The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (65 page)

The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises King sets out on the of cordial friendship, pledged their faith not to invade each

crusade.

other’s dominions during the crusade, mutually exchanged the

oaths of all their barons and prelates to the same effect, and subjected themselves to the penalty of interdicts and excommunications, if they should ever violate this public and solemn engagement. They then separated; Philip took the road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view of meeting their fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous in these harbours. They put to sea; and nearly about the same time, were obliged,

by stress of weather, to take shelter in Messina, where they were 14th Sept.

detained during the whole winter. This incident laid the

foundation of animosities, which proved fatal to their enterprize.

Richard and Philip were, by the situation and extent of their dominions, rivals in power; by their age and inclinations, competitors for glory; and these causes of emulation, which, had the princes been employed in the field against the common enemy, might have stimulated them to martial enterprizes, soon excited, during the present leisure and repose, quarrels between monarchs of such a fiery character.

Equally haughty, ambitious, intrepid, and inflexible; they were irritated with the least appearance of injury, and were incapable, by mutual condescensions, to efface those causes of complaint, which unavoidably arose between them. Richard, candid, sincere, undesigning, impolitic, violent, laid himself open, on every occasion, to the designs of his antagonist; who, provident, interested, intriguing, failed not to take all advantages against him: And thus, both the circumstances of their disposition in which they were similar, and those in which they differed, rendered it impossible for them to persevere in that harmony, which was so necessary to the success of their undertaking.

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The last king of Sicily and Naples was William II. who had

Transactions in Sicily.

married Joan, sister to Richard, and who, dying without issue, had bequeathed his dominions to his paternal aunt, Constantia, the only legitimate descendant surviving of Roger, the first sovereign of those states who had been honoured with the royal title. This princess had, in expectation of that rich inheritance, been married to Henry VI. the reigning emperor;
y
but Tancred, her natural brother, had fixed such an interest among the barons, that, taking advantage of Henry’s absence, he had acquired possession of the throne, and maintained his claim, by force of arms, against all the efforts of the Germans.
z
The approach of the crusaders naturally gave him apprehensions for his unstable government; and he was uncertain, whether he had most reason to dread the presence of the French or of the English monarch. Philip was engaged in a strict alliance with the emperor his competitor: Richard was disgusted by his rigors towards the queen-dowager, whom the Sicilian prince had confined in Palermo; because she had opposed with all her interest his succession to the crown. Tancred, therefore, sensible of the present necessity, resolved to pay court to both these formidable princes; and he was not unsuccessful in his endeavours. He persuaded Philip that it was highly improper for him to interrupt his enterprize against the infidels, by any attempt against a Christian state: He restored queen Joan to her liberty; and even found means to make an alliance with Richard, who stipulated by treaty to marry his nephew, Arthur, the young duke of Britanny, to one of the daughters of Tancred.
a
But before these terms of friendship were settled, Richard, jealous both of Tancred and of the inhabitants of Messina, had taken up his quarters in the suburbs, and had possessed himself of a small fort, which commanded the harbour; and he kept himself extremely on his guard against their enterprizes.

The citizens took umbrage. Mutual insults and attacks passed

3d October.

between them and the English: Philip, who had quartered his

troops in the town, endeavoured to accommodate the quarrel, and held a conference with Richard for that purpose. While the two kings, meeting in the open fields, were engaged in discourse on this subject, a body of those Sicilians seemed to be drawing towards them; and Richard pushed forwards, in order to enquire into the reason of this extraordinary movement.
b
The English, insolent from their power, and inflamed with former animosities, wanted but a pretence for attacking the Messinese: They soon chaced them off the field, drove them into the town, and entered with them at the gates. The king employed his authority to restrain them from pillaging and massacring the defenceless inhabitants; but he gave orders, in token of his victory, that the standard of England should be erected on the walls. Philip, who considered that place as his quarters, exclaimed against the insult, and ordered some of his troops to pull down the standard: But Richard informed him by a messenger, that, though he himself would willingly remove that ground of offence, he would not permit it to be done by others; and if the French king attempted such an insult upon him, he should not succeed but by the utmost effusion of blood. Philip, content with this species of

haughty submission, recalled his orders:c
The difference was seemingly accommodated; but still left the remains of rancour and jealousy in the breasts of the two monarchs.

Tancred, who, for his own security, desired to inflame their mutual hatred, employed an artifice, which might have been attended with consequences still more fatal.

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He showed Richard a letter, signed by the French king, and

1191.

delivered to him, as he pretended, by the duke of Burgundy; in which that monarch desired Tancred to fall upon the quarters of the English, and promised to assist him in putting them to the sword, as common enemies. The unwary Richard gave credit to the information; but was too candid not to betray his discontent to Philip, who absolutely denied the letter, and charged the Sicilian prince with forgery and falsehood. Richard either was, or pretended to be, entirely satisfied.
d

