Count Raymond

Raymond VII of Toulouse to be precise. Last gallant defender of his realm against the agression of the Roman Church and the northern French. Oil on card (Something new!)
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Raymond was a Catholic but not Roman Catholic, perhaps. As Catholic as one might remain after seeing the things done to one's homeland in the name of that faith by the papal forces of the Albigensian Crusade; after seeing one's father falsely accused of murdering a papal legate and being denied the chance to clear his name; after having one's ancestral lands pillaged and titles usurped... I don't think Raymond ever subscribed to the Cathar ideology, but like his father he was reluctant to follow the Pope's command to hunt them down and kill them. Heretics as the Cathars were, they led holy and simple lives of apostolic poverty and provided real spiritual leadership to the people, while the high Roman clergy were corrupt, indolent and conspicuously wealthy. Meanwhile the pope Innocent III was busily trying to become monarch over all monarchs, and was as mired in politics as anyone. This is why the southern nobility resisted.

Count Raymond like the occitan noble and former rebel/patriot Oliver of Thermes was going to join the Seventh Crusade as a show of obedience to the Roman Catholic faith and Capetian dynasty, but Louis IX would hardly have let him stay behind! Anyway by then the wider struggle against papal absolutism has been taken up by Frederick II of Germany.

By then (the late 1240s) all was lost for the Count of Toulouse, Raymond's English alliance had collapsed, and Monstsegur had fallen, Raymond being in no position to relieve it. Raymond had ultimately been forced to give his daughter's hand to a scion of the Capetians, Alphonse of Poitiers, and the distinguished St-Gilles dynasty, with no male heir, was effectively over. Moreover Raymond was unable to prevent the establishment of the Inquisition in Toulouse, both these things being concessions he had to make to bring the Albigensian wars to a close.