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Title: Richard the Lion Heart

Author: Kate Norgate

Release date: July 28, 2023 [eBook #71283]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Macmillan and Co., 1924

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of
the book.
The original book had the year relevant to the text on that page as a top-of-page header
under the page number. In this etext this has been placed as a gray sidenote on the left
side of the page. All other sidenotes in the original text have been placed on the right
side.
All changes noted in the ERRATA on page ix have been applied to the etext.
Some other minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

RICHARD THE LION HEART

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON. BOMBAY. CALCUTTA. MADRAS
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK. BOSTON. CHICAGO
DALLAS. SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

RICHARD
THE LION HEART

BY

K AT E N O R G AT E

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1924

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE
“When History drops her drums and trumpets and learns to tell the story
of Englishmen, it will find the significance of Richard not in his Crusade or
in his weary wars along the Norman border, but in his lavish recognition of
municipal life.” It may well seem strange to begin by quoting these words
of the master who inspired my earliest venture—and thereby, indirectly at
least, all my later ventures also—into the field of history, the preface to a
book on Richard the First in which that sovereign’s island realm figures
scarcely more than in the background, and the life of its people not at all.
Certainly England and the English people ought to have stood in the
forefront and to have been treated in the fullest detail, if this book were
intended for a history of Richard’s reign; but it has been written with no
such intention. It is merely an attempt to sketch, from materials of which
some of the most valuable and interesting have become accessible to
students only within a comparatively recent period, the life-story of a prince
who reigned less than ten years and lived less than forty-two, yet whose
personal character, peculiar circumstances, and adventurous career have
given him—whether deservedly or not—a conspicuous place in mediæval
history, and made him a hero of romance in every country from England to
Palestine.
The only detailed biography of Richard known to me is that which Mr. G.
P. R. James wrote many years ago. A wealth of material unknown at that
time has since then been placed within our reach. This is especially the case
with regard to the Crusade of 1191-1192. Richard’s struggle with Saladin is
the phase of his career which has contributed the most to his fame; and my
studies have led me to believe that he himself regarded it as the most
important work of his life. Every step in his policy from the hour when he
took the Cross till he set out for Holy Land appears to have been taken
primarily, if not solely, with a view to the one enterprise which his
contemporaries emphatically called “the work of God”; and there is no
reason to doubt that when compelled to leave that work unfinished, he left it
with the full intention of returning to complete it, and would have returned,
had not his destiny been ordained otherwise. I have therefore allowed

myself to tell the story of the Crusade with a fullness of detail which may
be thought disproportionate to the brief space of time which the expedition
actually occupied, and to its direct influence on the history of his
dominions; and I have made a lavish use of the materials, Eastern and
Western, contained in the publications of the various French literary and
historical societies, especially the great Recueil des Historiens des
Croisades. The chief treasure in that collection—chief, at least, for my
purpose—is the elaborate edition of Bohadin with its French translation,
superseding the crabbed Latin of Schultens; although, as will be seen, I
cannot but think that Schultens’s work still retains a value of its own. Of the
relations between the two versions of our chief Western authority for the
story of the Crusade—the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi
and the Estoire de la Guerre Sainte par Ambroise—I made, about fourteen
years ago, a somewhat minute study based on the notes written by Mr. T. A.
Archer in the margins of his copies of those two books; I having had the
melancholy pleasure of becoming their owner after his death. The results of
that study, with a brief statement of the circumstances which had impelled
me to it and assisted me in it, appeared in the English Historical Review for
July 1910. After going over the ground again I see no reason to alter the
conclusion which I had then formed on the subject; rather do I find myself
confirmed in that opinion. I have, however, thought it right, when citing
either or both of the two versions, to give in every case a separate reference
to each of them.
Kate Norgate.
January, 1924.

CONTENTS

BOOK I
RICHARD OF AQUITAINE, 1157-1189

CHAPTER I
PAGE

THE BOY DUKE, 1157-1179 1

CHAPTER II
FATHER AND SONS, 1179-1183 32

CHAPTER III
KING HENRY’S HEIR, 1183-1189 57

BOOK II
RICHARD’S CRUSADE, 1189-1192

CHAPTER I
THE YEAR OF PREPARATION, 1189-1190 91

CHAPTER II
THE OUTWARD VOYAGE, 1190-1191 119

CHAPTER III
THE FALL OF ACRE, 1191 152

CHAPTER IV
FROM ACRE TO JOPPA, 1191 176

CHAPTER V
THE ADVANCE ON JERUSALEM, 1191-1192 193

CHAPTER VI
RICHARD AND SALADIN, 1192 230

BOOK III
RICHARD AND EUROPE, 1192-1199

CHAPTER I
RICHARD AND THE EMPIRE, 1192-1194 264

CHAPTER II
RICHARD AND FRANCE, 1194-1199 294

NOTES
I. Richard and Leopold at Acre 330

II. The Capitulation of Acre 331

III. The Advance from the Two Casals to Ramlah 333

IV. Casal des Plains and Casal des Bains 334

V. Richard’s Homage to the Emperor 336

VI. Richard, William of Longchamps, and the Great
Seal 338

Index 341

ERRATA
P. 35, footnote, line 4, for Dien read Dieu.
P. 91, heading of chapter, for 1191 read 1190.
P. 152, heading of chapter, for 1190 read 1191.
Pp. 152 and 153, delete dates in margin.
P. 154, margin, for 1190 read 1189.
P. 159, lines 4 and 10, for Henfrid read Humphry.
Pp. 160 to 175, margin, for 1190 read 1191.
P. 264, heading of chapter, for 1193 read 1194.
P. 314, line 12 from foot, for VIII read VI.

BOOK I
RICHARD OF AQUITAINE
1157-1189
In Regum serie scribatur Dux Aquitanorum et Vasconum Ricardus, qui ad probitatis
opera nunquam exstitit tardus, cujus adolescentia magna floret industria. (Geoffrey of
Vigeois, a.d. 1185).

CHAPTER I
THE BOY DUKE

1157-1179

Bonum est viro cum portaverit jugum adolescentia sua.
1157
“The eagle of the broken covenant shall rejoice in her third
nesting”—thus ran one of the predictions in the so-called “prophecy of
Merlin,” which in the latter half of the twelfth century was generally
regarded as shadowing forth the destiny of Henry Fitz-Empress and his
family. “The queen,” said those who interpreted the prophecy after the
event, “is called the eagle of the broken covenant because she spread out
her wings over two realms, France and England, but was separated from the
one by divorce and from the other by long imprisonment. And whereas her
first-born son, William, died in infancy, and the second, Henry, in rebellion
against his father, Richard, the son of her third nesting, strove in all things
to bring glory to his mother’s name.”[1]
1157 There was nothing to mar the rejoicing of either Eleanor or Henry
in September 1157. The young king had overcome the difficulties which
had beset him at the opening of his reign. Public order and the regular
administration of public justice had been restored throughout his realm. He
had obtained the French king’s recognition of his rights over Normandy and
the Angevin lands, and also over Eleanor’s duchy of Aquitaine,[2] where in

the winter of 1156 he had received the homage of the barons and kept the
Christmas festival with her at Bordeaux.[3] King and queen returned 1157
to England in the spring.[4] Soon afterwards the last remnant of opposition
to the rule of the Angevin king in England had been disarmed in the persons
of Earl Hugh of Norfolk and Count William of Boulogne; Henry had
“subdued all the Welsh to his will,”[5] and received, together with the
homage of Malcolm of Scotland, a formal restitution of Northumberland,
Westmorland and Cumberland,[6] which had been in the possession of the
Scots since 1136. From these successes Henry had either just returned, or
was on his way back to rejoin his queen at Oxford, when their third son was
born there—no doubt in Beaumont palace—on September 8.[7] A woman of
S. Alban’s was chosen for the boy’s nurse and fostered him together with
her own son, born on the same night and afterwards known as Alexander
Neckam,[8] author of a treatise on natural science or what passed for science
in his time. Her name was Hodierna; in later days she had from the royal
domains in Chippenham an annuity of seven pounds, doubtless granted to
her by her royal nursling, whom she seems to have survived by some
1157 twenty years.[9] Whether she dwelt at the court while he was under
her charge, or whether, like his ancestor Geoffrey Martel, he was sent to
dwell with his foster-mother, there is nothing to show. Before he was two
years old his destiny was planned by the king; Richard was to be heir to the
dominions of his mother.
“Aquitaine,” says an English writer of the time, “abounding in riches of
many kinds, excels other parts of the western world in such wise that it is
reckoned by historians as one of the happiest and most fertile among the
provinces of Gaul. Although its fields respond abundantly to culture, its
vines to propagation, and its woodlands to the chase, yet nevertheless it
takes its name not from any of these advantages, but from its waters (aquæ),
haply esteeming as alone worthy of account among its delights that which
its health-giving water brings forth either to be returned to the sea, or
uplifted in the air. If, indeed, we track the Garonne from its fount along its
rapid course to the sea, and if we also follow the line of the Pyrenean
mountains, all the country that lies between derives its name from the
beneficent waters that flow through it. Furthermore, in those parts
smoothness of tongue is so general that it promises impunity to everybody,
and any one who knows not the manner of that people cannot know whether
they are more constant in deed than in word. When they set themselves to

tame the pride of their enemies, they do it in earnest; and when the labours
of battle are over and they settle down to rest in peace, they give themselves
up wholly to pleasure.”[10]
Whatever may be thought of Dean Ralph’s etymology, there was an
element of truth in his description, half jesting though it seems to be, of the
country and the character of its people. He gives indeed hardly sufficient
1157 prominence to the pugnacious side of the latter; and the boundaries
which he assigns to the former are considerably narrower than those of the
duchy of Aquitaine as it stood at the time of Richard’s birth. That duchy
comprised, in theory at least, fully one-third of the kingdom of France. As
counts of Poitou its dukes bore direct sway over a territory bounded on the
north by Britanny, Anjou, and Touraine, on the west by the sea from the bay
now known as that of Bourgneuf to the mouth of the Charente, and on the
east (roughly) by the course of the river Creuse from a little distance below
Argenton to its junction with the Vienne; and also over the dependent
district of Saintonge on the north side of the estuary of the Garonne, or
Gironde. As counts of Gascony they were overlords of a number of lesser
counties and lordships, extending from the mouth of the Garonne to the
Pyrenees, and forming a territory nearly twice the size of Poitou. Between
Poitou and Gascony lay the counties of Angoulême, La Marche, and
Périgord, and, between the two latter, a cluster of minor fiefs which
collectively formed the district known as the Limousin, and of which the
most important was the viscounty of Limoges. All these had from early
times owned the overlordship of the Poitevin counts in their ducal capacity.
So, too, had Berry, an extensive district lying to the north of La Marche.
The north-eastern portion of Berry, which formed the viscounty of Bourges,
had, however, for a long time past been lost to the dukes and reckoned as
part of the Royal Domain of France. On the eastern and south-eastern
borders of the duchy lay the counties of Auvergne and Toulouse. Toulouse,
with its dependencies—the Quercy or county of Cahors, Alby, Foix,
Carcassonne, Cerdagne and Roussillon—had always been a separate fief
held directly of the Crown; but the right to its ownership had for the last
sixty years been in dispute between the Poitevin counts and its actual
holders, the house of St. Gilles, who also held the neighbouring county of
Rouergue and with it the overlordship of a number of smaller fiefs along the
southern coast. Auvergne, originally a part of the Aquitanian duchy, was
strongly disposed to reject the authority of the Poitevin dukes; and both

1157 Auvergne and Toulouse were more or less openly supported in this
matter by the French king. Nor were the other underfiefs of the duchy, or
even the barons of Poitou, by any means models of feudal obedience. For a
century or more the dukes had been periodically at strife with the counts of
Angoulême, the counts of La Marche, the lords of Lusignan (in Poitou), the
viscounts of Limoges, and the neighbours and rivals of these last.[11] It was
little more than twenty years since Count William of Angoulême had
carried off from Poitiers Eleanor’s stepmother, the Countess Emma, “by the
counsel of the chiefs of the Limousin who feared lest the Poitevin yoke
should be laid more heavily upon them” owing to her marriage with the
duke, she being a daughter and a possible co-heiress of the viscount of
Limoges.[12] At Limoges itself, moreover, there seems to have been a
perennial rivalry between the bishop, the viscount, the abbot of the great
abbey of S. Martial, and the townsfolk.[13]
When Henry II went to Limoges after his marriage in 1152 he seems to
have been welcomed as duke by the viscount; but strife arose between his
followers and the citizens which so enraged him that he ordered the recently
built walls of the town to be razed and the bridge to be destroyed. As the
town—locally called “the castle”—was held by the viscount of the abbot,
this was an offence to all parties at once; and the abbot retorted by refusing
1157 to grant the duke’s claim to a procuration in the city—that is, outside
the walls—saying he was only bound to grant it within the enclosure of the
“castle.”[14] Henry, though angry, had his mind fixed on more important
matters, and let the insult pass; but on his next visit to Limoges, in 1156
1156, he successfully asserted his ducal rights.[15] In the spring or early
summer of 1159 he again went to Aquitaine, to prosecute by force 1159
of arms his claim, as Eleanor’s husband, to the county of Toulouse. The
support of the Count of Barcelona and his wife, the Queen of Aragon, was
purchased by a promise that Richard should wed their infant daughter and
should on his marriage receive the Dukedom of Aquitaine.[16] The Quercy
was conquered by Henry and held for him awhile after he had abandoned
the siege of Toulouse and returned to Normandy. A treaty made between
Henry and Louis of France in May 1160 contained a provision for a 1160
year’s truce between Henry and Raymond of Toulouse, during which Henry
was to keep “whatever he at the date of the treaty had of the honour of
Toulouse, Cahors, or Quercy.”[17] This was probably not much, as his troops
had already been withdrawn from the conquered territory; the greater part

of it seems to have fallen back into Raymond’s hands, and we hear nothing
more of the relations between him and Henry for nearly thirteen years.
Where and how the future duke of Aquitaine was being brought up there
is nothing to show. All that we know about him, till he was well advanced
1160 in his thirteenth year, is that the sheriffs of London paid ten pounds
six and eightpence for his travelling expenses on some occasion—probably
his elder brother’s birthday feast—in 1163,[18] and that in May 1165 1163
he went with his mother and eldest sister to join the king in 1165-6
Normandy.[19] Henry’s quarrel with S. Thomas of Canterbury was then at its
height; and Henry’s discontented subjects in Aquitaine were quick to take
advantage of the opportunity for mischief given them by the difficulties
with France in which that quarrel involved him. On the pretext of “certain
liberties whereof he had deprived them” some of them became so
troublesome—chiefly, it seems, by their intrigues with King Louis[20]—that
in November 1166 he summoned them to a conference at Chinon. It 1166
took place on Sunday, November 19,[21] with so little result that he sent
Eleanor, who had apparently been trying to maintain order in the duchy
during his absence, back to England and himself went to keep Christmas at
Poitiers.[22] Whether Richard went with his mother or stayed with his father
does not appear.
In March Henry had a conference with Raymond of Toulouse at 1167
Grandmont. Shortly afterwards he tried to assert his ducal authority over the
count of Auvergne. The only result was a fresh rupture with Louis,[23] which
was temporarily patched up by a truce made in August to last till Easter
next, March 31, 1168.[24] Before that date a formidable rebellion broke out
in Aquitaine. The counts of Angoulême and La Marche,[25] the 1167-8
1167-8 viscount of Thouars,[26] Robert of Seilhac in the Limousin and his
brother Hugh,[27] Aimeric of Lusignan in Poitou, Geoffrey of Rancogne in
the county of Angoulême,[28] “with many others,” sought to rebel 1168
against the king, and went about ravaging with fire and sword. When the
king heard of this he hurried to the place, took the strong castle of Lusignan
and made it stronger still, and destroyed the villages and fortresses of the
rebels. He then revictualled his own castles, and left the duchy under the
charge of Eleanor (who had rejoined him after Christmas) and of Earl
Patrick of Salisbury, while he himself went to meet Louis on the Norman
border on April 7.[29] The truce between the kings was now expired, and

Henry desired a treaty of peace; but meanwhile the southern rebels were
urging Louis to insist that Henry should indemnify them for the loss and
damage which he had inflicted upon them, and which they represented as a
breach of his truce with France, the French king being supreme lord of
Aquitaine.[30] They even placed in the hands of Louis the hostages which
they had promised to Henry.[31] Louis did not go to the conference in person,
but sent some nobles to represent him.[32] To them Henry proposed a new
scheme for the future of Aquitaine: that its young duke-designate should
marry the youngest daughter of Louis. The French envoys refused to bind
1168 their sovereign to this unexpected condition; it was, however, agreed
“that if Richard should ask for his rights over the Count of St. Gilles”—that
is, of Toulouse—“the king of France should try the cause in his court.” Thus
the settlement of Aquitaine on Richard was, by implication at least,
recognized by France, although Richard himself was not yet eleven years
old. As to the aggrieved nobles, Henry promised them restitution;[33] but
Louis would not give up the hostages; and the conference ended in another
truce to last till the octave of midsummer.[34]
Scarcely had the parties separated when tidings came that Earl Patrick
had been slain in a fight with some of the malcontents.[35] Henry was too
much overburdened with other cares to attempt during the rest of that year
any personal intervention in Aquitaine. Eleanor seems to have urged him to
make it formally over to Richard.[36] She probably saw that there was no
likelihood of a good understanding between her people and her Angevin
husband, and hoped to be more successful in governing them herself in the
name of her son. Her suggestion, and that which Henry had made nine
months before to the representatives of Louis, were both carried 1169
into effect on January 6, 1169, when the two kings made peace at
Montmirail. The two elder sons of Henry and Eleanor were both present at
the meeting. Henry himself first did homage to Louis for his continental
possessions; young Henry did the like for Britanny, Anjou and Maine; then
Richard was betrothed to the French king’s daughter Aloysia, and likewise
performed the homage due to Louis for the county of Poitou and the duchy
of Aquitaine.[37]
The feudal situation created by these transactions was a strange one. It
1169 was capable of at least two different interpretations, and its practical
result, so far as Aquitaine was concerned, was that for the next twenty years

there were two dukes of that country. Henry’s purpose in thus making his
sons do homage to Louis was to guard against the possibility of dispute,
after his own death, as to the portion of his dominions to which each of
them was entitled. In his eyes the homage was anticipatory of a future and
perhaps—for he was not yet thirty-six—still very remote event, and its
effect was merely prospective. But, so far as can be seen, no such limitation
of its scope was expressed in the act of homage; and the legal effect of that
act therefore was not merely prospective, but immediate; it at once made
the younger Henry and Richard respectively count of Anjou and duke of
Aquitaine, not under the suzerainty of their father, but under the direct
overlordship of the French king. Such at least would be its legal effect as
soon as the boys were old enough to govern for themselves; and this age
young Henry had almost reached, for he was in his fourteenth year. Their
father, on the other hand, as the sequel shows, never intended to give during
his own lifetime any real authority at all to young Henry, nor did he intend
to give any to Richard otherwise than with a tacit but perfectly well
understood reservation of his own right of intervention and control
whenever he might choose to exercise it; and he still remained legally both
count and duke, for he had just repeated, in both capacities, his own
homage to Louis. There can be no doubt that Louis was fully alive
(although it seems that Henry was not) to the advantages which the French
Crown might derive from this complicated state of affairs. But he was, of
course, not desirous of pointing them out to his rival; and during the next
four years he carefully refrained from all interference with the affairs of the
Angevin dominions. The new duke of Aquitaine was, however, not yet
twelve years old, and it was clearly with the French king’s sanction that his
father, in the spring, marched into the duchy and forcibly brought the counts
of Angoulême and La Marche and most of the other rebels to submission.[38]
1169 Our only certain notice of Richard between January 1169 and June
1172 shows him to have been, at some time in 1170, at Limoges 1170
with his mother, laying the foundation-stone of the abbey of S. Augustine.
[39]
On the Octave of Whit-Sunday, June 11, 1172, his formal 1172
installation as duke took place at Poitiers. In the abbey church of S. Hilary
he was placed, according to custom, in the abbot’s chair, and the sacred
lance and banner which were the insignia of the ducal office were given to
him by the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the Bishop of Poitiers. He
afterwards proceeded to Limoges, where he was received with a solemn

procession; the ring of S. Valeria, the protomartyr of Aquitaine, was placed
on his finger, and he was then proclaimed as “the new Duke”[40]—for it was
in virtue of this double investiture, given not by the king of France, but by
the local prelates and clergy as representatives of the local saints of the
land, that the dukes of Aquitaine claimed to hold their dukedom.
Eight months later another important ceremony took place at Limoges.
Henry and Eleanor, accompanied by their two elder sons, held court in the
castle for a week with the kings of Aragon and Navarre, and the counts of
Toulouse and Maurienne. Alfonso of Aragon, Raymond of Toulouse, and
Humbert of Maurienne had met Henry at Montferrand in Auvergne, the last-
named to make a treaty of marriage between his daughter and Henry’s
youngest son, John, the two former to seek the king’s mediation in 1173
a quarrel between themselves. Alfonso was the son of Queen Petronilla and
Raymond of Barcelona, and brother of the girl to whom Richard had been
betrothed in 1159. He and Raymond of Toulouse were at strife about the
homage of Cerdagne, Foix, and Carcassonne; both were anxious for the
1173 friendship of their nearest and most powerful neighbour. Henry
“made peace between them,” and Raymond, whose territories were ringed
in by those of Aragon and Aquitaine, paid the peacemaker his price; “he
became the man of the king, and of the new king his son, and of Count
Richard of Poitou, to hold Toulouse of them”—that is, to hold it
immediately of Richard, who held it under his elder brother and his father
—“as a hereditary fief, by military service at the summons of either king or
count, and by a yearly payment of a hundred marks of silver or of ten
destriers worth at least ten marks each.”[41]
A few months later Richard entered actively on public life; and he made a
bad beginning. Towards the end of March the younger King Henry fled
from his father’s court in Normandy to that of Louis.[42] The elder Henry
had been warned at Limoges by Raymond of Toulouse that “his wife and
his sons had formed a conspiracy against him”;[43] but he had disregarded
1173 the warning, and left Richard and Geoffrey in Aquitaine under the
guardianship of their mother. Early in the summer both the lads joined their
elder brother in France,[44] and all three pledged themselves by a solemn
oath, at a great council in Paris, “not to forsake the king of France, nor to
make any peace with their father save through him (Louis) and the French
barons”; Louis in return swearing, and causing his barons to swear, “that he

would help the young king and his brothers, to the utmost of his power, to
maintain their war against their father and to gain possession of the
kingdom of England” for young Henry.[45]
The “young king” was eighteen years old; he was as shallow-minded and
selfish as he was handsome and superficially attractive; and he had fallen
under the influence of Louis, to whose daughter he was married. Crowned
in 1170 as his father’s heir, he chose to consider himself aggrieved by being
given no share in the government of England or of the Angevin home-lands.
He may have persuaded his brothers to consider themselves as victims of a
similar grievance with regard to their duchies of Aquitaine and Britanny. He
and Louis were naturally anxious to secure the forces of those two duchies
in support of their scheme of ousting the elder King Henry from his
dominions, continental and insular; and they hoped that the example of the
boy-dukes might help to detach their respective vassals from their father’s
cause.[46] But the lads had a nearer counsellor than young Henry or Louis,
and one to whose counsels it was only natural, and in a measure right, that
they should listen with reverence and submission. Eleanor unquestionably
sided with her elder son against her husband, for she was caught in the act
of trying to make her way from Aquitaine to the French court disguised in
the dress of a man.[47] Certainly nothing can justify, or even excuse, the
duplicity of this “eagle of the broken covenant” towards the husband and
sovereign who, even when his eyes were fully opened to the treason of their
1173 eldest son, still put such confidence in her loyalty as to leave the
younger eaglets in her charge. But there is a very considerable excuse for
Richard and Geoffrey. On the ground of that feudal loyalty which was a
principle of such importance in the life of those days, there was, indeed,
something to be said for all three of the brothers, and more especially for
Richard. None of them were homagers of Henry II; all of them were
homagers of Louis and of Louis alone. For Richard it might further be
urged that if he was under any other feudal obligation, it was more to his
mother than to his father; his possession of Aquitaine was their joint gift,
but it was on Eleanor’s consent that the validity of the gift really rested;
Henry possessed the dukedom only in right of his wife. On the higher
ground of filial duty Henry’s and Eleanor’s claims to the obedience of their
children were equal; Richard and Geoffrey suddenly found that those claims
were conflicting, and that a choice must be made between the two. That the
choice really lay between right and wrong is much plainer to us than it

could be to these lads, of whom the elder was not yet sixteen, and both of
whom were under the direct personal influence of their mother. On her,
rather than on them, lies the responsibility for their wrong choice.
Eleanor, captured by some of her husband’s scouts, was at once placed by
him in strict confinement.[48] Her eldest son’s cause gained practically
nothing by the adhesion of his young brothers. According to one account,
both of them accompanied him to the siege of Drincourt in July.[49] The
success of that siege, however, was due, not to any of the three, but to their
allies the counts of Flanders and Boulogne; moreover, the death of the latter
soon afterwards caused the Flemish troops to withdraw to their own
country, and nothing further came of the expedition.[50] The rebel barons of
Geoffrey’s duchy all submitted to his father in the autumn.[51] At a
conference on September 25 at Gisors Henry made fair offers to all three of
1173 his sons; “but the king of France did not deem it advisable that the
[English] king’s sons should make peace with their father.”[52] At some time
before the end of the year Richard was knighted by Louis.[53] Young Henry
and Geoffrey seem to have remained at the French court through the winter,
but Richard characteristically went his own way; he returned to Aquitaine.
Considering the extent of that country and the character of its previous
relations with Henry II, it seems to have furnished a very small proportion
of names to the list of avowed partizans of the young king; and the more
important Aquitanian names which we do find there are those of men whose
disobedience is very unlikely to have been in any way connected with that
of Richard—Count William of Angoulême, Geoffrey of Rancogne,
Geoffrey and Guy of Lusignan, William of Chauvigny, and Thomas of
Coulonges in Poitou, Charles of Rochefort in Saintonge, Robert of Blé in
the Limousin, and in Gascony Jocelyn of Maulay and Archbishop William
of Bordeaux.[54] The first four of these needed no incitement from the young
duke’s example, and the last two are not likely to have been influenced by
it, to throw off their allegiance to his father. The Aquitanian rebels in 1173
would probably have been more numerous had not the barons of the
Limousin been at that time too busy fighting among themselves to give
much heed to disagreements between their rival rulers. The confusion in
those parts was aggravated by a swarm of “Brabantines,” or foreign
mercenaries,[55] probably brought in by Henry at an earlier time, and now
roving about the land and preying on it wholly at their own will and
pleasure. There was no one to control either Brabantines or barons, since

Richard’s withdrawal and Eleanor’s imprisonment had left Aquitaine
without any resident governor at all, till in the winter Richard went back to
put himself single-handed at the head of affairs. We hear of him as far south
as Bordeaux, where he was no doubt sure of a welcome from Archbishop
William, and secured the support of another great churchman, the abbot of
1173 S. Cross, by confirming the privileges of the abbey.[56] He tried to win
to his cause the rising town of La Rochelle; but in this he failed; the
townsfolk shut their gates in his face.[57] He soon, however, had under his
command a considerable force of knights which at Whitsuntide 1174 c.
May 12
1174 seized the city of Saintes. Henry was then at Poitiers; at the
head of a body of loyal Poitevins he marched upon Saintes and drove out
the intruders,[58] and recovered possession of several other rebel fortresses.
[59]
The hopes of young Henry and Louis had broken down both in Aquitaine
and in Normandy. In England they broke down still more completely; and
the failure of the rebellion there led to the reopening of negotiations for
peace.
Some ten or fifteen years later a bitter enemy of Henry II described the
characters of young Henry and of Richard both at once in the form of a
comparison, or rather contrast, between them.[60] The contrast showed itself
even in the ill-omened first stage of their political and military careers.
Throughout the rebellion of 1173-4 the young king was a mere tool—and a
very inefficient one—in the hands of Louis. At the instigation of Louis he
had entered upon the war, and at the dictation of Louis he was ready to
accept terms of peace. Geoffrey was apparently contented with a similar
position; but not so Richard. Eleanor might have made a tool of her second
son, but no one else could do so. It was not for love of either young Henry
or Louis that he had sided with them, and not at their behest would 1174
Sept. 8
he give up the struggle. On his seventeenth birthday the kings met
at Gisors; but “they could not come to a settlement because of the absence
of Count Richard, who at that time was in Poitou, making war on the castles
1174 and men of his father.” The conference ended in a truce till
Michaelmas,[61] on the understanding that meanwhile Henry should subdue
Richard by force without hindrance from Louis, young Henry, or their
adherents. Richard was not yet hardened enough to contemplate fighting his
father in person; “when King Henry was come into Poitou, his son Richard
dared not await him, but fled from every place at his approach, abandoning
all the fortresses that he had taken, not daring to hold them against his

father.” When he learned the terms of the truce, his indignation at being
thus deserted by his supposed allies made him suddenly determine on a
better course. “He came weeping, and fell with his face on the ground at the
feet of the king his father, beseeching his forgiveness.” It was Sept. 23
granted instantly and completely.[62] Father and son re-entered Poitiers
together.[63] At Henry’s suggestion Richard went in person to assure his
elder brother and Louis that he was no longer an obstacle to the conclusion
of peace; and on September 30 the peace was made at Montlouis in
Touraine. Henry’s three sons placed themselves at his mercy and “returned
to him and to his service as their lord.” He promised to each of them a
specified provision; and they all pledged themselves to accept these
provisions as final and nevermore to require anything further from him save
at his own pleasure, nor to withdraw themselves or their service from him.
Richard and Geoffrey also did homage to him “for what he granted and
gave them.” Young Henry would have done likewise, but his father would
not permit it “because he was a king.”[64] This treaty seems to have been
afterwards put into writing and formally executed at Falaise, probably on
October 11.[65] Early in 1175 Richard and Geoffrey did homage to 1175
their father again at Le Mans,[66] and on April 1 their elder brother did the
same at Bures.[67]
The new provision for Richard did not include his reinstatement as duke
1175 of Aquitaine or count of Poitou. It consisted merely of “two fitting
dwelling-places, whence no damage could come to the king, in Poitou,” and
half the revenues of that county in money.[68] The strict letter of the treaty of
Montlouis (or of Falaise) in fact reinstated Henry II as sole ruler of all the
Angevin dominions, and reduced all his sons to the position of dependents
on his bounty. Henry, however, soon showed that he had no intention of
enforcing this punishment to the uttermost on Richard and Geoffrey. The
treaty ordained that all lands and castles belonging to the king and his loyal
barons were to be restored to their owners and to the condition in which
they had been fifteen days before “the king’s sons departed from him”; so,
too, were the lands of the rebels, but in their case no mention was made of
their castles.[69] With these castles, therefore, Henry was left free to deal at
his pleasure. Accordingly, when early in 1175 he set himself to carry out
this clause of the treaty in Anjou and Maine, he not only revictualled and
repaired whatever fortresses of his own had suffered damage, and destroyed
whatever new fortifications had been added to the castles whose owners had

defied or resisted him, but also ordered that some of these latter should be
razed. Geoffrey was sent to carry out this process in Britanny, and Richard
in Aquitaine, while the two Henrys returned to England together on May 9.
[70]

Besides the avowed partizans of young Henry in Aquitaine, there were
others who had seized the opportunity afforded them by the war to fortify
their castles and set the ducal authority at defiance. The men of the South
for the most part would at any moment gladly have flung off that authority
altogether, no matter whether it was wielded by the heiress of the old ducal
house, her husband, or her son. The Aquitanian barons whose castles had in
the time of the war been fortified or held against Henry II made it clear that
they were not disposed to give them up to Richard. He therefore, in
1775 pursuance of his father’s orders, set out “to reduce the said castles to
nothing.” He began after midsummer by marching into the county of Agen,
where Arnald of Bonville had fortified Castillon against him, “and would
not give it up.” This place, “fortified by both nature and art,” held out
against the duke and his engines of war for nearly two months; “at last he
took it, and in it thirty knights whom he kept in his own hands.”[71] We have
no certain knowledge of his further movements till the following 1176
spring, when he and Geoffrey of Britanny went to England together. They
landed on Good Friday, April 7.[72] Richard’s purpose seems to have been to
seek counsel and help in the difficult task which his father had assigned to
him, for when the Easter festivities were over it was arranged by the elder
Henry that the younger one should go with Richard into Poitou “to subdue
his enemies.” Young Henry went to Normandy on April 20;[73] Richard
probably returned about the same time, though the brothers did not cross the
Channel together.[74] During his absence Vulgrin of Angoulême, a son of the
reigning count William Taillefer, had “presumed” to march into Poitou at
the head of a troop of Brabantines. The bishop of Poitiers had at once
resolved, with Theobald Chabot, who was “the leader of Duke Richard’s
soldiery,” to “deliver the people committed to him out of the hand of their
enemies,” and the invaders, although they far outnumbered the forces of the
bishop and the constable, had been completely routed near Barbezieux.[75]
1176 Richard made straight for Poitou and called out its feudal levies,
“and a great multitude of knights from the regions round about flocked to
him, for the wages that he gave them.” He began by punishing some of the
rebels in Poitou; next, after Whitsuntide (May 23), he marched against

Vulgrin’s Brabantines and defeated them in a pitched battle between St.
Maigrin and Bouteville, near the western border of the Angoumois. Thence
he led his host into the Limousin, to punish Count Aimar of Limoges, who
also had taken advantage of the duke’s absence to commit some breaches of
the peace. First, Richard besieged and took Aimar’s castle of Aixe with its
garrison of forty knights. Then he attacked Limoges, and in a few days was
master of the city and all its fortifications. All this was the work of a month.
Shortly after midsummer he returned to Poitiers; there he was at last joined
by the young king. After taking counsel with the Poitevin barons it was
decided that the next step should be the punishment of Vulgrin of
Angoulême. The brothers led their united forces to Châteauneuf on the
Charente, south-west of Angoulême, and won the place after a fortnight’s
siege. Thereupon young Henry “would stay with his brother no longer, but
following evil counsel departed from him.” Richard, thus suddenly
deserted, moved cautiously further away from Angoulême to Moulineuf,
another castle belonging to Vulgrin; this he captured in ten days. Then he
turned back again and laid siege to Angoulême itself. Within its walls were
not only Vulgrin and his father, Count William, but also Aimar of Limoges
and two other rebel leaders, the viscounts of Ventadour and of Chabanais. In
six days Count William was forced to surrender into Richard’s hands
himself, his city, and all its contents, his castles of Bouteville, Archiac,
Montignac, Jarnac, La Chaise, and Merpins, and to give hostages for his
submission to the mercy of Richard and of King Henry, to whom Richard
immediately sent him and the other nobles who had surrendered with him.
1176 [76] They presented themselves before Henry at Winchester on
September 21, fell at his feet, and “obtained mercy from him”; that is to say,
he, it seems, sent them back again with instructions that they should be
temporarily reinstated in their possessions, pending a fuller consideration
which he purposed to give to their case when he should return to
Normandy.[77]
Having for the moment reduced northern Aquitaine to subjection,
Richard set himself to a like task in Gascony. After keeping Christmas at
Bordeaux he marched upon Dax, which had been fortified against him by
its viscount with the help of the count of Bigorre. Its recovery by Jan. 1177
Richard was quickly followed by that of Bayonne, held against him by its
viscount Ernald Bertram. Thence he marched up to the very “Gate of
Spain”—St. Pierre de Cize, on the Navarrese border at the foot of the

Pyrenees—took the castle of St. Pierre in one day, razed it, compelled the
Basques and Navarrese to swear that they would keep the peace, “destroyed
the evil customs which had been introduced at Sorde and Lespéron” (two
towns in the Landes) “where it was customary to rob pilgrims on their way
to or from S. James,” and by Candlemas was back at Poitiers, having—for
the moment—“restored all the provinces to peace.”[78] The count of Bigorre
in the south and a few barons of Saintonge and of the Limousin had not yet
submitted; Richard, however, made no further movement against any of
them for many months. His inaction may have been due to instructions from
his father, who was probably unwilling to let him engage in another
campaign against these rebels at a moment when all the available forces of
the Angevin house and the presence of Richard himself seemed likely to be
needed in another quarter.
The richest baron of Aquitanian Berry, Ralf of Déols, the lord of
Châteauroux, whose lands were said to be worth as much as the whole
ducal domains of Normandy,[79] had died at the close of 1176 leaving as his
1176 sole heir a daughter three years old. The wardship of this child and of
her heritage belonged of right to her suzerain, the Duke of Aquitaine; but
her relations were resolved to keep, if possible, both herself and her lands in
their own power,[80] so they carried her off to La Châtre,[81] and prepared her
castles and their own for defence and defiance. When these tidings 1176
reached King Henry in England, he sent urgent orders to his eldest son to
assemble the Norman host without delay and take forcible possession of the
lands of Déols.[82] Henry’s action in this matter is noticeable as showing that
he regarded Richard’s tenure of the dukedom of Aquitaine at this period as
merely nominal or delegated; he claimed Denise of Déols as his own vassal,
not as Richard’s. It is, however, not at once apparent why, since he had
intrusted to Richard the task of subduing the other Aquitanian rebels, he did
not leave the affair of Déols to the same hands. The reason may have been
mainly a geographical one. These things may have taken place at a 1176-7
moment when Henry knew Richard to be busily engaged at the very
opposite end of the duchy, at any rate somewhere in Gascony, perhaps at its
extreme southern border. The young king, on the other hand, was in
Normandy, whence it would be easy for him to lead a force through Maine
and Touraine into Berry. On receiving his father’s instructions he did so,
and laid siege to Châteauroux, which surrendered to him at once.[83] He did
not, however, gain possession of the little heiress or of the rest of her lands;

for the matter now became complicated by the intervention of the supreme
lord of Berry and of Aquitaine, King Louis.
For more than eight years, ever since January 1169, Aloysia of France
had been in Henry’s guardianship as the destined bride of Richard.
According to one of the best informed English writers of the time, Louis,
when this engagement was made, had promised that on the marriage of the
young couple he would make over to Richard, as Aloysia’s dowry, the city
of Bourges with all its appurtenances;[84] that is, the portion of Berry the
1176-7 ownership of which was in dispute between France and Aquitaine.
Ten years before—in the year of Aloysia’s birth—he had promised to King
Henry a like cession of the Vexin, the disputed border-land of France and
Normandy, as the dowry of Aloysia’s sister Margaret on her intended
marriage with Henry’s eldest son, and Henry had taken advantage of the
ambiguous wording of a clause in the treaty to have the two children—
contrary to Louis’s intention—at once formally married in church; whereby
he gained immediate possession, not indeed of the whole Vexin, but of that
portion of it which had once been Norman and which contained its most
valuable fortresses, these being surrendered to him by the Templars, who
were by the treaty to have them in custody till the marriage should take
place. That marriage, nevertheless, had brought more advantage to Louis
than to Henry, by bringing Margaret’s husband, as soon as he reached
manhood, under the influence of his father-in-law in opposition to his own
father. There was but too much reason to fear a like result in the case of
Richard; and the dangers of such a result were even greater in this case than
in the former one, owing to special circumstances connected with the
betrothal of Richard and Aloysia. That betrothal was the price, or part of the
price, paid by Henry at Montmirail in 1169 for Louis’s sanction, as
overlord, to the scheme devised by Henry for securing a certain distribution
of his dominions among his sons. Henry’s own renewal of homage to Louis
on that occasion for all his continental territories was a token that he did not
intend to renounce his personal rights over any of his lands, but merely to
secure for himself the power of sharing those rights with his sons whenever
he might choose to do so, and for the boys an unquestionable right of
succession at his death to their respective shares of the Angevin heritage.
But, somewhat like Louis nine years before, Henry made a mistake which
rendered it possible for his adversary to put another construction upon the
matter. He secured young Henry’s claims to the future possession of the

heritage of Geoffrey of Anjou and Maud of Normandy, and Richard’s claim
to the heritage of Eleanor, by making them do homage to Louis for Anjou
1176-7 and Aquitaine respectively; but he omitted to secure the
subordination of their claims to his own during his lifetime by making them
do homage to himself. Owing to this omission, it was open to Louis to
assert, if he chose, that the Angevin counties and the Norman duchy legally
belonged to young Henry and the duchy of Aquitaine to Richard, in virtue
of the homage rendered by them for those lands direct to himself as
overlord; Henry II—so he might argue—having by his consent to that
homage tacitly renounced all claim to the lands for which it was rendered,
and being thenceforth merely in temporary charge of them as guardian of
the boys. The promise of the cession of Bourges was a very small price to
pay for a weapon so tremendous as that which Henry had thus, it seems,
unconsciously placed in the hands of an enemy whose mean jealousy and
unscrupulous astuteness he appears never to have fully realized. He
unintentionally made this possible construction of the treaty of Montmirail
still more plausible through the crowning of his eldest son in 1170 and the
solemn installation of the second as duke of Aquitaine in 1172. Louis acted
upon it in 1173, although he does not seem ever to have put it into formal
words; and his action, coupled with that of the ungrateful sons urged on by
their mother, must have opened Henry’s eyes to the peril in which he had
involved himself through his misplaced confidence in the loyalty both of his
overlord and of his own family. It showed that as soon as Richard and
Aloysia were married, Louis might and in all probability would demand the
recognition of his new son-in-law as sole ruler of Aquitaine, independent of
any superior save Louis himself.
At the close of 1175 or early in 1176 Louis, it seems, reminded Henry
that, Richard being now in his nineteenth year and Aloysia in her 1175-6
sixteenth, it was full time for the contract of marriage between them to be
carried into effect; but the answer which he received was so unsatisfactory
that he referred the matter to the Pope. We have no actual record of any
communication between the kings on the subject at this time, but something
of the kind must have taken place to cause the Pope’s action. In 1176
1176 May 1176 Alexander bade Cardinal Peter, then legate in France, lay
the whole of Henry’s lands on both sides of the sea under Interdict “unless
he (Henry) would permit Richard and Aloysia to be married without
delay.”[85] The legate, however, seems to have done nothing in the matter for

more than a year. Probably the two kings were negotiating; but we 1177
hear nothing of their negotiations till June 1177, when Henry sent an
embassy to France to “convene” Louis about the dowries which he had
promised to give with his two daughters to the young king and to Richard—
to wit, the Vexin (that is, its eastern or “French” part, which was still in
Louis’s hands) and the viscounty of Bourges.[86] It seems that Henry, having
found Margaret’s marriage fail to give him the control over her promised
lands, demanded to be put in possession of those of Aloysia before he
would allow her to marry Richard. But meanwhile the Pope had in May
renewed the injunctions which he had issued to Cardinal Peter eleven
months before; and on July 12 the English envoys returned with the news
that Peter was instructed to lay the whole of their sovereign’s dominions,
insular and continental, under Interdict, unless Richard were at once
permitted to take for his wife the maiden whom Henry “had so long already,
and longer than had been agreed, had in his custody for the said
Richard.”[87] Henry at once made the English bishops appeal to the Pope.
Illness detained him in England for nearly five weeks;[88] then he went to
Normandy (August 18), and on September 21 met Louis and the legate at
Nonancourt.[89] In the legate’s presence he promised that Richard should
wed Aloysia, if Louis gave Bourges to Richard and the Vexin to the young
king as previously agreed.[90] Whether the wedding or the cession was to
take place first, however, seems to have been left an open question; and four
days later the whole matter was again postponed indefinitely by a treaty
1177 whereby the two elder kings pledged themselves to take the Cross
and go to the Holy Land together, and meanwhile, as brother Crusaders, to
lay aside all mutual strife and make no claims or demands upon each
other’s possessions as they held them at that moment, except with regard to
Auvergne and to any encroachments which the men of either party might
have made upon those of the other in the territory of Châteauroux or of the
lesser fiefs on the border of their respective lands in Berry. If on these
excepted matters they could not agree between themselves, twelve
arbitrators were to decide according to the sworn evidence of the men of the
lands in question.[91]
All immediate danger of interference from either Louis or the Legate
being thus removed, Henry summoned the Norman host to meet at Argentan
on October 9 for an expedition against the rebels in Berry.[92] Young Henry
and Richard had, by his desire, joined him on his arrival in Normandy;[93]

