d the ports of the Channel, the North Sea, and the
Bay of Biscay were ransacked to provide adequate shipping. Many Norman
vessels served as transports, apparently of their owners' free-will.

On May 3 Henry landed at St. Malo, and thence proceeded to Dinan, the
meeting-place assigned for his army, the greater part of which landed at
Port Blanc, a little north of Treguier. Peter Mauclerc joined him, and a
plan of operations was discussed. The moment was favourable, for a great
number of the French magnates were engaged in war against Theobald, the
poet-count of Champagne, and the French army, which was assembled at
Angers, represented but a fraction of the military strength of the land.
Fulk Paynel, a Norman baron who wished to revive the independence of the
duchy, urged Henry to invade Normandy. Hubert successfully withstood
this rash proposal, and also Fulk's fatal suggestion that Henry should
divide his army and send two hundred knights for the invasion of
Normandy. Before long the English marched through Brittany to Nantes,
where they wasted six weeks. At last, on the advice of Hubert, they
journeyed south into Poitou. The innate Poitevin instability had again
brought round the Lusignans, the house of Thouars, and their kind to the
French side, and Henry found that his own mother did her best to
obstruct his progress. He was too strong to make open resistance safe,
and his long progress from Nantes to Bordeaux was only once checked by
the need to fight his way. This opposition came from the little town and
castle of Mirambeau, situated in Upper Saintonge, rather more than
half-way between Saintes and Blaye.[1] From July 21 to 30 Mirambeau
stoutly held out, but Henry's army was reinforced by the chivalry of
Gascony, and by a siege-train borrowed from Bordeaux and the loyal lords
of the Garonne. Against such appliances of warfare Mirambeau could not
long resist. On its capitulation Henry pushed on to Bordeaux.

[1] E. Berger, _Bibl. Ecole des Chartes_, 1893, _pp. 35-36_,
shows that Mirambeau, not Mirebeau, was besieged by Henry; see
also his _Blanche de Castille_ (1895).

Useless as the march through Poitou had been, it was then repeated in
the reverse way. With scarcely a week's rest, Henry left the Gascon
capital on August 10, and on September 15 ended his inglorious campaign
at Nantes. Although he was unable to assert himself against the
faithless Poitevins, the barons of the province were equally impot