Chapter 22

The vices of the Christians of Palestine brought their punishment. Sybilla of Anjou, Queen of Jerusalem, had married the handsome but feeble-minded Guy de Lusignan, who was no match for the Kurdish chieftain, Joseph Salah-ed-deen, usually called Saladin, who had risen to the supreme power in Egypt and Damascus. The battle of Tiberias ruined the kingdom, and the fall of Jerusalem followed in a few weeks, filling Christendom with grief.

The archbishop and historian, William of Tyre, preached a Crusade in Europe, and among the first to take the Cross were the Plantagenet princes and Philippe Auguste of France.

The unhappy discord between Henry II. and Coeur de Lion hindered the enterprise until the death of the father, which left the son a prey to the bitterest remorse; and in the hope to expiate his crimes, he hurried on the preparations with all the vehemence of his impetuous nature.

He hastened his coronation, and began to raise money by the most unscrupulous means, declaring he would even have sold London itself could he have found a bidder. He made his half-brother, Geoffrey, pay £3,000 for the possession of the temporalities of the see of York, and sold the earldom of Northumberland to the aged Bishop of Durham, Hugh Pudsey, saying, laughing, that it had been a clever stroke to make a young earl of an old bishop. William the Lion of Scotland was also allowed to purchase exemption from his engagements to Henry II., by the payment of a large sum of money and the supply of a body of troops under the command of his brother David, Earl of Huntingdon.

These arrangements made, Richard marched to meet Philippe Auguste at Vezelai, and agree on the regulations for the discipline of their host. If rules could have kept men in order, these were strict enough, forbidding all gaming, all foul language, all disputing, and all approach to licence, and ordering all acquisitions to be equally divided; but with a prince whose violent temper broke through all restraint, there was little hope of their observance. The English wore white crosses, the French red, the Flemings green, to distinguish the different nations.

They marched together to Lyons, whence Philippe proceeded across the Alps to embark at Genoa in the vessels he had hired, and Richard went to Marseilles, where his own fleet was appointed to meet him and transport him to Messina, the place where the whole crusading army was to winter. He waited for his ships till his patience failed, and, hiring those which he found in the harbor, he sailed to Pisa, whence he rode to Salerno, and there learning that his fleet had touched at Marseilles, and arrived at Messina, he set out for the coast, attended by only one knight. On the way he saw a fine hawk, kept at a cottage in a small village, and forgetting that there were no such forest laws as in his own domains, he was enraged to see the bird in the keeping of mean “_villeins_” seized upon it, and bore it off on his wrist. This was no treatment for Italian peasants, who, in general, were members of small, self-ruling republics, and they swarmed out of their houses to recover the bird. One man attacked the King with a long knife, and though Richard beat him off with the flat of his sword, the assault with sticks and stones was severe enough to drive the King off the field, and force him to ride at full speed to a convent.

He thence went to Bagnata, where he found his own ship _Trenc-la-Mer_ awaiting him. In full state he sailed into the harbor of Messina at the head of his fleet, streamers flying from the masts, and music playing upon the decks. He was received by the King of Sicily, Tancred, Count of Lecce, who without much right had assumed the crown on the recent death of William the Good, the last of the direct Norman line.

This William, had been married to Joan Plantagenet, Richard’s youngest sister, who now came to join him, making complaints that Tancred was withholding from her the treasures bequeathed to her by her husband; and these were indeed of noted value, for she specified among them a golden table twelve feet long, and a tent of silk large enough to contain two hundred knights.

Tancred, who had lodged his royal guests, the one in a palace within the town, the other in a pleasant house among the vineyards, was confounded at these claims, and on his declaring that he had duly paid the Queen’s dowry, Richard seized upon two of his castles, and, on a slight quarrel with the inhabitants, upon the city of Messina itself.

Philippe Auguste interfered, not on behalf of the unfortunate Sicilian, but to obtain a share of the spoil; requiring that the French standard should be placed beside the English one on the walls, and that half the plunder should be his. It was, however, agreed that the keeping of the city should be committed to the Knights Templars until the three kings should come to an agreement.

It was at this time that Richard again showed his violent nature. A peasant happening to pass with an ass loaded with long reeds, or canes, the knights began in sport to tilt at each other with them, and Richard was thus opposed to a certain Guillaume des Barres, who had once placed him in great danger in a battle in Normandy. Both reeds were broken, and Richard’s mantle was torn; his jest turned to earnest, and he dashed his horse against Des Barres, meaning to throw him from the saddle; but he swerved aside, and the King’s horse stumbled, and fell. He took another, and returned to the charge, but in vain; however, when the Earl of Leicester was coming to his aid, he ordered him off. “It is between him and me alone,” he said. At length repeated failures so inflamed his anger, that he shouted, “Away with thee! Never dare appear in my presence again! I am a mortal foe to thee and thine!” and it was only on the threat of excommunication that he could be prevailed on to consent to the knight remaining with the army.

