Edward spends significant amounts of time preparing forces for a campaign against the Welsh Prince, Llewllyn, but it is never launched (except for some intensified skirmishing in the Marches) due to an urgent request from the Pope for reinforcements for the Kingdom of Jerusalem (and his own desire to fulfill his father's vow to take the Cross). His troops instead head on Crusade in early 1273 (see World).
-World
+Europe and the World
+
+1216-1230
+
+The longer First Barons' War prevents the French from reinforcing the Albigensian Crusaders in response to Raymond's counterstroke and Pope Innocent's death, and the Cathars are able to reclaim much of the territory they lost in the years to 1215 ahead of "schedule", (resulting in Pope Honorius's much stronger entreaties to the Capetians to quit bickering over the Crown of England and go suppress some heretics already). Papal-Anglo-French bickering over details and logistics delay the countercrusade for some years, but in 1225 the English advance from Bordeaux and the (larger) French contingent from Bourges. They meet stiff resistance, with the Cathars having had several years to fortify their gains. Conversely, the Anglo-French forces are larger than OTL's French-only Catholic counterattack. The result is a gradual, bitter advance, and Beziers is far from the only city where the Catholic commander is alleged to have said that God would know His own. The fighting is therefore similar to the earlier Crusading period of 1209-15, but the brutality of this Second Albigensian Crusade did largely have the effect of suppressing Catharism, resulting in a significantly reduced inquisition (and also a poorer South of France) in the following years. A minor side-effect was a small increase in the size of Gascony; English "wartime" control of strategic fortress-towns such as Marmande ended up lasting for so long - and the French Crown thought sufficiently little of them - that nobody cared when they didn't leave after the Crusade was declared a success in 1230.
-TBF
~jdamery / ArtibusWiki.git / blobdiff