Excerpt from The Marriages of the Bourbons, Vol. 1 of 2<br><br>Here then we see two matrimonial alliances - that contracted by Philip Augustus with the daughter of the King of Denmark, with the View of attacking England, and that contracted by his son Louis with Blanche Of Castille, with the view of consolidating peace with England.<br><br>In 1223 Philip Augustus died, and was succeeded by his son, who reigned in France as Louis VIII. For the space of three years, a debilitated Lion, as he has been called.<br><br>Louis. VIII. Died in 1226, leaving behind him five young children, the eldest of whom was afterwards known as St. Louis. For the moment, Queen Blanche acted as Regent, and before long she thought of marrying her son, at the time eighteen years of age, to Margaret, the daughter Of the Count of Provence. She accordingly sent Giles de Flageac to the Count of Toulouse to exhort him not to slacken his persecution of the Albigeois, and secretly commissioned him to visit Provence, and see if Margaret would be a suitable daughter-in-law for the Queen of France.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.