In March, a meeting took place between the Kings of England and Sicily, in which Tancred agreed to pay Richard and his sister 20,000 ounces of gold; and Richard remitted his share as a portion for Tancred’s infant daughter, whom he asked in marriage for his nephew, Arthur of Brittany. The two Kings were much pleased with each other, and an exchange of presents was made.

Tancred disclosed that the French monarch had falsely sent him a warning that it was useless to trust the King of England, who only intended to break his treaties; and when Richard refused to believe that his former friend would so slander him, showed him the very letters in which Philippe offered to assist in expelling him from the island.

Unwisely, Richard called his rival to account for his treachery; on which Philippe retorted with the old engagement to his sister Alice, declaring that this was only an excuse, for casting her off. Richard answered, that her conduct made no excuse necessary for not marrying her, and proved it so entirely, that Philippe was glad to hush the matter up, and rest satisfied with a promise that she should be restored to her own count with a sufficient pension.

It was time indeed for Richard to be free from his bonds to Alice, for he had already sent his mother to conduct to him his own chosen and long-loved lady, Berengaria of Navarre, a gentle, delicate, fair-haired, retiring maiden, to whom he had devoted his Lion-heart in his days of poetry and song in his beloved Aquitaine, and who was now willing to share the toils and perils of his crusade.

She arrived on the 29th of March; but the season of Lent prevented the celebration of their wedding, and Queen Eleanor, placing her under the charge of Joan, the widowed Queen of Sicily, returned to England to watch over her son’s interests there. The next day the fleet set sail, Richard in his royal vessel, the ladies in another called the Lion; but a tempest arose and scattered the ships, and though a lantern was hung from the mast of _Trenc-la-Mer_ as a guide to the others, she was almost alone when she put into the harbor of Rhodes.

The King had suffered so much from sea-sickness, that he was forced to remain there ten days, in much anxiety, and there his vessels gradually joined him, and he heard tidings of the rest. Philippe Auguste, with six vessels, was safe at Acre, and the Lion had been driven to the coast of Cyprus. Isaac Comnenus, a Greek, who called himself Emperor of the island, had behaved with great discourtesy, forbidding the poor princesses to land, and maltreating the crews of the vessels that had been cast ashore.

All Coeur de Lion’s chivalry was on fire at this insult to his bride. He sailed at once to Cyprus, made a rapid conquest of the whole island, and took prisoners both the Emperor and his daughter. The only request Comnenus made was, that he might not be put into iron chains; and he was gratified by wearing silver ones, until his death, four years after. His daughter became an attendant on Berengaria, and as the feast of Easter had now arrived, Richard no longer deferred his marriage, which was celebrated in the church of Limasol by the Bishop of Evreux. It is certainly one of the strangest stories in our history, that one of our Kings should have been married in that distant isle of Cyprus, after conquering it, as a sort of episode in his crusade.

It was a victory not without great benefit to the Crusaders, for the island was extremely fertile, and Richard appointed a knight, named Robert de Turnham, to send constant supplies of provisions to the army in the Holy Land; after which he set sail.

Guy de Lusignan had already laid siege to St. Jean d’Acre, or Ptolemais, a city on the bay formed by the projection of the promontory of Mount Carmel, admirably adapted as a stronghold, in which succor from Europe might be received. Leopold of Austria brought the first instalment of Crusaders; next followed Philippe of France; but the increase of the number of besiegers only caused famine, until the conquest of Cyprus insured supplies. Richard had sailed first for Tyre; but Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat, Prince of Tyre, who was related to the Comneni, had given orders that he should be excluded from the city; and he continued his course to Acre, capturing, on his way, a large galley filled with troops and provisions sent from Egypt to the relief of the besieged.

On his arrival, Richard at once resigned to Philippe half the booty, whereupon the French King claimed half the island of Cyprus: this Coeur de Lion replied he might have, if he was willing likewise to divide the county of Flanders, which had just fallen to his wife by the death of her brother. The siege was pressed on with the greatest ardor on the arrival of the English, and Philippe was extremely jealous of the reputation acquired by the brilliant deeds of daring in which Richard delighted, while he himself was left completely in the shade. Cool, wary, and prudent, he contemned the boisterous manners, animal strength, and passionate nature of his rival, and nothing could be more galling than to find himself disregarded, while all the “talk was of Richard the King,” and all the independent bands from Europe clustered round the banner of the Plantagenet. Philippe tried to win the hearts of the army by liberality, and offered two pieces of gold a week to any knight who might be distressed; Richard instantly promised four, adding a reward of high value to any soldier who should bring him a stone from the walls of the city; and such allurements led many to leave the French service for the English.