the former was now despatched in advance into Berry, and when the king’s
host reached the Norman border at Alençon Richard was detached from it
and once more sent into Poitou “to subdue the enemies” there, while the
king himself marched upon Châteauroux. After receiving its formal
surrender he proceeded to La Châtre; this place, and the little Lady of
Déols, were also given up to him at once. Thence he proceeded into the
Limousin and called upon those of its nobles and knights who had taken
part in the rebellion of 1173 to give an account of their conduct; one of the
most important of them, the viscount of Turenne, surrendered his chief
castle, “strongly fortified by both art and nature”; with the others Henry
dealt “according as each of them deserved.”[94] He then hurried back to
Graçay in Berry, to meet Louis and the commissioners who were to report
to the two kings the result of their investigations about Auvergne. What that
result was we are nowhere directly told; we only hear that both the rivals
1177 declared themselves content to abide by it.[95] The next reference to
the overlordship of Auvergne, however, some twelve years later, seems to
indicate that the commissioners gave their award in favour of the duke of
Aquitaine.
Another of Henry’s vassals in Berry, Odo of Issoudun, had lately died
leaving an infant heir, and this child had been stolen by his kinsman the
duke of Burgundy. The custody of his fief was offered to the king by the
barons who had it in their keeping, but he refused to receive it without the
child,[96] whom he made no attempt to reclaim. It was not worth while to
risk an embroilment with Burgundy about a petty lordship in Berry at the
moment when an opportunity was just presenting itself for annexing to the
Poitevin domains a valuable fief of the duchy of Aquitaine, the county of La
Marche, which lay between Berry and the Limousin. Count Adalbert V of
La Marche had separated from his wife, lost his only son, and seemingly
disinherited his only daughter with her own consent;[97] the kinship between
him and his only other surviving relatives was so remote that he deemed
himself free to dispose of his county without regard to them; and he now
offered to sell it to its overlord, King Henry, for a sum of money wherewith
he himself might go to end his lonely days in the Holy Land. In December
Henry went to meet him at Grandmont; the bargain was quickly struck, the
conveyance executed, and the purchase money—less than a third of what
Henry is said to have estimated the county as worth—paid down, and the

barons and knights of La Marche did homage to Henry as their immediate
liege lord.[98]
1177 In all these proceedings of Henry in Aquitaine there is no reference
to Richard. They clearly indicate that the elder holder of the ducal title still
claimed the ducal power and authority as his own, not his son’s. He seems,
however, to have left to Richard the punishment of one important Limousin
rebel whose case he had a year before expressly reserved for his own
judgement; for it was Richard who now “took away the castle”—that is, the
fortified town—“at Limoges where S. Martial rests in his minster” from the
viscount; “and it served the viscount right,” adds a Norman chronicler, “for
helping the count of Angoulême against the duke.”[99] This seems to have
been about the time when Henry was in Aquitaine, and it is the only act of
Richard’s mentioned by any chronicler between Henry’s arrival in
Normandy in August 1177 and his return to England in July 1178.[100] We
may infer, almost with certainty, that it was done by Henry’s order; and,
with considerable probability, that the unusual state of quiescence in which
Richard seems to have passed these eleven months was due in part at least
to the restraint placed on him by Henry’s presence on the continent. So long
as Richard remained in the dependent position to which he had been
reduced by the agreement at Montlouis, it would be impossible for him to
take any considerable military or political action, unless by his father’s
order, while his father was within reach. But in the autumn of 1178, 1178
when Henry was once more in England, Richard’s activity re-commenced.
“With a great host” he again proceeded into Gascony[101] as far as Dax.
1178 There, to his delight, he found that the count of Bigorre, who two
winters before had helped the viscount of Dax to hold the city against the
duke, had somehow incurred the displeasure of the citizens and was fast in
their prison. They seem to have handed him over to Richard; “but 1177
King Alfonso of Aragon, grieving that his friend the count of Bigorre was
held in chains, came to the said duke, and entreating that his friend might be
liberated, stood surety for him that he would do the will of the duke and of
his father the king of England; and the count of Bigorre, that he might be
set free, gave up to the duke Clermont and the castle of Montbron.” Richard
then went northward again, and after keeping Christmas at Saintes gathered
another “great host” for the subjugation of Saintonge and the Angoumois.
[102]
These two districts had been for years, and indeed for generations, a
seed-plot of rebellion. Richard seems to have been bent upon reducing them

to order once for all. The moving spirits of defiance there were 1178
Vulgrin of Angoulême and Geoffrey of Rancogne. Count William of
Angoulême, after being reinstated by Henry in his capital city, seems to
have made over the government of his county to his eldest son, Vulgrin,
who had headed the resistance to Richard in 1176. Geoffrey of Rancogne
took his name from a place in the same county, and was also owner of two
lordships of far greater importance in Saintonge, one of which, Pons, lay
close to the border of the Angoumois, and the other, Taillebourg, was a
fortress of great strength, about half way between Saintes and St. Jean
d’Angély. It was to Pons that Richard now laid siege. After some weeks,
finding that he made no progress, he left his constables there with a 1179
part of his forces, and led the rest, in Easter week (April 1-8), into the
Angoumois. A three days’ siege won the castle of Richemont; four other
castles—Genzac, Marcillac, Gourville, Auville—were taken in the last
fortnight of April and levelled with the ground. Then he turned westward
again, re-crossed the border, and marched upon Taillebourg.[103]
By Richard’s contemporaries the siege of Taillebourg was looked upon as
1179 “a most desperate enterprize, which none of his predecessors had
ever ventured to attempt. Never before had a hostile force so much as
looked upon the castle.” It seems indeed to have been not merely a castle
but a strongly fortified, though small, town, the castle proper—perched on
the summit of a rock of which three sides were inaccessible by nature and
the fourth was defended by art—forming the citadel. “Girt with a triple
ditch; defying from behind a triple wall every external authority; amply
secured with weapons, bolts, and bars; crowned with towers placed at
regular intervals; furnished with a handy stone laid ready for casting from
every loop-hole; well stocked with victuals; filled with a thousand men
ready for fight,” this virgin fortress “was in no wise affrighted” at the
duke’s approach. Richard, however, had made up his mind to “subdue the
pride of Geoffrey of Rancogne once for all.” He had collected auxiliaries
from every quarter; and he set them all to work as soon as the host reached
Geoffrey’s border. “He carried off the wealth of the farms; he cut down the
vines; he fired the villages; whatever was left he pulled down and laid
waste; and then he pitched his tents on the outskirts of the castle close to the
walls, to the great alarm of the townsfolk, who had expected nothing of the
kind.” At the end of a week (May 1-8), “deeming it a disgrace that so many
high-spirited and well-proved knights should tamely submit to be shut up

within the walls, they agreed to sally forth and fall upon the duke’s host at
unawares. But the duke bade his men fly to arms, and forced the townsmen
to retire. The mettle of horses, the worth of spears, swords, helmets, bows,
arbalests, shields, mailcoats, stakes, clubs, were all put to proof in the
stubborn fight that raged at the gates, till the townsmen could no longer
withstand the fierce onslaught of the duke’s van headed by the duke
himself. As they retired helter-skelter within the walls, he by a sudden dash
made his way with them into the town. The citadel now became their only
refuge from their assailants, who rushed about the streets plundering and
burning at their will.” Two days later—on Ascension Day, May 10—the
1179 castle was surrendered, seemingly by Geoffrey in person; and in a
few days more the whole of its walls were levelled with the ground.[104]
The capture of Taillebourg was Richard’s first great military exploit. It
laid the foundation of his military fame, not so much by the intrinsic
importance of the exploit itself as by the revelation, in the campaign of
which it was at once the turning-point and the crown, of the character and
capability of the young duke. Its immediate result was the complete
submission of the rebels against whom that campaign was directed. Not
only did Geoffrey of Rancogne surrender Pons,[105] but Vulgrin of
Angoulême, before the end of the month, gave up his capital city and his
castle of Montignac; and when Richard, after razing the walls of all these
places, sailed for England, he left in Aquitaine, for the moment at least, “all
things settled according to his will.”[106] He seems to have visited the tomb
of S. Thomas the Martyr at Canterbury[107] before joining his father. Henry
received him “with great honour”[108] and gave him his reward; when the
young conqueror returned to Aquitaine shortly before Michaelmas, he
returned not merely as his father’s lieutenant, but as once again, with his
father’s sanction, count of Poitou.[109]

CHAPTER II
FATHER AND SONS

1179-1183

Domus divisa contra se.
1179
We are not told on what conditions, if any, the restitution of Poitou
was made to Richard by his father. The matter might become important
whenever Henry should again cross the sea; but so long as the king
remained in England it would have scarcely any practical effect on
Richard’s position in Aquitaine. Whether he commanded the feudal host
and disposed of the feudal revenues of Poitou as count or as his father’s
delegate, he was, in his father’s absence, equally master of both; and in
Aquitaine at large the temporary degradation inflicted on him by Henry
seems never to have been recognized at all. He himself had never laid aside
the style and title of duke of Aquitaine, nor the princely state belonging to
that dignity, nor had he hesitated to deal with the demesne lands of Poitou
as his own absolute property. In his own eyes he was count and duke by
virtue not of any grant from either Henry or Louis, but of his descent from
the old ducal line and of the investiture which he had received at Poitiers
and at Limoges from the clergy and people of the duchy. His subjects
regarded him in the same light. They fought and intrigued against him not
as an intruder or a usurper, nor as the lieutenant of one whom they counted
as such, but precisely because he was to them the incarnation of the ducal
authority in a form which was specially obnoxious to their habits of
turbulent independence and lawless self-will. For seven years they had been
1179 watching with growing uneasiness and dismay the development of
the “new duke,” whom as a boy of fourteen they had acclaimed at Limoges
in 1172, into a man of very different character from the dukes of the last
two or three generations.
None of the pictures of Richard’s outer or inner man which have come
down to us date from a time quite so early as the year 1179; but the main
features of his personality, outward and inward, were already marked
enough to show us in those pictures a true likeness of the young conqueror
of Taillebourg. In the sculptured effigies of Richard at Fontevraud and at

Rouen the outlines of the face give so little indication of age as to suggest
that in the living model they may have been—except for the beard and
moustache—almost the same at forty-one as at twenty-one; the features are
well proportioned and finely formed. In life they were crowned with a
profusion of hair “of a colour midway between red and yellow”—in other
words, of the rare golden or still rarer auburn hue. The young duke’s stature
was lofty,[110] above the average height,[111] his frame shapely and well
proportioned, with long, straight, flexible limbs; “no arm was better adapted
than his for drawing sword, nor more powerful to strike with it.”[112] His
whole person had such an aspect of dignity that two independent observers,
at different times, described it in the same words—“a form worthy to
occupy a place of high command”;[113] and the seemliness of his appearance
was enhanced by that of his manners and dress.[114] The stories of his
gigantic strength all relate to the time of the Crusade, when that strength
was in its maturity; but a man of whom such tales were told must have been
a born athlete. On the other hand, it was certainly before his Aquitanian
days were over that he contracted the quartan ague which, says Gerald of
Wales, “was given him to repress the over fierce workings of his mind, but
1179 by which he, like the lion, yea, more than lion that he was,[115]
seemed rather to be influenced as by a goad; for while thus almost
continually trembling, he remained intrepid in his determination to make
the whole world tremble and fear before him.”[116]
In this sentence of Gerald’s we have perhaps the earliest foreshadowing
of the epithet which was to become attached exclusively to Richard’s name.
The king of beasts has in all ages been a common simile for a king of men,
whether the kingship be material or metaphorical.[117] But Gerald’s words
seem, from their context, meant to carry a special significance which is
more distinctly implied in the special form of Richard’s traditional surname.
Richard is not the only hero whom poets and romancers, in the golden age
of old French poetry and romance, credited with the possession of “a lion’s
heart,”[118] but he is the only one who became known to the world for all
time as pre-eminently and absolutely “The Lion-Heart.” We cannot tell
precisely when the epithet came into general use; one writer used it within
eight years after Richard’s death.[119] It had evidently fixed itself in popular
tradition before a less high-souled generation of romancers sought to
explain a surname, whose true meaning they were too far removed from the
old epic spirit to appreciate or understand, by devising an origin for it in an

1179 impossible tale of their own clumsy invention.[120] Its true origin need
be sought no further than the character of him who bore it.
“Among the virtues in which he excels, three especially distinguish him
beyond compare: supereminent valour and daring;[121] unbounded liberality
and bountifulness; stedfast constancy in holding to his purpose and to his
word”—thus Gerald of Wales wrote of Richard some eight or nine years
after the campaign of Taillebourg.[122] The young duke’s energy and daring
had been proved before that expedition; and his lavish readiness to reward
those who served him had contributed in no small degree to his military
successes, by means of the crowd of highly trained soldiers whom it
attracted to his standard. What medieval writers call “constancy” was one of
the qualities most universally admired in the medieval world. Richard’s
“constancy” had, as yet, shown itself chiefly in a form which compelled the
admiration and respect of all his Aquitanian subjects, but was not likely to
win him the love of the Aquitanian baronage. From the hour when his father
laid on him, a lad of scarce sixteen years and a half, the task of restoring the
ducal authority in Aquitaine, his aim was to rule and govern what Gerald
truly calls “that hitherto untamed country” in such wise “that not only might
he establish within its borders a far more complete and unbroken peace than
was wont to reign there, but also, recovering what in time past had been
lopped off and separated from it, restore all things to their pristine
condition.”[123] The barons of the duchy were for the most part far from
1179 regarding “peace within its borders” as a thing to be desired; and
Richard’s ideal of a well-ordered state, while thus differing from theirs, was
not made more attractive in their eyes by the methods which he employed
to realize it. Unlike his elder brother, he did not court popularity; he was
indeed absolutely indifferent to it, if not contemptuous of it. “Strictness and
firmness, gravity and constancy,” were the characteristics in him which men
contrasted with the young king’s easy good-nature, indulgent temper, and
pleasantness towards all who approached him. Richard’s generosity and
graciousness were of a higher type than young Henry’s; they were displayed
only where they were deserved.[124] With him everything was earnest. Even
martial sports had no charm for a lad who, while other young knights of his
day—his brothers among them—were acquiring the use of arms in an
endless round of tournaments, was serving his military apprenticeship in
real warfare; a warfare which he waged with tireless persistence and
relentless severity for nearly ten years, “that he might quell the

insubordination of an unruly people, and make innocence secure amid
evildoers.”[125]
His zeal for public order and justice, his ruthless application of the
utmost rigor of law to those who in his eyes deserved punishment, naturally
provoked the hatred of his opponents, and laid him open to the charge of
cruelty.[126] No instances, however, are recorded; the Aquitanian chroniclers
say nothing on the subject, and there is no real ground for supposing that his
sternness towards the barons who withstood his will was other than what
Gerald represents it to have been—part of a wholesome and necessary
1179 discipline.[127] In 1183 they are said to have accused him of crimes of
another kind;[128] but this accusation rests only upon an English writer’s
report of the pleas by which they sought to justify their own treason. That
some at least of the worst details of the charge were a product of that
“recklessness of tongue” for which the men of the south were notorious,
may with much probability be inferred from the silence of the Aquitanian
chroniclers on this point also. The only comment made by a contemporary
local writer on Richard’s character and conduct during these early years of
storm and stress is a tribute of praise even more impressive, considering the
period and the circumstances in which it was written, than the panegyrics
that were lavished from all quarters upon his later achievements. Geoffrey
of Breuil seems to have been a member of a junior branch of the knightly
family of Breuil in Poitou; his father’s house was at Ste. Marie de
Clairmont, near Excideuil in Périgord. He made his profession as a monk at
S. Martial’s abbey at Limoges in 1160, was ordained priest in 1167, and ten
years later was made Prior of Vigeois in the Limousin. His sketch of
Aquitanian history ends abruptly at the year 1185. In that year he, as he
says, decided to insert in his work “the names of the kings who are ruling
the world in this our age.” After mentioning by name Prester John, the two
Emperors, the kings of Jerusalem, France, England, Scotland, Denmark,
Sicily, Morocco, Spain, and Hungary, he continues: “In the list of the kings
let there be written down the duke of Aquitaine and Gascony, Richard, who
has never been slack in deeds of prowess, and whose youth is distinguished
by great strenuousness of life.”[129]
1179 A cessation of war between duke and barons in Aquitaine was
usually followed by trouble with the mercenary troops who were always
employed by one party or the other, sometimes by both parties, and who

when such employment was lacking fell to raiding on their own account.
This occurred in the summer of 1179 during Richard’s absence in England
after the fall of Taillebourg. Bordeaux was ravaged and burnt by some
“Basques, Navarrese, or Brabantines,” evidently soldiers of this class.[130]
With the barons Richard seems to have had no particular trouble for the
next two years or more. On July 7, 1179, old Count William of Angoulême
and his stepson Aimar of Limoges, “with many others,” set out on a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[131] William died a month later at Messina; Vulgrin,
who had surrendered the city to Richard, thus became head of the family,
but the dignity and authority of count of Angoulême seems to have been
shared between him and his brothers.[132]
The recent humiliation of Vulgrin and the absence of Aimar of Limoges
and his fellow pilgrims may help to account for the fact that the year 1180
is almost a blank in the chronicles of Aquitaine. King Henry’s presence in
Normandy from April 1180 to July 1181 may also have had a pacific effect
throughout all his continental dominions. It is, moreover, probable that
some of the pilgrims had come to an agreement with Richard before 1180
they started; it seems almost certain that Aimar had done so, for when he
returned, in December 1180, he was solemnly welcomed at Limoges on
Christmas Day[133] in a manner which implies that he had been reinstated in
1180 his former position of authority there, and we hear of no further
hostilities between him and Richard for more than six months.[134] We hear
indeed of no further military movements in Aquitaine till after King 1181
Henry’s return to England at the end of July 1181. Then Richard marched
into Gascony and took possession of Lectoure, the chief town of the
viscounty of Lomagne. He was seemingly on his way thence to Dax when
Vézian of Lomagne, in the middle of August, came and submitted himself
to him at S. Sever. Vézian was probably a very young man, for he was not
yet a knight. His submission was not only accepted as frankly as it was
offered, but it was rewarded by the bestowal of knighthood from Richard’s
hand.[135] In November Richard joined his brothers in punishing the count of
Sancerre for his rebellion against the young King Philip of France, whom
Henry had charged his sons to protect and support during his own absence
over-sea.[136]
It was probably in the interval between these two expeditions, to
Gascony and to Sancerre, that a new strife arose in the Angoumois. Count

Vulgrin Taillefer III had died on June 29[137] leaving an only child, a girl
“who,” says Geoffrey of Vigeois, “was the cause of great calamity to her
country.” Richard, as duke, took her into his wardship as heiress of
Angoulême and claimed also the wardship of her land;[138] but her uncles,
1181 William and Aimar, tried to seize their dead brother’s heritage.
Richard drove them out of Angoulême, whereupon they found a refuge at
Limoges with their half-brother, viscount Aimar.[139] It was plain that
Richard would soon be involved in a new war with them and with Aimar of
Limoges; and meanwhile other influences were tending to develope that
war into a general one. The comparative peace of the last eighteen months
was almost ominous; it certainly did not imply contentment on the part of
the barons of Aquitaine. They were all this while writhing under the iron
rule of their young duke; many of them were plotting schemes for “doing
their utmost to drive him out of the duchy of Aquitaine and the county of
Poitou altogether.”[140] Strangely enough, the impulse which at length
brought their plottings to a head seems to have sprung from a private
quarrel between two brothers who did not rank among the great vassals of
the duchy.
The castle of Hautefort, on the border of the Limousin and Périgord, was
the joint patrimony of Constantine and Bertrand de Born. They lived in it
together, but in continual discord, till Constantine drove Bertrand out,
seemingly in the latter part of 1181 or early in 1182. Bertrand, however,
soon made his way back, and expelled Constantine in his turn. Constantine
appealed for help to their immediate feudal superior, the viscount of
Limoges,[141] and also, it seems, to the duke. Both took up his cause; but at
the moment they were at enmity with each other—probably about the
Angoulême succession—so “Richard made war against Aimar, and Richard
and Aimar made war against Bertrand and ravaged and burned his land.”
Constantine was “a good knight as regards fighting”;[142] Bertrand was
1181 something more—“a good knight, and a good fighter, and a good
squire of dames, and a good troubadour, and wise and well-spoken,
knowing how to deal with bad and good—and all his time he was at war
with all his neighbours.”[143] The condition of things described in these last
words was to Bertrand an ideal condition: “I would that the great men
should be always quarrelling among themselves,” he said.[144] It was the
ideal of a typical Aquitanian baron; and that ideal had become much less
easy of realization now that the young duke was master of the land than it

had been while the ducal interests were represented only by a woman or left
in charge of mere seneschals. Bertrand seems to have conceived a project of
so working on the minds of the other malcontents as to band them together
with himself in a conspiracy whose primary and ostensible object was to be
the overthrow of the duke, but which by uniting all its members in a sworn
alliance with each other and therefore with its originator, Bertrand, should
enable him to maintain his position as master of Hautefort. If Aimar of
Limoges could be bound to Bertrand in a sworn league against Richard,
Bertrand would be at once rid of one of his present antagonists, and another
and a greater one would—so at least the allies might hope—soon have his
hands too full of other work to trouble himself further about 1181-2
Hautefort.[145]
Aimar and his three half-brothers,[146] being already banded together
against the duke for the preservation of Angoulême to the male line of
1181-2 Taillefer, were naturally quite ready to embrace Bertrand’s project—
if indeed the project had originated with Bertrand. It seems to have first
taken shape in a meeting at Limoges: “in an ancient minster of S. Martial,”
says Bertrand, “many rich men swore to me on a missal.”[147] They seem to
have sworn that no individual among them should make terms with Richard
for himself independently of his allies.[148] Among the earliest members of
the league thus formed were, besides the brothers of Angoulême and their
half-brother of Limoges, the three other viscounts of the Limousin—
Ventadour, Comborn, and Turenne—the count of Périgord, and William of
Gourdon in Quercy.[149] To these were soon added “other barons of Périgord
and of the Limousin and Quercy whom Richard was disinheriting.”[150] In
one of his most vigorous sirventes Bertrand made a stirring appeal to the
great nobles of Gascony, Gaston of Béarn, Vézian of Lomagne, Bernard of
Armagnac, Peter of Dax, Centol of Bigorre: “if they will it, the count [of
Poitou] will have enough to do in those parts; and then, since he is so
valiant, let him come with his great host this way and measure himself with
us!” The effect of Richard’s repressive measures in Saintonge and in Poitou
are indirectly acknowledged in the poet’s next words: “If Taillebourg and
Pons and Lusignan and Mauléon and Tonnay were fit for action, and if there
were a stirring and stalwart viscount at Sivray, I will never believe that they
would not help us. He of Thouars, too, whom the count has threatened,
should join us if he be not a dastard.”[151] Of Richard’s relations at this
period with Aimeric of Thouars, Ralf of Mauléon, and the lords of Tonnay

and Sivray, we know nothing. The head of the house of Lusignan was that
same Geoffrey who had been a prominent leader in the Poitevin rising of
1181-2 1167, and had also joined in the revolt of 1173. Since then a new
cause of strife had arisen between him and the Angevin rulers of Aquitaine.
At the time when Adalbert of La Marche sold his county, according to his
own statement, there was “no one protesting and indeed no one existing
who had a right to protest” against the sale.[152] But on the actual annexation
of La Marche to the ducal domain Geoffrey of Lusignan “with his
brothers”—he had five—did more than protest; he “resisted, saying that La
Marche belonged to him as heir—and,” adds Geoffrey of Vigeois, “he got
it.”[153] How and when he got it we do not know, but it was probably not
earlier than the autumn of 1182, since Bertrand de Born shortly before that
time evidently did not regard the Lusignans as being in a position to afford
much practical help to the league, and in June of that year Henry was still
sufficiently master of the county to make a peaceful visit to Grandmont for
the third time within sixteen months.[154] Obviously, however, the league
would have the sympathies of the claimant of La Marche and his brothers.
It seems to have also had those of some at least of the towns; “the burghers
are shutting themselves in all round”—that is, rebuilding or strengthening
their town walls—said Bertrand.[155]
Concerted action was, however, so difficult to men accustomed by
lifelong habit to fighting each for his own hand that before the allies were
ready for a simultaneous rising their project seems to have become known
to the duke. On Sunday, April 11, 1182, he “with a few of his people
manfully captured” the Puy-St.-Front, a stronghold which stood in much the
same relation to the city of Périgueux as that of the “castle of S. Martial” to
the city of Limoges. The capture was evidently a surprise, characteristically
planned and executed by Richard on the spur of the moment when 1182
he discovered that Elias of Périgord, with whom he does not seem to have
had any previous trouble, “was favouring his enemies.” He then marched
1182 upon Excideuil and ravaged the Limousin border from that fortress to
Corgnac. By the middle of May the rebel leaders were apparently so
disheartened that they were ready to discuss terms of peace, not indeed with
Richard, but with his father. Soon after Whitsuntide (May 16) the counts of
Angoulême and Périgord and the viscount of Limoges met the king at
Grandmont, but no agreement was reached. Henry then went to support
Richard in the Limousin. Richard suddenly attacked Excideuil, and took the

town, though not the castle; Henry went to St. Yrieix, placed a garrison
there, and then laid siege to Pierre-Buffière, which surrendered after twelve
days. At midsummer he was back at Grandmont. Richard meanwhile had
gone from Excideuil back to Périgueux. It seems that in his absence Elias
had recovered Puy-St.-Front, and this time it was well prepared for defence.
Richard “girded it all round about with a very great host”; in a few days he
was rejoined by his father, and at the end of the month by his elder brother.
The result was that in the first week of July both Elias of Périgord and
Aimar of Limoges submitted. The peace was sworn in S. Augustine’s abbey
at Limoges; Aimar promised that his half-brothers should have no further
help from him, and placed two of his sons in Richard’s hands as hostages;
Elias surrendered Périgueux to the young duke, who thereupon made peace
with him, but took the precaution of destroying all the towers of the city
wall.[156] Twelve months earlier, he had ordered a more complete 1181
destruction of the defences of Limoges. There, the walls of the castle of S.
Martial, which Henry had ordered to be razed thirty years before, had been
hurriedly rebuilt by the burghers during the war of 1174, “lest when peace
was restored the duke should forbid it.”[157] The duke seems to have let them
alone for seven years; it may have been some recent addition to the 1181-2
fortifications which made him issue at midsummer 1181 an order that they
should again be pulled down; and the burghers dared not disobey him.[158]
1181-2 The league seemed to have failed; but its ultimate failure was by
no means assured yet. Two at least of its members were by this time
contemplating, if indeed they had not already taken, steps to win support for
it outside the duchy. Aimar Taillefer offered his homage for Angoulême to
the lord paramount, King Philip of France; Philip accepted the homage, and
thus pledged himself to uphold Aimar in his struggle for the county against
Richard, who was still determined to reclaim it for its late count’s daughter,
Maud.[159] There was another young king in whom, although his 1182
kingship was merely nominal, Bertrand saw a yet more desirable tool for
the purposes of the league. Before young Henry joined his father and
brother at the siege of Puy-St.-Front, he had been “joyfully received” by the
monks of S. Martial’s at Limoges[160]—perhaps not by the monks only. The
careless, easy, shallow disposition of Eleanor’s eldest son was far more in
accord than the energetic temper of Richard with the ideas of the Aquitanian
nobles as to what their duke should be. The policy of setting him up as
Richard’s rival was obvious; and a characteristic action on Richard’s part

helped, most opportunely from Bertrand’s point of view, to stir up the elder
brother’s latent jealousy of the greater independence granted to the younger
one by their father. About half way between Châtelleraut and Poitiers, on
the borders of Anjou and Poitou, there rose out of the champaign land a
certain hill which seems to have struck Richard as being a good site for a
castle. He built a castle on it accordingly, just as the first “great builder” of
the Angevin family, Fulk the Black, had built so many of the fortresses in
1182 the Loire valley, and just as he himself in later days built the last and
greatest of all the fortresses reared by Fulk’s descendants—without regard
to the fact that the site did not belong to him. It really belonged to his
father; but, being in Anjou, it formed part of the territory destined to fall at
his father’s death to the share of the young king.[161] Bertrand seized his
opportunity. “At Clairvaux”—such was the name given, somewhat
inappropriately as it seems, to the new fortress—“a fair castle has been,
without hindrance, built and set in the midst of the fields. I would not that
the young king knew of it or saw it,” ran the troubadour’s sarcastic verse,
“for he would not be pleased therewith; but I fear, so white it is, he will see
it from Matefélon.”[162] The young king seems to have remonstrated with
Richard,[163] but without effect. It is doubtful whether these things took
place before or after his visit to Limoges; the sequence of events in
Aquitaine during the years 1181-2, like that of Bertrand’s sirventes on
which we are largely dependent for our knowledge of those events, is
obscure; but one thing is clear: before Christmas 1182 young Henry was
secretly pledged to the league against his brother.
Outwardly, that league was for a time broken up by the submission of
Aimar of Limoges and Elias of Périgord, and for some months the Taillefer
brothers and their adherents in the Angoumois seem to have been the only
enemies whom Richard had to fight. At the beginning of November he took
from them the castle of Blanzac;[164] and about the same time Chalais was
1182 fortified against him by its lord, Oliver of Castillon.[165] Before
Christmas Richard rejoined his father and brothers in Normandy. He seems
to have taken Bertrand de Born with him; at any rate he and Bertrand were
for a while both at once with the court at Argenton, and to all appearance on
very friendly terms.[166] Most likely, however, their friendliness was on both
sides only external. Bertrand soon afterwards unceremoniously expressed
his opinion that the Norman court, “where there was no gab and laughter
and no giving of presents,” was not worthy to be called a court, and

declared that the dulness and rusticity (“l’enois e la vilania”) of Argenton
would have been the death of him, but for the “good company” of the
duchess of Saxony,[167] Richard’s sister, to whom the troubadour had
(according to his own account) been introduced in a highly complimentary
manner by Richard himself.[168] Bertrand’s own military resources were
small,[169] and he is not likely to have taken any active part in the recent war;
but the earlier sirventes by which he had striven to foment it seem to have
already brought upon him a warning from the duke,[170] and it may have
been a measure of policy on Richard’s part, when he quitted his duchy, to
command or invite the poet to accompany him, and even to be at some
pains to furnish him with a new subject for his verse.
The darkest secrets connected with the league did not come out till after
1182 Christmas. The festival week was spent by the two Henrys, Richard,
and Geoffrey, at Caen.[171] On January 1, 1183, the young king, “of 1183
his own accord, no one compelling him,” publicly took an oath on the
Gospels that he would serve his father loyally and faithfully from that time
forth; “and because—as he asserted—he desired to retain in his mind no
malice or rancour whereby his father might afterwards be offended, he
made known to him that he (young Henry) was bound by an agreement with
the barons of Aquitaine against his brother Richard; having been moved
thereto because the castle of Clairvaux had been built against his will, in the
patrimony which was his rightful inheritance, by his said brother; wherefore
he besought his father to take that castle from Richard and retain it in his
own keeping.” Richard, when admonished by his father on the subject, at
first refused to give up the castle, but afterwards at his father’s desire
“freely made it over to him to dispose of it according to his good
pleasure.”[172]
The question of Clairvaux was thus settled for the lifetime of the elder
king; the settlement was that which the younger one had himself proposed,
and it ought to have led to his immediate withdrawal from his engagements
with Richard’s enemies. But the incident had a further significance which
filled Henry II with dismay. It showed him that on his death not only might
this particular dispute between young Henry and Richard be reopened, but a
crowd of other disputes might arise among all his sons about their feudal
relations with each other, and that unless these relations were fixed
beforehand, all his schemes for preserving the integrity of the Angevin

dominions would probably come to nought. As soon as the festival season
was over he set out with his sons for Anjou. When they reached Le Mans,
he expressed his desire that young Henry, as the future head of the family,
should receive the homage of Richard and Geoffrey for their respective
duchies.[173] It seems that the proposition was made privately to the young
king, and was at least tacitly accepted by him. Accordingly, on arriving at
Angers, Henry II took measures for confirming once for all “a bond of
1183 perpetual peace” between the three brothers. First, each of them
swore to keep his fealty to his father always and against all men, and always
to render to him due honour and service. Next, they all swore that they
would “always keep peace among themselves according to the disposition
made by their father.”[174] Whatever may have been the case with regard to
Geoffrey and Britanny, it appears that Richard, at least, was thus far wholly
unaware that the “disposition” which he was thus pledged to respect
implied any arrangements beyond those which already existed concerning
his tenure of Poitou or of Aquitaine. The elder king now publicly called
upon the younger one to receive Geoffrey’s liege homage for Britanny. To
this neither of the brothers objected, and the homage was duly rendered and
received.[175] Next, the father “used his utmost endeavours that the young
king should grant the duchy of Aquitaine to his brother Richard, to be held
by Richard and his heirs by an undisputable right.”[176] Richard at first
declared he would do no homage to his brother, who was no more than his
equal either in personal distinction or in nobility of birth; but afterwards,
yielding to his father’s counsel,[177] he consented. Thereupon, however, the
young king drew back.[178] He seems to have explained more fully the nature
and extent of his entanglement with the malcontent barons of Aquitaine,
and to have urged that he could not thus desert their cause without a
guarantee that his father would make a settled peace between them and
Richard. The final settlement between the brothers was therefore postponed
till the Aquitanian barons could meet the king and his sons at Mirebeau.
Henry promised that he would then confirm peace on the terms settled in
the preceding summer, or, if this did not satisfy the barons, he would judge
their cause in his own court. Geoffrey of Britanny was sent to invite or
1183 summon the barons to the meeting.[179] With these arrangements
young Henry professed himself content, and he promised that he would, at
Mirebeau, accept Richard’s homage, but on one further condition: that
Richard should, after performing the homage, swear fealty to him on some

holy relics. This last requirement, being a plain insinuation of lack of
confidence in Richard’s honour, was an insult to which Richard could not
submit. He “broke out in a white heat of passion,” and not only again
refused to perform the homage at all, but—so it was said—declared that it
was unmeet for him to acknowledge, by any kind of subjection, a superior
in a brother born of the same parents, and that as their father’s property was
the due heritage of the first-born, so he himself claimed to be, with equal
justice, the lawful successor of their mother.[180] “Leaving nought but insults
and threats behind him” he quitted the court, hurried into his own duchy,
and prepared for defence.[181] His vehemence kindled the wrath of his father,
who hastily bade the young king “rise up and subdue Richard’s pride,” and
sent orders to Geoffrey to “stand faithfully by his eldest brother and liege
lord.”[182]
Neither young Henry nor Geoffrey needed a second bidding. Geoffrey,
sent into Aquitaine as a messenger of peace, had carried thither, as a
contemporary writer says, not peace but a sword. He and his eldest brother
were already in collusion, and instead of executing his father’s commission
to the malcontent barons, he had secretly used the opportunity which that
commission gave him to renew the alliance between them and the young
1183 king, whom they were now eager to set up as duke in Richard’s
stead.[183] At the beginning of February[184] the young king set out for
Limoges; it seems to have been arranged that his father, with a small force,
should travel by another route and join him there later.[185] Geoffrey was
there already; the viscount, Aimar, at once joined them, and endeavoured to
terrify the burghers of the castle into doing likewise. His threats were
emphasized by the neighbourhood of a host of Routiers who seem to have
been secretly engaged to be in readiness for a call from Geoffrey.[186] That
call Geoffrey now gave, and one body of these ruffians, with some of his
own vassals, swooped down from Britanny upon Poitou and began
plundering and burning the demesnes of the count, who retaliated by
making similar raids into Britanny, “and if any man of that troop fell into
his clutches, that man’s head was cut off without respect of persons.”[187]
Another body of Routiers had come up from Gascony under a certain
Raymond “Brunus, or Brenuus” at the call of Aimar, and were with him
engaged on February 12 at Gorre, some few miles south of Limoges, in
besieging a church—probably fortified by the villagers for use as a place of
refuge—when the duke fell suddenly upon them. From a castle somewhere

beyond Poitiers he had ridden for two days almost without stopping; his
force was small, but the enemies were caught at unawares; many of them
were made prisoners; a nephew of their commander, Raymond, was laid
low by Richard’s own hand; Aimar and the rest of the band escaped only
because the horses of the Poitevins were too exhausted for pursuit.[188]
1183 The English chronicler who records Richard’s treatment of the
captured invaders may have been shocked at the indiscriminate ruthlessness
which slew mercenaries and knights all alike; but the Prior of Vigeois
evidently saw nothing more than just retribution in the fate of the
sacrilegious “children of darkness” who were made prisoners at Gorre.
Richard dragged them to Aixe and there “caused some of them to be
drowned in the Vienne, some to be slain with the sword, and the rest to be
blinded.”[189] It was almost a necessity to get rid of these men. The league
was no longer secret; many of the conspirators were delivering up their
castles to the young king.[190] The danger was evident enough to make
Richard send an urgent message to his father asking him to come to the
rescue at once.[191] Henry accordingly advanced towards Limoges. A
watchman on the castle wall cried out that the city folk were bringing up
troops to destroy their rivals of the castle; someone else spread a report that
Geoffrey of Britanny was in great danger outside the walls; the townsfolk
rushed out and began a fierce fight which was with difficulty stopped when
the royal banners were recognized.[192] The king withdrew to Aixe. At night
young Henry—still maintaining a pretence of loyalty—went to his father
and tried to excuse the blunder of the townsfolk; but his excuses were
rejected. “Then, at the viscount’s command, the people swore fealty to the
young king in the church of S. Peter of Carfax.”[193]
All concealment was now flung aside. Walls and ramparts, turrets and
battlements, rose with incredible speed all round Limoges; the material
being of course mostly wood, derived, it seems, from some half dozen or
1183 more churches which castle folk and city folk alike pulled down
without scruple. Another horde of Routiers, hired by the viscounts of
Limoges and Turenne, and commanded by one Sancho “of Sérannes” and
another leader who seems to have adopted the heathen appellation of
Curbaran,[194] appeared at Terrasson in Périgord, crossed the Limousin
frontier, seized Yssandon, and swept across the viscounty of Limoges as far
north as Pierre-Buffière, which they wrested from King Henry’s soldiers

and restored to its rebel owner and to the viscount; thence they went south
again and after an unsuccessful attempt on Brive took up their quarters at
Yssandon. Other “Tartarean legions” poured in from the north, sent by
Philip of France to support the cause of his brother-in-law.[195] If these
Routiers could have been controlled by their employers, Henry and Richard
might probably have been easily surrounded and captured. Nothing of the
kind was, however, attempted. Instead, “the whole assembly of malignants,
gathered together from divers parts,” were left to take their own way and
spread themselves over the whole of Périgord, the Angoumois and
Saintonge; the country was ravished, shrines were plundered, altars
desecrated, and expelled monks fled with the relics of their patron saints as
in the days of the heathen Northmen.[196] Meanwhile King Henry had called
up the feudal forces of his other continental dominions[197] to deal with the
rebels in Limoges. On Shrove Tuesday, March 1, he entered the city, broke
down the bridge behind him, and disposed his forces for a siege of the
town. That siege dragged on till midsummer. Shortly before Easter (March
17) the young king went to secure Angoulême by filling it with “a crowd of
1183 malignants,” hired with the proceeds of a forcible seizure of the
treasures of S. Martial’s Abbey. On account of this sacrilege the town guard
of S. Martial’s castle, when he returned thither, pelted him ignominiously
away;[198] but Aimar and Geoffrey continued to hold the place.[199]
Richard had accompanied his father to the siege,[200] but soon left it for
more active work. He set himself to recover Saintonge and the Angoumois
from the Routiers and the rebels; and he seems to have not only succeeded
in this, but to have chased the marauders out of Saintonge northward across
western Poitou right over the frontier of Britanny.[201] This campaign,
ignored by the chroniclers, won for him a striking tribute from his most
determined enemy; Bertrand de Born, composing a sirventes in behalf of
the league and actually at the request of the young king, could not refrain
from expressing his admiration for the courage and persistence of the count
of Poitou. “When this game is played out we shall know which of the king’s
sons is to have the land. The young king would have soon conquered it if
the count were not so well practised at the game; but he shuts them (his
enemies) in so fast and presses them so hard that he has recovered
Saintonge by force, and delivered the Angoumois as far as the border of
Finisterre.... Hunted and wounded wild boar saw we never more furious
1183 than he is, yet he never swerves from his course.”[202] On the other

hand, two of the most powerful feudataries of the French Crown, the duke
of Burgundy and the count of Toulouse, had by this time definitely pledged
themselves to the league. Both of them met young Henry at Uzerche on
May 24 and brought reinforcements to his cause.[203] Bertrand’s boast that
the war begun in the Limousin should involve France, Normandy and
Flanders before it was ended[204] might yet have been fulfilled, but for an
unexpected catastrophe: early in June young Henry fell sick, and on the
11th he died.[205]
Almost instantly the league fell asunder. The object which its non-
Aquitanian members had in view was to break the power of Henry II; they
had found a priceless tool for their purpose in his eldest son, who, being
like himself a crowned and anointed king, could be set up as a rival head of
the Angevin house; the Aquitanian revolt had offered a promising
opportunity for using that tool to their advantage. When young Henry was
gone, their purpose in joining the league was ruined; the internal quarrels of
Aquitaine and its rulers had no interest for them. Accordingly Hugh of
Burgundy and Raymond of Toulouse “hurried away after their own affairs”;
[206]
and instead of the great coalition which was to have ringed in the
Angevins from the Pyrenees to the Channel, Henry and Richard had now
only to face the enfeebled remains of a local revolt. The news came to
Richard when he was besieging Aixe, which young Henry had seized a few
weeks before.[207] The king, when the first shock of grief was over, resumed
the siege of Limoges; Geoffrey seems to have slipped away to Britanny;
once more, on Midsummer day, Aimar surrendered the town and renounced
all dealings with his brothers of Angoulême “till they should deserve grace
of the king and the duke”; and once more the new fortifications were
levelled to the ground.[208] For what remained to be done Henry’s presence
1183 was needless. At the end of the month he went back to his northern
dominions, while Alfonso of Aragon joined Richard in laying siege to
Hautefort. In a week (June 30-July 6) Bertrand de Born was forced to
surrender it; and a punitive harrying of Périgord by Richard brought the
revolt to an end.[209]
Brief as the war had been, it was not without results. A few at least of the
insurgent barons had made their profit out of the general confusion. It must
have been during this time that the Lusignans gained a hold on La Marche
which they never entirely lost. Richard’s efforts to establish Maud as

countess of Angoulême may have been continued for a while longer, but
they were doomed to fail sooner or later by reason of Philip’s grant of the
city to the rival claimant. Bertrand de Born, in spite of the warning given
him some months before by the duke himself, had persisted in his defiance
to the uttermost. He was captured with his castle, brought before his
conqueror, and compelled to resign his claim to its ownership.[210] He
implored the duke’s mercy, and Richard at once granted him his full
forgiveness,[211] but gave back Hautefort to Constantine.[212] This decision,
however, was reversed by King Henry,[213] probably on an appeal from the
troubadour. Richard appears to have acquiesced without difficulty in his
father’s decision on the point;[214] and Richard, not Henry, was destined to
reap its results. Bertrand had already declared that if the duke would be
gracious and generous to him he should find him as true as steel,[215] and he
kept his word; for he perceived that his talents for fighting, and for setting
others to fight, might after all be exercised not less actively, and with less
danger of disastrous consequences to himself, on the side of the duke than
on that of the duke’s enemies.