Lest these jealousies and complaints should multiply between them, it was proposed, that they should, by a solemn treaty, obviate all future differences, and adjust every point that could possibly hereafter become a controversy between them. But this expedient started a new dispute, which might have proved more dangerous than any of the foregoing, and which deeply concerned the honour of Philip’s family. When Richard, in every treaty with the late king, insisted so strenuously on being allowed to marry Alice of France, he had only sought a pretence of quarrelling; and never meant to take to his bed a princess suspected of a criminal amour with his own father. After he became master, he no longer spake of that alliance: He even took measures for espousing Berengaria, daughter of Sanchez, king of Navarre, with whom he had become enamoured during his abode in Guienne:
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Queen Eleanor was daily expected with that princess at Messina:
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and when Philip renewed to him his applications for espousing his sister Alice, Richard was obliged to give him an absolute refusal. It is pretended by Hoveden and other historians,
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that he was able to produce such convincing proofs of Alice’s infidelity, and even of her having born a child to Henry, that her brother desisted from his applications, and chose to wrap up the dishonour of his family in silence and oblivion. It is certain, from the treaty itself, which remains,
h

that, whatever were his motives, he permitted Richard to give his hand to Berengaria; and having settled all other controversies with that prince, he immediately set sail for the Holy Land. Richard awaited some time the arrival of his mother and bride; and when they joined him, he separated his fleet into two squadrons, and set forward on his enterprize. Queen Eleanor returned to England; but Berengaria, and the queen-dowager of Sicily, his sister, attended him on the expedition.
i

The English fleet, on leaving the port of Messina, met with a furious tempest; and the squadron, on which the two princesses were embarked,

was driven on the coast of Cyprus, and some of the vessels were 12th April.

wrecked near Limisso in that island. Isaac, prince of Cyprus,

who assumed the magnificent title of emperor, pillaged the ships that were stranded, threw the seamen and passengers into prison, and even refused to the princesses liberty, in their dangerous situation, of entering the harbour of Limisso. But Richard, who arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on him for the injury. He disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant, who opposed his landing; entered Limisso by storm; gained next day a second victory; obliged Isaac to surrender at discretion; and established governors over the island. The Greek prince, being thrown into prison and loaded with irons, complained of the little regard with which he was treated: Upon which, Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him; and this emperor, pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the generosity of his conqueror.
k
The king here espoused Berengaria,

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who, immediately embarking, carried along with her to Palestine 12th May.

the daughter of the Cypriot prince; a dangerous rival, who was believed to have seduced the affections of her husband. Such were the libertine character and conduct of the heroes engaged in this pious enterprize!

The English army arrived in time to partake in the glory of the The king’s arrival in

siege of Acre or Ptolemais, which had been attacked for above

Palestine.

two years by the united force of all the Christians in Palestine, and had been defended by the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens. The remains of the German army, conducted by the emperor Frederic, and the separate bodies of adventurers who continually poured in from the West, had enabled the king of

Jerusalem to form this important enterprize:l
But Saladin, having thrown a strong garrison into the place under the command of Caracos, his own master in the art of war, and molesting the besiegers with continual attacks and sallies, had protracted the success of the enterprize, and wasted the force of his enemies. The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the Christians; and these princes, acting by concert, and sharing the honour and danger of every action, gave hopes of a final victory over the infidels. They agreed on this plan of operations: When the French monarch attacked the town, the English guarded the trenches: Next day, when the English prince conducted the assault, the French succeeded him in providing for the safety of the assailants. The emulation between those rival kings and rival nations produced extraordinary acts of valour: Richard in particular, animated with a more precipitate courage than Philip, and more agreeable to the romantic spirit of that age, drew to himself the general attention, and acquired a great and splendid reputation. But this harmony was of short duration; and occasions of discord soon arose between these jealous and haughty princes.

The family of Boüillon, which had first been placed on the

State of Palestine.

throne of Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, count of Anjou, grandfather to Henry II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and transmitted his title to the younger branches of his family. The Anjevin race ending also in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing Sibylla, the heiress, had succeeded to the title; and though he lost his kingdom by the invasion of Saladin, he was still

acknowledged by all the Christians for king of Jerusalem.m
But as Sibylla died without issue, during the siege of Acre, Isabella, her younger sister, put in her claim to that titular kingdom, and required Lusignan to resign his pretensions to her husband, Conrade, marquis of Montserrat. Lusignan, maintaining that the royal title was unalienable and indefeazable, had recourse to the protection of Richard, attended on him before he left Cyprus, and engaged him to embrace his cause.
n
There needed no other reason for throwing Philip into the party of Conrade; and the opposite views of these great monarchs brought faction and dissention into the Christian army, and retarded all its operations. The Templars, the Genoese, and the Germans, declared for Philip and Conrade; the Flemings, the Pisans, the knights of the hospital of St. John, adhered to Richard and Lusignan. But notwithstanding these disputes, as the length of the siege had reduced the Saracen garrison to the 12th July.

last extremity, they surrendered themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return for their lives, other advantages to the Christians, such as restoring of the

Christian prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true cross,o
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enterprize, which had long engaged the attention of all Europe and Asia, was at last, after the loss of 300,000 men, brought to a happy period.

But Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of farther conquest, and of redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the ascendant assumed and acquired by Richard, and having views of many advantages, which he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared his resolution of returning to France; and he pleaded his bad state of health as an excuse for his desertion of the common cause. He left, however, to Richard ten thousand of his troops, under the command of the duke of Burgundy; and he reneged his oath never to commence hostilities against that prince’s dominions during his absence. But he had no sooner reached Italy than he applied, ’tis pretended, to pope Celestine III. for a dispensation from this vow; and when denied that request, he still proceeded, though after a covert manner, in a project, which the present situation of England rendered inviting, and which gratified, in an eminent degree, both his resentment and his ambition.