The heat of the climate soon brought on fevers, and both the kings were attacked. Richard, when unable to mount his horse, was carried on a mattress to the front of the army, to superintend the machines and military engines, often himself aiming a ballista at the walls. He thus slew a Saracen whom he beheld parading on the ramparts in the armor of a Christian knight who had lately fallen. Saladin was hovering around with his army, attempting to relieve the town; but the Christian army enclosed it, said the Arab writers, close as the eyelid does the eye, and he could only obtain intelligence from the inhabitants by means of carrier-pigeons; while at the same time some friend to the Christians within the town used to shoot arrows into the camp, with letters attached, containing information of all the plans of the besieged. The name of this secret ally was never discovered, but his tidings often proved of the greatest service..

A curious interview took place, between Saladin’s brother, Malek-el-Afdal (Just King), and a deputy sent by Richard, to arrange for a conference on his recovery. The meeting was held in Saladin’s camp. “It is the custom of our kings to make each other presents, even in time of war,” said the deputy, “My master wishes to offer some worthy of the Sultan.”

“The present shall be well received,” said Malek-el-Afdal, “so that we offer others in return.”

“We have falcons, and other birds of prey, which have suffered much from the voyage, and are dying of hunger. Would it please you to give us some poultry to feed them with? When recovered, they shall be a gift to the Sultan.”

“Say rather,” returned Malek, “that your master is ill, and wishes for poultry. He shall have what he will.”

Richard restored a Mussulman prisoner, and thereupon Saladin gave the deputy a robe of honor, and sent an emir to the camp with presents of Damascus pears, Syrian grapes, and mountain snow, which much conduced to the convalescence of the Malek Rik, as the Saracens, who much admired and feared King Richard, were wont to call him.

On his recovery, the siege was pressed on, fierce battles daily taking place, though the heat was such that the burning rays of the sun had their share of the slain. At last Saladin, much to his grief, was obliged to send permission to the inhabitants to surrender; which they did, on condition of being allowed to ransom themselves for a fixed sum of money and the release of 2,600 Christian captives. Thus ended the three years’ siege of Acre. The Kings of France and England set up their standards on the chief towers, and it was here that Richard insulted the banner of Austria, which had been planted beside them. He caused it to be torn down and thrown into the moat, demanding how a Duke dared assume the rights of a King. Leopold maintained a sullen silence, brooding over the indignity.

This overbearing conduct of Richard alienated the chief Crusaders, and Philippe Auguste, whose health was really much impaired, resolved to return home, and sent a deputation to acquaint Richard with his intention. They were so much grieved at their King abandoning the enterprise, that, when admitted into Richard’s presence, they could not utter a word for tears. “It will be an eternal disgrace to himself and his kingdom,” said Coeur de Lion; “but let him go, since he is dying for want of his fair court of Paris.” He accordingly parted, after taking an oath to offer no injury to the English possessions in Richard’s absence, and leaving Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, with the portion of his army which remained in Palestine. There was a dispute, too, on the succession to the crown of Jerusalem. Sybilla’s death transferred her rights to her sister, Isabel, the wife of Conrade of Montferrat; but Guy de Lusignan refused to give up the title of King, and the Christians’ camp was rent with disputes.

At the end of August, Richard led his crusading troops from Acre into the midst of the wilderness of Mount Carmel, where their sufferings were terrible; the rocky, sandy, and uneven ground was covered with bushes full of long, sharp prickles, and swarms of noxious insects buzzed in the air, fevering the Europeans with their stings; and in addition to these natural obstacles, multitudes of Arab horsemen harassed them on every side, slaughtering every straggler who dropped behind from fatigue, and attacking them so unceasingly, that it was remarked that throughout their day’s track there was not one space of four feet without an arrow sticking in the ground.

Richard fought indefatigably, always in the van, and always ready to reward the gallant exploits of his knights. It was now that Guillaume des Barres so signalized himself, that the King offered him his friendship, and forgot the quarrel at Messina. Here, too, a young knight, who bore a white shield in hopes of gaining some honorable bearing, so distinguished himself, that Richard thus greeted him at the close of the day: “Maiden knight, you have borne yourself as a lion, and done the deeds of six _croisés_” and granted him a lion between six crosses on a red field, with the motto “_Tinctus cruore Saraceno_” tinted with Saracen blood, whence he assumed the name of Tynte.

At Arsoof, on the 7th of September, a great battle was fought. Saladin and his brother had almost defeated the two Religious Orders, and the gallant French knight, Jacques d’Avesne, after losing his leg by a stroke from a scimitar, fought bravely on, calling on the English King, until he fell overpowered by numbers. Coeur de Lion and Guillaume des Barres retrieved the day, hewed down the enemy on all sides, and remained masters of the field. It is even said that Richard and Saladin met hand to hand, but this is uncertain.