CHAPTER III
KING HENRY’S HEIR

1183-1189

Et vos, patres, nolite in iracundiam provocare filios vestros.
1183
It was into the life of Richard himself that his brother’s death
brought the most important change. He was now the eldest son of Henry II,
heir to the headship of the houses of Anjou and Normandy and to the crown
of England. Some re-adjustment of his feudal relations both with his father
and with the King of France would seem to be a probable consequence of
this change in his prospects. Henry was not likely to repeat the mistake
which he had made thirteen years before in crowning his heir; but Richard
might naturally expect that the other measures which had been taken to
secure the Angevin and Norman heritages for young Henry would be
renewed in his own behalf. He was evidently quite unprepared for the step
which his father actually took. In September or October Henry summoned
him to Normandy, and on his arrival “bade him grant the duchy of
Aquitaine to his brother John and receive John’s homage for it.”[216]
In all Henry’s plans for the future of his dynasty there was assumed a
fundamental principle, implied rather than expressed, because (to him at
least) too self-evident to need expression: that the territories which he had
inherited from his parents, Anjou, Normandy, and England, must remain
united under the direct control of the head of the family. Any deviation from
this principle would, he saw, endanger the stability of the Angevin
dominion, for it would be a breaking-up of the foundation on which that
1183 dominion was based. The devolution of Aquitaine and of Britanny to
junior branches of the Angevin house, under the overlordship of its head,
would not involve the same danger; and thus after his agreement with
Conan of Britanny in 1166 Henry had ready to his hand the means of
making a fair and substantial provision for two younger sons; but when a
fourth son was born, he saw so little chance of being able to provide for the
child on anything like the same scale that he at once called him “John
Lackland,” and, it seems, placed him when little more than a twelvemonth
old as an oblate in the abbey of Fontevraud.[217] At the age of six years,

however, if not sooner, John was brought back to his father’s court, and in
the next ten years scheme after scheme for his future was planned by Henry,
but without success. Now at last, just when John had reached an age at
which he must have begun to feel keenly the difference between his
prospects and those of Richard and Geoffrey, the death of the eldest brother
opened a possible way—possible at least in Henry’s eyes—for redressing
this inequality. We cannot tell what was the precise form of the proposition
made by Henry to Richard; but if the report of it given by a contemporary
English chronicler be correct, it clearly involved a tacit, if not an explicit,
recognition of Richard as heir to the headship of the royal house of England
and Anjou, and, as such, to the overlordship of the whole of the Angevin
dominions, including Aquitaine. The chronicler’s words do not, on the other
hand, necessarily or even probably imply that Henry contemplated an
immediate transfer of the fief which he desired Richard to “grant” to John.
John was not yet seventeen; he seems to have been brought up partly in
England, partly in Normandy; it would have been sheer madness to think of
setting him to take the command of affairs in a country which the united
energies of Richard and of Henry himself scarcely sufficed to keep under
1183 control. In all likelihood the settlement which the king desired to
make had reference, like that of 1169, wholly to the future, and was
designed to confirm the earlier settlement, only with a change of persons; as
Richard must take the place of the dead Henry, John was to take the place of
Richard.
The execution of this project required the consent of two persons:
Richard and the King of France. Richard’s consent proved harder to win
than Henry seems to have expected. There was a fundamental though
unexpressed difference between the views taken by the father and the son of
the place actually held by the son in Aquitaine. Henry’s intention apparently
had been from the outset, and was still, that Aquitaine should during his
own lifetime be governed by his son—whether Richard or John—as his
representative, and after his death should become an underfief of the
Angevin dominion—as Britanny already was—in the hands of that same
son and his heirs. Unluckily he had allowed one part of this intention to be
obscured, and in practice well-nigh defeated, by his anxiety to secure the
fulfilment of the other part. From Henry’s point of view, Richard in 1183
was simply his homager for the county of Poitou, his lieutenant over the
rest of the duchy, heir to the whole of it when he himself should die, and,

after young Henry’s death, heir also to the headship of the royal house of
England, Normandy and Anjou. But Richard could, and did in effect, claim
to be already duke of Aquitaine in his own right, by virtue of his homage to
France and his investiture at Limoges. Moreover, Eleanor’s duchy held a
different place in the estimation of her son—the son who from his infancy
had been her recognized heir—from that which it held in the estimation of
her husband. Henry looked upon it as a mere appendage to his ancestral
territories; Richard looked upon it as his own especial possession, and a
possession which ought to rank in the future, as it always had ranked in the
past, on a footing of equality with them. The same feeling which made
Henry shrink from reducing the heritage of Geoffrey Plantagenet or that of
Maud of Normandy to the position of an underfief would make Richard
1183 shrink from contemplating a like alteration in the status of the
heritage of his mother. The tragedy of the last summer and the sudden
change in his own prospects had so far chastened his impetuous temper that
he did not at once refuse his father’s demand, but asked for two or three
days delay that he might consult with friends before giving a reply. Then he
withdrew from the court; at nightfall he mounted his horse, and rode
southward with all speed, sending word to his father that “he would never
grant Poitou to be held by anyone but himself.”[218]
At the Christmas feast, which he kept at Talmont—a favourite hunting
seat of the Poitevin counts, on the coast near La Rochelle—Richard
“showed himself lavish in the distribution of gifts.”[219] Some of these were
probably rewards to vassals who had kept their allegiance during the recent
war; others may have purchased the withdrawal from the country, or the
permanent enlistment under the ducal banner, of some of the mercenary
leaders whom it was needful to dispose of in one way or the other, if the
ducal government was to be carried on at all. The various bands of Routiers,
left suddenly without employers by the submission of Aimar of Limoges,
the death of young Henry, and the collapse of the league, had scattered in all
directions. Raymond “the Brown” seemingly went into the Angoumois; on
August 10 (1183) he was slain at Châteauneuf.[220] One large body under
Curbaran swept across Berry into the Orléanais, only to be almost destroyed
at Châteaudun on July 30 by the “Peace-makers,” a sworn brotherhood
formed among the country folk to resist the marauders and restore peace to
the land.[221] Curbaran himself was among the prisoners, who were all
hanged.[222] Sancho was still in the Limousin with his followers; and

Curbaran’s place seems to have been taken by a man who in the “tongue of
1183 oc” bore the name of “Lo Bar,”[223] a name which, transmuted by
northern speakers into “Louvrekaire” or “Lupicar,” was in later days to be
closely associated with the last struggle of the Angevins to keep their hold
on Normandy. The privilege of private warfare, which was the most 1183-4
cherished birthright of the barons of Aquitaine, enabled Aimar of Limoges
to supply Lobar and Sancho and “a countless host” with occupation which
they supplemented by harrying monasteries from Yssandon to Orleans, and
ravaging “the king of England’s lands” in the Limousin and La Marche.
Richard evidently suspected, perhaps knew, that in this last matter the hand
of Aimar was with them. It is at this juncture that the most famous of all the
Routiers of the period, Mercadier, first appears in Richard’s service. “Under
the protection of the duke Mercadier and his troop dashed across Aimar’s
territory, and on the first day of the second week of Lent (1184) 1184
cruelly ravaged the town of Excideuil and its suburbs” are almost the last
words that have come down to us from the chronicler who thus far has been
our chief authority for the history of Aquitaine under duke Richard.[224]
Henry meanwhile had come to an agreement with the king of France
which was likely to have an important influence on the future of Richard
and of his duchy. On December 6, 1183, the two kings held a 1183
conference, and Henry did a thing which he had never before consented to
do: he did homage to Philip for “all his territories on the French side of the
sea.”[225] Philip’s acceptance of this homage constituted a legal recognition
on his part, as lord paramount, of Henry as—among other things—duke of
Aquitaine. The kings then proceeded to make a new settlement about the
dowry of young Henry’s widow. As she was childless, that portion of it
which was in the hands of her father-in-law—Gisors and the rest of the
Norman Vexin—legally reverted to France on her husband’s death. Philip,
however, in consideration of an annuity to be paid by Henry to Margaret,
“quit-claimed Gisors to the English king, so that he might give it to
1183 whichever of his sons he should choose, with the French king’s other
sister,” Aloysia.[226] Henry evidently hoped to keep Aloysia and her dowry
by substituting John for Richard as her bridegroom, and thus to facilitate the
winning of Philip’s assent to the further substitution of John for Richard as
heir of Aquitaine. Richard was probably quite willing to relinquish 1183-4
his personal claim upon Aloysia; there is no indication that he had ever
cared for her; and on the other hand there are indications that about this

time he formed an attachment to another maiden of royal birth, Berengaria
of Navarre.[227] On the subject of Aquitaine, however, he was immoveable.
In vain Henry alternately besought and commanded him to grant “if not the
whole of Aquitaine, at least a part of it,” to John. Richard’s answer was
always the same: never, so long as he lived, would he give any part of the
duchy to anyone. At last, in a burst of anger, Henry gave John leave 1184
to “lead an army into Richard’s land and get what he wanted from his
brother by fighting him.”[228] The words were probably uttered without
thought of their consequences, in a fit of ungovernable impatience at
Richard’s obduracy; but John was quite ready to take them literally, and
knew that his next brother, Geoffrey—who had been formally reconciled to
his father and to Richard in July 1183[229]—both could and would supply
him with means for his purpose. No sooner had the king returned to
England in June 1184 than Geoffrey and John collected “a great host” and
marched plundering and burning into Richard’s land. Henry, when he
learned what was going on, peremptorily summoned all the three to
England, brought them to a public reconciliation in November, and then
sought to dispose for a while of Geoffrey where he could make no further
1184 mischief between the two others, by sending him, not back to
Britanny, but to Normandy, as a nominal assistant to the officers who were
in charge of that duchy.[230] It was not till after Christmas that 1185
Richard received permission to return to Poitou. He crossed from Dover to
Wissant;[231] whether on his way through Normandy and Anjou he met
Geoffrey—who was certainly the evil genius of the family—and what may
have passed between them if he did, we know not; we only know that on
April 16 Henry himself went back to Normandy, and straightway “gathered
a great host to subdue his son Richard, who had fortified Poitou against him
and attacked his brother Geoffrey, contrary to the king’s prohibition.”[232]
Henry’s military preparations were in reality only a part of a new scheme
which he had devised for making Richard surrender Poitou. In the 1184
preceding June (1184) Queen Eleanor, after eleven years of captivity, had
been released by her husband’s order and permitted to join their eldest
daughter and her husband the duke of Saxony, now for the second 1185
time driven into exile.[233] At the end of April (1185) Henry sent for her, and
also for their daughter and son-in-law, to join him in Normandy; “and when
they arrived, he sent instructions to his son Richard that he should without
delay surrender the whole of Poitou with its appurtenances to his mother

Queen Eleanor, because it was her heritage; and he added that if Richard in
any way delayed to fulfil this command, he was to know for certain that the
queen his mother would make it her own business to ravage the land with a
great host. And Richard, when he had heard his father’s command, yielded
to the wholesome advice of his friends; and laying down the arms of
iniquity, returned with all meekness to his father, and surrendered all
Poitou, with his castles and fortresses, to his mother.”[234]
Henry’s scheme seemed to be on the verge of success. Richard had at last
been induced to surrender, nominally to his mother, but practically to his
father—for Eleanor was clearly a mere cipher in the matter—the fief for
1185 which he was his father’s homager, and which was the material basis
of the ducal power over all Aquitaine; he had set his father free to make a
new grant of that fief to whomsoever he would. If a grant of it were made to
John, with the sanction of the lord paramount, Richard would soon be
unable to stand his ground in the duchy, should he even attempt to do so.
For the time being Richard was utterly passive. It was his nature to do
nothing by halves, and his submission seems to have been as whole-hearted
as his defiance had been; “he remained,” says an English chronicler with
evident admiration, “with his father as an obedient son.”[235] Henry kept him
in suspense for eleven months. Then, on March 10, 1186, the two 1186
kings held another conference, and the treaty made in December 1183 was
confirmed, but with a modification of one article. In 1184 Henry had either
made overtures, or readily accepted overtures made to him, for a marriage
between Richard and a daughter of the Emperor;[236] but the maiden had
died before the end of the year.[237] This project had been succeeded by
another whose originator is most likely to have been Richard himself; it can
hardly have been at any other time than during his brief period of freedom
from his engagement to Aloysia that he received a promise of Berengaria’s
1186 hand from her father, King Sancho.[238] His inclination, however, was
overridden by his father’s imperious will and by the exigencies of the
family policy. If Philip knew or suspected anything of Henry’s projects for
John, he was probably keen-witted enough to perceive their futility and to
prefer running no risk of a family alliance with a Lackland. On the other
hand, the retention of Aloysia’s dower-lands was a matter of interest to
Henry’s heir as well as to Henry himself. The sequel was to show that
Henry had no real intention of marrying Aloysia to either of his sons; he
may therefore have privately intimated to Richard that the sacrifice now

required of him was only temporary. At any rate, in the treaty with Philip as
ratified on March 10, 1186, it was distinctly stated that Aloysia and 1186
her dowry, the Vexin, were to be given to the bridegroom for whom she had
been originally destined, Richard.[239]
An agreement with France was at that moment especially important for
Henry because he was anxious to return to England. He began his
preparations for departure over sea by making some changes in the custody
of his various demesne lands and castles;[240] in particular, he appointed new
castellans of his own choosing to the charge of the principal fortresses of
Aquitaine. It was hardly possible for Richard not to feel hurt by this
measure, “yet his father met with no complaint from him.”[241] Suddenly the
king again changed his mind, or at least his policy. We cannot tell whether
he was moved by Richard’s unwonted meekness, or whether some
unrecorded occurrence opened his eyes to a fact which in all likelihood
Richard’s southern counsellors, when they advised the young duke to
accede to his father’s demand, foresaw would be made manifest ere long:
the fact that Richard was the only person who could preserve anything like
administrative order and political security in Aquitaine when Henry himself
was out of reach. We only know that at the end of April the king “entrusted
to his son Richard an infinite sum of money, bidding him go and subdue his
enemies under him,” and then himself sailed for England, taking the queen
with him.[242]
1186 Richard’s surrender of Poitou was thus practically annulled. It may
have been merely verbal, so that no formal act was necessary to reinstate
him as count. The particular enemies whom he was to subdue are not
named, but it seems plain that the chief of them was Raymond of Toulouse;
for Richard “straightway departing (from Normandy) collected a great
multitude of knights and foot-soldiers, with which he invaded the lands of
the count of S. Gilles and not only ravaged, but conquered, the greater part
of them.”[243] Geography suggests that the part of Raymond’s lands which
Richard “conquered” at this time was probably the northern part, that is, the
Quercy, where Richard as suzerain had already had to chastise more than
one of Raymond’s subfeudataries; and this inference is strengthened by
later indications. Raymond, helpless before the sudden violence of the
duke’s onset, fled from place to place and despatched messenger after
messenger to their common overlord, King Philip, imploring succour from

France. Philip, however, was just then in no mind to quarrel openly with the
king of England or his son; it suited him better to plot secretly with one of
the younger sons against the father and the eldest son, and this was what he
was actually doing with Geoffrey when in August their plotting was cut
short by Geoffrey’s death.[244] A question at once arose whether Henry, the
immediate overlord of Britanny, or Philip, the lord paramount, should be
guardian of Geoffrey’s child. An embassy sent from England to treat with
Philip on this subject met with a very uncivil reception, and went back
accompanied by two French knights charged with a message to Henry that
he must expect no security from attack in Normandy unless Count Richard
of Poitou ceased to molest the count of S. Gilles.[245] What Raymond had
done to excite the wrath of both Henry and Richard we are not told, but it is
clear that Henry did not disapprove Richard’s proceedings; he made no
attempt to check them, and did not return to Normandy till 1187
February of the next year. Richard met him at Aumale, and accompanied
1187 him on Low Sunday, April 5, to a conference with Philip “from
which they withdrew without hope of peace or concord, on account of the
intolerable demands made by the king of France.”[246] These demands were,
first, that he should receive Richard’s homage for the county of Poitou;[247]
and secondly, that Aloysia and her dowry, Gisors, should be restored to
France.[248]
However “intolerable” these demands might be to Henry, they were in
themselves not unreasonable. Richard seems to have been personally not
unwilling to comply with the first condition; he had when a boy been made
to do homage to Louis VII, and probably saw no reason for not doing the
same to Louis’s successor. Henry, however, was resolved that the homage
should not be done, and while ostensibly leaving the matter in Richard’s
hands, made him put it off from day to day.[249] The second condition was a
natural consequence of the fact that although more than twelve months had
passed since the explicit renewal of Richard’s engagement to Aloysia, there
was still no sign of any preparations for their marriage. On this point Henry
and Richard were probably at one. At a somewhat later time a horrible
reason was assigned—seemingly by persons whose testimony had weight
enough to carry conviction to both Richard and Philip—for Henry’s
obstinate non-compliance with Philip’s demands for either Aloysia’s
marriage or the restoration of her person together with her dowry. As yet,
however, Richard at least evidently did not suspect his father of being

actuated by any worse motives than, as regards the former alternative,
consideration for Richard’s own disinclination to make Aloysia his wife;
and as regards the latter alternative, a reluctance, which Richard himself
could not but share, to loose the Angevin hold on Gisors.
Seeing that he could get no satisfaction by negotiation, Philip prepared
for war. Marching from the French part of Berry into the Aquitanian part, he
seized Issoudun and Graçay and advanced upon Châteauroux.[250] It is
1187 doubtful whether Henry and Richard set out together to check him,
or whether Henry sent forward Richard and John, each at the head of a body
of troops, to defend Châteauroux till he himself could join them.[251] At any
rate, by midsummer the combined action of father and sons had caused
Philip to raise the siege and decide upon trying his fortune against them in
the open field. On the eve of S. John the two armies were drawn up facing
each other in battle array, ready to engage next morning. At the last
moment, however, the kings made a truce and withdrew each to his own
domains. Two English authorities assign the most important part in the
preliminary negotiations to Richard. According to Gervase of Canterbury
the first overtures came from the French side, and were addressed to the
count of Poitou; Count Philip of Flanders contrived to get speech with him
and urged upon him the importance, for his own future interest, of making a
friend of the king of France; after some discussion Richard followed
Flanders back through the French lines to the tent of Philip Augustus, held a
long private colloquy with him, and “at length returned, with his mind at
rest, to his own comrades in arms.” He had gone without his father’s
knowledge; Henry, when he heard of the incident, “suspected that it meant
treachery, not peace,” and sent a request to some of the French nobles that
they would come and confer with himself. They complied; he
commissioned them to ask Philip for a truce of two years, on the plea of a
vow of Crusade; Philip consented, but when his consent was announced
Henry declared he had changed his mind—he would have no truce. Philip
on hearing this ordered an attack at break of day. Henry grew alarmed; the
midsummer daybreak was very near, for it was already past midnight, when
he hurriedly called his son. “What shall we do? what counsel dost thou give
me?” “What counsel can I give,” said Richard, “when thou hast refused the
truce which yesterday thou desiredst? We cannot ask for it again now
without great shame.” Moved, however, by his father’s evident distress, he
offered to face the shame. He went; he found Philip already armed for

1187 battle; bare-headed he knelt before him, offered him his sword, and
begged him for a truce, promising that if Henry should break it in any way
he, Count Richard, would submit his own person in Paris to the judgement
of the French king. On this condition Philip gave a reluctant consent to the
truce.[252] Gerald of Wales, on the other hand, represents the first advances
as having been made by Henry in a letter to Philip proposing peace on the
following terms: that Aloysia should be given in marriage to John, with the
counties of Poitou and Anjou and all the other territories held by Henry of
the French king, except Normandy, which was to remain united to England
as the heritage of the eldest son. Philip sent the letter to Richard, who, when
he had mastered its contents, was naturally moved to deep indignation on
learning that his father was thus scheming to deprive him of the larger part
of his heritage at a time when they were actually in camp together and he
was loyally fulfilling his duties as vassal and son. Caring no longer to fight
for his father against Philip, he seized an opportunity which presented itself
at the moment to bring about a truce.[253]
Neither of these two accounts seems to imply that Richard at
Châteauroux acted otherwise than loyally and in good faith towards his
father. In one of them, however, the father is distinctly charged with plotting
behind his son’s back to deprive him of half his inheritance. The proposal
which Henry is said to have made to Philip is indeed utterly at variance
with the policy implied in all his previous arrangements for the future of his
dynasty; it is a proposal to disintegrate the foundations of the edifice which
he had been building up all his life, by putting asunder what the marriage of
his parents had joined together, Anjou and Normandy. We are not told
whether it provided that John should hold his share of the Angevin
territories under his brother’s overlordship, or not. If it did, its fulfilment
would have reduced the original Angevin patrimony to the rank of a mere
1187 underfief; if not, the scheme would seem to imply nothing short of a
deliberate intention on Henry’s part of rending in twain with his own hands
the dominion which he had been for thirty years labouring to weld together
into a solid whole. Yet that Henry would, if he could, willingly have gone as
far as this or even farther, in his infatuated partiality for John, seems to be
the only possible explanation of his attitude, or rather of his endless shifts
and changes of attitude, towards both Richard and Philip through the six
years which followed the death of the young king. When the end came, he
himself summed up the tragic story of those years in one significant

sentence: “For the sake of John’s advancement I have brought upon me all
these ills.”[254] His paternal affection had been concentrated mainly upon
two of his sons, the eldest and the youngest; after young Henry’s death it
was concentrated upon John alone; Richard, though of all the four he was
certainly the least unworthy, seems never to have enjoyed more than a
comparatively small share of it. The story of the letter may have been a
fiction, or the letter may have been a forgery; but whether the falsehood—if
there be one—were Gerald’s or Philip’s, it was a lie which was half a truth.
The formal terms of the truce—which was to last for two years[255]—were
arranged by the papal legate then resident in France, and some other men of
religion[256] acting “on the orders of the Pope and the advice of the faithful
men of both kings.”[257] When the agreement was signed, the French king,
“by way of shewing to all men that concord was attained,” invited Richard
to accompany him to Paris. Richard accepted the invitation;[258] and he
stayed so long, and—so at least it was reported—on terms of such close and
affectionate intimacy with Philip that Henry “marvelled what this might
be,” and delayed his intended journey to England “till he should know what
1187 would be the outcome of this sudden friendship” between his
overlord and his son.[259] He sent messenger after messenger to call Richard
back, promising “to do all that might be justly required of him.” Richard
answered that he was coming, but instead of doing so he went to Chinon,
where the treasure of Anjou was kept; in spite of the treasurer’s opposition
he carried off “all the treasure that he found there”—which indeed is not
likely to have been much—proceeded with it into Poitou, and there used it
to fortify or revictual his castles. His contumacy, however, as usual, did not
last long. His father “ceased not to send messengers to him till they brought
him back; and when he came, he submitted to his father in all things and
was penitent for having consented to the evil counsels of those who strove
to sow discord between them. So they came both together to Angers; and
there the son became his father’s obedient man, and swore on the holy
Gospels, before many witnesses, fealty to him against all men; and he
swore also that he would not go against his father’s counsel.”[260]
Early in November Richard was at, or near, Tours, when suddenly the
tidings of an event which had occurred in Holy Land four months before
changed the whole current of his aspirations and desires. On July 7 the
Saracens under Saladin had won a great victory at Hattin over the Latin

king of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, and captured not only Guy himself,
but also the most sacred relic in all Christendom, the relic of the Holy
Cross. This news arrived in France about the end of October or beginning of
November.[261] It came to Richard’s ears—so the story goes—one evening;
his resolve was made at once and with his whole heart; early next morning
he received the Cross from the hand of Archbishop Bartholomew.[262] When
Henry, who seems to have been in Normandy, was informed of his son’s
action, he appeared exceedingly perturbed, and for several days would
1187 scarcely see anyone.[263] Not a word of comment on the matter,
however, passed his lips till Richard rejoined him. Then, after a few days,
he said: “Thou shouldst by no means have undertaken so weighty a
business without consulting me. Nevertheless, I will not oppose thy pious
design, but will so further it that thou mayest fulfill it right well.”[264] Philip
on the other hand was quick to seize the opportunity for bringing up again
the matter of Gisors and Aloysia. That Aloysia’s plighted bridegroom
should betake himself to far-off Holy Land while that question was still
unsettled was a thing not to be tolerated; so Philip “gathered a great host”
and threatened that he would harry all the English king’s lands on the
French side of the sea unless either Gisors were surrendered or Richard
married to Aloysia without more ado. Henry, on hearing this, hurried back
from the Norman coast to the border for a meeting with Philip at 1188
Hilary-tide (1188).[265] Their conference was interrupted by the arrival of the
Archbishop of Tyre, who had come to Europe to plead as only one who had
personal knowledge of the state of affairs in Holy Land could plead, for a
Crusade to check the advance of Saladin. Carried away by his appeal, both
kings took the Cross[266] and separated to prepare for the enterprise on which
they agreed to set out together at the next Easter twelvemonth; that is,
Easter 1190.[267]
Whether Richard had been present at the conference does not appear; he
was, however, at Le Mans with his father a few days afterwards, when
Henry issued the ordinance for the “Saladin tithe” to raise money for the
1188 Crusade.[268] The kings might require a delay of fifteen months to
make their preparations; but the count of Poitou had no mind to be so long
detained from fulfilling his vow. He now came to his father with two
requests. First, he begged that the king would either lend him money for his
expedition on the security of the county of Poitou, or would give him leave
to raise the needful sum by pledging that county to some safe and

trustworthy man known to be loyal to both father and son, and would
confirm the transaction by a royal charter. Secondly, he prayed that
“forasmuch as the journey that lay before him was long and perilous, lest
aught should be maliciously plotted to his disadvantage during such a
lengthy absence” he might be permitted to receive the fealty of the nobles
of England and of Henry’s continental lands, “saving in all things the fealty
due to his father.” To the former of these requests Henry answered that his
son should go to Palestine with him; they would have in common all things
needful for their journey, and “nought should separate them but death.” No
answer could Richard get but this, which in regard to his second request
was tantamount to a refusal.[269] Yet he had asked nothing beyond what was
natural and reasonable; nothing, indeed, beyond what he might have fairly
expected to receive without needing to ask for it. A public confirmation of
the rights of King Henry’s eldest surviving son as heir to the crown of
England and to the headship of the house of Anjou, such as would
safeguard those rights until the son’s return from Holy Land in case the
father should die before the Crusade was over, was a measure of obvious
prudence not merely for the personal interest of the heir but also for the
security of the Angevin dominion as a whole. Henry’s obstinate silence
when the measure was suggested to him was one more indication that his
sense of right and his care for the future of his house were both alike
obscured by his infatuation for John. Richard understood it only too well,
and “finding that he could get no other answer, he departed from his father
in heart as well as in body.”[270]
1188 No considerations either of policy or of self-interest, however, had
any influence on his resolve to fulfil his vow without delay. While his father
returned to England,[271] he hurried back to Poitou, sent messengers to his
brother-in-law, King William of Sicily, to expedite arrangements for the
equipment of the ships needful for his voyage, and busied himself with
preparations for setting out in the coming summer.[272] But his plans were
checked by a new outbreak of revolt. Geoffrey of Lusignan, it is said, laid
an ambush for one of Richard’s most intimate friends and treacherously put
him to death. Richard of course marched against Geoffrey, and punished
him by taking several of his castles and slaughtering a number of his men,
only those being spared who purchased their lives by taking the Cross.[273]
Geoffrey’s outrage proved to be part of a concerted rising which ran what
had now become the ordinary course of an Aquitanian revolt. The rebels,

headed as usual by Aimar of Angoulême and Geoffrey of Rancogne, harried
the domains of the count of Poitou, and the count retaliated by overrunning
their lands, capturing and destroying their castles, burning and wasting their
farms and orchards, till he had once more subdued them to his will.[274] The
leaders took refuge in Taillebourg, and there they were surrounded by
Richard’s forces. The damage inflicted by him on that famous stronghold in
1179 had doubtless been long ago repaired; but this time the siege lasted
only a few days, though the place was occupied by “more than seventy
picked men of might.” They surrendered on the only condition which
Richard would grant—that every one of them should join him in his
Crusade.[275] This was an excellent practical expedient for increasing the
force which he hoped to lead to Palestine, and at the same time withdrawing
from Aquitaine the men who were most likely to cause a disturbance if left
there during his absence.
But behind the revolt lay graver complications. It was rumoured that
1188 King Henry, in the hope of compelling his son to abandon his
project, had not only stirred up Geoffrey of Lusignan and the other rebels
and secretly furnished them with help and money, but had also instigated
Raymond of Toulouse to join them against Richard.[276] However this may
be, Raymond did, while Richard was busy quelling the revolt in Saintonge,
capture “certain merchants from Richard’s land” who were travelling
through the land of Toulouse; some of them he imprisoned, some he blinded
and mutilated, some he put to death.[277] On hearing of this Richard, after
again destroying the defences of Taillebourg,[278] marched into Gascony and
there collected a great force of Brabantines with which he invaded the
county of Toulouse.[279] In a short time he took Moissac and several other
castles of Raymond’s, harried all the northern part of the county with fire
and sword,[280] and captured, among many other prisoners, a certain intimate
friend of Raymond’s, Peter Seilun, who had long been Richard’s enemy and
is said to have instigated the imprisonment of the Poitevin merchants.
Richard placed this man in close and harsh confinement and refused all
Raymond’s offers of ransom for him. Raymond now began a system of
treacherous warfare against Richard, laying ambushes for him and his
soldiers, and setting men on the watch, in towns and castles, to seize
anybody who belonged to the following of either Richard or Henry. By this
means two knights of Henry’s household, who had been on pilgrimage to
1188 Compostella and for some reason or other went round by Toulouse

on their way home, were captured and imprisoned. After a while Raymond
let one of them go—seemingly on parole—to Richard with a message that
both should be set free, if Richard would liberate Peter Seilun in exchange.
Richard, however, on learning that they had been captured when pilgrims,
declared that “no prayers and no price” should make him a party to such a
transaction; “it would be an intolerable offence against God and His holy
Apostle S. James, were he to give a ransom for men whose character of
pilgrims was in itself sufficient to entitle them to their freedom.”[281]
Meanwhile Raymond had complained to Philip Augustus of Richard’s
invasion of Toulouse, as being a breach of the agreement made between the
two kings when they took the Cross, that no interference with each other’s
lands should take place till after the Crusade.[282] Philip appears to have
gone “into those parts” in person, hoping to pacify the belligerents; and to
him the captive knights, finding they could get no help from Richard, told
their story. Philip seemingly regarded the matter in the same light as
Richard; he bade Raymond release them “not for love of the king of
England or of Count Richard, but out of love and reverence for S. James.”
Raymond, however, still insisted on the condition which he had originally
demanded. “Then the French king, seeing he could make no peace or
agreement between the two counts, inflamed with wrath and mortal hatred
against each other, returned to France.” He, however, so far took
Raymond’s part as to send messengers over sea to Henry, complaining of
Richard’s doings in Toulouse, and asking the English king to make amends
for them; to which Henry merely answered “that it was not by his counsel
or desire that his son had done any of these things, and that he could not
justify him.”[283]
Whatever may have been Henry’s real share—if indeed he had any real
share at all—in the origin of the quarrel, matters had by this time reached a
pass at which his personal sympathies could hardly fail to be on the side of
1188 his son. Richard had taken no less than seventeen castles in the
territory of Toulouse,[284] and was almost at the gates of its capital city—that
famous city which both he and his father had always longed to call their
own, and of which he still considered himself the rightful owner as being
through his mother the legal representative of Count William IV—and was
actually preparing to lay siege to it.[285] Both Raymond and Philip were so
much alarmed that Philip, at Raymond’s entreaty, sent envoys to the invader
to tell him that if he would desist, “he should receive his rights and be justly

compensated for his wrongs in the Court of France.” The French king’s
distrust of Henry’s attitude in the affair was shown by his despatch at the
same time of another mission, to the seneschals of Normandy and Anjou,
warning them that they must either “recall count Richard” at once, or
consider themselves no longer protected by the truce between the two
kings. Henry, no doubt urged by the terrified seneschals, sent to admonish
his son; but his admonitions and Philip’s threats were alike unheeded.[286] To
Henry, indeed, Richard’s answer was that “he had done no ill in the lands of
the count of S. Gilles except by leave of the king of France, forasmuch as
the count refused to be in the truce and peace which the two kings had
made.”[287]
The king of France, however, was now gathering his host for an invasion
of the Angevin lands. Directing his attack against the unprotected north-
eastern frontier of Aquitaine, after seizing some of the border castles of
Touraine,[288] he advanced into Berry, and by the middle of June was master
of its northern part as far as Châteauroux, which he captured on June 16.[289]
On that day Henry, perplexed and terrified alike by what he heard of
Philip’s doings and of Richard’s, despatched four envoys to the former “to
1188 entreat for peace in some form or other.”[290] If they ever reached the
French king, their mission was fruitless; he continued his conquests till he
was master of everything that Henry possessed or claimed in Berry and
Auvergne as far as Montluçon.[291]
On July 11 Henry returned to Normandy with an armed force of English
and Welshmen, and at once summoned the Norman host to a muster at
Alençon.[292] Richard meanwhile had abandoned his attack on the lesser foe
to march against the greater one, and was advancing northward with fresh
forces towards Berry. Philip, probably fearing to be caught between two
fires, hereupon retired into France, leaving Châteauroux in the custody of
William des Barres.[293] Richard, “by way of doing something,”[294] began to
devise schemes for regaining the place. One day some of its garrison who
had been out on a foraging expedition found on their return the gate blocked
by him and his troops. They, however, cut their way through and stirred up
their comrades within the castle to make a sally in force. The Poitevins,
taken by surprise, were repulsed with heavy loss; the count himself was in
such danger that he fled for his life. Thrown from his horse, he was rescued
by a sturdy butcher,[295] and with the remnant of his troops rejoined his

father, seemingly somewhere in Touraine. The defence of Henry’s frontiers
was clearly the matter most in need of attention now; father and son
accordingly led their combined forces back to the Norman border. At Trou,
in the south-eastern corner of Maine, they were all but overtaken by Philip
“with a great host”; they escaped, however, and the loss of forty knights and
the burning of Trou (which Philip fired because he could not take it[296])
were compensated by Richard’s capture of a neighbouring fortress, Les
Roches, with its garrison of twenty-five knights and forty men-at-arms. This
place was in the dominions of Count Burchard of Vendôme, who was an
adherent of the king of France.[297] Philip dropped the pursuit, and on
1188 August 16 met Henry in conference at Gisors, but they came to no
agreement.[298] Among other proposals there seems to have been one for a
settlement of the disputes between the two kings by a combat of four
champions on either side. Four names on the English (or Angevin) side
were suggested to Henry by William the Marshal; Richard was offended
because his own name was not among them. “You have done me grievous
wrong; of all the men of my father’s lands I was deemed one of the best to
defend him; but you give him to understand otherwise.” The Marshal
protested that Richard misinterpreted his motive: “You are our lord the
king’s most direct heir; it would be an outrage and crime to risk your life in
such a business.” “It is true, Richard,” interposed Henry, “what he has said
is but right”; and therewith it seems the whole project fell to the ground.[299]
At the end of the month Richard, hearing that Philip was at Mantes,
proposed to attack that place. The expedition, however, resulted merely in a
skirmish between Richard himself, Earl William de Mandeville, and some
of Henry’s followers on the one side and a few French knights on the other,
in which William des Barres, who had been commandant of Châteauroux
for Philip at the time of Richard’s recent adventure there, was made
prisoner by Richard, but broke his parole and escaped.[300] Next day Richard
took leave of his father, “promising that he would serve him well and
faithfully,” and set out again for Berry.[301] What he did there we are not
told; but he seems to have recovered at least one—Palluau—of the castles
which Philip had captured in the spring.[302]
1188 The war languished partly because the counts of Flanders and
Blois and some other chief nobles of France refused to fight against princes
who, like themselves, wore the Cross; and in October Philip asked Henry
for another conference. It took place on October 7 at Châtillon, on the

border of Touraine and Berry. A proposition that all conquests made by
Philip from Henry and by Richard from Raymond of Toulouse since the
beginning of the truce should be restored came to nothing through Philip’s
demand for a security which Henry would not grant. Then, it seems,
Richard offered to do what Philip had in vain required of him a few months
before—to go to the French king’s court and stand to its judgement on all
that had taken place between himself and the count of S. Gilles, “in order
that peace might be made between his father and the king of France.”[303]
The action of the French magnates may have opened Richard’s eyes to the
unseemliness of all this strife between fellow-soldiers of the Cross and led
him to see that peace, at almost any price, was absolutely necessary for the
purpose which he had most at heart, the fulfilment of his vow of Crusade.
His proposal, however, “greatly displeased” his father,[304] and Philip seems
to have deemed the moment a favourable one for seeking to impose upon
Richard some other requirements whose nature we are not told, but which
led to “high and bad words” and finally resulted in the count of Poitou
giving his lord paramount the lie direct and calling him a “vile recreant,”
whereupon the conference broke up with a mutual defiance.[305] Philip went
into Berry, re-took Palluau, and proceeded to Châteauroux, but only to
withdraw the mercenaries whom he had left there and lead them back to
Bourges, where he dismissed them.[306]
1188 For military and political reasons alike Philip did not want to fight
with Richard. He knew that Richard would be compelled ere long to make a
friend of him, for nothing but his friendship could enable Richard to secure
his rights as Henry’s heir; and Richard himself now saw that until those
rights were secured it was impossible for him to venture on leaving Europe.
He therefore resolved on bringing matters to a crisis. At his suggestion the
two kings arranged to meet again on November 18 at Bonmoulins.[307]
Meanwhile, as an English writer says, he “was reconciled to” Philip—
which probably means that he made, and Philip accepted, an apology for
what had occurred at Châtillon—and “endeavoured to soften the mind of
the French king, that in him he might find at least some solace if his own
father should altogether fail him.”[308] Accordingly he had a private
interview with Philip before the formal conference, and went to the place of
meeting in his company, “for the sake,” so he told his father, “of concord
and peace.”[309] Philip opened the colloquy with a proposal that all the
results of the fighting since a certain event—which is stated as “the taking

of the Cross,” but seems to have been really the agreement at Gisors on
March 10, 1186—should be wiped out, he himself setting the example of
restitution, “and after this, all things should continue as they were before”
the specified date. This Richard opposed; “it seemed to him unmeet that he
should by the acceptance of these terms be compelled to restore Cahors and
its whole county, and many other places forming part of his domain, which
were worth a thousand marks a year or more, in exchange for Châteauroux
and Issoudun and Graçay which were not ducal domains, but merely
1188 underfiefs.”[310] Philip’s proposal and Richard’s answer may have
been arranged between them beforehand, and may have been merely
intended to prepare the way for the introduction of the crucial question
which Richard was determined to bring, with Philip’s help, to a decisive
issue once for all. He now asked his father for an explicit recognition, to be
confirmed by an oath, of his rights as heir. Furthermore, as such a
recognition would, so far as Henry’s continental territories were concerned,
be ineffectual without Philip’s sanction as overlord, and as it was now
clearly understood that Philip’s sanction depended on the marriage of
Aloysia, her hitherto reluctant bridegroom at last made up his mind to the
sacrifice and asked his father to give him at once the bride who was
lawfully his, “and the kingdom”—that is, the assurance of succession to the
Crown. In these requests he was supported by Philip.[311] Henry answered
1188 “that he would on no account do this in existing circumstances, since
he would appear to be acting under constraint rather than of his own free
will.”[312] Richard persisted in his entreaties, but in vain. At last he
exclaimed: “Now what I hitherto could not believe looks to me like truth.”
Ungirding his sword, he turned to the French king and, “imploring his aid
that he might not be deprived of his due rights,” did homage to him[313] as
his “man” for the whole continental dominions of the Angevin house and
swore fealty to him against all men, saving Henry’s right of tenure for life
and the fidelity due from son to father.[314] Philip responded by promising
that Châteauroux, Issoudun, and all the other castles, lands, and fiefs which
he had taken from Henry in former wars should be restored to Richard.[315]
Henry was, it seems, too thunderstruck to say or do anything except consent
without more ado to a truce with Philip till S. Hilary’s day.[316]
“Thus began the quarrel that never was fought out,”[317] says a
contemporary poet of the fateful conference at Bonmoulins. The meeting
had been held, according to custom, in the open air and in public, the two

kings and Richard, with the Archbishop of Reims, standing in the middle of
a wide and dense circle of their followers and other spectators. To some of
these the symbolical action which accompanied homage must have been
visible; and when the central group broke up and father, son, and lord
paramount were seen to move away, each in a different direction, “all men
marvelled.”[318] Richard’s homage to Philip was an act of filial
undutifulness, since it was done in opposition to the known wishes of his
father; but it involved no further breach of duty, if he really intended—and
1188 there is nothing to show that he did not, at that time, intend—to abide
by the saving clause which reserved his father’s rights. Fairly interpreted
with that clause, the homage would be merely prospective in its effect; and
some prospective measure of this kind had been made almost necessary as a
matter of self-protection on Richard’s part, by the conduct of both Henry
and Philip. We cannot tell precisely to what it was that Richard alluded in
the words which he spoke immediately before the homage; but it can only
have been one, or both, of two things: the sinister rumours about Henry and
Aloysia, and the suggestion that Henry aimed at making John his heir
instead of Richard. As to the truth or falsehood of the former charge against
Henry we have no means of judging; but of the truth of the latter charge it is
impossible to doubt. The anathema said to have been pronounced by the
Legate Henry of Albano against Richard as a disturber of the peace which
the pope was anxious to secure for the furtherance of the Crusade[319] might
have fallen more justly upon Richard’s father; perhaps, too, not less justly
upon their overlord.
Richard had no sooner set out for Poitou than his father sent messengers
to recall him; but it was too late.[320] Either for the same purpose, or to
secure, if possible, some of the fortresses of Aquitaine,[321] Henry himself
went as far south as Le Dorat in La Marche; there, however, he “did
nothing”;[322] and indeed nothing could be done till the truce expired. It had
been agreed at Bonmoulins that the two kings should then, on 1189
January 13 (1189) meet again to discuss terms for a lasting peace. When the
time came, Henry on the plea of illness postponed the meeting, first till
Candlemas, and then till after Easter.[323] This was too much for the patience
of either Philip or Richard. Philip, it is said, had already promised that he
would assist Richard in any attempt to gain possession of Henry’s
continental dominions.[324] Accordingly, after the expiration of the truce he
1189 and Richard made a joint raid across Henry’s borders.[325] Henry in

alarm sent the Archbishop of Canterbury to confer with Richard; but
Richard had now come to regard with distrust every messenger and every
message from his father, and curtly refused to give Baldwin an audience.[326]
His confidence in Philip was—justly enough—not much greater; when
Henry sought to renew negotiations with France, his envoys found
Richard’s chancellor, William of Longchamp, at the French king’s side,
placed there on purpose to prevent any betrayal by Philip of the interests of
the count of Poitou; and William’s diplomacy proved more than a match for
theirs.[327] After Easter the long delayed meeting of the kings took place at
La Ferté-Bernard;[328] this was followed during the next five or six weeks by
several conferences between Henry and Richard, “but it was all lost
labour.”[329] Another legate, John of Anagni, was now endeavouring to
reconcile the kings,[330] and had succeeded in obtaining from both of them
an undertaking to stand to his judgement and that of four archbishops, two
from Philip’s realm and two from Henry’s.[331] Accordingly, in Whitsun
week Henry, Philip, Richard, the legate, and the four assistant arbitrators all
met together near La Ferté-Bernard.[332] Philip set forth his demands for
himself and for Richard: that Aloysia should be given to Richard to wife,
that some security should be granted to Richard for his succession to the
kingdom of England after his father’s death, and that John should take the
Cross and join the Crusade;[333] if these conditions were granted, Philip
offered to restore all that he had taken from Henry during the current year
1189 and the preceding one.[334] Richard made the same demands in his
own behalf, “saying that he himself would in no wise go to Jerusalem
unless John went with him.”[335] The suspicion which had evidently
prompted these demands was amply justified by Henry’s reply. He “said
that he would never do this; but he offered, if the French king would
consent, to give Aloysia with all the things aforesaid, more fully and
completely than Philip asked”—not to Richard, but to John.[336] The writer
who reports this offer of Henry’s does not explicitly mention security for
Richard’s succession to the English Crown as one of the conditions
demanded by Philip and Richard; he says they asked Henry to “cause the
men of his lands to swear fealty to Richard.”[337] Even if the lands here
meant were only the English king’s continental territories, Henry in refusing
to do any of the things asked of him for Richard and proposing to do all and
more than all of them for John was clearly proposing nothing less than a
complete disinheritance, so far at least as those territories were concerned,

of the elder brother in favour of the younger one. What Richard had
suspected and feared, what Philip had, to some extent at least, known to be
in Henry’s mind ever since the truce of Châteauroux, if not earlier still, was
thus confirmed by Henry’s own lips. Philip had doubtless indirectly
encouraged Henry in this insane project, so long as it suited his own interest
to play off the father and the elder son one against the other; but he was far
too practical to have ever intended giving it his serious support; and he now
at once refused to sanction it.[338] He seems to have expected, reasonably
enough, that the legate would uphold him in his refusal; but instead of this,
John of Anagni threatened to lay all France under Interdict if its king did
not come to a full agreement with the king of England. Philip retorted that
he did not fear, and would not heed, a sentence without basis in either
equity or law, and that the legate had been bribed with English gold. The
meeting broke up in hopeless discord.[339]
1189 If ever a father set at nought the precept “Provoke not your
children to wrath,” Henry had done so by his conduct towards Richard, not
merely on one or two isolated occasions, but persistently through a course
of years. And if any circumstances are conceivable in which a son might be,
not indeed justified, but in some degree excused for taking forcible
measures against his father, in such a case Richard stood now. Neither he
nor Philip could possibly acquiesce in the scheme which Henry had just
proposed; and it was clear that Henry would not be induced to renounce that
scheme by any persuasion, nor even by intimidation unless it were
something more than verbal. Both parties had come to the conference “with
horses and arms,”[340] and the main body of Henry’s available forces was
quartered in and around Le Mans. While he rode slowly back towards that
city, Philip attacked the castle of La Ferté; its constable made a brave
defence, but was obliged to surrender. Philip then advanced to Ballon,
which he reached just after Henry had quitted it, and at once “took it, no
man gainsaying him.”[341] In a few days most of the castles around Le Mans
on the north and east—Bonnétable, Beaumont, Montfort—were likewise
occupied by his troops. But it was not to him that they had surrendered.
Richard was with him; and the castellans “all round about” showed their
disapproval of Henry’s scheme for altering the Angevin succession by
voluntarily delivering up their castles to the count of Poitou.[342]
1189

On June 12 the allies surprised Le Mans; their troops forced an entrance
into the lower town, the fire kindled to keep them out of the city set it
ablaze, and Henry fled.[343] There was a hot pursuit; Richard was among the
foremost, but it seems that he had taken no part in the assault, and now only
wished to prevent by his presence any personal violence to his father, for he
was clad only in a doublet and an iron headpiece and carried no arms at all.
Some of his men, however, outstripped him, and before he could overtake
them were skirmishing with Henry’s rearguard, one of whom, William des
Roches, had just unhorsed a knight of Richard’s household when the count
came spurring up and shouted: “William! you waste time in folly; mend
your speed, ride on!” At the sound of that voice another of the little band
covering the king’s retreat turned round and spurred his horse straight at
Richard, and the heir of the Angevin empire suddenly found his life at the
mercy of one who was already known as the most accomplished warrior of
his day, William the Marshal. So close was the encounter that Richard
caught hold of his assailant’s lance and by sheer strength of arm turned it
aside, shouting: “By God’s Feet, Marshal, slay me not! it were an ill deed,
for I am wholly unarmed.” But the thrust had not been meant for him, and
its aim was only momentarily diverted. “Nay! may the devil slay you, for so
will not I,” answered the Marshal as he recovered control of his weapon and
plunged it into the body of Richard’s horse.[344] The animal instantly fell
dead, dragging its rider with it to the ground; knights and men-at-arms
crowded anxiously to the spot, and when Richard had struggled to his feet
he bade them proceed no further—“You have spoiled everything; you are a
set of distracted fools!”[345]
Three weeks later father and son met once more, and for the last time.
1189 From Le Mans the allies moved eastward along the borders of Maine
and the Vendômois, and thence into Touraine as far as Amboise; castle after
castle surrendering to them without resistance. Henry had at first gone
northward, but changed his course, and while they were thus occupied he
made his way back, with a very small escort, to Chinon.[346] Negotiations
were resumed; but the French king now saw his opportunity for an
unparalleled display of his sovereign authority as lord paramount, and he
resolved to be satisfied with nothing less than a surrender of the whole
continental possessions of the Angevin house into his hands, to be restored
or re-distributed at his own pleasure.[347] On July 1 he laid siege to Tours; on
July 3 he took it by assault. Next day (July 4), at Colombières, Henry made

the required surrender.[348] This done, Philip formally made him a new grant
of the surrendered lands and received his homage for them on new
conditions. One of these conditions was for the sole benefit of Philip; it was
a fine of twenty thousand marks to be paid to him by Henry. The others
concerned Richard. One related to Aloysia; another bound Henry to make
all his barons, insular and continental, swear fealty to his rightful heir. No
baron or knight who in this war had withdrawn from Henry’s service and
joined Richard was to return to the former within a month of Mid-Lent
next, at which date the two kings and Richard were to set out all together on
the Crusade. All Henry’s barons were to swear that if he broke his plighted
word with regard to anything in the agreement they would support Philip
and Richard against him; and it seems that Philip and Richard, while
restoring all their other conquests, were to retain either Tours, Le Mans, and
the castles of Château-du-Loir and Trou, or Gisors, Pacy, and Nonancourt,
“until all the things above determined by the king of France should be
fulfilled.”[349]
1189 The meeting between the two kings at which this extraordinary
arrangement took place was held in the open air. So far as we can gather,
Richard was either a silent spectator or was not actually present, though he
was certainly close at hand. After its conclusion he went to his father’s
lodging in the house of the Knights Templars at Ballan, hard by
Colombières,[350] to receive, according to agreement, the kiss of peace. He
did receive it, but as he turned to depart he heard his father mutter: “The
Lord grant that I may not die till I have had my revenge of thee!”[351] The
words were the half delirious utterance of a sick man whose brain was on
fire with fever and, still more, with shame at the public degradation he had
just gone through, and with disappointment at the failure of his most
cherished scheme; although the worst detail connected with that failure did
not become known to him till some hours later, when he received the list of
the followers who had deserted him. Then he learned that John had
anticipated the issue of the struggle and secured for himself the protection
of the party whose success he saw to be a foregone conclusion, by pledging
his allegiance to Richard.[352]
The triumph of Philip Augustus was for the moment complete. He had
successfully asserted and exercised his sovereign authority over the greatest
of his vassals, the vassal who was, no less than himself, a crowned and

anointed king, and whose lands comprised, besides the island realm, more
than two-thirds of the realm of France. The succession to all those lands,
including England, had been, or seemed to have been, determined at
Philip’s bidding. He was, or seemed to be, master of both Henry and
Richard. But his triumph was only momentary. Within three days the
convention of Colombières was a mere piece of waste parchment, for Henry
of England was dead.

