Ibid., 245.^75 See below,173.
The Coming of the Hundred Years’War 157