Capetians. Other competing crusades included the Prussian Crusade, a Livonian Crusade against the Curonians, and a proposed crusade to protect Constantinople from Nicaea. Recruitment in the French court was slow to develop. Louis’ youngest brother Alphonse of Poitiers, taking the cross in 1245, had his army ready only in the spring of 1249. In northern France, men were still joining up into 1250, and the other brothers, Charles I of Anjou and Robert I of Artois, also joined. Recruitment was concentrated in the kingdom of France, Burgundy, Lorraine and the Low Countries between the Meuse and the Rhine. In 1248, Louis was unsuccessful in convincing Haakon IV of Norway to join him as commander of the Crusader fleet. Apart from the king and his brothers, there were loyalists including crusading veterans Hugh IV of Burgundy, Peter Maulcerc, and his vassal Raoul de Soissons, with rebels including Raymond VII of Toulouse and his father-in-law Hugh X of Lusignan. Recruits came from across the kingdom, from Flanders and Brittany to Poitou, the Bourbonnais and Languedoc. From Brittany, it appears that practically all the major landowners participated. Theobald of Champagne declined to join, but the Champenois provided 1,000 men. Early in 1247, Crusaders at Châteaudun had formed a confratria to purchase materials and ships, providing funding for those who went to fight, and to collect donations by non-crucesignati. Indulgences were granted and often misused. By 1246, after numerous incidents, crucesignati were no longer permitted to avoid lawsuits involving fiefs and pledges. Many were indulging in theft, murder and rape, causing the pope to order bishops not to protect such miscreants, crusade privileges notwithstanding. English participation Henry III of England, defeated by Louis IX in 1242 at Taillebourg, did not want to get involved in a French war. He denied entry to Galeran, Bishop of Beirut, had sailed from Acre on behalf of Latin patriarch Robert of Nantes. HIs mission was to tell the princes of the West that reinforcements must be sent if the whole kingdom were not to perish. Robert had been present at La Forbie, barely escaping, and later sent a Relic of the Holy Blood to Henry III in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to convince him to go on crusade. Henry did sign a truce promising not to attack French lands during the Crusade, and a small force of Englishmen, led by William Longespée, also took the cross. English chronicler