BOOK II
RICHARD’S CRUSADE
1189-1192
Ma fu di pensier nostri ultimo segno
Espugnar de Sion le nobil mura.

CHAPTER I
THE YEAR OF PREPARATION

1189-1190

Surgite, et ascendamus in Sion.
1189
The headquarters of Philip and Richard had been at Tours since
their capture of that city on July 3;[353] it was probably there that Richard
received, from a messenger despatched by William the Marshal,[354] the
tidings of his father’s death at Chinon on the 6th and the intended burial at
Fontevraud. The night-watch round the open coffin was beginning in the
great abbey church when he reached it next evening.[355] All endeavours to
guess at his feelings were baffled by the rigid stillness of his aspect and
demeanour,[356] broken only by a momentary shudder when he saw the
1189 uncovered face.[357] For a long while he stood gazing at it in silence;
[358]
for a briefer space he knelt in silent prayer.[359] When at last he spoke, it
was to call for two of his father’s most loyal adherents, William the Marshal
and Maurice of Craon. They came forward, and at his command, 1189
July 7
followed him, with some others, out of the church. “So, fair Sir
Marshal,” he began, “you were minded to slay me the other day! and slain I
should have been of a surety had I not turned your lance aside by the
strength of my arm. That would have been a bad day’s work!” The Marshal
answered that his own strength of arm was great enough to drive a lance-
thrust home to its aim in spite of interference, and the issue of the encounter
was sufficient proof that he had sought only the life of the horse, not the

rider. “Marshal, I will bear you no malice; you are forgiven,” was Richard’s
reply.[360] The burial took place next morning. As soon as it was July 8
over Richard despatched the Marshal and another envoy[361] to England with
orders for the release of his mother, and with a commission to her
authorizing her to act as his representative until he could himself go over
sea.[362] His choice of the Marshal for this errand was an indication of the
spirit in which he took up the rights and duties of his new position. He
showed himself gracious to all persons who had been faithful to Henry, and
expressed his intention of confirming them in their several offices and
rewarding their fidelity to the late king. He was asked to ratify a number of
grants which Geoffrey the chancellor assured him Henry had recently made
or promised to make, and he consented in every case save one, a grant of
1189 Châteauroux and its heiress to Baldwin of Béthune, which he said
must be cancelled because he had himself, as duke of Aquitaine, granted the
damsel and her fief to Andrew of Chauvigny; but he promised to
compensate Baldwin.[363] One man only who had held high office under
Henry fell under Richard’s displeasure: Stephen the seneschal of Anjou,
who was not only deprived of the castles and the royal treasury which he
had in custody for the late king, but was also chained hand and foot and put
in prison. The cause of Stephen’s disgrace is unknown; his previous history
is obscure;[364] but the disgrace was only temporary; within a few months he
was once more free, and reinstated in the king’s confidence and favour. On
the other hand, when three of the men who had deserted Henry and
transferred their allegiance to Richard asked for restitution of their lands of
which Henry had disseised them, Richard gave it, but disseised them again
immediately, “saying that such was the due reward of traitors who in time
of need forsake their lords and help others against them”; and he treated
with coldness and aversion all, save one, who had thus acted. The exception
1189 was John, who when he presented himself before his brother was
“received with honour”[365] and “kindly comforted.”[366]
Richard next proceeded into Normandy. At Séez the archbishops July 8-20
of Rouen and Canterbury met him, and (acting doubtless under a
commission from the legate) absolved him from excommunication.[367] On
July 20 he received the ducal sword and banner of Normandy at the high
altar of Rouen cathedral, and immediately afterwards the fealty of the
Norman clergy and people.[368] He then went to Gisors for a conference with
the king of France. The French historiographer-royal notes that as “the

count of Poitou” set foot in the great border-fortress about which he and his
father had wrangled so long with Philip, fire broke out within it, and that
next day as he rode forth the wooden bridge broke down under him and he
and his horse fell into the ditch.[369] The conference took place on July 22
the 22nd, between Chaumont and Trie.[370] Philip began by renewing his
original claim to Gisors, but waived it on receiving an intimation that
Richard still purposed to marry Aloysia.[371] The French king seems to have
further claimed a large share of the castles and towns which he had taken
from Henry, including Châteauroux, Le Mans, and Tours. Submission to
such a demand would unquestionably have brought upon Richard, as an
English chronicler says, “shame and everlasting contempt”; indeed, he
would have been within his feudal right in refusing it entirely, on the
ground that no forfeiture on his father’s part could invalidate the grant of all
these fiefs which had been made to himself by Philip in November 1188.
He consented, however, to resign once for all his rights in Auvergne, and
two little fiefs in Aquitanian Berry that lay close to the French Royal
Domain—Graçay and Issoudun; and he bought off Philip’s other demands
by a promise of four thousand marks in addition to the twenty thousand due
from Henry under the convention of Colombières.[372] These terms Philip
1189 accepted. Richard renewed his homage to his overlord, and they
agreed to set out on the Crusade together in Lent of the next year.[373]
For three weeks longer Richard stayed in Normandy, winning all hearts
by his gracious and affable demeanour.[374] On August 12 he went to Aug. 12
England.[375] Landing at Southampton or Portsmouth,[376] he was received
two or three days later with a solemn procession at Winchester by his
mother and the chief nobles and prelates of the land.[377] As the archbishop
of Canterbury had previously returned from Normandy,[378] the coronation
might have taken place immediately, had the new king desired it. But,
unlike every other king of England since the Norman conquest, Richard
was in no haste to be crowned. There was no need for haste; he had no
rival; he had, in England, no enemies; and he had made for himself a host of
friends by a proclamation which during the last five weeks “honourable
men” sent out by Eleanor according to instructions from him had been
publishing and carrying into effect in every county. All persons under arrest
for offences against Forest Law were to be discharged; those who were
outlawed for a like cause were permitted to return in peace. Other persons
imprisoned “by the will of the king or his justiciar,” not “by the common

law of their county or hundred, or on appeal,” were also to be discharged.
Persons outlawed “by common law without appeal by the justices” were to
be re-admitted to peace provided they could find sureties that they would
come up for trial if required; prisoners detained on appeal for any shameful
cause were to be released on the same terms. All persons detained “on
appeal by those who acknowledged themselves to be malefactors” were to
be set free unconditionally. Malefactors to whom “life and limbs” had been
1189 granted as approvers were to abjure and depart from the king’s land;
those who without the concession of life and limbs had of their own free
will accused others were to be kept in custody till further counsel should be
taken. The ordinance concluded by requiring every free man of the realm to
swear fealty and liege homage to the new lord of England, “and that they
will submit to his jurisdiction and lend him their aid for the maintenance of
his peace and justice in all things.”[379] We cannot ascertain how far Richard
was justified in the insinuation conveyed in this ordinance, that the
administration of criminal law in Henry’s latter days had been marked not
only by undue severity, but also by arbitrary interference on the part of the
Crown or its officers with the rights and liberties of Englishmen. The most
philosophic historian of the time, William of Newburgh, evidently thought
that however Henry might have erred on the side of rigour, Richard at the
outset of his reign erred no less in the opposite direction. “At that time,”
says William, “the gaols were crowded with criminals awaiting trial or
punishment, but through Richard’s clemency these pests came forth from
prison, perhaps to become bolder thieves in the future.”[380] But the people
in general were delighted to welcome a ruler who seemed to them bent
upon outdoing all that was good and undoing all that they considered evil in
the government of his predecessor.[381]
From Winchester Richard was moving on by leisurely stages towards
London when a report of a Welsh raid made him suddenly turn towards the
border, with the intention of punishing the raiders; but Eleanor, who
perhaps better understood the danger of plunging unnecessarily and
unwarily into a Welsh war, called him back, and as usual he obeyed Sept. 1, 2
her.[382] On September 1 or 2 he was welcomed with a great procession in
1189 London;[383] on the 3rd he was crowned at Westminster.[384] Three
contemporary writers, one of whom actually assisted in the most Sept. 3
sacred detail of the ceremony,[385] tell us how at its outset Duke Richard was
“solemnly and duly” elected by clergy and people; how he took the

threefold oath, to maintain the peace of the Church, to suppress injustice,
and to promote equity and mercy.[386] After receiving the threefold anointing
and being clothed with the symbolical vestments of the kingly office, he
was adjured by the Primate not to assume it unless he were fully minded to
keep his vow; he answered that by God’s help he did intend so to do. He
then took the crown from the altar and handed it to the archbishop, and the
archbishop set it on his head.[387] Richard’s coronation is in one way the
most memorable in all English history, for it is the occasion on which the
form and manner of crowning a king of England were, in every essential
point and in most of the lesser particulars, fixed for all after-time.
The court festivities lasted three days,[388] and the manner in which they
were conducted presented a marked contrast to the rough, careless,
unceremonious ways of the court of Henry II. The banquet each day was as
stately and decorous as it was lavish and splendid. Clergy and laity were
seated apart, and the former had the place of honour, being at the king’s
own table.[389] Richard had further emphasized the solemnity of the occasion
by a proclamation ordering that no Jew and no woman should be admitted
to the palace. Notwithstanding this, certain Jews did present themselves at
the doors on the evening of the coronation-day with gifts for the king. The
1189 courtiers of lower rank and the people who crowded round robbed
them, beat them, and drove them away; some were mortally injured, some
slain on the spot.[390] The tumult reached the ears of the king in the
banqueting-hall, and he sent the justiciar and some of the nobles to suppress
it; but it was already beyond their control.[391] A great wave of anti-Jewish
feeling swept through the city; before morning most of the Jews’ houses
were sacked; and the number of persons concerned in the riot was so large
and public feeling so strongly on their side that although some of them were
arrested by Richard’s orders and brought before him, he found it impossible
to do justice in the matter,[392] and only ventured to send three men to the
gallows—one who in the confusion had robbed a Christian, and two who
had kindled a fire which burned down a Christian’s house.[393] For the rest
he had to “condone what he could not avenge.”[394] He tried, however, to
prevent further disturbances of the same kind by sending into every shire
letters commanding that the Jews should be left in peace and no one should
do them wrong;[395] and so long as he remained in England these orders
were obeyed.

The new king had now to make provision for his Crusade, and for the
carrying on of the government of England after his departure. There was no
reason to anticipate any difficulty in the latter half of his task; but the other
half of it presented a very serious cause for anxiety—the want of money.
The Angevin treasury was empty;[396] the ducal revenues of Normandy and
Aquitaine were not large enough, at the best of times, to furnish more than a
very insignificant surplus for purposes external to the two duchies.
Richard’s first act on reaching Winchester had been to cause an exact
1189 account to be taken of the contents of the royal treasury.[397] We have
no trustworthy statement of the result;[398] but it evidently proved quite
inadequate to supply his needs. The twenty-four thousand marks due to
Philip, the cost of equipping and maintaining his own followers and of
fitting out a transport fleet, were only a part of those needs; there was
another part which from Richard’s point of view was incalculable and
almost unlimited. A great effort for the deliverance of Holy Land had been
in contemplation throughout western Europe for nearly five years; the form
in which it had been originally projected was that of an expedition to be led
by the Angevin king of England as head of the elder branch of the royal
house of Jerusalem, and composed chiefly of his subjects, although since
then circumstances had so altered and the scheme had so widened out and
developed that he was now only one of several monarchs who were to lead
their respective contingents as portions of one great army. From 1184
onwards crowds of Englishmen of all ranks had taken the Cross; most of
them—very likely including the English-born count of Poitou—without
counting the cost, in any sense of that word. Theoretically, the undertaking
being not a national but a personal and voluntary one, each Crusader was
responsible for his own equipment and expenses and those of his tenants or
other followers. The king, however, seems to have at once recognized that if
the English (or Angevin) contingent was to take such a share in the Holy
War as befitted its leader’s rank among the sovereigns and his kingdom’s
rank among the powers of Christendom, he must carry with him a large
reserve fund for the maintenance of the whole force under his command in
a state of efficiency on a service of which no one could forecast the
1189 requirements, the difficulties, or the duration. As we read the after-
story, indeed, we are almost led to credit him with a presentiment that his
war-chest was destined to become the war-chest of the whole crusading
host. At any rate, his most pressing anxiety was to fill the chest, and—since

he expected to leave Europe in the spring—to fill it as quickly as possible.
He might impose a special tax, or more than one; a tallage, or “donum,” or
both at once. But these would take many months to collect, and would bring
in, probably, scarcely enough to be worth collecting, from his point of view;
while his subjects, who were, or considered themselves, already hard
pressed by the financial administration of Henry, would have felt or at least
resented such taxes as an additional and oppressive burden. Richard
adopted quicker and easier methods.
Among the crowds who had taken the Cross in a moment of enthusiasm
there were many whose zeal had cooled during the months or years of
waiting, and who would now gladly be relieved of the obligation to fulfil
their vow. There was also among them a much larger number of officers of
the English court and government, and of other men belonging to the
classes from which such officers were usually taken, than could well be
spared from the work of administration at home. Accordingly, Richard had
asked and obtained from Pope Clement letters patent granting release from
their vow to all persons whom the king should appoint to take part in the
safe-keeping of the realm during his absence.[399] Naturally such release was
conditional on compensation being made to the crusading cause by all who
were thus transferred from the service of the Cross to that of the Crown,
since they had taken the former upon themselves and the latter was not
compulsory; and this compensation necessarily took the form of the
payment to the king of a sum which could only be fixed in each case by a
bargain between him and the payer. From this it was not a difficult step for
the king to make similar bargains with men who had not taken the Cross,
1189 but were suitable for and ambitious of office in England, and able to
pay for it. Neither the sale of public offices nor the yet more general
practice of requiring payment for royal grants of land, privileges, and
benefits of any kind—including confirmations by a new king of grants
made by his predecessors—was condemned, in principle at least, by the
ordinary code of political morality in Richard’s day. He might fairly argue
that men who desired any of these things, and had means to pay for them,
ought to be made to contribute as largely as possible to the Treasury for the
furtherance of the Crusade; and he accordingly set himself to drain, as it
seemed, to the uttermost all these sources of revenue. “He deposed from
their bailiwicks nearly all the sheriffs and their deputies, and held them to
ransom to the uttermost farthing. Those who could not pay were

imprisoned.”[400] He “induced many persons to vie with each other in
spending money to purchase dignities or public offices, or even royal
manors.”[401] “All who were overburdened with money the king promptly
relieved of it, giving them powers and possessions at their choice.”[402]
“Whosoever would, bought of the king his own rights as well as those of
other men.” “All things were for sale with him—powers, lordships,
earldoms, sheriffdoms, castles, towns, manors, and suchlike”;[403] or as
Roger of Howden sums it all up, “the king put up to sale everything that he
had.”[404]
The part of these proceedings which chiefly perturbed Richard’s
counsellors, it seems, was his reckless alienation of Crown demesne; in his
passionate eagerness to pile up treasure for the Crusade he was, they
considered, stripping himself of his proper means of living as a king should
live at home; it was as if he did not intend, or did not expect, ever to come
home again at all; and when some of them ventured on a remonstrance he
answered, “I would sell London if I could find a buyer for it.”[405] He was in
fact in a mood to, almost literally, sell all that he had and give it to the
1189 Crusade. The means which he employed to raise money undoubtedly
served their purpose; and they seem to have neither provoked any general
discontent nor inflicted any hardship on the people, or even upon more than
a very few individuals. The chronicler who speaks of a wholesale
“deposition” and “ransoming” of the sheriffs has considerably exaggerated
the king’s treatment of those officers. In the first place, all sheriffs were
always liable to be “deposed” at any moment, since they were always
appointed to hold their office “during the king’s pleasure.” At Richard’s
accession there were in England twenty-eight sheriffs; two of these had
each three counties under his charge, seven had two counties each. When
Richard’s redistribution of offices was completed, six shires were by a
special grant to John withdrawn from the royal administration altogether;
seven or eight shires remained or were replaced under their former sheriffs;
five sheriffs were transferred to shires other than those which they had
previously administered; four—perhaps more—went on the Crusade; all the
rest seem to have been employed in some other capacity under the Crown.
In all likelihood most, if not all, of these men had taken the Cross and their
“ransom” was no more than they were justly bound and could well afford to
pay. One case does indeed present a different aspect. Ranulf de Glanville, at
this time sheriff of Yorkshire and Westmorland, was also, and had been for

nine years, Chief Justiciar of England. He had taken the Cross in 1185.[406]
One chronicler asserts that Ranulf was now “stripped of his power,” put in
ward, and set free only on payment of fifteen thousand pounds to the king.
[407]
According to other authorities, however, he asked to be relieved of his
functions that he might fulfil his vow.[408] He is said to have had also another
1189 motive for his resignation: “he was of great age, and saw that the
new king, being a novice in government, was wont to do many things
without due deliberation and forethought.”[409] Behind these words there
may lurk a partial explanation of Richard’s seemingly harsh and
extortionate treatment of the Justiciar. It is possible that the king really
wished to retain Ranulf’s services as his vicegerent in England, and
persuaded or coerced him into commuting his vow for that purpose, but that
Ranulf, when he had seen a little more of his new sovereign’s ways—which
were indeed not likely to meet with the approval of statesmen who had
grown old under Henry II—preferred to sacrifice the money as the price of
Richard’s consent to his departure. That the sacrifice was, after all, not a
ruinous one may be inferred from the fact that it left him still able to make
his expedition independently of the king, for he died at Acre seven months
or more before Richard’s arrival there.[410] Two Chief Justiciars were
appointed in his stead, of whom one, William de Mandeville, was a trusted
and faithful friend of King Henry, and the other, Bishop Hugh of Durham,
was a kinsman of the royal house and a man of long experience in politics,
untiring energy and ambition, and great wealth, with the surplus of which
he was quite willing to purchase release from his vow of Crusade and as
many other benefits as Richard cared to bestow on him.[411]
Several other high offices, both in Church and State, had to be filled
anew, some from causes altogether beyond the king’s control, some in
fulfilment of his promise to carry into effect the grants which his father had
left uncompleted. There were five vacant bishoprics, besides the
metropolitan see of York. This last Henry had destined for his son Geoffrey
the Chancellor; to Geoffrey Richard gave it,[412] and thereby the
chancellorship was vacated. Two men vied with each other as candidates for
1189 this important post; both offered large sums for it; Richard in this
instance showed that his choice of men was not governed by his thirst for
money, by accepting the lower bid of the two, because it was made by a
man whom he knew and trusted;[413] and the person who received the largest
share of grants out of the royal domain received them absolutely free. That

person was John. Henry had (or was said to have) expressed the intention of
endowing John with the Norman county of Mortain and four thousand
pounds’ worth of land in England. As soon as Richard was by investiture as
duke of Normandy legally able to make grants in that duchy, he put John in
possession of Mortain.[414] The heritage of the late Earl of Gloucester had
been promised, with the hand of his heiress, to John ever since 1176;
Richard secured it for him by causing the marriage to take place a Aug. 29
fortnight after the brothers reached England.[415] Within the next month the
king further bestowed upon John a number of escheated honours and other
lands to the gross annual value of some five or six hundred pounds. Within
three more months he added the gift of six whole counties, with the entire
revenues and profits of every kind which they were wont to render to the
Crown, and the control of all administration and justice within their limits.
[416]

Of all Richard’s administrative arrangements this was unquestionably the
most imprudent and dangerous; it is indeed almost the only one which can
be clearly seen to have produced disastrous results. When its motive is
realized, however, criticism is almost disarmed; for Richard’s act was not
the spontaneous throwing away of an extravagant fraternal benefaction, or
of a wholly needless bribe to a brother to whom he owed nothing and from
whom, had he let him remain “Lackland,” he could have had nothing to
1189 fear. It was simply a literal and exact fulfilment of Henry’s latest
design for completing his provision for John by endowing him with lands in
England to the value of four thousand pounds a year.[417] This ill-advised
project of Henry’s might perhaps have been less unwisely carried out in
some other way, such as the bestowal of a number of small estates scattered
in various parts of the realm, instead of this solid block of territories with so
much political influence and power attached to their possession; but the
only safe mode of dealing with it would have been to ignore it altogether.
Richard’s share of responsibility in the matter amounts simply to this, that
he—in his father’s lifetime a disobedient son—carried loyalty to his dead
father’s wishes beyond the limits of worldly wisdom and sound policy.
1189 Some of Richard’s administrative arrangements and appointments
were made in a great council held in the middle of September at
Pipewell[418] in Northamptonshire, others at various times within the next
three months. Early in October the king spent a week in London; thence he

went to Arundel and afterwards to Winchester.[419] He had meanwhile sent
John with an armed force—which the Welsh called “the host of all
England”—against Rees of South Wales, who had laid siege to Caermarthen
castle. It was to John’s interest that there should be peace with Rees, since
the honour of Gloucester included a large piece of Welsh territory.
Accordingly John and Rees made an agreement between themselves,[420] and
Rees, with an escort furnished him by John, came to Oxford in the hope of a
meeting with the king; but Richard “would not go to meet him.”[421] For
Richard the chief gain from this expedition against Rees was that it enabled
him to collect from those tenants in chivalry who did not personally take
part in it a “Scutage of Wales” which helped to finance the expedition to
Holy Land.
Early in November envoys from France brought letters from Philip
setting forth that he and his barons had sworn on the Gospels to be at
Vézelay ready to start on the Crusade at the close of Easter (April 1, 1190),
and begging that Richard would take an oath to the same effect. Richard
exacted from the envoys an oath “on the King of France’s soul” that this
pledge should be fulfilled on the French side; then he called a great council
in London and there caused one of his chief counsellors to take a like oath
1189 on his behalf in presence of the Frenchmen.[422] After this the king
went on pilgrimage to S. Edmund’s on the festival of its patron saint.[423]
Soon afterwards he was at Canterbury,[424] making peace between the
archbishop and the monks, who had long been at strife.[425] The settlement
was destined to be only temporary, but for the moment it was a triumph
both of Richard’s kingly power and of his personal tact; the dispute had
been a scandal which had baffled Henry II, and a legate sent by the Pope to
deal with it had landed at Dover on November 20 (when Richard was at S.
Edmund’s), but had been by Eleanor’s order forbidden to proceed inland,
his mission having no sanction from the king.[426] Richard, however, wanted
to make use of him for two other purposes: the confirmation of Geoffrey’s
election to the see of York, and the raising of an Interdict laid by
Archbishop Baldwin on John’s lands in consequence of the marriage of
John and Isabel of Gloucester, who were cousins within the prohibited
degrees. Accordingly the legate was entertained at Canterbury for two
nights; he did what the king desired of him and then departed out of the
realm.[427]

A weightier matter was settled in that same council at Canterbury.
Shortly after the accession of Henry II to the English crown the Scot king
Malcolm had done homage to him “in the same manner as his grandfather
had been the man of King Henry the First.”[428] What were the precise
grounds and conditions of the homage due to the sovereign of England from
the rulers of the composite realm which was generally known as Scotland,
but would have been more correctly termed North Britain—whether that
homage was due for the whole realm, consisting of the Highlands (or
“Scotland” properly so called), the Lowlands, and Galloway, as well as for
the lands which the Scot kings held in England, or only for the last three, or
even for the English lands alone—was a question which both parties had for
1189 many generations found it prudent to evade by the use of some such
formula as the one adopted in 1157. But in 1175 Malcolm’s brother and
successor, William the Lion, having invaded England and been made
prisoner, purchased his release by definitely becoming Henry’s liegeman
“for Scotland and all his other lands,” promising that all his barons should
likewise do liege homage to Henry, and that his own heirs and the heirs of
his barons should do the same to Henry’s successors, and giving up to the
English king the castles of Roxburgh, Berwick, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, and
Stirling, with an annual payment from the Scottish Crown revenue for their
maintenance.[429] Edinburgh was given back to William in 1186 to form part
of the dower of his wife, Henry’s cousin Ermengard of Beaumont.[430] In the
summer of 1188 some abortive negotiations concerning the restoration of
the other castles to the Scot king took place between him and Henry.
According to one account, Henry attempted to levy the Saladin tithe for the
Crusade in Scotland as well as in his own dominions; William refused to
permit this, but offered to give five thousand marks instead of the tithe if his
castles were restored to him; this, however, Henry “would not do.”[431]
Another version of the story is that William spontaneously began
negotiations by offering four thousand marks for the castles; that Henry
answered “the thing should be done if William would give a tithe of his
land” for the Crusade and that the Scot king was willing to do this if he
could obtain the consent of his barons, but they refused emphatically, so the
project came to nothing.[432] It is not likely that Henry imagined himself to
have by the settlement made in 1175 finally disposed of the question about
the homage. A settlement which had been forced upon William the Lion
when he was powerless in the English king’s hands could not possibly be

final on such a matter; he, or the Scot kings after him, would be certain to
repudiate it at the first opportunity; and the opportunity came in autumn
1189 when he was summoned to the English court to do homage to Henry’s
1189 successor. It was imperatively necessary for Richard to secure
William’s homage before setting out on the Crusade. To go without having
done so would have been to leave northern England without any safeguard
against invasion and ravage during his absence. He himself had neither time
nor means to spare for an expedition against Scotland. Had William chosen
to delay indefinitely—as more than one of his predecessors had done—his
appearance at the English court, he could easily, and probably with
impunity, have put Richard in a very awkward position. Most likely he
would have done so but for Richard’s tact in turning the difficulty. Overlord
and vassal agreed upon a bargain which was in all likelihood more
profitable to both parties than the one proposed a year before could ever
have been to either of them. William covenanted to give Richard a lump
sum of ten thousand marks;[433] Richard quit-claimed “all customs and
agreements which King Henry extorted from William by reason of his
capture, so that he shall fully and completely do to us what his brother
Malcolm King of Scots rightly did to our predecessors and what he ought
rightly to do”; he renounced the liege homage of William’s men and
restored all the charters given to Henry by William when he was Henry’s
prisoner; and he undertook to do to William “whatsoever our predecessors
rightly did and ought to have done to Malcolm according to a recognition to
be made by four English nobles chosen by William and four Dec. 5
Scottish nobles chosen by ourself”; to make good any encroachments which
had taken place on the Scottish Marches since William’s capture; to confirm
any grants made to William by Henry; and finally, that William and his
heirs for ever should possess his English lands as fully and freely as
Malcolm had possessed or ought to have possessed them.[434]
1189 Richard’s phrase about the conditions of release which Henry had
“extorted”[435] from the king of Scots seems to indicate a consciousness that
his father had, in forcing upon the caged Lion of Scotland terms of such
abject submission, taken a somewhat dishonourable advantage of the lucky
combination of accidents—for it was really nothing more—which had
placed William at his mercy.[436] But policy, as well as chivalry, had a share
in Richard’s agreement with his royal vassal. Ten thousand marks, paid
down in a lump and almost immediately, was probably a much larger

contribution than could have been obtained from a country so poor as
Scotland without some very substantial concession in return. The retention
of the castles was quite unnecessary to the security of England; it must
inevitably be a source of constant irritation to the Scots, and thus tend to
endanger rather than to safeguard the tranquillity of the border; and the
restitution of them was the only real sacrifice which the treaty involved.
Richard’s charter is most cautiously worded; he renounces nothing except
the direct homage of the Scot king’s subvassals and the explicit mention of
“Scotland” by name in William’s own act of homage on this occasion. The
former would have been extremely difficult to enforce at the moment, and
of very little practical value. As to the latter point, the form of words chosen
by Richard involved no recognition of the Scottish claim to a partial
independence, and no renunciation or abatement of the English claim to the
overlordship of all North Britain. It left Richard and his successors quite
free to re-assert that claim explicitly at any future time, and to re-assert it as
1189 based not on a concession wrung from a helpless prisoner in 1175,
but on their acknowledged right to “all” that William’s predecessors “had
done and ought to have done” to the predecessors of Richard in virtue of a
series of agreements going back from Henry II and Malcolm III to Eadward
the Elder and Donald IV; for the English theory on the subject was that
those ancient agreements included, or involved, the homage of the Scot
kings to the kings of England for the whole realm of Scotland. The Scottish
view was, of course, different; but these divergent views were of little
practical consequence so long as no necessity arose for expressing them in
words or carrying them out in action; no such necessity had yet arisen, and
none was destined to arise for another hundred years. A formula capable of
this double interpretation was thus the only kind of formula on which the
two parties could agree; and the point of immediate importance was that
they should agree so that the Scot’s homage should be done and done
quickly, not delayed indefinitely or altogether refused at the eleventh hour.
It was done at Canterbury on December 5.[437] Dec. 5

On the same day Richard proceeded to Dover;[438] about a week later he
went to Normandy.[439] He kept Christmas[440] in great state, “but,” Dec. 11,
14
adds a poet-chronicler, “there was little singing of gestes”; Richard,
who usually revelled in that kind of entertainment, was now too Dec. 25
busy and in too grave a mood for minstrelsy.[441] On December 30 he and
1189 Philip, after holding a conference at the Gué St. Rémi, issued Dec. 30

a joint proclamation setting forth their arrangements for going together on
the Crusade and for the safety and mutual protection of each other’s
subjects and dominions during their absence, and bidding all their Crusader
subjects either to precede them or be ready to set out with them from
Vézelay within the octave of Easter (March 25-April 1).[442] By the 1190
Jan.
middle of January, however, both kings had discovered that they
could not be ready by April. The date of departure was again postponed, to
S. John the Baptist’s day; and at a third conference held in the middle of
March the delay was further prolonged to the octave of that festival.[443]
Richard meanwhile had made a visit to Aquitaine; on February 2-4 he was
at La Réole,[444] on February 12 at Londigny on the border of the
Angoumois and Poitou,[445] moving back towards Normandy to meet certain
persons whom he had summoned thither from England soon after
Candlemas. One of the two men whom he had appointed as joint chief
justiciars, William de Mandeville, had died on November 14.[446] For a time,
it seems, the king put no one formally into Mandeville’s place, and thus left
Hugh of Durham legally sole chief justiciar; but he gave the custody of the
1190 Tower of London, which usually appertained to that officer, to the
chancellor, Bishop William of Ely, whom he also, before leaving England,
intrusted with one of the royal seals “to carry out the king’s orders in the
realm,” thus making him virtually independent of Hugh.[447] In February,
however, the king summoned his mother, his betrothed, his brothers John
and Geoffrey (the archbishop-elect of York), Archbishop Baldwin of
Canterbury, and seven bishops, among whom were Hugh of Durham and
William of Ely, to join him in Normandy. “And when he had taken counsel
with them, he appointed his chancellor, Bishop William of Ely, chief
justiciar of England, and granted to Bishop Hugh of Durham the Feb.
justiciarship from the river Humber to the Scot king’s border.”[448] He also
made both his brothers swear that they would not enter England for three
years “from that hour” except by leave from him.[449] At the end of March or
early in April[450] he sent the new chief justiciar, William of Ely, back to
England “to prepare things necessary for him”—that is, for the king—“and
for his journey.”[451]
The chief item in this commission was the requisitioning of a supply of
horses; William “took for the king’s use from every city in England two
palfreys and two additional sumpter horses, and from every manor of the
king’s own one palfrey and one sumpter horse.”[452] These horses were

doubtless shipped across to Normandy, being, it seems, for the use March
to April
of the king and his immediate companions, who, together with his
continental followers, were going overland with Philip to meet the English
fleet at Marseille. Immediately on reaching England Richard had 1189
set about collecting a transport fleet, by sending his bailiffs to “all the sea-
1189 ports of England, Normandy, Poitou, and his other lands” to choose
for him the largest and best of all the ships they found there and the fittest to
carry heavy burdens. Some of these he gave to certain of his familiar
friends who were bound on Crusade; some he retained for his own use, and
had them loaded with arms and victuals.[453] The terms on which these ships
were acquired seem to have varied considerably; in some cases the Crown
paid half their value, in others the whole; a few were gifts from wealthy
individuals.[454] In addition to all these the king already had some “smacks”
(esneccae) in ordinary use for the transport of himself and his treasure
between England and Normandy; these were now put in repair to fit them
for a longer and more dangerous voyage. The crews and captains of the
other ships were of course taken over together with the vessels, and were
paid by the king from Michaelmas 1189.[455] Some time in March or 1190
early in April (1190) Richard held a council at Chinon and thence issued an
ordinance for the maintenance of discipline in the fleet, in the form of a
charter which he delivered into the hands of the archbishop of Auch, the
bishop of Bayonne, Robert de Sabloil, Richard de Camville, and William de
Fors of Oléron, appointing them justiciars over “his whole navy of England,
Normandy, Poitou, and Britanny, about to sail for Holy Land.” The
regulations which they had to administer were drastic. Any man who slew
another on board ship was to be tied to the corpse and cast with it into the
sea; one who slew a man ashore to be tied to the corpse and buried with it.
1190 A man convicted of drawing knife on another or striking him so that
blood flowed was to lose his hand. If he only struck with his palm, so that
no blood flowed, he was to be ducked three times in the sea. Anyone who
insulted or cursed a comrade was to forfeit an ounce of silver for every such
offence. A convicted thief was to be “shorn like a professional champion,
then tarred and feathered so as to be known,” and cast ashore on the first
land at which the ship touched.[456] Another writ from the king bade all those
of his subjects who were going to Jerusalem by sea, as they valued their
lives “and their return home,” swear to keep these “assizes” and obey the

justiciars of the fleet, who were further bidden to set out on the voyage as
soon as possible; which they did shortly after Easter.[457]
The next step in Richard’s preparations for departure was of a very
different kind. Of all the country seats belonging to the counts of Poitou the
one in which for many generations they seem to have most delighted was
Talmont. The lordship of which this castle was the head included a territory
known as “the Land of the Countess,” because it had formed part of the
dower of the successive countesses of Poitou ever since the middle of the
eleventh century. Here, “on the sea-shore, in the wood of La Roche, and not
1190 far from the mouth of the Jard”—a little stream which falls into the
sea some few miles south-east of the castle of Talmont—Richard now
founded a house of Augustinian canons. Its dedication was to “our Lord and
the glorious Virgin Mary His Mother”; its name was to be “God’s Place,”
Locus Dei, Lieu-Dieu; and its endowment consisted of the whole “Land of
the Countess” with all its appurtenances, “including everything that his
mother, as well as himself, had or might have in that place,” with the
addition of other gifts and privileges.[458] Eleanor had no need of “the
Countess’s Land,” for Richard before leaving England had granted to her, in
addition to the dowry given her by his father, the whole of that which Henry
I had given to his queen and that which Stephen had given to Maud of
Boulogne.[459] Evidently it was with his mother’s sanction that the king now
dedicated to higher uses this large share of a cherished possession of her
forefathers which was also a favourite pleasure-resort of his own. In God’s
Place at Talmont we may surely see an offering made with special intention
by the offerer and his mother for his safety and welfare in his great
adventure and for the success of the enterprise on which his heart was set.
On May 6 Richard issued, at Fontenay, a charter for the foundation of
another religious house, a small minster dedicated to S. Andrew, at
Gourfaille, in the same neighbourhood.[460] Two days later he was at May 8
Cognac;[461] a month later, at Bayonne,[462] and it seems to have been about
1190 this time that he besieged and took the castle of Chis in the June 6
county of Bigorre and hanged its lord for the crime of having robbed
pilgrims to S. James and other persons who passed through his lands.[463] By
June 20 Richard was again at Chinon;[464] thence he went to Tours, where he
held a final conference with Philip,[465] and received his pilgrim’s scrip and
staff from the hands of Archbishop Bartholomew.[466] He seems to have

characteristically proved the staff by leaning on it with all his gigantic
strength, for a chronicler adds: “When the king leaned on the staff, it
broke.”[467] Never before, probably never again, was there seen at Tours
such a muster as that of the Crusaders who followed the banner of Richard
the Lion Heart. City and suburbs were overcrowded; “there were many
good knights and famous crossbowmen; and dames and damsels were
sorrowful and heavy-hearted for their friends who were going away, and all
the people were in sadness because of their valiant lord’s departure” when
he and his host set out “with a good courage”[468] on June 27 for June 27
Vézelay. Whether the two kings actually kept their tryst on the appointed
day, July 1, is doubtful. Richard was certainly at the meeting-place on the
3rd, but according to one account Philip did not arrive till the 4th.[469] When
1190 they did meet, they took a reciprocal oath that they would loyally
divide between them whatever conquests they should make together, and
that whichever of them reached Messina first should wait there for the
other.[470] They spent two days at Vézelay together,[471] and then at last the
united host began its march towards the Holy Land, “the two kings riding in
front and discoursing of their great journey.”[472]

CHAPTER II
THE OUTWARD VOYAGE

1190

Initia Regis Ricardi, qui nondum elapso triennio regni sui probitatis suae radios longe
lateque dispersit; nam Messanas civitatem Siciliae uno die viriliter subjecit, et terram Cypri
in quindecim diebus potenter subjugavit.—Chron. Edw. II, auct. monacho Malmesburiensi,
ii. 191.

