policy of continuing the war against Simon de Montfort. In 1214, Gaston VI, viscount of Béarn and count of Bigorre, died. In order to prevent the county of Bigorre from falling out of Aragon's orbit, Sancho arranged for his son Nuño to marry Gaston's widow, the hereditary countess Petronilla, in 1215. The plan failed when the clergy annulled the marriage in 1216. Petronilla ended up marrying Guy de Montfort, brother of Simon. In November 1215, Sancho sent two envoys, Pedro Ahones and Guillem IV de Cervera, to attend the Fourth Council of the Lateran in Rome as representatives of Aragon. At the council, they undermined Sancho's anti-crusade policy, alongside Bishop Hispan of Segorbe. In the end, the council upheld the legality of the crusade. In a letter addressed to Pope Innocent III, Sancho had also requested enhanced authority as procurator, but the envoys returned instead with a series of orders dated 23 January 1216 in which Innocent appointed seven noblemen from both Aragon and Catalonia as deputy counsellors to assist Sancho and ordered all the men of the realm to observe the truce with the crusaders. Innocent did order the cities of the Aragon and Catalonia to subsidise the regent's redemption of pledged lands (royal demesne that had been pawned by Peter II to fund his wars), but royal finances were transferred to Guillem de Montrodon. As a result, Sancho found his power curtailed rather than strengthened. War in Occitania (1216–1218) Sancho did not completely abandon his policy towards the crusade because of the setbacks at the Lateran. There was a concerted effort by the houses of Toulouse and Aragon to restore their shaken authority in Provence at the same time as Raymond Berengar IV came of age and Sancho's second administration of Provence ended. Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who had been deprived of his lands by the Lateran council, was granted refuge by Sancho. In April 1216, King Philip II of France formally granted Raymond's fiefs to Simon de Montfort. Raymond tried during the spring of 1216 to recruit knights in Aragon and Catalonia in order to fight for him in Provence. Encouraged by a letter from King Frederick II of Germany, emperor-elect, Raymond besieged Beaucaire in June. On 12 June 1216 Sancho signed a treaty at Balaguer in Aragon with representatives of the rectors of the Confraternity of the Holy Spirit of Marseille, a pious lay association