The Considerations zvhich determined the Alliance 25 



commission had been issued by Edward III to Humphrey de 

 Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and Sir Nicholas Tamworth, to treat 

 with GaleazzO' concerning a marriage between Lionel" and 

 Violante.^ According to a parallel commission, Edmund, Earl 

 of Cambridge, Edward's fifth son, might be substituted for 

 Lionel. Lionel and Edmund, as younger sons, had to be provided 

 for, the Black Prince, the heir to the throne, having already a 

 realm of his own in Aquitaine. Ireland was not a realm to 

 content Lionel, so he was seeking a more desirable province 

 abroad, as John of Gaunt did in Spain.* 



If the Green Count was instrumental in the earliest stage of 

 the negotiation, then it must have been before July, 1366. That 

 the advances were made from the Italian side is definitely stated 



by two men in the same manner as the spear is handled in hunting 

 the wild boar ; and thus close embodied, with their lances pointed 

 low, and with slow steps, they marched up to the enemy with terrible 

 outcry, and very difficult was it to break or disunite them. But 

 after all, experience has shown they were more fit for night-expe- 

 ditions and plundering villages than for keeping the field; and their 

 success was more owing to the cowardice of our own men than their 

 valor and military virtue. They had very curious ladders in pieces, 

 the biggest of which was of three steps, and one piece socketed into 

 the other like so many trumpets, and with these they were able to 

 mount the top of the highest towers.' 



Muratori (8. 343) says that, in the death of Lionel, Galeazzo lost the 

 hope of assistance from the King of England, and Sismondi (op. cit. 

 7. 22) that it severed his alliance with the companies of adventurers. 



" Rymer. 



^Cf. Hist. Background, pp. 182-3. On July 18 Hereford (1341-1373) 

 had appointed an attorney, in view of his approaching trip abroad; and 

 he was still absent from England on Nov. 28 (Cal. Pat. Rolls). Of him 

 Froissart wrote (Buisson de Jonece 263-4) : 



Aussi dou conte de Herfort 

 Pris une fois grant reconfort. 



He was the father-in-law of Henry, Earl of Derby, had headed the escort 

 of Pierre I, King of Cyprus, from Dover to London, early in November, 

 1362 (Jorga, Philippe de Mecieres, p. 179), and had been with Pierre at 

 Satalia and Ayas (Chaucer's 'Lyeys') in 1367 (Hist. Background/ pp. 

 182, 232-3). 

 * Cf . Michelet 6. 4. 