1190 A march of eight days brought the Crusaders to Lyons on July 10
[473]
or 13. Here they were to cross the Rhône and then proceed down its left
bank to the coast. The two kings with their personal followers crossed at
once and encamped on the further side of the river (seemingly on a height
whence their tents were visible from the hither side) to wait till the
stragglers and late comers should overtake the main body of pilgrims, who
lodged as they could in and around the city.[474] When the muster seemed to
be complete, the kings gave the signal for departure by causing their tents to
be struck.[475] The main body of the host on the other bank[476] thronged to
the narrow wooden bridge; when a small number had crossed one of the
arches broke down.[477] Only two persons were drowned, but the multitude
left behind were sorely puzzled how to get across the “crested waters” of
the Rhône in flood.[478] According to one account they in three days
achieved the passage “as best they could, in little boats, with great
difficulty.”[479] Another version, however, tells us that it was only Philip who
1190 had actually set out before the bridge gave way,[480] and Richard,
having merely escorted him out of the camp, was still at hand when the
catastrophe occurred; whereupon he, “whose constancy never failed in
action,” quickly caused a bridge to be made of boats lashed together, and
waited three days while by this means the whole host made its passage in
safety.[481] Then, while the French king’s subjects followed their sovereign
to Genoa or went by whatever route they chose to meet him at Messina,[482]
the English king at the head of his own contingent set out[483] for Marseille,
where he arrived on the last day of July.[484] July 31

“From Marseille to Acre,” says a contemporary writer, “is a sail of only
fifteen days. But,” he adds, “then you go through the Great Sea, so that after

the mountains round about Marseille cease to be visible you will, if you
keep the direct course, see no land either to right or left till you see the land
of Syria.”[485] Some of the Crusaders who accompanied Richard—among
them Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury and Ranulf de Glanville—faced
the mysterious terrors of the “Great Sea” and took this route[486] to Tyre,
which they reached on September 16.[487] The two kings had chosen
1190 Messina as the final starting-point of their voyage at a time when
they deemed themselves sure of finding there every possible facility for
refitting and revictualling their ships, and substantial help of every kind for
their enterprise; King William of Sicily being married to a sister of Richard,
and having long ago promised every assistance in his power to the Crusade.
[488]
In March, however, they had learned that William had died in the
preceding November.[489] The original scheme nevertheless had obvious
advantages both for Richard, who knew that William had made some
testamentary dispositions for his benefit, and for Philip, who “dreaded the
sea.”[490] As the difficulties and dangers of the real overland route from
northern France to Apulia and Sicily through the Alpine passes and Italy
were apparently still considered even more formidable than those of the
Mediterranean sea, Philip had arranged to be conveyed by the practised
mariners of Genoa from their city to Messina, not exactly as an English
chronicler says “by land,” but by the shortest and easiest coasting route.
Richard on the contrary was minded to go by water as much as he could,
and had ordered his fleet to meet him at the nearest Mediterranean port—
Marseille.[491] When a week had passed and no fleet appeared, he grew
weary of waiting; so he hired “two large busses and twenty well armed
galleys,” in which he set sail with his household troops on August 7.[492] He
was “grieved and confounded at the delay of his navy,”[493] and seems to
have coasted along very slowly in the hope of its overtaking him, for it was
not till the 13th that he reached Genoa, where he went ashore to Aug. 13
visit Philip, who was lying there sick. Next day, at Portofino, he Aug. 14
received a message from Philip asking for the loan of five galleys; Richard
offered three, but this Philip declined. On the 23rd Richard relieved the
1190 tediousness of the slow coasting voyage by landing with a Aug. 23
small escort at Baratto and hiring horses on which the party rode to
Piombino; there they rejoined their ships. “Then the king went on Aug. 24
board the galley of Fulco Rustac” (or “Rustancri”) instead of the one in
which he had been sailing (the “Pumbone”), and they proceeded to Porto

Ercole, which was reckoned to be half way between Marseille and Messina.
“But that day the sail of the galley in which the king was got torn; so he
went back to the Pumbone.” On the same day, August 25, he landed at
Ostia,[494] where he was met by the cardinal bishop and some other persons
sent by the Pope to receive him and invite him to visit Rome; this he
declined to do,[495] preferring, it seems, to spend a day in what a modern
traveller might call seeing the sights of the neighbourhood. He Aug. 28
to Sept.
spent nearly a fortnight in the same way at Naples, making 8
excursions round about (August 28-September 8); thence he went
on horseback to Salerno,[496] and stayed there till on September 13 he heard
that his fleet had arrived at Messina, and at once set out to rejoin it.[497] The
report was premature; but the fleet did in fact reach Messina next Sept. 14
day. The story of its voyage illustrates the spirit of adventure in which the
men of the more remote western lands set out upon their Crusade. The
“justiciars of the navy” appointed in the spring had apparently taken each
the command of a little squadron, and these squadrons had sailed in April,
according to the king’s order, from various ports of England, Normandy,
Britanny, and Poitou. Ten ships of the English division set out from
Dartmouth; some of them touched at Silvia in Portugal, others at Lisbon,
and all stopped to help the Christian Portuguese in their war against the
Moors. Other ships of Richard’s—perhaps from more distant ports—came
into Lisbon harbour at the close of the war; the whole fleet sailed thence on
July 26, passed the Straits of Gibraltar on August 1, and sailing along the
coasts of Spain and Provence reached Marseille on August 22. Finding that
the king was gone, they stayed a week for necessary refitting, set out again
1190 on the 30th, and came to Messina on Holy Cross day.[498] According
to English accounts Philip of France arrived there two days later;[499] Sept. 14
his own biographer, however, says he came in August.[500] As he had no
ships of his own, the greater part of his host had either gone before him to
Messina or proceeded towards Syria by other routes; and to the
disappointment of the townsfolk and the pilgrims assembled at Messina,
who all hoped to see a king arrive with great pomp and majesty, only the
ship which bore Philip himself came into the harbour, and landing at the
steps of the royal palace[501] he slipped out of sight as quickly and quietly as
possible.[502]
The disappointed spectators of Philip’s landing were to be more than
compensated ere long by the arrival of another royal guest. By September

21 Richard, travelling leisurely along the coast from Salerno, had reached
Mileto in Calabria. Here a characteristic adventure nearly brought to an
untimely end both his enterprise and his life. He was riding forth next day,
accompanied only by one knight, “and as they passed through a little
township the king turned aside towards a house where he heard the voice of
a falcon, and he went into the house and took the bird; and when he would
not let it go, a number of villagers came running up and attacked him with
stones and sticks. One of them drew his knife upon the king, and the king
beat the man with the flat of his sword till the sword broke. The other
assailants he overcame with stones, and narrowly escaping from their hands
made his way to the Priory of La Bagnara.” There, finding himself close to
what an English chronicler describes as “the great river which is called the
Far of Messina,” he took boat and crossed it immediately, and “lay that
night in a tent hard by the great stone tower which stands by the entrance to
the Far on the Sicilian side”—that is, the pharos, lighthouse, or beacon-
tower which gave the strait its medieval name.[503] He probably crossed in a
vessel of his own fleet, the whole of which seems to have been assembled at
1190 the northern end of the strait in readiness to meet him. Next Sept. 23
day (September 23) he sailed at its head into the harbour of Messina. “The
galleys filled the Strait; they were crowded with hardy looking warriors,
and decked with pennons and banners. So came the king to the shore,”[504]
amid such blowing of horns and trumpets that “all the city was alarmed at
the sound.” Philip and the governors and people of Messina went down to
the beach and stood there “marvelling at that which they saw and heard of
the king of England and of his power.”[505] Richard “leaped ashore,” and
went immediately to speak with Philip.[506] Meanwhile those of his barons
who had reached Messina before him brought “the fine destriers which had
come over in the transport ships; and he and his people all mounted on
horseback,”[507] and rode to their lodging, which—the royal palace being, by
permission of the new sovereign of Sicily, occupied by Philip—was being
prepared for them in the house of one of the Sicilian king’s officers, “in the
suburb outside the city wall, among the vineyards.”[508]
The next of kin to the late king of Sicily and the person whom he had
designated as his successor was his father’s sister Constance; but she was
far away in Germany—being married to the Emperor’s son—and a cousin,
Tancred, had without much difficulty become master of the kingdom, or at
least of its insular half. Tancred had, as has been seen, provided lodgings for

his two royal guests at Messina; he himself was at Palermo, and so was the
widowed Queen Joan, Richard’s sister. Richard knew that a very liberal
dowry in land had been settled upon Joan by King William at their
marriage,[509] and also that William had made a will containing a bequest to
his father-in-law, Henry II, of “a golden table twelve feet long and a foot
and a half wide, three golden tripods for sitting at the table, a silken tent
1190 large enough for two hundred knights to eat in it together, a hundred
first-rate galleys with all necessary gear and food for the crews, sixty
thousand seams of wheat, the same number of barley and of wine, and
twenty-four cups and twenty-four dishes” of either silver or gold.[510] This
bequest was evidently intended by William, who seems to have been long in
ill-health and expecting an early death, as his contribution to the Crusade.
Richard, as Henry’s heir, now claimed it from Tancred, and he also
demanded that Joan should be sent to him immediately with her dowry and
a golden chair[511] for her use “according to the custom of the queens of that
land.”[512] Tancred sent Joan off at once by sea “with just her bedroom
furniture” and a million terrini for her expenses.[513] She reached Sept. 28
Messina on Michaelmas Eve, and was conducted by her brother to a
lodging prepared for her in the Hospital;[514] but he speedily took steps for
removing her to a safer place; for trouble, possibly with Philip, certainly
with the townsfolk of Messina and with their king, was now evidently close
at hand.
The English king’s subjects who had reached Messina before him on the
fleet had been refused admittance into the city; they were obliged to
encamp on the shore, and suffered much annoyance and persecution from a
section of the townsfolk whom one of them describes as “a parcel of
Griffons and low fellows of Saracen extraction.” These people not only
insulted the Crusaders in the vilest ways, but even killed some of them and
outraged the corpses.[515] All “Ultramontanes,” or men from beyond the
Alps, were hated by the two races with which Sicily was mainly peopled—
the “Griffons” or Greek-speaking folk, and the Italian-speaking whom the
western writers call Lombards. In the minds of the last-named especially
the memory of the Norman conquest of Sicily and Apulia still rankled;
“they always had a grudge against us,” says the Norman poet-historian of
1190 Richard’s Crusade, “because their fathers had told them that our
ancestors had conquered them; so they could not love us.”[516] It seems not
unlikely that Tancred had gained the support of both Griffons and Lombards

by posing as the champion of a sort of national government in opposition to
the representatives of the foreign royal line, and that they looked with
suspicion upon the crusading host as possibly designed to be the instrument
of a new Norman conquest; more especially when they discovered, as they
very soon did, that although it had nominally two crowned leaders, its real
and sole commander-in-chief was the Anglo-Norman king. On the morrow
of his arrival Richard set up outside the camp a gallows for thieves and
robbers. “His judges delegate spared neither sex nor age; and there was one
punishment for a stranger and for one born in the land.” The French king
took no notice of any ill-doing on the part of his own men, nor of any evil
done to them; but Richard cared not whose subject the criminal might be;
“considering every man as his own,” he left no wrong unpunished;
“wherefore the Griffons called him the Lion and Philip the Lamb.”[517]
Both Griffons and Lombards did their utmost to make the position of the
“tailed Englishmen”—as they called Richard and all his followers
indiscriminately—absolutely intolerable. They tried to starve them by
refusing to let them buy food in the city; they fell upon and slew any whom
they caught in small parties and unarmed; they even began to raise the town
walls, as if challenging the strangers to besiege them.[518] By the time of
Joan’s arrival matters had come to such a pass that two days later
(September 30) Richard with a small armed force re-crossed the strait into
Calabria, turned the Griffons out of a fortress called La Bagnara, Oct. 1
and next day established his sister in it with a guard of his own men.[519] He
next seized a very strong fort or tower, which went by the name of “the
1190 Griffons’ Minster,” on an island in the Far, midway between La
Bagnara and Messina,[520] put its garrison to death, and made it a storehouse
for the provisions which had been brought by his fleet from England and his
other dominions.[521] Scarcely was this done when on October 3 a dispute
between a pilgrim and a townswoman about the price of some bread which
the woman brought into the camp for sale led to an outbreak of hostilities.
Richard, hearing the noise, sprang on horseback and strove to recall his
men, riding in and out among them and striking with his staff all whom he
could reach, to check the attack which they were threatening on the city
gate. His efforts and those of the “elders” of the city at length quieted the
tumult.[522] Both parties, however, felt that the matter was not ended. Before
nightfall Richard went by boat to the palace and held a consultation Oct. 4
with Philip.[523] Next morning the archbishops of Messina, Monreale, and

Reggio, with the “justices of Sicily”—that is, the governors whom Tancred
had put in charge of Messina, Margarit and Jordan du Pin[524]—and some
others of Tancred’s chief counsellors came to Richard’s lodging, bringing
with them the French king and some of his nobles, and also some of the
chief nobles of Richard’s dominions, to discuss terms of peace.[525] Three
times the colloquy was interrupted by tidings, first that the English were
being attacked, next that they were getting worsted, and finally that they
were being killed “both within and without the city.” The Sicilian members
of the conference hurried away, ostensibly for the purpose of checking their
own people, “but they lied,” says Richard’s Norman chronicler.[526] Richard
1190 hastened forth to control his troops, learned that the quarters of one
of his Aquitanian followers, Hugh the Brown of Lusignan, had been
attacked by a party of the townsfolk, and that another party was lying in
wait for himself, the city wall bristling with armed men, and another strong
body of citizens posted on the hills at the back of the town.[527] He hurried
back for his armour and instantly gave orders to “assault the city all round
by land and by sea.”[528] He himself began by driving out the assailants from
the camp. With scarce twenty men at his back, he made for the quarters of
Hugh the Brown; the Lombards turned and fled from him “like sheep from
a wolf,” says one who saw the scene, and he drove them “as oxen are driven
under the yoke” all the way to “the postern gate which is towards Palermo,”
the west gate of the city.[529] Meanwhile the whole English host was in
motion. The fleet could do nothing, because Philip, who had returned to the
palace under a promise from the governor that he should not be molested,
intercepted the galleys as they approached and forbade them to proceed.[530]
The land attack met with a fierce resistance; part of the host endeavoured to
storm the walls and the gates; Richard himself led a small party up a hill “so
high and steep that no one would have thought they could by any means
climb it,” drove down in headlong flight the Sicilians who occupied its
summit,[531] and rejoined his main force in time to be one of the first to enter
the city. “A good ten thousand went in after him,” says one of the number.
[532]

1190 The suddenness and rapidity with which the city was captured, and
the contemporary French form of its name, “Messines,” or in the Norman
dialect “Meschines,” appear to have suggested to some Norman or Angevin
rimester in the host a jingle which from the camp has found its way into
history:

“Our king and his men have taken Messines
More quickly than priest can say his matines.”[533]

The whole fight had lasted less than five hours.[534] The town was plundered,
“and there would have been more people slain, but that the king took pity”
and restrained his men. The Sicilian galleys in the harbour were set on fire
and destroyed.[535] Philip and his followers meanwhile had sat at their ease
within the palace and the city, doing nothing to help their fellow-Crusaders,
and totally unmolested by the Sicilians, among whom they seemed quite at
home. But when Philip learned that the victorious host had set up their royal
leader’s banners on the walls, he angrily declared that this act was an insult
to himself as Richard’s feudal superior, and demanded that the banners
should be taken down and replaced by his own. Richard at first ignored the
demand; but some of the prelates and nobles brought about a compromise;
the banners of both kings were placed on the towers together, and the
custody of the fortifications was given to the Templars and Hospitaliers till
it should be seen how matters would go between Richard and Tancred.[536]
The compromise was a fair one on Richard’s part; as his poet-chronicler
1190 says, “Sirs, I ask your judgement—which of the two had the best
right to set his banners over the city, the one who would take no part in its
assault, or the one who dared the enterprize?”[537] “But,” he remarks no less
truly, “the king of France’s envy on that subject was like to be lifelong; that
was the origin of the war whereby Normandy was ruined.”[538] According to
one account, Philip next, on the strength of the agreement made at Vézelay,
demanded his share of the spoils of the city, and grew so insolent and
quarrelsome that Richard prepared to load up his ships and depart on his
pilgrimage alone with his own people rather than be tied any longer to so
disagreeable a comrade. Hereupon, however, Philip made overtures for
reconciliation, and they renewed their alliance,[539] swearing and Oct. 8
making their respective barons swear to keep good faith with each other
throughout the expedition.[540] Two days earlier, on October 6, the Oct. 6
governors of Messina had given hostages to Richard, pledging themselves
to keep peace towards him and his men and to let him have free possession
of the city unless Tancred speedily satisfied all his demands.[541]
Those demands, for the whole of Joan’s dowry and William’s legacy to
Henry, were now again transmitted to Palermo, by envoys who represented
both the Crusader kings, for one of them was no less a personage than the
duke of Burgundy.[542] In the Anglo-Norman camp it seems to have been

reported that the French envoys returned loaded with gifts because they had
carried a private message from Philip to Tancred encouraging him to resist
Richard’s demands and promising that in any strife which might ensue the
French would remain neutral.[543] However this may have been, the envoys
of the English king brought back a very unsatisfactory reply to their master.
“I gave to your sister Joan,” said Tancred, “a million terrins for quit-claim
of her dower before she went away from me. Concerning your other
1190 demands I shall do whatever I ought to do according to the custom of
this realm.”[544] During the absence of the envoys a very suspicious event
took place at Messina. One night the two governors of the city, Jordan du
Pin and Margarit, stole away with their respective households, taking with
them all the gold and silver they possessed. Richard at once seized their
houses, their galleys, and whatever other property they had left behind
them. His own treasure was already stored in the “Griffons’ Minster,” which
he further strengthened by digging a deep and wide ditch across the island
on which the fort stood.[545] When his envoys returned from Palermo they
found him busy with another piece of work “which gave him pleasure,”[546]
the erection, on the top of a hill overlooking the city, of a strong wooden
fortress to which he gave the name of Mategriffon, “Check” or “Kill-
Greek.”[547] All these precautions did in fact check the Griffons effectually;
but when Richard on hearing Tancred’s reply straightway retorted that he
would enter upon no pleadings at law and would get what he wanted in his
own way,[548] the Lombards again began to give trouble. They refused to sell
even necessary food to the host, “and but for God and the navy, many
would have led a poor life”; the ships, however, had ample stores. Philip
was accused of being secretly in league with the Lombards. The city and the
camp were guarded day and night. Mediators went to and fro between the
palace and Mategriffon, but could not bring the two kings back to
friendship.[549]
At last Tancred intervened. “He was,” says Ambrose the poet-Crusader,
“very wise; he had heard tell of many happenings; he was a good scholar;
he knew his business.”[550] Through all these months he had played a
waiting game till he could feel sure which of the two kings would be most
useful to him as an ally. At first he had inclined to Philip, and “would have
1190 given him untold gold” for the marriage of one of his daughters to
either the French king himself or to his infant son Louis; but Philip declined
this proposal because he did not wish to quarrel with Tancred’s rival,

Constance’s husband, who was now king of the Germans and Emperor
elect,[551] and whose friendship he doubtless foresaw might be useful to him
in future struggles with Richard. By the end of October, however, Tancred
not only knew that the townsfolk of Messina had gone too far; he also
perceived that he had himself gone too far in his haughtiness towards the
English Lion. He therefore despatched two messengers to Richard with an
offer of alliance. He proposed to give twenty thousand ounces of gold to
Joan instead of her dower-lands, and to Richard, in place of King William’s
legacy, the same amount as the dowry of one of his (Tancred’s) daughters
on condition of her marriage with Richard’s nephew, Arthur of Britanny.[552]
Richard saw at once that this offer must be accepted. The necessity of
coming to a settlement of some kind with Tancred, and the outrageous
conduct of Tancred’s subjects, had already detained him in Sicily much
longer than he had originally contemplated. Now it was quite clear that he
would be obliged to remain there for several more months, as the season of
the year had begun when the “inclemency of winds and waves and
weather”[553] made navigation so difficult and dangerous that no fleet could
attempt a voyage to Palestine till the return of spring. The same cause must
of course detain Philip also; and to reject Tancred’s offer would have been
to throw Tancred and Philip into each other’s arms. Nor was the offer itself
a bad one. Whatever might be the intrinsic value of Joan’s dower-lands and
of William’s legacy, there was obviously very little chance of ever gaining
either the one or the other; while forty thousand ounces of gold would be a
very convenient addition to the treasury of the Crusade. A treaty on these
terms was therefore drawn up and executed forthwith. Richard promised
1190 that all questions about his sister’s dowry and his own claims should
be henceforth at rest; that he and his men would faithfully keep peace by
sea and by land with Tancred and all his subjects, and if the Sicilian realm
should be invaded or attacked while they were in it, they would help the
king against his assailants; that Arthur—“our dear nephew, and our heir if
we should die without issue”—should be contracted to Tancred’s daughter;
and that the bride should have a dower of lands within her husband’s duchy
“befitting a lady so illustrious and the daughter of so magnificent a king.” If
Arthur succeeded to the Crown, his wife was to have the customary dower
of a queen of England. If, on the other hand, from any cause dependent on
Richard or Arthur, the marriage should not take place “in due time” (that is,
when the children should be old enough; Arthur was in his fourth year), the

dowry given by the bride’s father was to be returned.[554] Tancred on his part
promised that he and his subjects would keep peace with Richard and his
men,[555] and he paid over the covenanted sum without delay.[556] Richard
was in a pacific mood; although none of the gold which he had just received
could fairly come under his agreement with Philip as to the division of
conquests, he at once made Philip a peace-offering of part of it.[557] He next
insisted on his men restoring to the townsfolk the plunder which they had
taken from them, and Archbishop Walter of Rouen enforced this order by
threatening to excommunicate those who failed to obey it. Finally, a set of
ordinances for the regulation of intercourse and trade between the pilgrims
and the townsfolk was issued in the joint names of all the three kings.[558]
1190 Thenceforth town and camp were on friendly terms, and so were—
for a while—the two pilgrim kings. There was, however, some grumbling in
the host, especially among the knights who had reached Messina before
Richard, at their long detention there and the expense which it entailed on
them, and at being forced to give back the plunder with which they had
recouped themselves. Richard “was not avaricious or stingy”; he silenced
the grumblers by a distribution of costly gifts, of which all ranks, down to
the lowest foot-soldiers, received such a share that every man was Feb. 1191
fully satisfied.[559] Early in the next year he made a present to the French
king of several of the ships which had come from England, and to his own
troops, of all ranks, a further distribution of “more treasures than any of his
predecessors had ever given away in a whole year.”[560]
Before Christmas Richard’s growing sense of the weightiness of 1190
his enterprise showed itself in another step in his preparations. One day he
called together in the chapel of the house where he was lodging all the
bishops in his host, came before them as a penitent, with three scourges in
his hands, fell at their feet and openly confessed to them a vice in which he
had lived and which he now solemnly abjured; he received his penance at
their hands, “and thenceforth returned to his iniquity no more.”[561] At
Christmas he entertained Philip and the French nobles at a great feast in
Mategriffon.[562] The festivities were disturbed by a quarrel between the
Genoese and Pisan sailors and some of the men belonging to Richard’s
galleys, and not till some lives were lost did the two kings in person
succeed in quelling the strife.[563] An incident on Candlemas Day 1191
1191 (1191) throws a curious side-light on one phase of Richard’s Feb. 2
character of which there is little trace elsewhere, and also on his relations

with the other crusading chiefs during this dreary time of waiting. He and
some English and French knights, on their way back from a ride, met a
countryman with a load of reeds or bulrushes and bought some for a game
such as boys played, tilting with the rushes for spears. The king challenged
William des Barres, with whom he had had at least two encounters in real
warfare, and who (according to one account) on the second of these
occasions,[564] being made prisoner, had committed a breach of the rules of
chivalry which Richard was not a man to condone easily: he had regained
his liberty by breaking his parole. When William’s first thrust broke the
head of Richard’s bulrush, Richard was seized with one of those fits of
unaccountable, irrational fury before which all persons accustomed to
associate with the Angevin counts quailed as before a direct manifestation
of the powers of darkness whence the house of Anjou was said to have
sprung. He set his horse furiously at his opponent; the shock of the
encounter failed to unseat William, but caused Richard’s own saddle to slip;
he leapt from it, mounted another horse, and renewed the attack, but with
no better success; nor did his angry threats disturb the coolness of the
Frenchman. The Earl of Leicester, trying to intervene, was roughly bidden
by his sovereign, “Leave me to deal with him alone!” and finally, after a
long struggle and much bandying of words, the king burst out to William,
“Get thee hence, and take heed that I see thee no more, for henceforth I will
be an enemy to thee and thine for ever.” William, now thoroughly alarmed,
went and besought counsel and help of his own sovereign. Philip in person
interceded for his unlucky vassal; some of the highest nobles of France
actually went down on their knees to Richard for the same purpose; but
Richard would hear none of them; and on the third day William des Barres
had to leave Messina “because the king of France would not keep him
against the will of the king of England.”[565]
1191 The time was now approaching when the seas would again be
navigable, and Philip presently asked Richard to get ready to accompany
him on what was called “the March passage” to Holy Land. Richard is said
by a French chronicler to have answered that he could not go before
August.[566] It seems that either August here must be a mistake for April, or
Richard cannot have been serious in answering thus, unless indeed he
entertained some vague project of going back for a short visit to his island
realm before proceeding further eastward. Such a project is not impossible;
for the reports which had been coming to him through the winter about the

state of affairs in England were at once so disquieting and so contradictory
that he may well have longed to see for himself how matters really stood
and settle by his personal authority the quarrels which had arisen between
his justiciars and his brother. In the end he committed the solution of these
very puzzling difficulties to Archbishop Walter of Rouen. He had, however,
another reason for delaying at least for a few weeks his own departure for
Acre. Early in the year King Sancho of Navarre had placed his daughter
Berengaria in Queen Eleanor’s charge to take her to Richard to become his
wife.[567] Before the end of February the two ladies reached Naples, and
Richard sent some galleys to meet them there; but “on account of the
multitude of men who accompanied them” Tancred’s people refused them
leave to go to Messina—which indeed must have been already
overwhelmed with foreign visitors—and they had to spend a month in his
continental dominions.[568] Their coming was a clear intimation that Richard
was now fully determined to shake off the bonds of his engagement to
Aloysia. Philip peremptorily bade him, as his vassal, choose between two
alternatives: either to go with his overlord across the sea, in which case he
should be at liberty to marry Berengaria, or, if he would not go, to keep his
1191 promise of marriage with Aloysia. Richard bluntly refused both.[569]
Meanwhile Tancred had invited him[570] to a meeting at Catania. A March 3
splendid welcome was given him there on March 3, and for three days he
was Tancred’s guest in the palace. Tancred offered him “gifts many and
great” in gold and silver, cloth of silk, and horses, but Richard, “needing
none of such things,” would accept only one small ring as a token of
friendship; in return for this he presented Tancred with a sword which he
seems to have asserted to be the famous Excalibur of King Arthur. Finally
Tancred offered a substantial gift which Richard did not decline: a
contribution of four large ships “which they call ussers” and fifteen galleys
to the crusading fleet.[571] The Sicilian king escorted his guest on the way
back as far as Taormina, where Philip was to meet them on March 8. There
Tancred is said to have put into Richard’s hands a letter which he declared
had been brought to him by the duke of Burgundy from the French king,
containing an assertion that Richard had no intention of keeping faith with
Tancred, and a promise that if Tancred were disposed to attack Richard, the
French troops and their sovereign would give their help in effecting
Richard’s destruction. Richard on this left Taormina before Philip reached it
and returned to Messina by another way so as to avoid meeting him. When

he did meet him again, he at first studiously avoided him or ignored his
presence; when asked the reason, he showed the letter. Philip accused him
of having invented the whole affair as an excuse for “casting off” the
daughter of France whom he had promised to wed. Thus driven to
extremity, Richard said plainly that a marriage between him and Aloysia
was impossible, and gave a reason which, as he produced several witnesses
who declared themselves ready to swear to its truth, fully justified his
refusal.[572] The result was that Philip formally released him from his
engagement and declared him free to marry whomsoever he would. On the
1191 basis of this and certain other conditions which were to take effect
only at a later time, a “firm peace” was once again made between the king
of France and his “friend and faithful liegeman, the illustrious king of
England.”
The treaty was made before March 25;[573] shortly afterwards Philip and
his “company” sailed, in the galleys which Richard had given him, for Acre.
[574]
Before starting he again besought Richard to pardon William des
Barres, and Richard after some demur promised to keep the peace towards
William so long as they were both engaged in the cause of the Cross.[575] He
convoyed Philip through the Far, and then himself went to Reggio, having
just heard that Eleanor and Berengaria had arrived there. He took them on
board and brought his mother back with him to Messina, after, it seems,
placing Berengaria at La Bagnara with Joan; the men of the queen’s suite
seem to have been left at Reggio, and possibly even Eleanor and her ladies
may not have landed at Messina at all, for she stayed with her son only four
days and then departed for England.[576] He had nothing more to wait for.
With all speed the fleet was made ready, and on April 10, the Wednesday
before Easter, it put to sea.[577]
The ships which Richard had found awaiting him in the harbour of
Messina when he arrived there are said to have numbered one hundred and
1191 fourteen.[578] Stragglers that had come in later, Tancred’s gift, and
other vessels bought or hired by Richard had now raised the total to about
two hundred.[579] Of these, some forty or fifty were galleys or battleships,
built after the pattern of the old Roman liburnae or the “long keels” of
Richard’s Norse forefathers, long, slender, with armed prows, and propelled
by two tiers of oarsmen.[580] The rest were transport vessels; those of the
largest size, of which there seem to have been now twenty-four, were called

“busses” by the northerners and “dromonds” in the Mediterranean and the
Levant. Of these vessels, fourteen which had formed part of the original
English fleet had each of them three spare rudders, thirteen anchors, thirty
oars, two sails, triple ropes of every kind, and a double set of everything
else that a ship could need, except the mast and the boat; the lading of each
consisted of forty war-horses, forty knights with all their arms and
accoutrements, forty foot-soldiers, and fifteen sailors, with food enough for
all these men and horses for a whole year. The other ships of burden, called
“huissiers,” “ushers,” “enekes” or “smacks” (esneccae) were round-shaped
vessels, seemingly dependent on sails alone; their carrying capacity was
half that of the busses. The king had taken the precaution to distribute his
treasure among all the transport ships, “so that if part were lost, another part
should be saved.”[581]
If the fleet’s arrival had been a great sight for the people of April 10
Messina, its departure must have been a much more imposing spectacle.
Three dromonds, one of which carried Queen Joan and the Damsel of
Navarre, went in advance of all the rest. Thirteen ships formed the second
1191 line or squadron; in the third were fourteen, in the fourth twenty, in
the fifth thirty, in the sixth forty, in the seventh sixty; the last consisted of
the galleys, on one of which was the king himself. Throughout the fleet the
order of its going was so carefully arranged that a trumpet’s sound could be
heard from squadron to squadron, and a man’s voice from ship to ship.[582]
When all had passed, with a fair wind, through the Far into the open sea, the
galleys sped forward to overtake the slower vessels[583] and took their place
as the advanced guard of the whole fleet, Richard’s own ship leading.[584]
“The king had arranged, as far as possible, that the ships should never be
separated unless indeed a storm should disperse them. So the galleys
moderated their speed and endeavoured to keep pace with the transports, for
the protection of the multitude and the comfort of the weak.”[585] Suddenly
the wind dropped, and the whole fleet had to anchor for the night. Next
morning, Maunday Thursday, “He Who took the wind from us,” as April 11
one of the pilgrims says, “gave it us back again”; but the breeze was so faint
that they made very little progress, and at night they were again becalmed.
On the following morning (Good Friday, April 12) they were met by “a
contrary wind on the left,”[586] and all that day they had to struggle with a
heavy gale and storm. As good pilgrims they endured their sufferings “right
willingly, as a fitting discipline for the holy day.”[587] On their leader wind

and weather had no effect; he was “just as healthy and hearty, brave and
strong, on sea as on land”;[588] throughout this first experience of
Mediterranean storms and all those that followed, he “remained perfectly
calm, and ceased not to comfort the others and encourage them to endure
with confidence, hoping for better things.”[589] Every evening he had “a
large candle in the lantern” lighted on his galley, to show the way to the
other ships; they all followed the light, and if one got out of the course he
1191 waited for it to get back. “Thus as a hen leads her chickens out to
feed he led his mighty fleet,” sailing day and night till late on the
Wednesday in Easter Week (April 17) they anchored off Crete.[590] Next
morning, it seems, Richard counted up the ships, and found to his “great
wrath” that despite all his precautions no less than twenty-five were
missing.[591] He then directed his course to Rhodes, reached its capital city
on the following Monday (April 22), and stayed there three days, partly
because he was unwell, partly in the hope of hearing some tidings of the
missing vessels, and also to make inquiries about Cyprus and its
“tyrant.”[592]
This “tyrant” was Isaac Comnenos, who, sent to Cyprus as governor for
the Byzantine Emperor in 1185, had made himself master of the island and
ruled it as an independent sovereign for six years. His “tyranny,” or
usurpation, was not one of the least of the hindrances to the deliverance of
Holy Land; the Franks in that land had in former times depended largely on
the fertile and wealthy Greek island for its supplies, but now they could get
nothing thence, for Isaac was in close alliance with Saladin, and “never
ceased doing as much ill to Christians as he could.”[593] Whether April
Richard’s detour to Rhodes had any special motive or was caused merely by
circumstances and stress of weather we do not know; but it seems quite
clear that he went out of his direct way from Rhodes to Acre in
consequence of information received at Rhodes as to what was going on in
Cyprus. Probably, too, he thought Cyprus a likely place in which to obtain
news of his strayed ships; and so it proved to be. Among the ships dispersed
in the great storm of Good Friday were the three dromonds which carried
the ladies and their escort. These three and some others had drifted
southward, and while Richard was sailing by the north coast of Crete to
Rhodes, they were passing through the open sea between Crete and Libya.
On April 24, two or three days after Richard’s arrival at Rhodes, they were
trying to put into the harbour of Limisso, or as the Crusade writers call it

Limasol, the ancient Amathus, on the south coast of Cyprus, when a April 24
1191 storm arose and dashed two of them to pieces against the rocks;[594] a
third ship put back into the open sea in time to save itself[595] and its
precious freight—it was the ship which carried not only a considerable part
of the king’s treasure (under the charge of Stephen of Turnham, now
restored to the king’s favour and acting as his marshal and treasurer), but
also Joan and Berengaria. The “Griffons” of Cyprus took the men who
struggled ashore from the wrecks to a fort hard by, promising them food
and shelter, but stripped them of their arms on the plea that this was
necessary till the pleasure of the “Emperor” (Isaac) concerning them should
be known; and they also seized the clothes and other necessaries which the
knights on the remaining ships sent to their distressed comrades. These
latter, finding themselves prisoners and almost starved, at the end of May 2
a week made a determined effort to escape. With three bows which they had
either secreted or found in the fort they did such execution that the whole
party was able to make its way to the harbour, where their friends in the
ships, seeing what was going on, had meanwhile landed and were fighting
hard with the Griffons; finally the Griffons were worsted, and the queen’s
ship was brought into the harbour.[596] That evening Isaac came to Limasol;
the pilgrims appealed to him, and he promised them redress for May 3
their wrongs. Next day he sent the queen and her future sister-in-law a
courteous invitation to land; this being prudently declined, he followed it up
on the morrow with hospitable gifts of bread, meat, and the famous May 4
wine of Cyprus. On the Sunday he again tried to persuade the ladies May 5
to come ashore; after anxious consultation they, fearing that longer
resistance might lead to their being taken captives by force—for Isaac
meanwhile was assembling his troops on the shore—promised to commit
themselves to his protection on the morrow. But on that same Sunday
Richard’s fleet came in sight.[597] It had left Rhodes on May 1; the galleys,
1191 headed as usual by Richard’s own ship, had been driven by the wind
into the dangerous gulf of Satalia (or Atalia) on the coast of Pamphylia, and
narrowly escaped destruction, but were extricated and brought in safety to
Cyprus, seemingly by the fine seamanship of their royal leader.[598] May 6
On the morning of Monday they reached the entrance to the harbour of
Limasol. As soon as Richard learned what had been taking place there he
sent a messenger ashore with a civilly worded remonstrance to Isaac and a
request that he would make amends for his people’s ill-treatment of

Crusaders. Isaac was on the shore with all the troops that he had been able
to collect from every part of his island “empire.” He cut the messenger
short with an insulting word—“Tproupt, sir!”; the messenger went straight
back and repeated it to the king. Richard’s retort was equally brief; it was a
command to his own men—“To arms!”[599]
Between the fleet and the shore five armed galleys lay in the harbour. On
the shore Isaac’s troops were drawn up behind a barricade composed of
every bit of wood that the town could supply, doors and window-frames or
shutters, barrels and casks, shields and bucklers, pieces of old ships and
boats, planks, steps, benches, boxes, all piled up along the water’s edge.[600]
At the back of the troops was the fortified town, overtopped by a lofty
castle or citadel built on the rock.[601] The Crusaders could land only by
means of their boats. Knights and crossbowmen hurriedly obeyed the king’s
order, and all weary and worn with long tossing on the sea and laden with
their heavy armour and cumbrous weapons, crowded into the tiny cockle-
shells[602] to join battle as foot-soldiers with an army of which part at least
was well provided with good horses and mules, and which, moreover, was
on its own soil; “but,” as one of the pilgrims says, “we knew the most about
1191 war.” Richard’s crossbowmen opened the fight by shooting at the
enemy’s galleys; “there were some who did not miss their aim,” says the
same eye-witness; the Greek sailors in a panic leaped into the water, and
while they were struggling there their ships were captured and taken outside
the harbour to be guarded by the English fleet. Meanwhile the king, when
he saw his comrades struggling to land from the boats under a storm of
arrows, “leaped from his boat into the sea and made for the Greeks, and
assailed them.” His men followed his example and drove the Greeks back,
some into the town, more into the fields. Isaac took to flight; Richard,
running after him, caught a horse “with a sack attached to its saddle, and
stirrups of cord,” sprang on its back, and shouted “Emperor! come and
joust!” But Isaac “had no mind to joust,” and continued his flight.[603] The
town of Limasol now submitted to Richard, and he brought his sister and
his bride ashore.[604] That same night the horses were landed and May 7
exercised; and next morning Richard with a small force set out in search of
the enemy. A party of them was soon found in an olive garden, dislodged,
and chased till the main body suddenly came into view. Then Richard,
having with him at the moment only fifty knights, called a halt. Meanwhile
the shouts of the Greeks whom he had been chasing reached the ears of

Isaac, half a league in advance, where he had stopped to dine and sleep, for
he had no idea that the Franks possessed any horses. He and his escort
climbed a hill “to see what their folk would do.” All they did was to keep
turning about and shooting and shouting back at the little band of Franks,
who stood motionless. One Hugh de la Mare, who though he bore arms was
a clerk, said to the king, “Come away, sire, their numbers are too
overwhelming.” “Get you to your own writing-business, sir clerk, and leave
matters of chivalry to us,” retorted Richard. He knew that reinforcements
were not far behind him; even before they came up, the suddenness and
vehemence of his onset threw the Greeks into confusion; and the victory
was soon complete. Isaac fled to the mountains; his standard-bearer was
1191 struck down and the standard taken by Richard’s own hand. After
chasing the enemy for a couple of leagues the king called off his troops
from the pursuit and leisurely returned, the men-at-arms stopping on the
way back to collect countless spoils left by the Emperor in the place where
he had camped. On reaching the town the king caused a proclamation to be
made that “all people of the land who did not desire war might come and go
in safety; but such as did seek war should have no peace or truce from
him.”[605]
On the way from Rhodes to Cyprus Richard had spoken a ship westward
bound from Acre and heard of Philip’s arrival there.[606] Some vessel sailing
from Rhodes or Cyprus to Acre seems to have carried thither news of
Richard’s whereabouts. On May 11 three galleys were seen approaching
Limasol. Richard characteristically[607] set off in a little boat to May 11
ascertain for himself what they were,[608] and found that they carried King
Guy of Jerusalem and some of his chief nobles, who had come in search of
the king of England to secure his alliance and support against a scheme
which had been set on foot at Acre under Philip’s auspices for deposing
Guy and making Conrad of Montferrat, the lord of Tyre, king in his stead.
Richard welcomed them cordially and royally. His marriage and the
coronation of his queen took place next day (May 12). A few more days
were spent in festivities and in waiting for some belated ships to come into
port.[609] Among those irretrievably lost in the great storm there seem to
have been several galleys, but some at least of these were now replaced by
the Cypriote ones which had been captured.[610] When at last the tale of
vessels was complete, Richard prepared to resume his pursuit of Isaac.
1191 Isaac, however, who had retired inland to the capital of Cyprus,

Nicosia, anticipated him by sending proposals for a parley. It took place “in
a garden of fig trees between the shore and the Limasol road.”[611] The king
went in regal state, attired in a tunic of rose-coloured samite and a mantle
“bedight with small half-moons of solid silver set in rows, interspersed with
shining orbs like suns”; his head was covered with a scarlet cap; he was girt
with a well-proved sword “with a golden hilt, a silken belt, and a finely
chased scabbard edged with silver”; his spurs were golden (or gilt), and he
was mounted on a Spanish horse of great beauty as well as of a size
befitting a rider of such lofty stature; “his saddle was red, studded with little
golden and bright-coloured stars, and having on its hinder part two golden
lion-cubs rampant, and as if snarling at each other.”[612] Isaac swore fealty to
Richard, promising to accompany him to Holy Land and serve under him
there with five hundred knights; meanwhile Richard was to hold the castles
and imperial domains of Cyprus in pledge and to receive an indemnity of
three thousand five hundred marks. On these terms they exchanged the kiss
of peace.[613] That night, however, Isaac mounted his fleetest horse, a
wonderful animal called Fauvel, and fled to Famagosta (the ancient
Ammochontos, on the east coast). His flight was discovered immediately,
but Fauvel seems to have had a reputation which was already known to
Richard, for the king forbade all direct pursuit as useless. Instead, he took
stronger measures; he put to sea at the head of his galleys and sailed May 15-
30
round to Famagosta while his land-forces were, at his request, led
by Guy along the coast-road to meet him there. When they reached the
place, however, they found it deserted. Richard sent some ships round to the
other coast-towns to guard against Isaac’s escape by sea; he himself stayed
three days at Famagosta, and there gave an audience to some envoys from
Philip, charged with a pressing request that he would proceed to Acre
1191 without further delay. Their urgency was so vehement and so
insulting that “the king grew angry, and raised his eyebrows, and there were
words spoken which it is not meet to write.” “Not for half the wealth of
Russia” would he leave Cyprus till he had conquered it and made sure that
the supplies of food of which it was the storehouse should be available for
the Crusade. So he marched upon Nicosia, whither Isaac had again retired.
This time Richard, fearing an attack from behind, took the c. May 18
command of the rearguard. Isaac was lying in wait with his household
troops; after an unsuccessful attempt to check the advance of the Frankish
vanguard, he “like a Turcople” harassed the flanks of the host till he came

near enough to Richard to shoot at him two arrows. Richard dashed forward
and would have taken summary vengeance, but the Cypriote Emperor was
mounted on Fauvel, and the matchless steed carried him away, at a pace
which defied pursuit, to the strong castle of Candaria or Kantara. His troops
retired in confusion. Next morning the citizens of Nicosia made their
submission to Richard, and he “had their beards shaved off in token of the
transfer of their allegiance to a new lord.” He then divided his army into
three parts, probably intending himself to take the command of one of them;
but he fell sick and was obliged to remain at Nicosia and leave the direction
of the campaign to the king of Jerusalem. Guy, who seems to have known
the country, besieged and took the castle of Cherina,[614] on the north coast,
and found within its walls the emperor’s only child, a young girl. Her father
was so dismayed at her capture that he ordered the immediate surrender of
the next fortress, “Didemus,”[615] to which Guy laid siege. Richard, as soon
as he recovered, went to attack a third stronghold, “Bufevent.”[616] Scarcely
had he reached it when Isaac offered complete surrender of his castles,
lands, “everything,” begging only to be spared the indignity of “irons or
bonds.” Isaac followed close on his messenger and threw himself at the
king’s feet. Richard raised him up graciously, seated him at his side, and
1191 relieved his anxiety about his daughter by bringing her to meet him.
As for the fetters, Isaac’s request evidently ran counter to the king’s
inclination or to his fears of a possible escape; but, “lest folk should make
an outcry,” he granted it after a fashion: he put the fallen tyrant in chains of
silver.[617]
Thus in fifteen days—the last fortnight of May[618]—Richard, May 18-
June 1
with Guy’s help, had “won the mastery of Cyprus for the service of
God.” For the same purpose he took possession of a mass of treasures of all
kinds which he found in the castles.[619] Moreover, the people of the land, to
whom Isaac had been a “tyrant” in every sense of the word,[620] gave to their
new ruler “the half of all they possessed” “for the restoration of the laws
and institutes which they had had under the Emperors of Constantinople”
and which Richard confirmed to them by charter.[621] He further secured his
conquest by turning out all the Greek garrisons,[622] replacing them with
Franks, and appointing two Englishmen, Richard de Camville and Robert of
Turnham, governors or “keepers” of the island,[623] who were charged to
send regular supplies of the victuals—barley, wheat, sheep, bullocks—
which Cyprus produced in abundance, to the Franks in Syria, “where,” adds

the poet-pilgrim, “they were of great use.”[624] Meanwhile he had sent Isaac,
under the charge of Guy,[625] straight across the sea to the nearest point on
the Syrian coast, the fortress of Markab in Tripoli. The Damsel of Cyprus,
who seems to have been almost a child, was placed under the care of the
two queens and remained with them throughout the Crusade.[626] On June 5,
1191 the Wednesday in Whitsun week, the fleet sailed for Palestine.[627]
The various losses which it had sustained in the Mediterranean Sea were
compensated by the acquisition of the Cypriote navy; the total of ships was
now a hundred and sixty-three, of which thirteen were three-masted busses
and fifty were triremes.[628]
One more adventure at sea awaited the king before he reached the Holy
Land. “Full of health, and light as a feather,” he led the way “as fast as a
stag could run” in a direct line across the water till Markab was sighted.
Thence the fleet sailed down the coast past Tortosa, Tripoli, and June
6 or 7
Beyrout.[629] Suddenly, between Beyrout and Sidon, Richard and his
companions in the leading galley saw ahead of them a ship of such size
“that we read of no larger one ever existing save the ark of Noah.”[630] On a
nearer view they perceived that it had three tall masts; one side of it was
covered with green felt or tarpaulin, the other with yellow;[631] and its whole
appearance, to western eyes, was unnatural and uncanny.[632] Richard’s men
hailed it and demanded whence it came and where it belonged. “We are
Genoese, for Tyre,” was the answer. But one of Richard’s oarsmen said:
“Hang me, sire, if that ship be not Turkish!” At his suggestion another
galley was ordered to go close up to the ship without hailing her; this was
done, and her crew immediately opened fire on the galley with arbalests and
Damascus bows. Richard’s galley came swiftly up; his men tried to board
the ship, but in vain. The king swore he would hang them all if they let the
Turks escape. Again and again they renewed the attack; at last they fairly
stormed the ship, but were driven back again into their own vessels. Then
Richard bade them make a breach in the enemy ship’s side or keel; in this
they succeeded, and she sank. Some thirty-five of her officers and engineers
1191 were saved and kept as prisoners by Richard’s orders; the rest of the
men on board her were either slain or drowned.[633] When the victors
reached their destination they learned that the ship had been specially built
by order of Saladin’s brother Safadin and despatched from Beyrout to carry
reinforcements and supplies to the besieged Saracens in Acre, but had been
unable to enter the harbour and was, when the Franks overtook her, cruising

about, waiting for an opportunity to return thither;[634] she carried, besides
her crew, at least six hundred and fifty picked soldiers;[635] a man, doubtless
one of the prisoners, who had seen her loaded at Beyrout, said eight
hundred, and further asserted that she contained a hundred camel-loads of
arms of all kinds, victuals and other stores “beyond reckoning,” bottles
filled with Greek fire, and two hundred “ugly grey serpents” which,
according to one account, he had himself helped to stow in her, and which
were destined to be let loose against the Christian host;[636] probably these
were some kind of serpent-like contrivances for throwing the fire. In the
Saracen camp the story of the catastrophe was somewhat differently told by
a Moslem who represented himself as its sole survivor, rescued and sent by
the Christians to inform his people of the disaster which had befallen their
cause. He seems to have stated that the dromond had been sunk by its own
captain to save it from capture. Saladin’s biographer, however, frankly
admits that the issue of Richard’s first encounter with Turks was a severe
1191 blow to the defenders of Acre.[637] To Richard and his followers it
must have seemed a good omen; and it was immediately followed by
another. At the opening of the fight they had had the wind in their faces;[638]
suddenly it dropped[639] and then shifted to the north and carried them before
nightfall to Tyre.[640] Here Richard landed, intending to spend the night in
the city, but its keepers refused to admit him, asserting that their lord,
Conrad of Montferrat, and the king of France had forbidden them to do so.
[641]
Next day the wind still favoured him and his fleet, and bore them past
Scandalion and Casal Imbert straight to the haven where they would be.[642]

CHAPTER III
THE FALL OF ACRE

1191.

