and the princes; they did not differ in kind from those of his predecessors, but they were more consistently effective because Henry's great strength upset the political balance of northern France and so drove his opponents into alliance with the monarchy. Two episodes particularly indicate the revival in the fortunes of the monarchy. The first came in 1124 when almost all of the French magnates sent contingents to help the king against an invasion by Henry's son-in-law, Henry V of Germany. The other came at the end of the reign when the duke of Aquitaine, a region in which royal authority had been conspicuously absent, looked to Louis's son and heir when seeking a husband to protect the rights of his daughter and heiress, Eleanor.
In the event the marriage proved impermanent. In 1152 she divorced Louis VII ( 1137-80) and married Duke Henry of Normandy, who was shortly to become king of England and count of Anjou and Maine as well. Arguably this vast accumulation of territory and power was less dangerous than that of Henry I had been, because its still greater size and power helped intensify the ties which the crown was able to establish with the other great families of France. Louis VII's third marriage was to Adela of Champagne, with whose counts his relations were consistently friendly for the rest of his reign, while the first marriage of his son, Philip Augustus ( 1180-1223), was to Isabella of Hainault, politically beneficial until her death and disputes over her dowry. At the same time the huge scale of the possessions over which Henry II of England and his successor Richard ( 1189-99) ruled provided considerably more scope for appeal to and intervention by the crown. Despite being almost consistently on the move Henry and Richard were absent from many of their lands for too long to be able to anticipate revolts by the discontented, and these problems worsened in the second half of Henry's reign when his sons began to anticipate and fight for their share of his inheritance, in which Louis and Philip were not slow to give their support. Each of Henry's sons in turn was encouraged to press for an effective grant of territory, each made apprehensive of his father's intentions for him, each encouraged
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