f
state. It is rumored, though not positively confirmed, that the crafty
King of France made use of his young daughter-in-law to solicit from
King John another slice of Normandy, which John dared not refuse.
Whether this be true or not, it is at least certain that neither
immediately nor ultimately did the marriage of Blanche de Castille help
the English Plantagenets. For John quarrelled with Alphonso, Blanche's
father, and the two were at war with intervals of truce, between 1204
and 1208, the subject of dispute being Gascony. Blanche naturally sided
with her father rather than with her uncle, and when she bore heirs who
might inherit the crown of France, made stronger by the accession of the
Norman lands which had been taken from John and given to her husband, it
is easy to see that her sympathies would be with her adopted country.

Blanche's first child a daughter, who lived but a short time, and whose
name is not known was born in 1205. On September 9, 1209, she gave birth
to a son, hailed as the heir to the crown, and named Philippe, in honor
of his grandfather. But this child, too, lived only a few years, dying
when between eight and nine. In the interval, on January 26, 1213,
Blanche had borne twins, Alphonse and Jean, who did not live long. Other
domestic joys and sorrows were coming to the young princess. Her father
won a great victory over the Moors, at Las Navas de Tolosa, July 16,
1212, and her sister Berengere wrote her the glad news: "It is my
pleasure to inform you of joyful news; thanks be to God, from whom all
good comes, our king, our lord, our father has vanquished on the field
of battle the Emir Almounmenim, by which, I think, he has won very great
honor; for until this time it has never happened that a king of Morocco
has been defeated in a pitched battle." Within two years after this the
gallant Alphonso was dead, and one month later his wife Eleanor followed
him to the tomb.

Father and mother had thus both been taken from Blanche, while she was
far from them, in a strange land. But her new country was winning a hold
upon her heart; in the war then waging between her Uncle John and her
father-in-law, all her interests and all her affection were on the side
of France. And now another son was born, on Saint Mark's day, April 25,
1215, at the royal residence of Poissy. The child was named Louis, and
his birth seems to have created but little interest, as was natural,
since the older brother, Philipp