What brave chief shall head the forces
Where the Red Cross Legions gather?

From Mount Taurus to the Gulf of Aden, from the river Tigris to the
Mediterranean sea, and from the Arabian to the Libyan desert, Saladin was
now master of everything except some fragments of territory in the north-
west of Syria and one sea-port in Galilee. The first of these exceptions
consisted of a small portion of the Latin principality of Antioch, including
its capital city; south of this, a few fortified coast-towns—Markab, Tortosa,
Tripoli; and east of these latter, the little settlement of Ismaïlite warriors
who in their stronghold under the shelter of Mount Lebanon defied Franks
and Turks alike, and acknowledged no ruler save their own chieftain, called
by western chroniclers “the Old Man of the Mountain.” The one
unconquered city in the Holy Land itself was Tyre.
The goal of the Crusade was, of course, Jerusalem. Ninety years before,
when Islam was split up into a number of separate and rival states, all
weakened and well-nigh exhausted by constant strife with each other, the
First Crusaders had attained that goal by a victorious land march all the way
from Antioch; but now all was changed, and it would have been sheer
madness for their successors to dream of following in their steps. Now that
the resources of Aleppo, Damascus, Bagdad, and Cairo were all at the
command of one ruler, the acquisition of a base on the sea-coast in such a
position that troops and supplies could be poured through it from the West
direct into the Holy Land in safety and on a large scale (or what in the
twelfth century was accounted such) was an almost indispensable
preliminary to any practical attempt at the re-conquest of Jerusalem. Tyre,
with its peninsular citadel facing the valley which leads round the foot of
Lebanon into Coele-Syria, was somewhat too isolated as well as too far
north for this purpose. But some twenty-five miles south of Tyre there was a
fortified sea-port whose character and importance were summed up by an
Arab writer, a few years before it fell into Saladin’s power, in one

significant sentence: “Acre is the column on which the Frankish towns of
Syria rest.”[643] Acre stood on the site of the ancient Ptolemaïs, at the
northern extremity of the wide semicircular bay whose southern extremity
is the point of Carmel, and which forms the only real break in the long
straight coast-line of the Holy Land. Its harbour was the best—indeed, the
only good one except Tyre and, perhaps, Ascalon—in the whole length of
that coast-line. Under the Franks it was the chief landing-place for both
pilgrims and traders from Europe; for it was the converging-point of all the
main lines of communication between the West and Jerusalem, Mecca,
Egypt, and Damascus. For the trade of Damascus it was practically the only
available sea-port, being the only one to and from which access on the land
side was not blocked by Mount Lebanon. “There,” says the Arab visitor
quoted above, “put in the tall ships which float like mountains over the sea;
it is the meeting-place of crafts and caravans, the place whither Mussulman
and Christian merchants congregate from all quarters.”[644] To the natural
advantages of the site were added fortifications which ranked among the
mightiest of the many mighty productions of military architecture reared by
the Frank settlers in Syria. The mouth of the harbour was guarded by a
chain; a great tower rose on a tongue of land which ran out into the sea and
sheltered the harbour to westward; the city lay partly on this peninsula and
partly on the mainland, and was protected on the land side, to north and
1189 east, by strong walls and towers, and beyond these by a wide and
deep fosse.[645] Saladin had taken the place in July 1187; he was fully alive
to its importance, and it was strongly garrisoned and well provisioned when
at the end of August 1189 King Guy of Jerusalem, having made his way
down from Antioch, collecting forces as he went from among the natives of
the land and the newly enlisted Crusaders who during the last year had been
arriving in small parties at the few northern sea-ports still in Christian
hands, set to work to begin the re-conquest of his kingdom by 1189
Aug.
laying siege to Acre with about ten thousand men.[646]
It was a great venture of faith; and the faith was justified. Acre at once
became the rallying-point for all the remaining forces of the realm and for
the Crusaders who came pouring in from Europe during the next few
months. Saladin on his part had immediately despatched a large army to
occupy the hills which bordered the plain, some eight to ten miles wide, at
the back of the town. The besiegers, in their entrenched camp outside the
walls and fosse, found themselves practically besieged in their turn; and this

double siege lasted, with many vicissitudes and very little real 1191
progress on either side, till the spring of 1191. By the middle of April, when
Philip Augustus arrived, the Christian host was sufficiently numerous to
maintain a complete blockade of the city by land and entire control over the
harbour, and thus to prevent the entrance of men and provisions, either by
land or by sea. They had, however, little prospect of winning the place
except by starvation; for they could not venture on attempting to capture it
by a general assault, because their own encampment was in constant danger
from a great host of fresh troops which Saladin had brought up to occupy
the surrounding country as soon as the winter was over. Thus on the
1191 evening of Saturday, June 8,[647] “the valiant king, the Lion-heart,[648]
saw before him Acre with its towers, and the flower of the world’s people
seated round about it, and beyond them the hill-peaks and the mountains
and the valleys and the plains, covered with the tents of Saladin and Safadin
and their troops, pressing hard on our Christian host.”[649]
Not the least of the disadvantages under which that host laboured was the
lack of a commander-in-chief. Neither the character nor the circumstances
of Guy were such as could enable him to retain that position after the influx
from Europe had begun; and the supreme command of the siege therefore
passed from one to another of the more influential leaders of the western
contingents by a succession of temporary arrangements, intended only as
makeshifts till the three sovereigns who were expected to take the joint
leadership of the whole expedition should arrive. The greatest of these
three, however, the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, never arrived at all,
having been accidentally drowned on the way in June 1190. After the main
body of the French Crusaders reached Acre in July 1190, the chief
command devolved upon their leader, Count Henry of Champagne, whose
mother was half-sister to both Philip Augustus and Richard, and who was
thus in some sense a representative of both the kings. Philip on his arrival
devoted himself to setting up his military engines, of which he had brought
a goodly store, in whatever places he deemed most advantageous, and
according to one English chronicler, building a stone house for himself; but
he declined to take any further action without his brother-sovereign.[650]
Richard had no sooner passed from the clamorous welcome given him by
the whole host as he landed, and the exchange of courteous greetings with
Philip, than he plunged at once into practical matters.[651] Having learned
that Philip was paying his followers three gold bezants apiece every month,

he—seemingly that very night—issued a proclamation throughout June 8
1191 the host offering four bezants a month to any knight, of any country,
who would take service under him.[652] The consequence was that nearly all
those who were free to dispose of themselves and their services “took him
for their leader and their lord.”[653] Among the first to come forward for this
purpose were the Genoese and the Pisans. He declined, however, the
homage and fealty of the Genoese, because it was already pledged to Philip.
The Pisans became his liegemen, and “he confirmed to them by his charter
the customs which they were wont to have in the land of Jerusalem.”[654] It
is highly significant that Richard could already, and seemingly without
calling forth a protest or even a remark from anyone, make an assumption
of authority in a realm of which he was neither ruler nor overlord. Scarcely
less significant was the action of Henry of Champagne. Henry—so at least
says an English chronicler—having come to the end of his own resources,
had asked his uncle of France for a subsidy; Philip offered him a loan of a
hundred marks, if he would pledge his county for their repayment. Henry
then applied to his uncle of England, who at once gave him four thousand
pounds and a supply of food for his men and his horses. Thenceforth the
troops of Champagne and their count served under Richard’s June
standard, and their own sovereign remained in command only of the strictly
“French” followers who had come to Acre in his train.[655]
The wind which had brought Richard’s galleys swiftly to Acre on June 8
changed again before the slower vessels of his fleet could follow him, and
until they arrived he had no engines of war.[656] But “Mategriffon” had been
packed on one of the galleys; on the 10th it was set up, and by daybreak on
the 11th his archers were looking down into Acre from the tall wooden
tower, and “Kill-Greek” was ready to become “Kill-Turk.” Philip renewed
his attacks on the “Accursed Tower,” the chief defence of the city on its
eastern side; and all along the line of the walls stone-casters and June 11-
1191 miners set vigorously to work. Richard meanwhile “went 14
about among the groups, instructing some, criticizing others, encouraging
others; he seemed to be everywhere and at every man’s side, so that to him
might fairly be ascribed whatsoever each man was doing.”[657] Within a day
or two, however, he was prostrated by a strange illness, a kind of malarial
fever which among other effects caused alopecia or loss of hair.[658] Much
against his wishes, a general assault was nevertheless made under Philip’s
orders on June 14. It failed, and so did another three or four days later.[659]

Presently Philip was attacked by the same malady which had struck down
Richard.[660] In Richard’s case it seems to have been complicated by his
chronic trouble, ague;[661] and thus Philip was the first to recover. Richard
occupied part of his time of enforced inactivity in an exchange of courtesies
with Saladin. Each party was anxious for information as to the strength, or
weakness, of the other; and the courtesies of chivalry, which were quite as
familiar to the Moslem as to the Christian prince, were utilized by both for
this purpose. Saladin appears to have opened communications by sending a
gift of fruit to the two royal invalids. Richard was eager for a personal
interview with his courteous adversary; this Saladin refused, on the June 19-
July 21
ground that “kings should not have speech with each other till terms
of peace between them have been arranged”; he consented, however, to a
meeting between his brother Safadin and the king, but when the time for it
came Richard was still too ill to leave his tent. Richard next despatched to
the Saracen camp a negro slave as a gift to the Sultan.[662] On the king’s part
these proceedings were unwise, not in themselves, but because they were
liable to be misconstrued by his fellow-Crusaders and to bring upon him the
1191 suspicions of the other princes in the host, and especially of Philip
Augustus, with whom he was already at variance about a much more
serious matter which practically depended upon their joint decision. This
was nothing less than the disposal of the Crown of Jerusalem.
King Amalric, who died in 1174, had by his first wife a son, Baldwin,
and a daughter, Sibyl; and by his second wife an infant daughter, Isabel.
The first marriage had been dissolved on the ground of consanguinity; in
strict law, therefore, Baldwin and Sibyl were illegitimate; Baldwin,
however, became king without opposition, because he was the only male
survivor of the royal house. But he was not yet fourteen, and he was a leper.
In 1176, therefore, an attempt was made to provide for the succession by
marrying his elder sister to a member of a distinguished family of Italian
Crusaders, William of Montferrat. Within a year Sibyl was a widow; but she
was also the mother of a son, and in 1183 this child was solemnly crowned
and anointed king in his uncle’s lifetime. This precaution staved off the
impending crisis for nearly three years, though the imminent prospect of a
long royal minority in the existing political and military circumstances of
Palestine was felt to be so alarming that the very Patriarch who had
crowned the child became, only a few months later, eager to undo his own
work and tried, but without success, to bring from Europe to the dying king

and the distracted realm an adoptive male heir of full age in the person of
one of the descendants of the first marriage of the Angevin Count Fulk V,
whose second marriage had brought the crown of Jerusalem into the house
of Anjou. Baldwin IV died before Heraclius returned from Europe, in the
winter of 1184-5; in September 1186 little Baldwin V died also. Sibyl then
claimed the crown in her own right, as the natural heiress at once of her
child, her brother, and her father; the Templars, the Patriarch, and some of
the nobles rallied round her at Jerusalem; the people acclaimed her as
queen, and she was crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre together
with her second husband, Guy of Lusignan. Sibyl’s half-sister, Isabel, was
now fifteen years old, and had been married three years. A party among the
1191 nobles had ever since King Amalric’s death been biding their time to
bring Isabel forward as his only legitimate representative and heir. They
tried to do so now; they failed, however, because her young husband,
Humphry of Toron, and his step-father and guardian, Reginald of Châtillon,
both adhered to Sibyl. But when the sickness which raged in the Christian
camp before Acre in 1190 carried off first the two little daughters of Sibyl
and Guy and then Sibyl herself, Isabel and her partisans found their
opportunity. On the pretext that Isabel had been wedded to Humphry
without her consent, the Patriarch declared her marriage void. Nov. 24
1190
Immediately afterwards she married the man who had long been
Guy’s most implacable rival, Conrad of Montferrat, a younger brother of
Sibyl’s first husband.
In four words the Norman poet-historian of the third Crusade has at once
pronounced a rare and splendid panegyric on Guy of Lusignan as a man,
and given us the clue to Guy’s failure as a statesman. “No king was
endowed with better qualities save for one characteristic which he had: that
he knew no evil. That,” adds the poet with a charming touch of perhaps
unconscious irony, “is what men call simpleness.”[663] “Simpleness,”
whether as a virtue or a failing, can certainly never have been laid to the
credit or the charge of Conrad of Montferrat. He had in 1187 landed with a
handful of followers at Tyre when it was literally on the eve of surrendering
to Saladin, and had taken upon himself the command and defence of the
place with such vigour that Saladin was compelled to raise the siege. An
Arab historian called him “the mightiest devil of all the Franks”;[664] an
English writer called him “a son of the piercing and crooked serpent.”[665]
His valour and capability, together with the possession of Tyre, soon made

1191 him a personage of much greater importance than the titular king. In
birth Conrad was much more than Guy’s equal; the marquisate of
Montferrat, to which he succeeded in 1188, ranked among the chief
principalities of the kingdom of Italy, and his mother was granddaughter to
one emperor, sister to another, and aunt to a third; while Guy was merely
the youngest of the five brothers of that Geoffrey of Lusignan who had been
a ringleader in almost every Aquitanian revolt from 1167 onward, and who
had finally, some months after Conrad’s arrival at Tyre, gone to expiate in
Palestine the last and worst of his offences against Duke Richard. To avert
civil strife, both parties agreed to submit the whole question of the Crown
to the arbitration of the two western kings. Guy now laid before them a
complaint that Conrad had “forcibly and unjustly taken from him”
(probably during his absence in Cyprus) “the rights and revenues of the
kingdom.” His brother Geoffrey appealed the marquis of disloyalty, perjury,
and treason against the king of Jerusalem and the whole Christian host.
Conrad for the moment avoided answering the appeal by slipping away to
Tyre;[666] its prosecution was postponed, and with it the trial of the rival
claims to the Crown; pending a decision, the royal dues and revenues of the
market and port of Acre were sequestrated and entrusted to the Templars
and Hospitaliers.[667]
The two arbitrators inclined opposite ways. Guy’s “simpleness” had led
him aright when it pointed him, notwithstanding the previous hostile
relations between his family and their overlord in Aquitaine, to Richard as
his natural protector against the Italian claimant to his Crown. On the other
hand, Conrad’s family connexions and his talents had secured for him the
support of most of the other princes in the crusading host; the ceremony of
marriage between him and Isabel had been performed by a French bishop, a
1191 near kinsman of King Philip.[668] Thus supported, he had, as we have
seen, already ventured to set Richard at defiance by preventing him from
entering Tyre; and he was now speedily[669] recalled to the camp by Philip,
who at once openly “took him into familiarity and counsel.” According to
one account it was at Conrad’s instigation that Philip laid claim to half the
island of Cyprus and of the spoils which Richard had acquired there; the
pretext for the claim being the agreement made at Messina. Richard
answered that the said agreement related only to whatever he and Philip
might acquire in the Holy Land; he offered, however, to satisfy Philip’s
demand if Philip would in exchange grant him half the county of Flanders

and of everything that had escheated to the French Crown by the recent
death of the Flemish count. On this Philip dropped his claim and consented
to a new arrangement whereby both kings explicitly promised to share
equally whatever they should acquire in Palestine. This convention was
confirmed by oaths and charters, and its fulfilment was safeguarded by a
provision that all conquests and acquisitions made by either party should be
placed under the charge of the two great Military Orders for safe custody
and division.[670]
Meanwhile Richard’s fleet had arrived, bringing the rest of his
followers[671] and his engines of war. These seem to have been mostly stone-
casters and other missile engines worked at long range. Philip’s machines
were chiefly engines of assault and battery, which had to be advanced close
up to the walls, and were thus more exposed to damage and destruction by
fire from the enemy. The most effectual work of all was that of the miners
who had long been making their way under the walls and especially under
the “Accursed Tower.”[672] The defences of Acre were now crumbling fast,
1191 and the fall of a long piece of wall close to that tower, on July 3,[673]
coinciding with the failure of an attack made by Saladin and his brother on
the Christian trenches,[674] was followed next morning by an offer July 4
from the garrison to surrender the place and all its contents if their own
lives and liberty were spared.[675] The two kings, knowing that the garrison
comprised—as a Moslem writer says—“the best emirs of the Sultan’s host
and the bravest champions of Islam,”[676] refused the condition.[677] That
night another attack on the Christians’ outer trench was successfully beaten
off.[678] Then Richard, sick though he was, determined to try the effect of an
assault on the city under his own personal direction. He caused a kind of
moveable hurdle-shed, called by the French writers cercloie or circleie, to
be brought up to the edge of the fosse; under cover of this shelter his
crossbowmen could shoot at the tower; he himself, wrapped in a rich silken
quilt, was carried forth and placed among them, “and many a bolt was shot
by that skilful hand,” the Turks shooting back all the time.[679] All day long
his stone-casters worked incessantly; so did his miners; at night the mine
was fired, and their efforts were rewarded by the fall of some turrets and a
great breach in the curtain wall.[680] Hereupon Richard sent a crier through
the host to proclaim a reward for any man who would pull out a stone from
a certain piece of wall close to the great tower. The offer met with a quick
response from his own troops and the Pisans, and before the rest of the host

had finished breakfast next morning they had nearly made an July 6
entrance into the city,[681] when the besieged again signified their desire to
1191 treat for peace.[682] Again the two emirs in command, Karakoush and
Seiffeddin-el-Meshtoub,[683] came to speak with the kings, and again their
offers were refused, seemingly on the understanding that the matter was to
be referred to Saladin.[684]
Saladin’s headquarters were at Tell-Ayadiyeh, at the foot of the hills,
some seven or eight miles east of Acre, on the direct road to Damascus.
Twice within the last two days the besieged had warned the Sultan that
unless he relieved them at once, they must surrender, with his consent or
without it.[685] The two kings, knowing that his forces were unequal to
coping with the united Christian host, were at the same time negotiating
with him in the hope that the city might meanwhile fall into their hands; and
he could only endeavour to stave off its surrender by spinning out the
negotiations till the reinforcements which he was expecting should arrive.
[686]
No sooner, however, had these begun to come up than on July 8-10 he
took the significant step of cutting down the vineyards and orchards around
Acre and levelling most of the towns and smaller fortresses in the
neighbourhood;[687] and on the 11th the besieged intimated their readiness to
make peace “at the will of the Christian kings.” Next morning July 12
(12th), in a great assembly at the Templars’ quarters, the kings “by the
counsel of the whole host” made an agreement with the two emirs.[688] Acre
was to be surrendered immediately, and its garrison were to be kept by the
Franks as hostages for the fulfilment of three conditions to which the emirs
pledged themselves in Saladin’s name: the restoration of the Holy Cross,
the release of sixteen hundred Christians who were prisoners in the Sultan’s
hands, and the payment of two hundred thousand bezants (or, according to
another account, dinars) to the kings and fourteen (or forty) thousand to
1191 Conrad “because the treaty had been made by his mediation.”[689] The
emirs returned to the city; a herald proclaimed throughout the host that all
molestation, injury, or insult to the Turks must cease at once; the gates were
opened, the garrison, unarmed, were brought out[690] and placed under guard
in the Christian camp,[691] and the kings sent representatives to take formal
possession of Acre for them by planting their banners on its walls July 13
and towers.[692] Next day (July 13) they made an equal division of the city
and all its contents, and also of the prisoners (or hostages), and then,
seemingly, cast lots for the two halves. The royal palace fell to Richard’s

share, the Templars’ house to Philip’s; but neither king appears to have
taken up his abode in the city for several days. The prisoners were sent back
into lodgings assigned to them within the walls, and the greater part of the
host also found quarters there.[693]
These prisoners—the late garrison of Acre—were, by the terms of
capitulation, to be detained till the relic of the Cross, the stipulated number
of Christian captives, and the indemnity, should all be delivered up by
Saladin; then they were to depart free with their personal property and their
wives and children.[694] The fulfilment of the conditions on which their
release depended was obviously beyond the control of the officers who had
made the agreement. Those officers were understood by the Christians to be
acting with Saladin’s authorization, but it appears that this was not the fact;
according to Saladin’s friend and biographer Bohadin, they communicated
the terms to the Sultan and then acted upon them without waiting for his
1191 reply, and he was about to send back a flat refusal of his sanction to
them when he saw the Frank banners on the walls.[695] After waiting two
days in the hope of some movement which might give him a chance of
successfully attacking the Christian camp, he on the 14th removed July 14
his headquarters from Ayadiyeh to Shefr’ Amm, a village in the plain, ten
miles south-east of Acre.[696] Thence he sent a messenger to inquire what
were the terms on which the surrender had been made, and the date fixed
for their fulfilment. On the same day three envoys came from Acre to speak
with him about the Christian prisoners to be released and the money to be
paid; he gave them an honourable reception, and sent them on to Damascus,
that they might inspect the prisoners there.[697] Thus he, implicitly if not
explicitly, committed himself to the conditions which had been accepted in
his name.
Friendly embassies continued to pass between the two camps;[698] but
within the Christian camp there were dissensions. First the Crusaders who
had been at the siege before the kings arrived—some of them ever since its
beginning—claimed a share of the spoil, and threatened to desert if it were
not given to them. The kings put them off with a promise. Then Richard
proposed that he, the king of France, and all the men of their respective
armies should bind themselves by oath not to leave the Holy Land for three
years unless the whole of it should before the end of that time be
surrendered by Saladin. Philip, however, refused to take such an oath.[699]

Next day (July 21) Richard with his wife and his sister took up his abode in
the palace.[700] It may have been either on his entry into the city on this
occasion or on an earlier visit of inspection that in passing through the
1191 streets he noticed on one of the towers a banner which he did not
recognize, and asked to whom it belonged. It was that of Duke Leopold of
Austria, by whom the tower had been taken. The king ordered the banner to
be pulled down and trodden in the mire, and further vented his wrath in
insulting words addressed to Leopold himself.[701] He seems to have acted
under the impulsion of one of those fits of unreasonable fury which were
part of his Angevin heritage and by which every member of the Angevin
house was liable to be occasionally goaded into blunders as well as into
crimes. Blunder and wrong were united in this case, and were to be dearly
paid for at a later time; for the moment, Leopold was only one of a number
of crusading princes and nobles who chafed under Richard’s control. In
spite of all the arrangements for an equal division of authority between the
kings it was inevitable that the supreme command should fall to Richard,
not only because he had the greatest number of troops, but also because
Philip made no attempt to assert himself openly with regard to anything
except the division of the spoils.[702] This last was in fact the only matter
connected with the Crusade which had any real interest for Philip. His one
aim was to get back to his own realm, that he might, first, secure for himself
the heritage of the lately deceased count of Flanders, and next, make
whatever profit could possibly be made out of the absence of the duke of
Normandy and Aquitaine. His difficulty was to abandon the expedition
without disgracing himself in the eyes of all Christendom. Four of July 22
his barons went to the palace on the day after Richard took up his abode
there, with a message of which they seem to have been so ashamed that
they could not utter it for tears till Richard helped them by anticipating its
1191 tenour—the king of France wanted his counsel and assent for
returning home. Philip, according to these envoys, said that unless he
speedily left Syria he would die. “If he leaves undone the work for which he
came hither,” answered Richard, “he will bring shame and everlasting
contempt upon himself and upon France; so he will not go by my counsel.
But if he must needs either go or die, let him do what best pleases him and
his folk.” Next day Philip repeated his demand for half of Cyprus; July 23
which Richard again refused. Three days later Conrad of July 26
Montferrat, on Philip’s advice, came and threw himself at Richard’s feet

and “asked his pardon” (seemingly for the insult to which the king had been
subjected at Tyre); Richard granted it.[703] On the following day the July 27
plea of Conrad against Guy was tried in the presence of both the western
kings. Conrad claimed the kingdom in right of his so-called wife, Isabel;
Guy, as having been made king, and done nothing to forfeit his crown. Both
put themselves on the judgement of the two western sovereigns and the
prelates and nobles of the host. Judgement was given on the morrow (July
28) in the palace of Richard. Guy was to be king for life; if he died before
Conrad and Isabel they were to succeed him,[704] and according to one
account the crown was to remain with their heirs;[705] according to another
account, if Guy, Conrad, and Isabel should all die while Richard was in
Holy Land, Richard—evidently as being head of the house of which the
Angevin kings of Jerusalem were a younger branch—was to dispose of the
realm at his will.[706] Meanwhile, the royal revenues were to be divided
equally between Conrad and Guy.[707] Geoffrey de Lusignan and Conrad
were both confirmed in the fiefs which they actually held.[708] On the
morrow Philip made over all that he had acquired in Acre to Conrad, and
1191 again asked Richard’s leave to go home.[709] Richard is said to have
been so dismayed that he offered Philip a half share of everything he had
gathered together for the Crusade—gold, silver, provisions, arms, horses,
ships—if he would abandon his project; but it was in vain.[710] All that the
English king could do was to insist on the French one taking a solemn oath
not to invade the Angevin lands or work any mischief against their owner
while the latter was on pilgrimage, nor without forty days’ notice after his
return. The oath was sworn, and the duke of Burgundy, the count of
Champagne, and some other French nobles stood surety for its fulfilment.
[711]
Each of the kings then detached from his troops a hundred knights and
five hundred men-at-arms and sent them to Bohemond of Antioch for the
defence of his city and principality; Richard furnished his share of this
contingent with money enough to pay its expenses up to the following
Easter, and added a gift of five “large ships” laden with horses, arms and
food. Finally, the French king’s share of the prisoners was separated from
Richard’s[712] and placed, together with the French troops who were to
remain in Syria, under the command of the duke of Burgundy.[713] On July
31 or August 1 Philip and Conrad went, in two galleys lent to them by
Richard, to Tyre.[714] There Philip procured three Genoese galleys, and with
these, on August 3, he sailed for Europe.[715]

However much the lesser chieftains and their followers might resent the
supremacy of Richard—and if we may believe a German report, the
Germans and some of the Italians did resent it so fiercely that they would
have set upon him openly with their weapons had not the Templars
intervened[716]—it was now evident that he must be henceforth commander-
1191 in-chief of the whole Crusade. He at once, after holding a council
with the other princes, had all his ships loaded up with provisions Aug. 1-3
for man and beast and with his military engines, and issued an order that all
the Crusaders should make ready to follow him, with their arms and horses,
to Ascalon. He also “made all the archers of the host come before him and
gave them good wages.”[717] It was of course impossible to leave Acre till
the treaty with Saladin was carried into effect; and this was becoming a
matter of considerable anxiety. From July 14 to August 2 frequent
communications had passed between Saladin and the kings.[718] An English
writer of the time says that Saladin offered them the whole kingdom of
Jerusalem except one fortress (Krak of Moab, or Montreal) if they would
lend him two thousand knights and five thousand men-at-arms for a
twelvemonth to help him against the Mussulman enemies in his rear, the
sons of Nureddin the lord of Mosul.[719] Such a proposal, if made at all,
could hardly be taken or expected to be taken seriously, and can only have
been a device for spinning out negotiations and gaining time. A
modification of one detail of the treaty was, however, granted to the Sultan.
The period originally allowed him for the delivery of the Cross, the
Christian captives, and the money seems to have been one month from the
day of the surrender of Acre;[720] but this was soon perceived to be
impracticable. On July 24 the Frank envoys who had gone to inspect their
imprisoned fellow-Christians at Damascus returned with four whom they
had picked out for release;[721] and on the same evening a list of the Saracen
prisoners in Acre was brought to the Sultan. On August 2 envoys from Acre
came to him to ascertain whether the Cross was still in his camp or had
been sent away to Bagdad. When satisfied on this point by ocular
demonstration, they told him that the kings accepted his proposal to deliver
all that was specified in the treaty by three monthly instalments. The first
1191 instalment was to comprise more than two-thirds of the total; it was
to consist of the Cross, the whole stipulated number of Christian captives,
and half the money payment. The term for its delivery was to be August
11[722]—an ingeniously equitable arrangement for both parties, since, the

duration of the Mohammedan calendar month differing from that of the
western peoples, the period from the surrender of Acre would be a month
and a day[723] according to the reckoning of the Moslems whose part in the
treaty must be the most difficult and lengthy of accomplishment, and one
day less than a month according to the reckoning of the Franks, who had
most to gain by a speedy fulfilment of the conditions.[724] Richard presently
grew uneasy as to the possibility of fulfilling the Franks’ side of the
compact on the appointed day; for Philip, after formally giving the charge
of his share of the prisoners to the duke of Burgundy,[725] had carried them,
or at least the most important and valuable of them, away with him to Tyre
and left them there in the custody of Conrad.[726] On August 5 Richard
despatched envoys to Tyre to request that Conrad would at once return to
Acre and bring these prisoners with him. Conrad flatly refused. Richard’s
first impulse, when his envoys came back next day, was to go and Aug. 6
bring the marquis to submission by force. But Conrad was a dangerous
person to quarrel with, owing to his position as heir to the Crown, and still
more because, as master of Tyre, he could stop the coming of provisions for
the host; he was in fact already doing this again, as he had done in the
earlier days of the siege. Hugh of Burgundy therefore undertook the task of
inducing Conrad to give up the prisoners to him as the representative of
their proper owner, Philip.[727] He set out for Tyre on August 8, but did not
1191 get back with the prisoners till the 12th.[728] According to the letter of
the treaty, however—at least, according to the Franks’ understanding of it—
the presence of all the Saracen prisoners on the 11th was not really
necessary; for their release was to be conditional on, and should therefore
have been preceded by, Saladin’s fulfilment of his part of the bargain. On
the 11th therefore Richard called upon Saladin to do what he had promised
for that day. Saladin replied that he would do so only on one of two
conditions: either that the Franks should at once release the captive garrison
of Acre, in which case he would give other hostages for the completion of
his payments; or that the Franks should give him hostages to keep till the
garrison were set free. The Franks rejected both these propositions, offering
instead, in return for what was now due from the Sultan, to give a solemn
oath that the prisoners should be restored to him; but this he, having no
confidence in their good faith, would not accept.[729] The discussion seems
to have ended for the time in a postponement of the “first term” (as Bohadin
calls it) till August 20.[730]

On the 14th Richard led his own troops out of the city and pitched his
tents near the enemy’s lines. A western writer tells us that next day Aug. 15
Saladin begged for a further prolongation of the term, which Richard
sternly refused; Saladin then asked for a colloquy with Richard on the
morrow, but failed to keep the tryst, and excused his failure by Aug. 16
declaring, “I did not come, because I could not fulfill the agreement which
my people had made with him.”[731] The next two days seem to have been
1191 occupied in skirmishes in which the king took his full share.[732]
Saladin’s advanced guard had now been withdrawn from Ayadiyeh Aug. 20
to another height, Keisan, some two miles further south. On the morning of
the 20th—the day finally fixed for the expiration of the “first term”—
Richard sent his tents to the pits at the foot of the hill which the Saracens
had quitted. Noon passed without a word or sign from Saladin. After mid-
day the watchers on Keisan saw Richard come out on horseback with what
to them looked like “the whole Frankish host” into the middle of the plain
between Keisan and Ayadiyeh. They at once sent word to the Sultan, and
were anxiously awaiting instructions and reinforcements from him when
they saw the Moslem prisoners, bound with cords, led forth into the midst
of the host and instantly slaughtered with swords and spears. Saladin’s
reinforcements came too late to do anything except unite with the troops at
Keisan in a futile, though gallant, effort to avenge the massacre by an attack
so fierce and persistent that it was not beaten off till nightfall.[733]
The victims of this wholesale execution comprised the entire Moslem
garrison of Acre except a few persons of distinction who were specially
reserved for ransom. Richard himself stated the number of the slain to be
about two thousand six hundred.[734] Bohadin, whose computation is
doubtless that of the Moslem troops who visited the place of slaughter next
1191 morning, says “more than three thousand.”[735] This writer, whose
narrative we have been following, and who was Saladin’s confidential
secretary and constant companion, says that in this matter “the English
king, seeing all the delays interposed by the Sultan to the execution of the
treaty, acted perfidiously with regard to his Mussulman prisoners.” This
charge of perfidy is based upon a clause which occurs only in the same
writer’s account of the terms of the capitulation of Acre; according to him,
the garrison were thereby promised that in any case their lives should be
spared; if the Sultan failed to do his part of the agreement, their fate was to
be slavery.[736] The Frank writers know nothing of this stipulation. Two of

them distinctly assert that the promise of life to the garrison was made
conditional on Saladin’s fulfilment of the bargain.[737] Another says they
were to go out free and unharmed if the agreement were carried out within
the term, but if not, they were to be at the mercy of the kings for their limbs
and lives.[738] The others simply speak of them as hostages. If the Frankish
version of this matter be the correct one, then the persistent “delays
interposed by the Sultan to the execution of the treaty” had unquestionably,
on the principles universally recognised by both Franks and Saracens,
rendered the lives of these hostages legally forfeit at mid-day on August 20.
Bohadin’s admission about the “delays” is practically an acknowledgement
that they would have been so but for the special promise which he alleges to
have been made to these men. Even if that promise were given, indeed, a
1191 feudal lawyer might have made out a case for Richard and his
colleagues in the war-council, on the plea that the moment the garrison
became legally slaves, they became, as such, the absolute property of their
masters, to be kept alive or slain at their masters’ will; and a Mussulman
lawyer might have had even more difficulty than a Christian one in finding
an answer to such a plea. It is, however, quite possible that the treaty—
drawn up as it was, in haste, in two different languages, between parties
who could only hold communication through interpreters[739]—may have
been honestly understood by the Moslems in one sense and by the
Christians in another. As for Richard’s personal responsibility in the matter,
Bohadin certainly exaggerates it. The other princes of the Crusade clearly
concurred in the determination of the hostages’ fate.[740] The cruelty of such
wholesale slaughter shocked neither their moral sense nor that of their
contemporaries; the chroniclers of the time all record the massacre without
a word or a hint of reprobation; one at least who was himself in the host
openly rejoices over it as a just vengeance for the Crusaders slain during the
siege by the crossbows of the garrison.[741] With the leaders every other
consideration would probably be outweighed by a military one. Until these
prisoners were disposed of in some safe way, the Crusade must be at a
standstill. They could not be left in Acre or anywhere else without a guard
far more numerous than it was possible to spare from the main enterprise.
1191 Saladin’s conduct had extinguished the hope of disposing of them by
exchange. The only sure way was to follow an example set by him, though
on a much smaller scale, four years before, when he put to death all the
Templars and Hospitaliers who had been captured in the battle of Hattin.[742]

So the deed was done; and that same night a herald proclaimed throughout
the host that on the morrow all must be ready to set out for Ascalon.[743]

CHAPTER IV
FROM ACRE TO JOPPA

1191

Lignum Crucis, Signum Ducis,
Sequitur exercitus,
Quod non cessit, sed praecessit
In vi Sancti Spiritus.
Berter of Orleans.
1191
Two main roads led southward from Acre. One crossed the river
Kishon at a point which on the map is about half way between Nazareth and
the sea, passed over the middle of Mount Carmel, and then along the
eastern side of the plain which lies between the coast and the mountain-
range of Samaria and Judea. Cross-paths through the defiles of this range
led from the road to the Holy Places of southern Palestine—Jerusalem,
Bethlehem, Hebron—and connected it with the great lines of
communication running through these places southward to Egypt and
Mecca and northward up the Jordan valley to Damascus; paths across the
plain connected it with the other great main road, which followed the coast-
line all the way to the mouth of the Nile. The inland route was the more
direct way to Jerusalem; but for the Crusaders the coast route was the safer,
indeed the only safe one. The re-conquest of the land must begin with the
re-conquest of the seaboard towns. Acre might serve as principal base for
the whole expedition; but this was not enough; before the Crusaders could
venture into the interior of the land they must make sure of being able to
communicate with Cyprus and with Europe through other ports besides
Acre, and with Acre itself by sea as well as by land. They must also
1191 endeavour to block at least one of the enemy’s lines of
communication with Egypt; and of these the most frequented and important
was the coast route, to which the entrance from Egypt, both by land and sea,
was commanded by the great fortress of Ascalon. Thus the plan of
campaign implied in the order issued on the night of August 20 was to
regain, first and foremost, the whole seaboard of the Holy Land.
The fortifications of Acre had been carefully repaired under Richard’s
personal superintendence;[744] and the other preparations for departure were

so far advanced that one day sufficed to complete them. The two queens
and the damsel of Cyprus were left in the palace, with the king’s treasure,
under suitable guard. Bertram de Verdon and Stephen de Longchamp were
appointed constables of the city.[745] Every man in the host was bidden to
take with him food for ten days; the ships were already loaded up with the
rest of the stores, and their skippers were instructed to sail close Aug. 21
along the shore, ready to put in at intervals and supply the host with
whatever it might need. “Thus they were to go,” says one of the pilgrims,
“in two bodies, one by sea and one by land; for Syria could be reconquered
from the Turks in no other manner.”[746] The total number of the Frank
forces is reckoned by the same authority at three hundred thousand.[747] On
Thursday August 22 they began to cross the “river of Acre” (the Belus, or
Nahr el Namein, which falls into the sea just below the city) and pitch their
tents between it and the sea.[748] A large proportion of them, however, had
become already so demoralised by their stay in the city, now once more
filled with all the luxuries and temptations of Eastern life, that they were
very reluctant to leave it; and it was not till the next day that Friday
1191 Richard succeeded in getting the greater part of the host Aug. 23
together in its new encampment, and himself followed it thither, having
taken his position in the rear to guard against possible attack from the
Moslems.[749] The detachment at Keisan was, however, too small to venture
upon anything more than a harmless demonstration at a safe distance;[750]
and it was altogether withdrawn next day, when Saladin, being now Sat.
Aug. 24
assured of the route which the Franks intended to take, disposed his
army on the hills above Shefr’ Amm, ready to attack them on their march
along the shore.[751] They seem not to have started till Sunday, August 25.[752]
Richard led the vanguard; his English and Norman followers had charge of
the great Standard which was surmounted by his royal banner and was to
serve as guide and rallying-point for the whole host. The Frenchmen under
the duke of Burgundy formed the rearguard. They soon found themselves in
difficulties. The roads of Palestine had been originally good Roman ones;
but by the closing years of the twelfth century even the highroads had
become in many places little more than trackways. The transport corps,
struggling through an awkward passage, fell into confusion; at the critical
moment the Saracens swooped down, cut them off from the rearguard, and
drove them towards the sea. One John FitzLuke spurred forward and told
Richard what had occurred; “and the king with his meinie galloped back at

a great pace; he fell upon the Turks like a thunderbolt—I know not how
many he slew”;[753] “and they fled before him like the Philistines of old from
1191 the face of the Maccabee.”[754] The Franks re-formed in order, and
proceeded without further interruption till they found a convenient Aug. 25
camping-ground, seemingly near the mouth of the Kishon, whence a short
day’s march brought them to Cayphas, the modern Haïfa. Here they
encamped for two days between the castle, which they found deserted, and
the sea. This first brief stage of their journey from Acre—it is only about
ten miles—had taught them at least one practical lesson: that on a march
along the burning sand of the Syrian coast in August superfluous baggage
was to be avoided. They therefore discarded everything that was not strictly
necessary. The fight on the way had also another good result; it had healed
Richard’s feud with William des Barres. William had fought with such
valour that the king’s admiration had overcome his anger, and the gallant
Frenchman was received back into favour by the Lion-Heart.[755]
On Tuesday August 27 the Crusaders set out again, and wound their way
unmolested round the point of Carmel to Capharnaum, a distance of about
eight miles; finding this place also deserted, they stopped there to dine; and
thence another march of four miles brought them to a spot where in later
days the Templars were to rear a famous fortress known as Athlit, or
Pilgrims’ Castle, but which the earlier pilgrims called the Casal (village) of
the Straits—why, it is hard to guess, for the distance from the shore to the
foot of the Carmel range increases all the way from Capharnaum
southward, so that even from the north the approach to Athlit is much less
of a “strait” than the pass which the host had just come through round the
1191 promontory.[756] The site indeed afforded an ample and convenient
camping-ground, and also a place where the ships could put in. This they
had been ordered to do, so the host waited there two days to receive Aug. 27
from them a fresh store of provisions.[757]
Meanwhile Saladin had on the night of the 24th removed his Aug. 24
headquarters from Shefr’ Amm to Kaimoun (the ancient Jokneam of
Carmel), where the inland road from Acre to the south crosses the Aug. 25
Kishon. Next day he rode over Carmel on a reconnoitring expedition to
Mallâha, “the Salt-pit,” called by the Franks Merle. Returning on the 26th
to Kaimoun, he there reviewed his army, and on the morrow led it Aug. 28
across the mountains to “the head of the river which runs by Caesarea.”[758]