This victory opened the way to Joppa, where the Crusaders spent the next month in the repair of the fortifications, while the Saracen forces lay at Ascalon. While here, Richard often amused himself with hawking, and, one day, was asleep under a tree, when he was aroused by the approach of a party of Saracens, and springing on his horse Frannelle, which had been taken at Cyprus, he rashly pursued them, and fell into an ambush. Four knights were slain, and he would have been seized, had not a Gascon knight, named Guillaume des Porcelets, called out that he himself was the Malek Rik, and allowed himself to be taken. Richard offered ten noble Saracens in exchange for this generous knight, whom Saladin restored, together with a valuable horse that had been captured at the same time. A present of another Arab steed accompanied them; but Richard’s half-brother, William Longsword, insisted on trying the creature before the King should mount it. No sooner was he on his back, than it dashed at once across the country, and before he could stop it, he found himself in the midst of the enemy’s camp. The two Saracen princes were extremely shocked and distressed lest this should be supposed a trick, and instantly escorted Longsword back, with gifts of three chargers which proved to be more manageable.

Malek-el-Afdal was always the foremost in intercourse with the Christians; Richard knighted his son, and at one time had hopes that this youth might become a Christian, marry his sister Joan, the widowed Queen of Sicily, and be established as a sort of neutral King of Jerusalem; but this project was disconcerted in consequence of his refusal to forsake the religion of his Prophet. [Footnote: This is the groundwork of the mysterious negotiations in the “Talisman” and of Madame Cottin’s romance of “Matilde.”]

From Joppa the Crusaders marched to Ramla, and thence, on New-Year’s Day, 1192, set out for Jerusalem through a country full of greater obstacles than they had yet encountered. They were too full of spirit to be discouraged, until they came to Bethany, where the two Grand Masters represented to Richard the imprudence of laying siege to such fortifications as those of Jerusalem at such a season of the year, while Ascalon was ready in his rear for a post whence the enemy would attack him.

He yielded, and retreated to Ascalon, which Saladin had ruined and abandoned, and began eagerly to repair the fortifications, so as to be able to leave a garrison there. The soldiers grumbled, saying they had not come to Palestine to build Ascalon, but to conquer Jerusalem; whereupon Richard set the example of himself carrying stones, and called on Leopold to do the same. The sulky reply, “He was not the son of a mason,” so irritated Richard, that he struck him a blow. Leopold straightway quitted the army, and returned to Austria.

The reports from home made Richard anxious to return, and he tried to bring the Eastern affairs to a settlement. He adjudged the crown of Jerusalem to Conrade of Montferrat, giving the island of Cyprus and its princess as a compensation to Lusignan; but Conrade had hardly assumed the title of King, before his murder, by two assassins from the Old Man of the Mountain, threw everything into fresh confusion; and the barons of Palestine chose in his place Henry of Champagne, a nephew of Richard’s, a brave knight, whom Queen Isabel was induced to accept as her third husband.

It was not without great grief and many struggles that Coeur de Lion finally gave up his hopes of taking Jerusalem. He again advanced as far as Bethany; but a quarrel with Hugh of Burgundy, and the defection of the Austrians, made it impossible for him to proceed, and he turned back to Ramla.

While riding out with a party of knights, one of them called out, “This way, my lord, and you will see Jerusalem.”

“Alas!” said Richard, hiding his face with his mantle, “those who are not worthy to win the Holy City, are not worthy to behold it!”

He returned to Acre; but there, hearing that Saladin was besieging Joppa, he embarked his troops, and sailed to its aid. The Crescent shone on its walls as he entered the harbor; but while he looked on in dismay, he was hailed by a priest, who had leapt into the sea, and swam out to inform him that there was yet time to rescue the garrison, though the town was in the hands of the enemy.

He hurried his vessel forward, leapt into the water breast-high, dashed upward on the shore, ordered his immediate followers to raise a bulwark of casks and beams to protect the landing of the rest, and, rushing up a flight of steps, entered the city alone. “St. George! St. George!” That cry dismayed the Infidels; and those in the town, to the number of three thousand, fled in the utmost confusion, and were pursued for two miles by three knights who had been fortunate enough to find horses.

Richard pitched his tent outside the walls, and remained there, with so few troops that all were contained in ten tents. Very early one morning, before the King was out of bed, a man rushed into his tent, crying out, “O King! we are all dead men!”

Springing up, Richard fiercely silenced him. “Peace! or thou diest by my hand!” Then, while hastily donning his suit of mail, he heard that the glitter of arms had been seen in the distance, and in another moment the enemy were upon them, 7,000 in number!