Caesarea lies, fifteen miles south of the Casal of the Straits, midway
between the mouths of two rivers which are five miles apart. The northern
one was called by the Crusaders “the River of Crocodiles”;[759] between its
two principal springs passes the main road leading south from Aug. 28-
30
Kaimoun. In the next three days Saladin shifted his camp three
times among the hills above these springs.[760] From these hills, or from the
last spur of Carmel, a little further south, he would see his first opportunity
of checking or hindering his enemy’s advance. The slopes of the Carmel
range were too steep to be practicable for his cavalry; it was doubtless for
this reason that Cayphas and Capharnaum had been evacuated, and also that
the fortifications of Caesarea had been dismantled.[761] When the Crusaders
should reach Caesarea, however, they would be on the verge of Sharon, “the
Level,” on whose eastern border the comparatively low mountains of
Samaria rise by a gradual ascent, in terrace-like ridges, broken by many
easy passes leading into the valleys and level spaces among the hills; while
the distance between mountains and sea, which round the promontory of
1191 Carmel is only two hundred yards, is at the lower end of the Carmel
range six miles. On August 28 Richard advanced from Casal of the Straits
to Merle and spent the night on the ground where Saladin had been three
nights before. Next day the whole host followed, and with the king Aug. 29
at its head and the Knights of the Temple and Hospital forming the
rearguard proceeded towards Caesarea. By Richard’s orders all the sick had
been transferred to the ships; but even for the able-bodied the day’s march
—some fifteen miles—was a long, slow, and painful one over the burning
sand in the heat of an August day in Syria; not a few died by the way; and
the outskirts of the host were attacked by some skirmishing parties of Turks,
who were, however, driven off by Richard. The weary pilgrims camped that
night on the bank of the River of Crocodiles, and next day entered Aug. 30
the ruins of Caesarea, which were evacuated at their approach. Here on that
evening or the next the ships came into port, bringing further supplies and
also some of the “lazy folk” from Acre, who in response to an urgent
summons sent to them by Richard had thus at length come to rejoin their
comrades in arms.[762]
With these reinforcements the march was resumed on Sunday, Sept. 1
September 1. On the preceding day Saladin had taken up a position on the
hills whence he could, as soon as the Franks issued from Caesarea, make it
impossible for them to avoid an encounter. They had scarcely set out when

1191 they were well-nigh surrounded by his light cavalry, and a shower of
arrows fell upon them from all directions.[763] But his attack proved less
effective than he had hoped, owing to the order of march which the
Crusaders had now adopted. The princes, knights, and mounted men-at-
arms advanced between two columns of infantry, of which one, marching
on their left—the side nearest to the hills and the enemy—“protected them,”
says an eye-witness, “as with a wall.” These foot-soldiers in their thick felt
jerkins and mailcoats recked little of the Turkish arrows, while the heavier
missiles which they hurled at their assailants in return wrought execution on
both horses and riders. On the other side of the cavalry, along the sea-shore,
marched another body of foot-soldiers who carried the baggage, and, being
safe from attack, were always comparatively fresh, and ready to change
places with their comrades on the exposed side when the latter were worn
out with fatigue or wounds. Of the cavalry thus enclosed, the van consisted
of the knights of the kingdom of Jerusalem under King Guy; the rearguard
was composed of the mounted troops of Galilee and others, including no
doubt the Military Orders; in the centre were the king of England, the duke
of Burgundy, and their followers, with the Standard in their midst. Thus,
slowly and cautiously, the host moved along; on this first day it advanced
only about two or three miles, to the “river of Caesarea.”[764] This seems to
be what is now called the Nahr el Mefjir; the Crusaders called it the Dead
River, perhaps because the Turks—such at least is the pilgrims’ account of
the matter—had done their utmost to choke it up and conceal its existence,
so as to make it a trap for the strangers to fall into; but the trap may have
been the work of nature, for the stream appears to be the same to which
Bohadin gives the name of Nahr el Casseb, river of reeds or rushes. The
host reached this stream at mid-day, crossed it in safety, and pitched Sept. 1
their tents on its southern bank: whereupon the Turks retired, “for,” says
1191 Bohadin, “whenever they were in camp, there was no hope of doing
anything with them.” That afternoon Saladin shifted his headquarters to a
place a little higher up on the same river;[765] and for two nights both Sept. 1-3
parties remained in their respective encampments, close to each other, but
quiescent.
Thus far the pilgrims had been journeying along the edge of a plain
consisting chiefly of moors, marshes, and sand. Before them lay a tract of
more wooded country, and also, it seems, a part of the coast-road so
neglected and overgrown with brushwood as to be impassable for their

heavy cavalry. It appears that in consequence they made their way up the
left bank of the Dead River till they struck the inland road.[766] Here they
were much nearer to the hills and to the enemy. But Saladin had no mind to
risk a general engagement till he had collected all his forces on a battle-
ground of his own choosing; and on that same day he again Sept. 3
removed his camp further south, into the midst of a great forest where he
hoped to intercept the Christians on their way to the city which must be
their next objective, Arsuf. His cavalry continued to hang about the
Christian host[767] and harassed it incessantly on its march; yet the pilgrims
plodded on, keeping in the same order as before, never breaking it except
when the enemy’s attacks became so intolerable that the infantry had to
open its ranks to let the cavalry pass through for a charge. On one of these
occasions Richard was wounded in the left side by a Turkish javelin, but so
slightly that the wound only inflamed his eagerness for the fight, and all day
he was constantly driving off the assailants.[768] At nightfall they retired, and
the host encamped near the “Salt River”—now the Nahr Iskanderuneh—
1191 which runs down to the plain from Shechem and falls into the sea
seven or eight miles south of Caesarea. Here, again, they stayed two nights
(September 3-5). The horses had suffered more severely than the men from
the Turkish missiles; the badly wounded ones were now killed and sold by
their owners to the men of lower rank for food; owing to the rush for them
and the high prices charged there was much strife over this matter, till
Richard checked it by proclaiming that he would give a live horse to any
man who would make a present of a dead one to his poorer comrades in
arms.[769]
From the Salt River a tract of wild wooded country called the Forest of
Arsuf stretched southward for twelve miles or more. Saladin had taken up
his position on a hill almost in the middle of it; here his foot-soldiers had
rejoined him on the morning of September 4; and here, on the same day, he
received a message from the Christian princes asking for a parley about
terms of peace between him and the native Franks of the kingdom, “such as
might enable those from over-sea to return to their homes.” They were
evidently becoming awake to the extreme difficulty of their Sept. 5
enterprise; and the Sultan’s apparent reluctance to engage in a pitched battle
may have raised hopes of a peaceful settlement with him. He, on his part,
was glad of anything to delay their further advance till the Turcoman
reinforcements which he was expecting had arrived; so a meeting took

place between Richard and Safadin, with Humphry of Toron as interpreter,
early on Thursday, September 5. Richard spoke first; at the mention of
peace Safadin asked, “What conditions am I to propose to the Sultan in
your name?” “One condition only,” answered Richard, “that you restore the
whole land to us, and go back to your own country.” This brought the
conference to an abrupt end; Safadin returned to his brother,[770] and the
Christians set forward on their march through the Forest. They seem to have
traversed it in a south-westerly direction which brought them back to the
1191 coast-road. A report had reached them that the enemy intended to set
fire to the Forest “and make of it such a blaze that they would all be
roasted”; but nothing of the kind took place; “no host ever had a better
day’s march; they met with no hindrance at all”; they passed the “Hill of
Arsuf”—seemingly the hill which Saladin was occupying—and came safely
out on the plain, where they found a good camping-ground beside what they
called “the River of the Cleft Rock” (Rochetaillie).[771] They soon learned
why they had been thus left unmolested through the day’s march; Saladin
was disposing his whole force—estimated by a scout at three hundred
thousand men, while the Christians were only about a third of that
number[772]—to give them battle as soon as they should emerge from the
cover of the Forest into the open fields and cultivated land around Arsuf. It
was therefore in very carefully planned array that they set forth again on
Saturday, September 7.[773] The host was divided into five battalions; the
vanguard consisted of the Templars; next came the Bretons and Angevins;
then the Poitevins, who were placed under the command of King Guy; after
these the Normans and English with the Standard; in the rear the troops of
the Hospital. Every battalion was subdivided into two squadrons, one of
horse, one of foot, which advanced parallel to each other; the duke of
Burgundy and some picked followers rode up and down and round about
the host to regulate and direct its movements according to what they saw of
those of the Turks; and Count Henry of Champagne acted as special “side-
guard” on the flank nearest to the hills, where he rode continually alongside
of the foot-soldiers.[774]
1191 Saladin, meanwhile, had rapidly disposed his forces so as to
occupy the hills parallel with the Crusaders’ line of march from the River of
the Cleft Rock to Arsuf. By the coast-road the distance between these two
places is little more than four miles. Setting out probably at dawn, the
Christian vanguard reached the outskirts of Arsuf before nine o’clock, and

some of the footmen began to pitch the tents among the fields and gardens.
[775]
Then the Saracen archers swarmed down upon the flank of the
advancing host, pouring on it an overwhelming shower of arrows.[776] It was,
however, in the rear that Saladin hoped to deliver his most effectual blow.
Here his line curved round from the hills towards the mouth of the river, so
that, as a Frank writer says, the Christian rearguard, “packed together so
closely that you could not have thrown an apple at it without hitting either a
man or a horse,” filled the whole space between the sea-shore and the
enemies.[777] Thus surrounded, the crossbowmen and archers in the
rearguard struggled on for hours, constantly compelled to turn round and
sometimes to march backwards, returning as best they could the continuous
fire of missiles in their rear. At length it ceased, only to be succeeded by an
attack at close quarters from another body of Turks with maces and swords,
who fell upon the foot-soldiers of the Hospital in overwhelming force. Once
already the Knights had sent a message to Richard, begging for leave to
disperse their assailants by a charge, but it had been refused. Now the
Grand Master himself spurred forward and urged the same request. “Be
patient, good Master; one cannot be everywhere,” was the reply. Richard
was determined not to risk a charge till he saw the fitting moment for a
general one all along the line. It had been pre-arranged that when the charge
1191 was to take place, two trumpets should be sounded in the van, two in
the centre, and two in the rear, so as to be heard above and distinguished
from the din of the innumerable Turkish brass drums and other noisy
instruments, and to let the three divisions of the host know their relative
positions. At last the leaders decided that the moment had come, and the
signal was about to be given, when the Marshal of the Hospital and a
Norman knight, Baldwin le Caron,[778] burst through the ranks without
waiting for it, and shouting “Saint George!” dashed into the midst of the
enemy. The other knights at once turned their horses and followed the rash
example. For a moment the whole rearguard was in confusion, and a great
disaster seemed imminent; but Richard’s promptitude retrieved the day.[779]
The trumpets were sounded so instantaneously that the Turks seem never to
have discovered what had really precipitated the charge.[780] While Richard
himself, “quicker than quarrel from crossbow,” spurred at the head of his
picked followers to what had now become the van instead of the rear, and
drove off its assailants—the Turkish right wing—with great slaughter,[781]
the rest of the Frank cavalry charged the Turkish centre and left wing and

put them both to headlong flight, also with heavy loss of life. Saladin’s
secretary and friend, Bohadin, escaping from the rout of the centre, tried to
rejoin first the left wing and then the right, but found each division in worse
plight than the one he had quitted; and when he reached the reserve he
found there only seventeen men remaining to guard the Standard, all the
rest having been called up by the Sultan to support their comrades, and
shared their fate. Saladin tried hard to rally the fugitives, and when the
Franks, having also rallied to their Standard, re-formed their ranks and
sought to continue their march, they were impeded by repeated attacks
which they had to turn and repel. At last another charge, led by William des
Barres and Richard on the famous Fauvel, which he had brought with him
1191 from Cyprus, drove the assailants and carried the pursuers right up
into the hills. There the dangers of the unknown and difficult ground were
too great for the Franks to venture on an engagement; they therefore
withdrew from the pursuit, and proceeded along the lower ground till the
whole host was encamped outside Arsuf,[782] Saladin making no further
attempt to molest them. He had succeeded in collecting all that was left of
his army; but his losses were very heavy, and they included several emirs,
while among the Christian slain was only one man of distinction, James of
Avesnes.[783] Richard’s assertion that the battle of Arsuf had cost Saladin
more lives of noble Saracens than he had lost in any one day for the last
forty years[784] may not be literally exact; but Bohadin does not attempt to
minimize the disaster or to disguise its effect on the survivors and Sept. 7
on Saladin himself. “God alone knows what intense grief filled his heart.
All our men were wounded, if not in their bodies, in their hearts.”[785]
That night Saladin pushed on as far as the Nahr el Aoudjeh, crossed it,
and encamped on its southern bank.[786] This river is called by the Frank
writers “the River of Arsuf,” but might have more fittingly taken its name
from Joppa, for its mouth is seven miles south of the former place and only
three miles north of the latter. It is formed by the union of three streams,
one of which rises at the foot of the hills of Samaria, another in the valley
which divides Mount Ephraim from the Judean range, and the third flows
through the northernmost of the passes leading from the plain into the hill-
country of Judah. The inland road through the plain crosses these three
streams some three miles above their meeting-point, and a road branching
off from the crossing-place runs alongside of the southernmost stream up
1191 the pass, and thence over the plateau to Jerusalem. Saladin appears to

have thought that the Franks might march across the plain and attempt an
advance upon the Holy City by this route; next day he re-crossed Sun.,
Sept. 8
the river and took up a position nearer to Arsuf, ready to intercept
them.[787] They, however, had no such intention. They spent that Sunday at
Arsuf, keeping the feast of our Lady’s Nativity, and burying their dead hero,
James of Avesnes. On Monday the 9th they resumed their southward march,
[788]
pursued it steadily despite the provocations of the Saracen bowmen, and
encamped that night on both sides of the river near its mouth. Hereupon
Saladin, perceiving that their immediate objective was Joppa and that he
could not prevent them from reaching it, let them proceed thither Tues.,
Sept. 10
unmolested and encamp next day outside its ruined walls (for, like
Arsuf and the more northerly coast-towns, it had been evacuated and
dismantled some time before),[789] while he with all his forces hurried to
take up his position at Ramlah,[790] whence he could easily watch all the
three possible routes of the Christians’ next advance. Two of these routes
led—one through Ramlah itself—to Jerusalem; the third led coastwise to
Egypt. Either of the two former Saladin might hope either to block or
defend; but with the third it was otherwise. The plain south of the Nahr el
Aoudjeh is much wider than further north: Joppa is ten miles from the foot
of the hills; between Joppa and Ascalon the width of the plain varies from
ten to eighteen miles. The character of the country, too, is different; instead
of sand-dunes, marshland, moorland, and forest, the way lies through
cornfields, palm-groves, villages and towns. It was thus not a place where
the Saracen mode of warfare could be made effective against that of the
Franks in a pitched battle; yet if the Franks decided to continue their march
1191 down the coast, nothing but defeat in a pitched battle could prevent
them from laying siege to Ascalon.
Ascalon was a post of far greater importance than any other on the whole
coast south of Acre. It was the key to Egypt, the only sea-port of any
consequence between Joppa and Alexandria, the only fortified city, now
that Caesarea was destroyed, on the whole length of the coast between Acre
and the Egyptian frontier. To the Arabs Ascalon was “Syria’s Summit,”
“Syria’s Bride.” Strong as were her walls, Saladin knew that the garrison
within them was wholly inadequate for their defence, and that an attempt to
reinforce it might lead to trouble with his army, owing to the unwillingness
of men who had seen the fate of their brethren at Acre to incur the risk of a
like destiny by shutting themselves up in another great fortress;[791] and he

knew, too, that if the Franks did besiege the place, his troops would be
unable to harass them from the hills as they had done at Acre, the hills
opposite Ascalon being more than fifteen miles distant. He saw, in short,
only one means of preventing Ascalon from falling into the hands of the
Franks and becoming thenceforth as formidable a danger as it had been
hitherto a valuable protection to his communications with Egypt. Giving out
that he intended to concentrate all his forces on the preservation of
Jerusalem, and commissioning his brother Safadin to keep watch on the
movements of the enemy, he on Wednesday, September 11, left the main
body of his troops at Ramlah under Safadin, and himself set out for
Ascalon. He spent a sleepless night outside its walls, and declared Thurs.,
Sept. 12
next morning to Bohadin that he would rather lose all his sons—
one of whom, El Afdal, was present—than pull out one stone of the place,
but there was no alternative. Under his personal superintendence the town
was cleared of its inhabitants, and the troops which he had brought with
him, with every other available man, were set to destroy its fortifications.
Ten days of incessant work, picking, digging, and burning, reduced “the
Summit of Syria” to a heap of ruins.[792]
1191 These operations were just beginning when Safadin, who Sept.
12-13
had transferred his headquarters to Jafna (called by the Arabs
Yebnah and by the Franks Ibelin), on the coast-road, about thirteen miles
south of Joppa, received from the Frank leaders some new overtures for a
treaty.[793] Their object probably was to ascertain, if possible, something as
to the plans and movements of their adversaries; and Safadin did his utmost
to spin out the negotiations, his brother having charged him to detain the
enemy at Joppa by every means he could devise till the Sultan’s work at
Ascalon, which he was most anxious to keep secret from them, should be
done.[794] The Franks were in no great haste to move; the rich orchards and
vineyards and olive-yards round Joppa formed a delightful camping-
ground; moreover, they must in any case wait till their fleet came into the
harbour. Soon after its arrival some of the poor folk who had been turned
out of Ascalon wandered into Joppa and astonished the Crusaders c. Sept.
20-22?
by telling them what Saladin was doing. The tale seemed so
incredible that Richard despatched Geoffrey de Lusignan and some others
by sea to reconnoitre Ascalon and find out the truth. When these scouts
confirmed the report of the refugees, a council was held to decide what
should be done. Richard’s military instinct told him that the plan with which

they had set out from Acre—the securing of the whole coast before they
risked any attempt on the interior—was the only sound one. “The Turks are
razing Ascalon; they dare not fight us. Let us go and recover it. All the
world ought to hasten thither!” he pleaded. But the duke of Burgundy and
the French party urged that the shortest route to the goal of their pilgrimage
was the route which started not from Ascalon but from the place where they
now were, and that Joppa should be rebuilt and made the base for an
1191 advance upon Jerusalem. Richard, feeling that anything was better
than dissension within the host, yielded to their urgency. A tax was levied
for the expense of the restoration of Joppa;[795] and on October 1 Richard
wrote home: “Know ye that by God’s grace we hope to recover the Holy
City within twenty days after Christmas, and then we will return to our own
land.”[796]

CHAPTER V
THE ADVANCE ON JERUSALEM

1191-1192.

Ambulantes et flentes properabunt.... In Sion interrogabunt viam, huc facies eorum.
1191
While Richard was building, Saladin was pulling down. Having
razed Ascalon, he on September 23 rejoined his main force at Jafna, thence
returned with it next day to Ramlah, and set his men to raze the citadel of
this latter place and the great fortified church of S. George at the
neighbouring town of Lydda. On the 25th he left his army at Ramlah under
Safadin to complete this work and watch the enemy, while he went to see
with his own eyes the state of the defences of Jerusalem and take measures
for securing their efficiency. On the 30th he returned to Ramlah.[797] To
Richard this abandonment of all attempt to hold the country seemed like the
conduct of “a man bereft of all counsel, and of all hope of succour”;[798] but
Richard himself was not without secret misgivings as to the ultimate
success of the Crusade. On the same day on which he wrote—probably to
one of his ministers, for communication to his subjects in general[799]—the
letter declaring his hope that Jerusalem would be won by the middle of
January, he wrote also a letter to the abbot of Clairvaux which reveals more
clearly the actual condition of affairs and the king’s real expectations as to
their future course. He thought there was good hope that the whole
1191 “heritage of the Lord” would be speedily recovered; indeed, part of it
was recovered already. But in the recovering of that part he had, as he truly
said, borne the burden and heat of the day and exhausted not only his
money but also his health and strength, so that he felt he could not stay in
Syria beyond Easter; and the other western leaders, having spent all they
had, would return to their homes unless fresh supplies of men, money, and
other necessaries were sent out from Europe to enable them to remain. He
therefore besought the abbot to stir up princes and peoples by his preaching,
and induce them to make provision for the safety and defence, after Easter,
of the Lord’s heritage, “which,” he said, “by God’s grace we shall have
fully won by that time.”[800]

A nearer future than Easter had a share in Richard’s secret anxieties. All
these weeks ships had been plying to and fro between Joppa and Acre, too
many of them bringing from the northern city visitors who were not merely
useless but undesirable, and carrying back thither lukewarm Crusaders who
preferred its pleasures and indulgences to the hard work of the Holy War;
whereby the host was considerably diminished in numbers.[801] The extent of
the leakage seems to have been made fully apparent to the princes when at
the end of September they removed their troops from the gardens to a new
encampment somewhat further out, near the Casal of S. Habakkuk.[802] King
Guy was commissioned to go to Acre and bring the truants back;[803] and
while awaiting their return Richard, probably to keep the enemy inactive,
sent on October 3 a messenger to Safadin to propose a renewal of the
suspended negotiations. A few days earlier, Saladin had received from
Conrad of Montferrat overtures for an alliance; Conrad offered to make
peace with the Moslems, break openly with the Franks, and recover Acre
for the former, if they would give him Sidon and Beyrout. Saladin was quite
willing to agree to these terms—“for,” says Bohadin, “the marquis was a
1191 most terrible adversary to us”—but not to grant Conrad’s demand
that the Sultan should pledge himself by oath to the cession of the two sea-
ports, till Conrad should first have proved his sincerity by attacking his
fellow-Christians at Acre and releasing his Moslem prisoners at Tyre.[804]
On October 4 Saladin, finding that at Ramlah he could not get enough
fodder for his horses and camels, owing to his foragers being too much
exposed to attacks from the enemy, removed his army some eight or nine
miles south-eastward into the hills, close to a place whose character is
expressed in one form of its name, Natroun, “post of observation.”[805] The
Franks called the place Toron of the Knights; “toron” meaning height or
mount, and the knights being those of the Temple, who had built on its
summit a tower of great strength overlooking two of the roads to Jerusalem.
This tower Saladin at once began to pull down; like the other strongholds
which he had demolished, it was useless to him for present purposes, and
could be of value only to his enemies, should the site fall into their Oct. 8
hands. Four days later Safadin, whom he had left at Ramlah in command of
the advanced guard, sent him word that Richard, having discovered
Conrad’s dealings with the Sultan, had sailed for Acre in order to put a stop
to them by making friends with the marquis.[806] There was, however,
another reason for the king’s visit to Acre. The loiterers there were so slow

to move at the bidding of Guy that it was clearly necessary to bring a
stronger influence to bear upon them. Richard’s exhortations took such
effect that within a fortnight[807] he was back at Joppa accompanied Oct. 13
1191 not only by the two queens, whom he established there with their
attendants, but also by so “much people” that the host seemed to have
become more numerous than ever.[808] It took another fortnight to clear out
of Acre and convey by sea to the new base the remaining stragglers and the
stores needed for a fresh advance.[809] During this enforced delay the host
was once at least very near losing its commander-in-chief. Richard, having
ridden out with a very small escort partly to exercise his hawks,[810] partly to
look out for an opportunity of surprising the Turks, was himself surprised
by some of them when he had stopped to rest and fallen asleep. Awaking
just in time, he sprang to horse and drove them off, but they led him into an
ambush, and he was only saved from capture by the devotion of William
des Préaux, who concentrated the attention of the enemies on himself by
shouting, “Saracens, I am Melec”—that is, the king—and was seized and
hurried away accordingly, while the real king escaped. The whole host was
aghast when the adventure became known, and some of Richard’s friends
upbraided him for his rashness and implored him, for the sake of the cause
to which his safety was so important, never again to expose himself thus
without sufficient escort; but it was all in vain. “In every conflict he
delighted in being the first to attack and the last to return.”[811]
Meanwhile Richard had, immediately on his return to Joppa, renewed his
friendly intercourse with Safadin by sending him a beautiful horse as a
present. A few days later an envoy from Safadin came, by the king’s desire,
to meet him at Yazour, some four miles, from Joppa on the road to Ramlah,
to receive his proposals for a treaty. Of these proposals the Moslem envoy
carried back two sets, one for direct transmission to the Sultan, the other
1191 intended primarily for Safadin’s personal consideration. To Saladin
the king wrote that, with Franks and Moslems alike perishing and the
country ruined, the war had gone far enough; the only matters in dispute
were the Holy City, the Cross, and the limits of the two realms, Christian
and Mussulman. Their claim to Jerusalem, as the most sacred seat of their
Faith, the Christians could not renounce so long as there was one man of
them left alive. Of the country they claimed restitution up to the western
bank of the Jordan. As for the Cross, “seeing that to the Moslems it is but a
piece of wood,” Saladin might well give it back to those who accounted it a

sacred treasure; and thus should there be for both parties peace and rest
from their labours. Saladin at once decisively refused all three conditions.
[812]
To Safadin the king had proposed another scheme: that Safadin should
take Queen Joan of Sicily to wife, and reign over the land jointly with her,
she holding Jerusalem as her royal seat, Richard endowing her with Acre,
Joppa, and Ascalon (which he accounted his own conquests), the Sultan
giving the Holy Cross to the Christians, and all the places which he c. Oct. 18
held in the Sahel or Maritime Plain to his brother and declaring him king of
the land. With these terms Safadin appeared well pleased, and Saladin,
when they were laid before him, answered immediately and emphatically,
“Yes! yes! yes!”—“being,” says Bohadin who was present and who knew
him well enough to read his thoughts, “persuaded that the king would never
really sanction such a thing, and proposed it only in trickery and play.” His
persuasion was justified; when on October 23 an envoy from the Sultan and
his brother again came to the Christian camp, he was sent back with a
message that when the king had told his sister of the marriage proposed for
her, she had become “furious with indignation and wrath,” and sworn by all
she held sacred that she would never submit to it; whereupon her brother
had promised to bring, if he could, Safadin to accept Christianity. All this
was of course mere diplomacy to wile away the time till the host was ready
for a further advance; and on the 27th Saladin received tidings that Oct. 28
1191 the enemy was preparing to leave Joppa. Next day the Sultan
returned to Ramlah. On the 29th he sent some troops to surprise the
Christian camp, but they were driven off and put to flight.[813] On the 30th
Richard, “wandering about in the plain towards Ramlah,” espied a
reconnoitring party of Saracens, attacked them without hesitation, slew
several of them and scattered the rest.[814] On the 31st, having completed his
arrangements for the security of Joppa, he led the host on the first stage of
its advance towards Jerusalem.
The stage was a very short one—only two miles, to Yazour, or as Oct. 31
the Franks called it, the Casal of the Plains. This place and Casal Maen,
which seems to have been the Frankish name for Beit Dejan, about two
miles further to the south-east, had been Frankish strongholds, recently
dismantled by the Saracens; it was important that they should be restored in
order to secure the command of the road leading from Joppa into the hills.
Richard undertook the restoration of Casal Maen, and the Templars that of
Casal des Plains; the host lay encamped between the two places for Nov. 1-15

a fortnight while the work was in progress. The Turks did their utmost to
hinder it by sending out skirmishing parties. One of these, having been put
to flight, was pursued by Richard so far that before he turned back he
actually saw Ramlah and the Sultan’s army there.[815] Another day a Nov. 6
foraging party protected by a small escort of Templars was suddenly
surrounded by a numerous body of Turks at “Bombrac,” properly Ibn Ibrak
or Beni Berak, about two miles from Casal Maen. On learning their peril
Richard, who was busy superintending the works at Casal Maen, sent some
knights to the rescue and quickly followed in person. When he reached the
spot the position of the little band looked so hopeless and the enemy’s
numbers so overwhelming that his companions besought him to retire,
“for,” said they, “if mischief should befall you, there would be an end of
1191 Christendom!”[816] “I sent those men here; if they die without me,
may I never again be called king,” was his reply. Setting spurs to his horse
and giving him the rein, he burst “like lightning” into the enemy’s ranks,
and laid about him so furiously that they all either fled “like beasts,” or
were slain or made prisoners.[817] Such is the Frankish version of this
encounter; Bohadin, however, describes it as a success for the Saracens,[818]
and makes no mention of Richard’s presence.
That evening Richard sent a messenger to Safadin, complaining of these
attacks as breaches of their friendly relations, and again asking him Nov. 3
for a personal interview.[819] Three days before, Reginald of Sidon had come
to Saladin from Tyre with a renewal of Conrad’s proposal of an alliance
against the Crusaders. As before, Saladin gave equal encouragement to both
parties. On the 8th Safadin and Richard met in a large tent set up for the
purpose[820] “between the Casal of the Temple and that of Josaphat”;[821] each
brought with him “all such gifts as princes are wont to give to one another,”
and the special delicacies in food and drink most esteemed among his own
people, for the delectation of the other.[822] Safadin crowned the
entertainment by introducing a singing girl, and Richard professed himself
greatly pleased with the Saracen mode of singing.[823] The rest of the day
was spent in talk, and they parted with a mutual promise of fast friendship
and a renewed request from Richard that Safadin would procure for him an
interview with the Sultan. Saladin refused to meet him, giving the same
reason as on a previous occasion.[824] Meanwhile Reginald was in the
Sultan’s camp, splendidly lodged in a tent filled with every oriental luxury,
treated with marked courtesy, and sometimes accompanying Safadin when

that prince rode out to reconnoitre the Christian host. Saladin himself
inclined to accept the offers of Conrad. “If we make peace with the western
Franks,” he said privately to Bohadin, “it will never be a secure one; if I
1191 were to die, it would be very difficult to get our army together again,
and before this could be done all the forces of our foes would have united.
It were wiser to fight on till we have either expelled them from our coasts or
died in the attempt.” Richard, however, anxious to prevent an alliance
between Saladin and Conrad which would undoubtedly have been fraught
with grave peril to the Christian cause, twice renewed his proposals in a
modified form, each time lowering his demands and offering fresh
concessions; so when on November 11[825] Saladin laid the propositions of
the marquis and those of the king before a council of his emirs, they
declared in favour of the latter. Saladin yielded to their opinion. But
Richard had reserved for himself a way of escape. “The whole Christian
community,” he said, “is blaming me for proposing to wed my sister to a
Mussulman without leave from the Pope. I will therefore send an envoy to
him, and in six months I shall have his answer. If he consents, well; if not, I
will give you my brother’s daughter, in which case the Pope’s sanction will
not be needed.” To this Saladin replied: “If the alliance is to be made, let it
be made on the original terms; I will not go back from my word; but if that
marriage fail, we want no other.”[826] Thus the matter remained in abeyance
for several months. On the day (November 15) on which he sent this last
rejoinder Saladin again retired from Ramlah to the neighbourhood of
1191 Natroun[827]; and shortly afterwards the Christian host advanced from
its encampment between the two restored Casals into the plain between
Ramlah and Lydda. Here they pitched their tents and waited for
reinforcements and supplies.[828]
The rank and file were naturally puzzled and scandalized by Nov. 15-
22
Richard’s diplomatic dealings with the Infidels, which seemed to
them unlawful, and of which they neither understood the purpose nor knew
the real character. The Frank chroniclers excuse him as a simple-minded
Christian duped by the cunning of the Saracens. He cleared himself in the
eyes of his accusers in a fashion of his own. “Right and left the enemies
came swarming about the camp; and the king met them and gave practical
proof of his loyalty to God and Christendom, for several times he shewed in
the host the many Turks’ heads that he had cut off.”[829]

Besides the enemy, the Crusaders had now another obstacle to contend
with—the climate. The “former rains,” or heavy showers which open the
agricultural year in Palestine, would begin about the time when the host left
Joppa, at the end of October, and continue through November; these would
be followed by a season of constantly increasing rainfall lasting throughout
the next three months. This great rain “pursued the soldiers of the Cross,” as
one of them says, till it drove them to take what shelter they could find
within the ruins of Ramlah and Lydda.[830] Here they remained “in great
discomfort and difficulties”[831] till the end of December or beginning of
January. Saladin held them in check by remaining in his camp near Natroun
till December 12; then he withdrew to Jerusalem and disbanded his army[832]
for the rest of the winter, trusting for the defence of Judea to the guerilla
troops who still remained among the hills, to the weather, and above all, to
the physical character of the country. The Christian host was now on the
1191 edge of the Shephelah, or Lowlands of Judea, so called in distinction
from the “Hills” proper, the loftier central range, or ridge, which forms the
backbone of the land, and on whose eastern side lie Jerusalem and
Bethlehem. The low, soft chalk-hills of the Shephelah are not a range; they
lie in groups and clusters interspersed with level spaces and valleys opening
into the plain on the west, and falling on the east into the long, deep trench
which runs between the “Lowlands” and the “Highlands” like—as a
modern writer says—“a great fosse planted along the ramparts of Judea.” At
the mouth of the northernmost of these cross-valleys—Joshua’s Valley of
Ajalon—Lydda and Ramlah were frontier towns of the Shephelah and the
maritime plain. Along this vale or over the low hills on each side of it, and
through the narrow defiles which at its other end penetrate the central range,
ran the most direct lines of communication between the Holy City and the
coast. One of these was the old “way that goeth to Beth-horon” from
Gibeon on the plateau above Jerusalem. This road led to Joppa through
Lydda; so did another which crossed the fosse some three miles south of the
first. The two were linked together by a cross-road which ran on south-
westward to the ancient Nicopolis—called Amwas by the Arabs and
Emmaus by the Franks—and then divided into two branches, one going
southward by Natroun, the other to Joppa through Ramlah. This latter way
seems to have been in general use since the eighth century, when the first
Moslem conquerors overthrew Lydda and founded Ramlah to supersede it.
[833]
The First Crusaders had marched by the road from Ramlah to Emmaus

and thence to Beth-horon, Gibeon, and Jerusalem, without opposition.
Richard resolved to try how far he could follow in their steps; but he knew
he could not expect such good fortune as theirs, for the Shephelah was still
full of what one Frank writer calls “the outside Turkish army,”[834] that is,
the troops whom Saladin had left to keep guard and to prowl about among
1191 the hills, in contradistinction to the “inner” force which was with him
at Jerusalem. In this district of tumbled hill and dale, moorland, glen, and
torrent-bed, of chalky slopes and limestone boulders covered with thick
scrub and brushwood that sheltered caves and hiding-places innumerable,
these light-armed Saracen horsemen were at home, and had every
advantage for the guerilla warfare in which they excelled; and the ease and
rapidity with which they could move about through the intricacies of the
hills enabled them to swoop down suddenly from the most unexpected
quarters, with fatal effect, upon foraging or reconnoitring parties and
convoys.[835] One chronicler says that when the bulk of the host sought
shelter in Lydda and Ramlah, the count of Saint-Pol betook himself to “the
Casal of the Baths”; which seems to represent a place now called Umm-el-
Hummum, about twelve miles north-east of Lydda.[836] If this statement be
correct, the count’s object may perhaps have been to act as an advanced
guard on that side of the host and keep watch against a possible gathering of
the Saracens in force on the lower slopes of the hills of Samaria—especially
at Mirabel, or as the Saracens called it Mejdel Yaba, which was close to
Umm-el-Hummum and one of the few castles which Saladin had not caused
to be evacuated—and their descent thence on the Christians at Lydda. It is
at any rate probable that Richard’s purpose was to render some such service
as this in another direction, towards the south and south-east of Ramlah,
when on December 22 or 23 he removed his own headquarters to the “Post
of Observation,” Natroun, which Saladin had quitted ten days before.[837] On
that day, however, a convoy from Joppa was intercepted by the enemy; and
similar mishaps occurred several times in the ensuing week.[838] To this
unsatisfactory state of affairs the leaders, having now fully Dec.
1191 ascertained that Saladin and his main army had really “taken to the
Mountains” properly so called—the mountain-wall which shelters
Jerusalem from the world—“and left the champaign to us,” boldly decided
to put an end by advancing to the foot of the said mountains, where they
told their followers they would find a resting-place and be able to get food
for themselves.[839]

The advance was ordered for January 3. Some of the Saracen 1192
guerilla bands which were constantly scouring the country between Joppa
and the hills had apparently discovered that a movement was in
contemplation, but were uncertain as to its object; they spent the night of
the 2nd lying hid near Casal des Plains and at daybreak dashed Jan. 3
forward in the direction which the host was about to take; probably they
hoped to lie hidden while it passed, and fall at unawares on the rearguard or
the slow-moving baggage-train. Richard, however, knew of their lying in
wait, and had himself, with Geoffrey de Lusignan, been lying in wait for
them all the preceding night at the Casal of the Baths; a locality where,
seeing that it was quite as far (in a different direction) from Lydda as their
own lurking-place and double that distance from his known headquarters at
Natroun, they were not likely to suspect his presence. While they were
hurrying up from the west, he was spurring to meet them from the north, the
very opposite quarter to that where they doubtless supposed him to be; and
scarcely had they pounced upon and slain two men-at-arms who went forth
alone in advance of the host, when the unexpected apparition of a banner
which they well knew to be the king’s, and a figure whose bearing and
headlong onset were equally unmistakeable,[840] threw them into utter
confusion. Most of them fled in the very direction whence Richard had
come, towards Mirabel; probably hoping to escape pursuit among the hills.
Richard, who was mounted on Fauvel, dashed after them and unhorsed two
1192 before any of his own followers could rejoin him; some twenty
others were slain or brought back prisoners to the Christian camp.[841]
A march of ten miles brought the host to Beit Nuba, on a level space of
high ground close to the northern end of the natural fosse which lies
between the Shephelah and the mountain range. The hearts of the pilgrims
“were glad with the hope that they were going to the Sepulchre”; but “their
bodies were ill at ease,” for the Syrian winter was now at its worst, and in
their present exposed encampment there was no shelter from its ravages.
Stormy wind and tempest, torrential rain and hail, beat down or tore up the
tents; armour rusted, clothes rotted, biscuits and bacon were so soaked that
they became putrid; horses died, men sickened; and in less than a week “the
wise Templars, the brave Hospitaliers, and the men of the land” came to the
conclusion that under the existing circumstances an attempt to besiege
Jerusalem could lead to nothing but disaster. They told Richard that if the
city were invested its besiegers would be between two fires, Saladin

breaking forth upon them from within and the “outside” Turkish army
cutting them off from communication with the coast and depriving them of
supplies.[842] The men who spoke thus knew well that it was vain to dream
of existing by foraging on the barren, rocky tableland which forms the
summit of the Judean mountain-range, and that the host, if it got there at all,
would probably starve long before the defenders of the city, which Saladin
was sure to have victualled for a siege, and which it would hardly be
possible to blockade so completely as to cut it off from all means of
obtaining further provisions. Nor was this all. Supposing—these
counsellors urged—that the city were taken, its capture would be useless
unless it could be at once filled with troops capable of holding it
permanently; and this would be no easy matter, for the western pilgrims,
who formed the bulk of the host, would return to their home-lands as soon
1192 as their pilgrimage was accomplished, and thus when they were gone
all that had been won would be lost again.[843] Hereupon the western leaders
called a council of war at Natroun;[844] they may have retired there on
purpose to be well away from the rest of the army while discussing the
matter. However this may be, they asked “the wise folk who were born in
the land” what course they would recommend under existing circumstances.
The Templars and Hospitaliers at once answered that what they Jan. 6-13
would advise was not to proceed towards Jerusalem at present, but to re-
fortify and occupy Ascalon, so as to obtain some control over the transit of
provisions from the great Saracen storehouse, Cairo, to the Holy City.[845]
An Arab historian gives, very likely from the report of some spy who
overheard the proceedings of the council, a curious account of the way in
which the final decision was reached. Richard, he says, asked to see a plan
of Jerusalem, that he might judge for himself of the force of the arguments
put forward by the Knights. They drew a plan for him; and when he
thoroughly understood the character of the site and surroundings of the city,
he pronounced them such as to make the city, in his opinion, virtually
impregnable “so long”—thus the Arab reports the words of the western king
—“as Saladin lives and the Moslems are united.”[846] Before the middle of
January the host was back at Ramlah.[847]
1192 Whether Richard’s verdict on the prospects of the Crusade was
really quite so pessimistic as Ibn Alathyr represents may be doubted. The
scheme now proposed by the Military Orders and accepted by the king was
simply a reversion to the original plan of campaign with which they had all

set out from Acre, and from which Saladin’s seeming panic after Arsuf had
tempted them to diverge; and there can be little doubt that the divergence
was unwise. The Frank pilgrim-chroniclers, sharing and voicing the
disappointment of the rank and file, declare indeed that the retirement from
Beit Nuba was a blunder, and that if their leaders had but known the evil
plight—due, like their own, to the weather—of Saladin and his men at
Jerusalem, the city might, “without doubt,” have been taken easily.[848] But
those who spoke thus could have no real knowledge as to the state of affairs
in Jerusalem, and their version of it finds no countenance in the pages of
Bohadin, who was there, and who may fairly be trusted on the subject, since
he makes no mystery about the Sultan’s perils and alarms on other
occasions. The picture drawn by the very same Frankish chroniclers of the
condition in which the host, “doleful and down-hearted,” marched back to
Ramlah shows that it was quite unfit to attempt an invasion of the hill-
country. Men and beasts were alike worn out with weakness and fever,
caused by the wet and cold, and many of the “lesser folk,” sick and
helpless, would have been left behind but for King Richard, who caused
them to be sought out and brought away in safety.[849] Among the French
Crusaders discontent took the form of wholesale desertion. Some went to
Joppa; of these, some stayed there, and others sailed back to Acre, “where
living was not dear,” sarcastically observes the Norman poet; some joined
the marquis at Tyre, whither he had long been trying to entice them; the
duke of Burgundy himself went off in dudgeon with his followers to Casal
of the Plains. Extremely angry, but nothing daunted, Richard and the
faithful remnant of the host set out on January 19 by a road which, crossing
1192 the plain from Ramlah, brought them back at Ibelin[850] to the main
road along the coast. The ten miles’ march through mud and mire to Ibelin
was a sufficiently hard day’s work; but “that day was nothing Jan. 20
compared to the next,” when nearly double that distance had to be covered,
on a road where men and horses were constantly sinking into swamps, and
beneath a ceaseless downpour of rain, hail and snow; and when at length
they arrived before Ascalon, they could only make their way into the place
by clambering over heaps of broken wall, and find a partial shelter among
the ruins within.[851]
Ascalon stood amid what the poet-pilgrim Ambrose emphatically calls “a
very good country”; but the stormy season, and the uncertainty as to how
many armed enemies might be still lurking around, made this practically

useless for foraging purposes; and the harbour was a dangerous one, the sea
being often so rough that no ship could ride in it. This was the case for a
week after the arrival of the Crusaders, who were thus limited to what little
food they had brought with them—much of the stores with which they
started from Ramlah having been lost in the swamps on the way—till by a
change in the weather the transports coming from Joppa to meet them were
enabled to land their supplies. Scarcely was this done, however, when the
storms rose again, and barges and galleys and “all our beautiful smacks”
were dashed to pieces and some of the sailors drowned. Richard caused all
the wood that drifted ashore to be collected and employed for the
construction of some galleys, which he destined for his own use; “but,”
1192 adds Ambrose, “it was not to be.” Towards Candlemas he sent a
message to the French, exhorting them to restore the unity of the host by
coming to rejoin their brethren and take counsel with them as to what
should be done next. They answered that they would come, and would
continue with him till Easter (April 5), on condition that if they then wished
to depart, he would give them safe-conduct by land to Acre or Tyre. To this
he agreed; whereupon they came, and—the worst of the winter’s rages
having now subsided—the reunited host by common consent set to work to
rebuild Ascalon. The task was no light one; it was said that the fortifications
had originally included no less than fifty-three great towers, all now almost
levelled with the ground. Most of the nobles were by this time too short of
money to be able to hire workmen; so knights, men-at-arms, squires, clerks,
and laymen of all ranks set themselves to make a clearance of the ruins,
with such a will that soon they were astonished at their own success. As the
rebuilding, however, required more skilled labour than theirs, Richard took
the direction of it upon himself, and not only caused the greater part of it to
be performed at his expense, but also made good whatever was lacking of
labour and of the money to pay for it in the parts assigned to the charge of
others.[852] The English chronicler of the Crusade says the king wrought at
the building with his own hands,[853] and we can well believe the story.
Saladin was about this time doing the same thing at Jerusalem.[854]
Another small point of resemblance between the two sovereigns was a
preference for doing their own scouting. One morning Richard, with a
handful of picked knights, rode out from Ascalon to reconnoitre Darum.
This castle, built by the late King Amalric on the site of an earlier
fortification, had been the extreme south-western outpost of the Latin

1192 kingdom of Jerusalem; it lay three or four miles south of the point
where the coast-road crosses a watercourse which the historians of the
Crusade called the Torrent or River of Egypt, because above that point it
was in fact, in Amalric’s and Richard’s days and long afterwards, the
boundary between Syria and Egypt.[855] Now that both these countries were
under Moslem rule, Darum was the first halting-place in Syria for the
caravans which brought supplies from “Babylon”—that is, Cairo—to
Jerusalem. It chanced that when Richard drew near the place, a thousand
Christian prisoners whom the Sultan was sending to Cairo under the charge
of some of his household guards had just arrived there. At the sight of the
king’s banner the escort, doubtless thinking the whole host from Ascalon
was upon them, left the prisoners and sought shelter for themselves in the
castle; but before they could reach it some were slain and twenty captured
by Richard and his men. Thus, says Ambrose, “God delivered His people
who were appointed to death, by sending King Richard to take the place of
Saint Leonard, the liberator of captives.”[856]
Some of the Christians, Frank and Syrian, thus rescued made, no doubt, a
welcome addition to the diminished numbers of the host. Richard had
several times already sent letters or messages to the marquis, calling on him
to come and rejoin the Crusade and render the military service due to the
Crown of Jerusalem for the fiefs which he held of it. Conrad at first took no
notice of these appeals; to another and more urgent summons he finally
answered that he would not set foot in the camp till he had had a personal
interview elsewhere with the king of England.[857] Richard seemingly felt it
necessary to overlook his insolence and consent to a meeting at Casal
Imbert, half way between Acre and Tyre. But meanwhile a new trouble
1192 arose. Philip of France had gone home in August 1191 without
leaving his lieutenant in Palestine, the duke of Burgundy, any money for the
pay of the French soldiers, counting for that purpose on the share due to
him of the bezants which the two kings then expected to receive in a few
weeks from Saladin. When this expectation had become hopeless, Hugh
asked Richard for a loan, and Richard, to avoid losing the French troops
altogether, lent him five thousand marks.[858] This sum was exhausted long
before February 1192; the French troops clamoured for their dues; Hugh
asked Richard for another loan. This Richard refused. High words passed,
and the duke, with the greater part of the Frenchmen, straightway departed
to Acre.[859] There they found the Pisans and Genoese at strife. Pending the

recovery of Jerusalem, Acre served as temporary capital of the kingdom,
and there accordingly King Guy seems to have remained since his return
thither in September. His authority was upheld by the Pisans, who from the
outset of the Crusade had attached themselves to Richard; the Genoese,
having done homage to Philip Augustus, favoured the marquis, and were
intriguing to put him in possession of the city. A skirmish between these
two parties seems to have been going on when the French arrived; they took
to their arms, whereupon the Pisans set themselves to bar their way; the
duke’s horse was killed under him; then the Pisans rushed back into the city
and shut the gates against him and his men. At this juncture Conrad, in
response to the invitation of the Genoese, arrived by sea with his forces.
The Pisans “took to the mangonels and stone-casters” and thus kept him off
for three days while they sent to call Richard to the rescue. Their messenger
found the king at Caesarea, on his way to the projected meeting with
Conrad. A hasty ride brought him to Acre at dead of night, and “when the
marquis knew that the king had come, nothing could hold him there, but he
went with all speed back to Tyre,” whither Burgundy and the French were
gone already.[860]
1192 On the morrow Richard called together the people of the Feb. 20
city and made peace among them.[861] Soon afterwards the meeting with
Conrad at Casal Imbert took place, but without any practical result.[862]
Next, Richard demanded repayment of the loan which he had made to the
duke of Burgundy six months before. Hugh acquitted himself of the debt by
assigning to the king the most valuable of Philip’s Saracen prisoners, who
were still in Conrad’s custody at Tyre; but he made no sign of rejoining the
Crusade. Such a state of affairs threatened ruin to the whole enterprise, and
after long and anxious deliberation in his own mind Richard took private
counsel with the “elders and wise men of the land” as to what had best be
done. They gave their judgement that the marquis had forfeited his rights
under the settlement of July 1191, and should be deprived of the revenues
then assigned to him in the kingdom.[863]
It was doubtless to keep some sort of watch upon Conrad that Richard
remained at Acre till the end of March.[864] During the latter part of his stay
there he was again engaged in negotiations with Saladin. When a messenger
arrived at Jerusalem with a request that Safadin might be sent to confer with
the king, nothing was known there of the Crusaders’ advance to Ascalon;

Richard was believed by the Sultan to have placed his troops in winter
quarters at Joppa and gone back thence straight to Acre.[865] Saladin Feb.-Mar.
bade his brother go by way of the Jordan valley and Mount Tabor, collect
the troops of those parts in readiness for a renewal of hostilities, and then—
as usual—go and hear Richard’s proposals, and if they were not acceptable,
1192 drag out negotiations till the whole Saracen army had had time to re-
assemble. A note was given him containing the utmost concessions that
Saladin was willing to make. They were these: an equal division of the land;
the Cross to be given back; the Christians to have priests in the church of
the Holy Sepulchre, and pilgrims to have access to it, provided they went
unarmed. “He was,” says Bohadin, “driven to offer these terms, by the
general weariness of long-continued warfare, by a load of debt, and by the
long absence of his followers from their homes; for there were many who
never left him, and who dared not ask for leave.”[866]
Safadin set out on March 20. At Keisan he was met by Humphry March 20
of Toron with a message to this effect: “The division of the land is agreed
upon already; but we must have the whole of the Holy City except the
Temple of the Rock,” otherwise called the Mosque of Omar. This message
Safadin transmitted to his brother, and the Sultan’s council—so Bohadin
says—actually thought its terms near enough to their own to be “quite
acceptable.” Safadin’s first messenger, however, was followed by another
who reached Jerusalem on the 27th with tidings that Richard had March 27
gone back to Joppa.[867] If it be true that Richard knighted Safadin’s son on
Palm Sunday, March 29, at Acre,[868] the announcement must have been
slightly premature; but by the time that Safadin himself returned to
Jerusalem, on April 1,[869] Richard was certainly back at Ascalon.[870]
The king was “much chafed and troubled in mind”; for Holy Week was
begun, and he knew that Conrad and Hugh had been urging the French who
were still at Ascalon to join them at Tyre, and that his promise of a safe-
conduct to those who wished to depart at Easter for home would in all
likelihood be immediately claimed by every one of them; and so it was, on
Wednesday, April 1.[871] He gave them an escort,[872] and when they set out
1192 next day himself rode a little way with them, “weeping, and
beseeching them to stay with him at his expense, and so keep together; but
they would not.” Finding his efforts useless, he returned to Ascalon and sent
off a messenger in haste to Acre bidding his officers in charge of that city

not to admit the French within its walls.[873] This desertion of more than
seven hundred of the finest chivalry of Christendom was a grievous loss to
the host. Richard did what he could to comfort and encourage the faithful
remnant by holding on Easter Day (April 5) a great court outside Ascalon;
his tents were thrown open to all comers, and furnished with abundance of
meat and drink and everything that could be procured to enhance April 6
the magnificence of the feast. Next day he set everybody to work again on
the fortifications, taking upon himself the responsibility and the expense of
completing the portions which the French had left unfinished.[874]
The season of the “latter rains” was now almost over, and both Christians
and Saracens had to lay their plans for a new campaign. The former had
already, while Richard was at Acre, profited by the improvement in the
weather to make two brilliant raids, one on March 27 from Joppa across the
plain to Mirabel, where they seem to have intercepted a rich caravan, for
they slew thirty Turks and brought back fifty prisoners besides a number of
cattle and booty said to have been worth two thousand eight hundred
bezants; the other from Ascalon next day, when “all men who had horses”
rode out by the southern road to capture a “prey” of which the scouts had
told them; “and they did well this time, for those who were there reported
that they went right into Egypt, four leagues beyond Darum, and they
brought back great troops of horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep, besides
near two hundred prisoners, men, women, and children.”[875] Saladin heard
of it, and promptly despatched some troops to intercept the raiders on their
way back, but they were too quick for him.[876] Saladin’s wisest policy
1192 clearly was to collect his forces and remain with them in his present
position till he saw what his enemies would do. Richard as usual began by
reconnoitring in person. His first attempt to ascertain the defences of Darum
had been cut short by the necessity of bringing to the camp, or despatching
in safety to their homes, the Christians towards whom he had acted the part
of S. Leonard. On Easter Tuesday (April 7) he set out again in the same
direction; that day he viewed Gaza, where also there seems to have been a
Moslem garrison, and on the Wednesday went on and perambulated April 8
Darum to see on which side it could be most easily assaulted. Its garrison
vainly hurled at him missiles which failed to reach their aim and insults in a
tongue which he did not understand.[877]

A few days later[878] there came to Ascalon a messenger from England
with tidings which filled the whole host with dismay. He brought letters
from the justiciars beseeching the king to return at once, as John was trying,
with a considerable prospect of success, to make himself master of the
realm. Richard called the barons together and set forth the matter fully to
them. He added that if he should be, as he feared, obliged to depart from
Syria, he would leave three hundred knights and two thousand men-at-arms
to continue serving there at his expense; and he asked his own followers to
let him know who among them wished to go with him, and who wished to
stay, for he would put no constraint upon any man. The barons, after
holding a consultation among themselves, came back and told him frankly
that unless he appointed as lord over the land someone who had a
knowledge of war, and to whom all, no matter whence they came, could
adhere, every one of them would leave the country and set out for home.
Richard at once asked them which they would have of the only two possible
kings—Guy or Conrad. “And all of them, great and small, knelt down
before him and prayed that he would make the marquis their lord, for this
was the most helpful and useful thing for the realm.” Some of them had
1192 hitherto been bitter against the marquis, and these Richard upbraided
for their sudden change of front; but when fully assured all were now
unanimous in their choice he gave it his assent, and ordered that an
honourable escort should go to fetch the king-elect and the French, and thus
all should be reunited.[879]
As head of the royal house of Jerusalem, guardian of the realm, and
commander-in-chief of the crusading host, Richard would not have been
justified in withholding his assent from the course of action thus
unanimously recommended by both the native and the western Crusaders.
Their decision was probably the wisest possible under the circumstances.
Although Conrad had done more than any other man (except possibly Philip
Augustus) to sow dissension among the Christian forces, he was
nevertheless the leader who, when Richard was gone, would divide them
the least; for when once he was acknowledged as their chief, it would be his
own interest to keep them together and to further the object of their
enterprise to the utmost of his power; he was, unquestionably, by far the
most capable and energetic, next to Richard, of all the princes of the
Crusade; and his so-called wife and their infant daughter were the sole
surviving representatives of the royal house of Jerusalem. The crowned

king, Guy, had no following of his own, and it seems quite clear that he had,
tacitly at least, resigned all claim to authority in the realm as well as in the
host; so that no disloyalty to him was involved in Richard’s assent to the
election of a new sovereign. Count Henry of Champagne and three other
envoys of rank carried the great news to Tyre; Conrad and all the folk there
were delighted, and began to prepare for immediate return to the host at
Ascalon.[880] But before any of them had set out, the situation was suddenly
changed again; on April 28 the marquis was assassinated.[881] The murderers
were caught red-handed, and, of course, promptly put to death. At Saladin’s
1192 court they were reported to have declared that they had been hired by
Richard to commit the crime.[882] Saladin, with whom Conrad had been in
negotiation for several weeks past, had at the time an agent in Tyre from
whom this report was derived;[883] and if it did not actually originate with
Conrad’s friends and allies at Tyre, its circulation among Richard’s enemies
and rivals and its transmission to Europe were certainly encouraged by
them.[884] A few years later, however, one Moslem historian gave a very
different account of the matter: Ibn Alathyr says the men were hired by
Saladin to kill Richard if they could, or, failing him, Conrad, and that they
chose the latter alternative as the easier of the two.[885] This story is probably
worthless except as an illustration of the importance of both king and
marquis in Saracen eyes. The best confutation of the other tale lies in the
simple fact that Conrad’s death could not be of the slightest profit to
Richard, but, on the contrary, upset all his plans for his own return to
Europe. The Norman pilgrim-poet of the Crusade tells us that the men who
stabbed Conrad were “Assassins” not only in the modern conventional
sense of the word, but also in its original and etymological sense; by their
own confession, they were Hashashîn, that is, followers of the “Old Man of
the Mountain,” and acted under his orders.[886] This is confirmed by two of
our best English authorities,[887] and by the French historians who lived and
wrote in the Holy Land; one of the earliest of these latter says that “some
people” reported the murderers to have been hired by Richard, “but,” he
adds, “this was not a bit true”;[888] while another states that the deed was
done to avenge certain other Ismaïlites whom the marquis had caused to be
1192 first robbed and then drowned.[889] This story is at any rate more
intrinsically probable than either Ibn Alathyr’s or that which was accepted
at Saladin’s court and sent to Europe by Conrad’s friends; indeed, the
relations between these latter and Richard during the rest of their stay in the

Holy Land seem hardly compatible with a real belief on their part in
Richard’s guilt.
There were now some ten thousand Frenchmen, under Hugh of Burgundy
and other barons, lodging in tents outside Tyre. As soon as Conrad was
buried these barons called upon Isabel to surrender the city to them to hold
in trust for the king of France. She boldly answered that “when the king
returned, she would willingly surrender it to him, unless before that time it
1192 had another lord.”[890] The closing words of this answer were a
scarcely veiled announcement of her resolve to assert her independence as
queen by right of inheritance and bring in a new claimant to the lordship of
the land by taking another consort; and it is scarcely possible to avoid a
suspicion that she had already made her choice. Count Henry had gone back
from Tyre as far as Acre;[891] there he received the news of Conrad’s death.
He at once returned to Tyre; “and when the people saw him, they
straightway elected him as sent by God to be their ruler and lord, and
prayed him to accept the crown and wed its heiress, the widow of the
marquis.” He answered that he must first ascertain how his uncle King
Richard would regard the project. When Richard heard the whole of the
strange story, he brooded over it for a long while; at last he said to Henry’s
messengers: “Sirs, I should greatly wish that my nephew might be king, if it
please God, when the land shall be conquered; but not that he wed the
marchioness, whom the marquis took from her rightful lord and lived with
in such wise that if Count Henry trusts my counsel he will not take her in
marriage. But let him accept the kingship, and I will give him in demesne
Acre and its port-dues, Tyre, Joppa, and jurisdiction over all the conquered
land. And then tell him to come back to the host and bring the Frenchmen
with him, as quickly as he can, for I want to go and take Darum—if the
Turks dare wait there for me!”[892]
It is strange that Richard did not see how impracticable was his advice.
The first half of the scheme proposed by the barons at Tyre was futile
without the other half. The kingdom of Jerusalem was sold, beyond
redemption, into the hand of a woman. Isabel’s hour had come; she was
now, beyond all question, the “right heir” of all the land. Henry of
Champagne, nephew to both Richard and Philip, constant companion and
1192 faithful follower of the one, yet loyal homager of the other, was
exceptionally qualified to become a sovereign round whom all parties could

rally, and a healer of their divisions; but these qualifications must prove
useless if Isabel should give him a rival by choosing another consort. His
election would be of no avail for himself or for the realm unless he took the
queen with the crown. The barons at Tyre were urgent that he should do so;
he hesitated from fear of Richard’s displeasure, but his personal inclination
seconded their arguments. Finally Isabel herself brought him the keys of the
city; a priest was hurriedly fetched, and there and then, on May 5, the
couple were wedded. The king-elect sent representatives to Acre, Joppa,
and elsewhere, to take seisin of the royal rights, and summoned his men to
join him for an expedition against Darum.[893]
During Henry’s absence from the host Richard had been scorning the
country round Ascalon in a series of bold excursions, made sometimes
almost alone, and from which he always returned “bringing ten or a dozen,
or a score, or may be thirty, Saracens’ heads, and some live Saracens
besides.”[894] Another object of these expeditions probably was to
reconnoitre the inner border of the plain, and endeavour to find out what
were the possibilities of penetrating by some way, other than the vale of
Ajalon and its ramifications, through the Shephelah and across the trench
and the mountain-rampart of Judea. The most direct way up from the plain
to Jerusalem was by the next valley south of Ajalon, the Wady es Surar
(Valley of Sorek); but if this were to be attempted, the base for the attempt
must be some place further north than Ascalon. The entrance to the third
main inlet into the Shephelah, the Vale of Elah or Wady es Sunt, was
guarded by a great castle set on a height called by the Arabs Tell es Safiyeh,
“the Bright Hill,” and by the Franks (who in earlier days had built the
castle) Blanchegarde; both names being derived from the nature of the site,
1192 a solitary chalk-hill whose gleaming sides were plainly visible from
Ascalon, seventeen miles away, while the tower on its summit commanded
a wide view over the surrounding plain, as well as of Ascalon itself, and
also of the roads leading northward to Natroun and southward to Ibelin of
the Hospital and Hebron. Once already—in December, from Ramlah—
Richard had set out to explore the neighbourhood of Blanchegarde,[895] but
had turned back again without reaching the place. When on April 22 he led
his troops to attack it, he found it deserted; the Turkish garrison had fled at
his approach. He seems to have left there in their stead the whole force that
he had taken with him, and returned to Ascalon quite alone, for on the way
back he nearly lost his life in an encounter with a wild boar in which he was

evidently single-handed.[896] Six days later—the day of Conrad’s Apr. 28
death—Roger de Glanville, whom Richard had left in command of the
newly won fortress, made a daring reconnaissance through the Vale of Elah,
up the steep mountain-pass which meets it on the other side of the central
valley, across the plateau, and past the very gates of Jerusalem, and returned
in triumph with a few stray Saracens whom he had captured. On the Apr. 29
following day the king, riding somewhere “between Blanchegarde and
Gaza,” came upon eight Saracens of whom he slew three and captured the
other five. On the night of May 1 he was at Furbia, near the coast, between
Ascalon and Gaza; here some Turks tried to surprise him asleep at early
morn, but he was the first of his little band to awake and went forth straight
from bed, stopping for nothing but his sword and shield, to meet the
assailants; four were slain, seven made prisoners; “the rest fled before his
face.”[897] It must have been either between these two exploits or directly
after the latter of them that Count Henry’s messengers met the king “in the
plains of Ramlah, spurring across the open country in pursuit of a band of
Turks who were fleeing before him.”[898] His restlessness was probably
increased by the disturbed state of his mind. Envoys from his own
1192 dominions were arriving one after another with contradictory letters
and messages, some giving alarming accounts of the state of affairs there,
some assuring him that all was well; some beseeching him to come home,
some exhorting him to continue the sacred task in which he was engaged;
all deepening his perplexities till he knew not which to believe or how to
act.[899] One point alone stood out clear before him. Now that Ascalon was
lost to the Moslems, its place as the key of Egypt, the base and storehouse
which sheltered troops and supplies from the Nile valley for transmission to
Jerusalem and the other fortresses still held by the Moslems in Syria, had
been taken by Darum. Before Richard could bring himself to quit the
country, and also before Saladin’s army reassembled, Darum must be won
for Christendom.
There was no time to lose. The rains were quite over; summer was
beginning; and Saladin’s host would have been at its full strength again ere
now but for some troubles in the northern part of his dominions. His
nephew Taki-ed-Din, the lord of Hamath and Edessa, had died in October
1191 leaving a son, El Mansour, who was inclined to rebel against Saladin’s
supremacy. On May 14 or 15 the Sultan despatched his own son El Afdal to
seize El Mansour’s lands; but the diplomatist of the family, Safadin, fearing

that this quarrel would imperil the “Holy” War, was pleading hard for a
pacific settlement.[900] Knowing all this, Richard determined not to wait for
Henry. He had his stone-casters packed on shipboard and sent them down
towards Darum by sea; he hired men-at-arms to increase the forces at
Ascalon; some he distributed in the strong places round about to guard the
roads; then he set out with only the troops of his own domains,[901] and on
Sunday, May 17,[902] this little band pitched their tents before Darum, a
fortress with seventeen “fine strong towers and turrets,” besides a keep of
1192 great height and strength built against a solid rock which formed one
side of it, while the other sides were of squared stone and surrounded by a
deep fosse. Being too few to encircle such a place, the adventurers
encamped all together a little way off to wait for their machines and
consider on which side they could use them to the best advantage. The
Turkish garrison thought scorn of such an insignificant looking force, and
rode forth and made a feint of provoking them to fight, but failing to move
them, withdrew into the castle and shut the gates. That night or next day the
ships arrived with the engines of war; “and,” says an eye-witness, “we saw
the valiant king of England himself, and the nobles who were his
companions, all sweating under the burden of the various parts of the stone-
casters, which they, like packhorses, carried on their shoulders near a mile
across the sand.” The pieces were soon put together and the machines at
work, one manned by the Normans of the party, another by the Poitevins, a
third probably by the Englishmen; this last the king took under his own
special command, and he directed its discharge solely against the keep; a
mangonel set up there by the Turks was speedily destroyed by it. All three
machines were kept in ceaseless action day and night. Meanwhile the walls
were being undermined;[903] and wherever they began to fall they were set
on fire by some men of Aleppo skilled in wall-breaking, whom Richard had
hired during the siege of Acre and now brought with him to Darum.[904] On
the fourth day of the siege (Friday, May 22), when the castle gate had been
shattered by Richard’s stone-caster and set on fire, the garrison offered to
surrender on condition that their lives and those of their families should be
spared.[905] Richard refused the condition and bade them defend themselves
as best they could. The stone-casters worked more vigorously than ever;
presently one of the undermined towers fell with a crash. The assailants
rushed through the breach; some sixty Turks were slain; the rest fled into
1192 the keep, and when they saw the Christian banners waving all over

the outer bailey and the Frank knights and men-at-arms beginning May 22
to scale the keep itself, they “gave themselves up to King Richard as his
captives and slaves.” He kept them securely guarded in the tower for the
night; next morning they were brought out, “and their hands tied behind
their backs so tightly that they roared with pain.” There were three hundred
men; and there were also some women and children in the place, and,
moreover, forty Christian prisoners.[906]
The conquest of the seaboard was complete; the last fortress on the
coast[907] was in Christian hands; and Richard and his men were the more
delighted with their success because they had won it unaided, before their
French comrades rejoined them. Count Henry and his followers had ridden
at full speed, but they came spurring up just too late. Uncle and nephew met
with joyful greetings and mutual congratulations, and Richard publicly
made over his prize to Henry as a kind of first-fruits of the realm. It was
Whitsun Eve; so all rested where they were on the festival day.[908] On the
Monday the castle was given in charge to constables appointed by Henry,
[909]
and the rest of the party set out northward. Henry and his men went
straight on to Ascalon; Richard and his company stopped at Furbia, May 25
[910]
where it seems the king expected to receive the report of a scout whom
he had sent to reconnoitre the approach to the southernmost of the cross-
valleys leading from the plain to the mountains—the Wady el Hesy, “valley
of the wells,” which opens from the Shephelah about twelve miles east of
1192 Furbia and meets the central trench about eight miles west of
Hebron. The scout came and reported that Caysac, the emir whom Saladin
had placed in charge of that district, was at the “Castle of Figtrees” with
more than a thousand men, making the castle ready for defence against the
Christians. Richard at once called out the host from Ascalon to follow him;
they set out from Furbia on May 27 and advanced up the Wady el Hesy to a
place which they called the Canebrake of Starlings; its Arabic name was
Cassaba, meaning “the Reeds.”[911] On the morrow they set out at May 28
sunrise and proceeded to the Castle of Figtrees, but found in it only two
Turks; the rest had fled in haste at tidings of their approach. The Christians
therefore returned to Cassaba.[912] They were less fortunate in an expedition
which they seem to have made next day, against another fortress in the
same neighbourhood; one Moslem historian says the garrison came out and
worsted them in fight; another, that they were surprised within the castle;
and both assert that one of their chief captains or nobles was slain.[913]

1192 While the host lay thus at the Canebrake of Starlings there came to
the king another messenger from England, his vice-chancellor, John May 29-
31
of Alençon, with such an alarming account of the state of affairs in
both England and Normandy that after much anxious thought he told the
other princes and barons that he really must and would go home. They
hereupon held a council among themselves, and promptly answered this
announcement by another: whatever he might do or say, wherever he might
go, they all would proceed forthwith to Jerusalem. Someone who was
present at their council carried a report of its outcome to the pilgrims of
lower rank, “and they danced for joy till past midnight”; “there was no man
high or low, young or old, who was not wild with delight, except the king
himself; but he went to bed in a feverish state of perturbation and
perplexity”;[914] for he knew that unless he went home he was like to lose his
lands,[915] yet it was virtually impossible for him to withdraw from the
Crusade in the face of this unanimous resolve. How the resolve should be
carried into effect, was the next question. The Christians had now secured
the entrances to three of the five natural openings from the plain into the
hill-country. There was clearly nothing to be gained by proceeding further
up the Wady el Hesy. From their present encampment they could easily
reach one of the two openings which they had not yet approached, the Wady
el Afranj. At the western end of this valley, on the border-line of the
Shephelah and the plain—“at the foot of the hills, where the fields begin,”
as William of Tyre[916] describes it—stood a fortress with a town or village
1192 clustering round it, called by the Arabs Beit Djibrin and by the
Franks Ibelin of the Hospital; the latter title, derived from its owners the
Knights of Saint John, being added to distinguish it from the other Ibelin,
on the coast further north. Its site was probably that of the ancient
Eleutheropolis, and it was a central point whence roads radiated in all
directions, to Gaza, to Hebron, to Blanchegarde and Toron of the Knights
(Natroun), to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. When—probably on June 1—the
host left the Canebrake of Starlings, its destination was apparently
understood to be Ibelin. The pilgrims seem to have proceeded along the
border of the plain to a point—probably Galatia—whence a road ran
eastward to Ibelin and westward to Ascalon.[917] Here they halted June
and spent two or three days, “suffering a fierce persecution and strange
martyrdom” from swarms of minute flies which stung them in every
exposed part with such poisonous effect that “they all looked like lepers,”

but buoyed up above all troubles by their confident hope of reaching
Jerusalem at last. One alone sat gloomily in his tent apart, absorbed in
ceaseless thought; and that one was the king.[918]
As Richard sat thus one day he saw a chaplain from his own June 3
land, William of Poitiers, walking up and down before the open door of the
tent, and weeping bitterly. This man longed to remonstrate with his
sovereign for proposing to desert the Holy Land in its present perilous
condition; but he lacked a fitting opportunity, and was afraid to use one
when it came. Richard called him in and said: “For what are you weeping?
1192 By the fealty that you owe me, tell me the truth at once.” “Sire,”
answered the priest through his tears, “I will not tell you till you have
promised not to be wroth with me.” Richard gave his word on oath that he
would bear him no grudge. Then William spoke with the impassioned and
abundant eloquence of the south. He bade the king call to mind how all his
past career had been a series of exploits and successes so remarkable as to
be manifestly due to the special grace and protection of Heaven; his early
triumphs, when only count of Poitou, over hostile neighbours and
Brabantine hordes far outnumbering his little forces; his peaceful and
undisputed succession to the throne; his almost instantaneous victory over
the Griffons at Messina; his rapid conquest of Cyprus; his providential
encounter with the Saracen ship whose freight, had it reached Acre, might
have saved that city for Islam; his timely arrival at Acre, and the prominent
share which he had had in effecting its surrender; his recovery from the
sickness of which so many other Crusaders had died; the deliverance of the
prisoners at Darum, and the speedy capture of that fortress, whereof he had
been the chosen instrument; and his own deliverance from the Turks who
had nearly captured him in his sleep. “Remember how God has given thee
such great honour that no king of thy age ever had so few mishaps—how
often He has helped thee, and how He helps thee still. He has done such
great things for thee that thou needest fear neither king nor baron.
Remember all this, O king, and guard this land whereof He has made thee
protector! for He placed it wholly in thy keeping when the other king turned
back; and all men, great and small, to whom thy honour is dear, say that if
thou, who wert wont to be a father and brother to the Christian cause,
shouldst forsake it now, thou wilt have betrayed it to death.”[919]

1192 To all this Richard listened without speaking a word, and when the
priest’s discourse was ended he made no comment or reply. But he
pondered over it; “and his thoughts were enlightened.” Next day (June 4)
the host was led westward, and by the hour of nones found itself once more
in the fields around Ascalon.[920] Everybody took this to mean that the king
intended to set out for Europe at once. Instead, he told his nephew and the
other nobles that “for no other concern or need, no messenger and no
tidings, nor for any earthly quarrel, would he depart from them or quit the
land before next Easter.” Then he called for his herald Philip, and bade him
proclaim throughout Ascalon, in God’s Name, that the king had with his
own lips promised to stay in the land till Easter, and that all men were to
make themselves ready with whatsoever means God had given them, for
they were going to Jerusalem to besiege it straightway.[921]

CHAPTER VI
RICHARD AND SALADIN

1192

Circumdate Sion et complectimini eam ... et distribuite domos ejus, ut enarratis in progenie
altera.
1192
The abandonment of the projected expedition to Ibelin was due to
more causes than one. On the day of the surrender of Darum May 22
Saladin had yielded to the necessity strongly urged upon him by his emirs,
of restoring peace and unity within the borders of Islam as the essential
preliminary to a renewal of the “Holy” war, and had despatched Safadin
with full powers to make whatever terms he might think good with his rebel
great-nephew El Mansour.[922] The settlement thus made enabled the Sultan
to call out all his forces again for action against the Franks; and so prompt
was the response to his call that two important contingents, under the Emirs
Bedr-ed-Din and Ezz-ed-Din, reached Jerusalem on the last day of May,
just as the Christian host was on its march northward from Cassaba.
Hearing that it was at the “parting of the roads” between Ascalon and
Ibelin, he despatched Ezz-ed-Din with the newly arrived forces to intercept
it, and an encounter in circumstances which would have been highly
unfavourable to the Franks was only averted by the promptitude with which
their leaders, on discovering Ezz-ed-Din’s approach, changed their plans
and retired to Ascalon.[923] Ibelin was a place worth securing; but its capture
was not essential to their present object; for the purpose of leading an army
to Jerusalem the Wady el Afranj was as valueless as the Wady el Hesy.
1192 When once a new advance on Jerusalem was decided on, the matter
of most urgent necessity was the restoration of the host to its fullest possible
strength. Some of the French contingent were still at Acre. Thither Count
Henry once more proceeded from Ascalon to call these recalcitrants back to
their duty,[924] and also to collect any reinforcements that could be obtained
from Tyre, Tripoli, or elsewhere.[925] Beit Nuba was appointed as the place
where he and they were to rejoin the main body.[926] With the latter Richard
on June 6 set out early in the morning, and in a few hours was encamped
before Blanchegarde.[927]

From Blanchegarde three ways into the hill-country lay open. One was
the valley of Elah (Wady es Sunt), which runs almost due east from the
place where the Crusaders now were. This way was not attractive to
invaders, because its continuation on the further side of the central trench
was very difficult for troops. North-eastward from Blanchegarde a road ran
along the border of the plain past the mouth of the valley of Sorek (Wady es
Surar) to Natroun, and thence across the Shephelah to Beit Nuba. The
valley of Sorek is the most direct and the easiest of all the natural ways that
lead up from the plain to the mountains of Judah; but it had a great
disadvantage. For an army advancing through it there was no possible base
on the coast nearer than Ascalon or Joppa, both of them more than twenty
miles distant from its western end. The only place within easy reach of it
that could be called a coast-town was Ibelin-Yebna, and this was not a
coast-town in the proper sense; it was four miles from the sea and had no
harbour. Of all the roads that led to Jerusalem the best for the Crusaders was
unquestionably the one which they had chosen for their first attempt—the
Beit Nuba road, where they would have in their rear a safe double line of
1192 communication through Ramlah and Lydda with their original base at
Joppa and thence, by land and sea, with Acre. On June 9 they advanced to
Natroun,[928] and that night they intercepted a score of Turks returning from
a plundering raid on Joppa; six escaped, the other fourteen were made
prisoners.[929] Next day Richard with the men of his own domains moved on
to Castle Arnold,[930] a place whose character is expressed in its modern
Arabic name, Khurbet-el-Burj, “ruins of the Bourg,” burh or fortress; it had
been built by his great-grandfather, King Fulk, on one of the highest hills in
the Shephelah, about three and a half miles north-west of Beit Nuba, and
commanded both the “way that goeth to Beth-horon” and the lower road
along the foot of the hills, from Lydda by Beit Nuba to Jerusalem. Probably
the Turks had dismantled it; Richard pitched his tents “on a high place to
the right.” He was joined by the rest of the army next day, when all June 10
together proceeded to Beit Nuba and encamped there to wait for Count
Henry and his recruits.[931]
On that same day Saladin, whose scouts kept him well informed of all the
enemy’s movements, held a council to decide what course should be taken
in view of their apparent intention to attempt the siege of Jerusalem. It was
settled that the defence of the walls should be divided among the emirs, a
certain portion being assigned to each of them, and that the Sultan himself

with the rest of his army should take the field against the invaders.[932] The
latter part of this arrangement was, however, not carried into effect:
throughout the three weeks which the Franks spent at Beit Nuba they never
encountered Saladin, and no general engagement took place, though there
were, as Ambrose says, many “adventures and skirmishes and
discomfitures,” in several of which Richard was personally engaged. One of
1192 these counterbalanced, within twenty-four hours, an evil omen for
the Franks with which, according to Bohadin, their stay at Beit Nuba began
—the falling of a convoy from Joppa into a Turkish ambush on June 12.[933]
That night a scout sent out by Richard returned from the hill of Gibeon—
called by the Franks Montjoie, because it was the place whence the earliest
Crusaders had first seen the Holy City—with tidings of another ambush
which, he seems to have learned, was posted near “the Fountain of
Emmaus,” or Amwas, half way between Natroun and Beit Nuba, and close
to the point where the roads from Natroun and Ramlah meet. Before dawn
Richard was in the saddle; at daybreak he was at the Fountain; the Turks
were caught at unawares, twenty were slain, one was captured and his life
spared because he was Saladin’s herald; three camels, several fine
Turcoman horses, and two good mules laden with silk stuffs, aloes, and
spicery, were the prize of the victor. The rest of the party he chased over the
hills till he overtook and slew one of them, seemingly on the “Mount of
Joy” itself, for according to Ambrose—who says he had the story of the
adventure from one who took part in it—he “saw Jerusalem plainly” before
he turned back.[934] During his absence from the camp it had been assailed
by a band of Turks, but they were driven back into the hills.[935] An attempt
of the enemies to intercept another caravan three or four days later was
equally unsuccessful, though the Turks killed a few Christians and took
some prisoners.[936]
Meanwhile the lesser folk were growing tired of waiting for Henry, and
impatiently asking whether they were or were not really going to June 16-
20
Jerusalem this time. Some of the French nobles urged Richard to
lead the host at once to Jerusalem and begin the siege. He refused. He
1192 pointed out the risks which such a step would involve; he reminded
them how easy it would be for Saladin, who always knew all their
movements, to swoop down with his army into the plain in their rear and
cut off their supplies and their communication with the sea, the circuit of
the walls being too extensive to admit of the division of so small a force as

theirs into two bodies, one to form the siege and the other to protect the
besiegers and keep the ways clear for convoys. He would not, he said, be
the leader of such an undertaking, because he had no mind to incur the
blame for the disaster in which he believed it would result. He knew well,
he added, that both in Holy Land and in France there were some persons
who wished that he might wreck his reputation in some such way, but he
was not minded to satisfy their desire. Moreover, he and the French were
alike strangers in the land; it was not for them to take the responsibility, but
for the Military Orders and the feudataries of the realm. “Let them decide
whether we are to attempt the siege, or to go and take Babylon, or Beyrout,
or Damascus. So shall there be no discord amongst us.”[937] The decision
was committed to twenty umpires representing every division of the host
except the subjects of Richard: five Templars, five Hospitaliers, five knights
of Syria, and five barons of France. The first fifteen gave their award for an
expedition against “Babylon”; but the French would not agree to this; they
declared they would go to Jerusalem and nowhere else. Richard did his
utmost to restore unity. He held out every possible inducement to the
French to accept the Cairo project: “See, my fleet lies at Acre, ready to
carry all the baggage, equipments, and accoutrements, biscuits and flour;
the host would go all along by the shore and I would lead from here at my
own charges seven hundred knights and two thousand men-at-arms; no man
of mine should be lacking. But if they [that is, the French] will not do this, I
am quite ready to go to the siege of Jerusalem; only be it known that I will
not be the leader of the host; I will go in the company, as leader of my own
men, but of no others.” And forthwith he bade all his men assemble in the
1192 quarters of the Hospitaliers, “and arrange what help they would give
to the siege when they got to Jerusalem.”[938]
Before this last order was fully carried out an unexpected and most
welcome diversion occurred. Saladin was now in daily expectation of some
troops from Egypt, for whose despatch he had given orders some time
before with a warning that they must be specially cautious when they
approached the territory occupied by the Franks. These troops waited at
Belbeis for the assembling of a great caravan, in company with which they
finally set out for Jerusalem. All this was known to Richard through his
scouts, who were fully equal in efficiency to those of Saladin; some of them
were renegade Arabs[939]; others were Syrian Christians, so well disguised
and speaking the “Saracen” tongue so perfectly as to be indistinguishable

from real Saracens. Three of these Syrian spies came into the camp—
seemingly on Sunday June 21[940]—and bade the king mount and ride with
his men, and they would lead him to the great caravan that was coming up
from Egypt. Richard, in his joy, asked Hugh of Burgundy and the other
Frenchmen to join the expedition, and they did so, on condition of receiving
a third part of the spoil. With five hundred knights and men-at-arms the
king rode by moonlight to Blanchegarde and thence to Galatia, a town in
the plain, half way between Ascalon and Ibelin of the Hospital; there he was
within easy reach of both the coast-road and the inland road, and could also
procure from Ascalon whatever supplies he needed, whether of fresh horses
or provisions.[941] Saladin, as soon as he was informed of these movements,
despatched five hundred picked Turkish soldiers under the emir Aslam to
meet the force from Egypt and warn it of its danger.[942] He evidently
1192 expected that the Egyptians, knowing the coast to be practically in
the hands of the Franks, would come by the inner or eastern road which
after crossing the Wady Ghuzzeh divided into two branches, one passing
over the mountains by Hebron and Bethlehem, the other through the
Shephelah across the Wady el Hesy and thence by Beit Djibrin (Ibelin) to
the valleys of Elah and Sorek. This latter route, being the easier and shorter,
was the one which the Egyptians would naturally take and which Aslam
took to meet them. His mission was to reach them, if possible, in the desert,
and guide them by the safer though more toilsome and lengthy way over the
mountain-range. Riding as only Arabs (and possibly Richard on Fauvel)
could ride, he and his party did meet them, late in the evening, at June 22
what the Arabs called “the Waters of Kuweilfeh” and the Franks “the Round
Cistern.” This was no doubt a well-known stage on the road from Egypt and
Mecca; its site is at the southern foot of the Shephelah, close to the opening
from the central fosse into the desert, and it would thus be the first
watering-place for their beasts of burden after passing the Wady Ghuzzeh
and before entering the hill-country. Aslam was urgent that the ascent to
Hebron should be made that night; but the Egyptian commander, Felek-ed-
Din, fearing lest the caravan should fail to keep together in the darkness,
decided to wait till morning.[943] Meanwhile a native Syrian scout had come
to Richard at Galatia and told him that if he made haste he might capture
the caravan at the Round Cistern. Richard, conscious that there was no real
need to hurry—since he and his horsemen could easily overtake the slow
movements of a caravan—determined to verify the report before acting on

it. He accordingly sent out three more scouts,[944] one a real Bedouin, the
1192 others native Turcoples disguised in Bedouin attire, to make a further
reconnaissance in the evening. Meanwhile he and his troops seem to have
advanced to the head of the Wady el Hesy, which Aslam had crossed shortly
before them.[945] Here the returning scouts met them with the news that not
only the caravan, but also the army from Egypt, was encamped at the
Round Cistern for the night. The king gave orders for all to mount and ride,
and, as they valued their honour, not to think of gain, but devote all their
energy to routing the Turkish soldiers. He took his usual post in the van; the
French formed the rearguard. By daybreak they were all close to June 23
their destination, and were forming up for attack when another scout came
to warn them that their approach had been discovered and the caravan was
on the alert. Richard sent forward some archers, Turcoples, and
crossbowmen, to harass the enemies and impede their movements till he
could come up with his other troops. The caravan remained stationary; the
Moslem troops took up a sheltered position close to the hills and greeted
their assailants with a thick cloud of missiles “which fell on the ground like
dew,”[946] but it was all in vain. “Those of our men who were reputed
bravest,” confesses Bohadin, “were glad to save their lives by the fleetness
of their horses. It was long since Islam had had such a disgraceful
defeat.”[947] Aslam, to the neglect of whose counsel the disaster was due, had
before the fight began withdrawn with his troops into the mountains.
Thither the others fled, chased by the Frank cavalry, while the infantry
turned to secure the caravan. Aslam, seeing the Christian forces thus
divided, seized his opportunity to send down by a side path a party of
horsemen who attacked the Christian foot; but the attack was beaten off,
and the caravan surrendered.[948] The booty was immense; there were more
than four thousand camels laden with precious stores of the most varied
kind, gold and silver, silks and purple cloth, grain and flour, sugar and
1192 spices, tents, hides, arms of all sorts; the horses and mules were
“altogether beyond counting”; and besides all this, the Egyptian contingent
so eagerly awaited by Saladin had lost nearly two thousand men[949] and
suffered a most ignominious defeat. “No tidings,” says Bohadin, “ever dealt
a more grievous wound to the heart of the Sultan than those which were
brought to him at the close of that day.”[950]
Saladin at once prepared for the siege which he now felt to be imminent.
He ordered his captains to take up their appointed positions round the walls

and make all ready for their defence, and he caused the brooks and pools
round about the city to be polluted, the wells filled up, and the cisterns
destroyed, so as to leave the assailants no means of obtaining water, for it
would be impossible for them to dig new wells in that rocky soil. When all
these precautions were taken, however, he was still very anxious; for he
knew that among the Moslems, no less than among the Christians, there
was dissension as to the conduct of the war, and jealousy and mutual
distrust between the various nationalities of which his host was composed;
for although the Sultan’s subjects were all lumped together indiscriminately
by the Frank writers as “Turks” or “Saracens,” some of them were in reality
1192 much less closely akin and much less alike in origin, character, and
habits, than were the men of England and France and Italy and Germany.
On the night of Wednesday July 1 he called his emirs to a solemn council.
By his desire Bohadin opened it with an impassioned exhortation to all
present to persevere in the war, and proposed that they should all take an
oath on the Sacred Stone of the Temple to hold together till death. Saladin
himself appealed to them as “the only fighting force and sole stay of Islam,”
on whom depended the safety of all Mussulmans everywhere. They all
pledged themselves to stand by him till death. Next day, however, Thurs.,
July 2
they held a meeting among themselves, and some of them there
expressed their disapproval of the Sultan’s strategy in shutting up “the only
fighting force and stay of Islam” at Jerusalem; they believed it would result
in the capture of the city and the destruction of the army by a fate such as
that of the garrison of Acre, and thus bring the Mussulman dominion in
Palestine to ruin, and that the wiser course would be to risk a pitched battle,
which if they were victorious would shatter the enemy’s power and enable
the Moslems to recover all that they had lost, while if they were defeated,
they would indeed lose Jerusalem, but the army of Islam would remain, and
might hope to regain the city hereafter. These criticisms were reported to
Saladin, with a further warning that if he persisted in his plan of defence, he
must either himself remain in the city or leave one of his family to take the
command there, as the Kurdish troops would not obey a Turkish emir nor
the Turks a Kurdish one. Personally he was willing to stay, but his friends
would not sanction a course which they felt might bring upon Islam a
double disaster in the loss of the city and the Sultan both at once. July 2
He and his devoted secretary spent the whole night in deliberating and
praying over the problems suggested by this communication; on the July 3

Friday morning Bohadin advised his master to give up all attempts at
finding a solution of them and simply commit the direction of all his affairs
to a higher Power. The counsel was followed. That evening the officer in
command of the Moslem advanced guard sent word that “the whole army of
the enemies” had—seemingly on the preceding day—ridden out to the top
1192 of a hill, stationed itself there a while, and then ridden back to its
camp; he had sent out scouts to ascertain what was going on. At Sat.,
July 4
daybreak next morning this announcement was followed by
another; the scouts had come in and reported that a great discussion, lasting
all night, had taken place among the Christian leaders, and had ended at
dawn in a decision to retreat.[951]
The victors of Kuweilfeh seem to have reached Beit Nuba on June 30;
they had returned by easy stages by way of Ramlah, where they found
Count Henry with the troops which he had collected at Acre.[952] At first the
camp was filled with rejoicing over the spoil, which Richard took care to
distribute fairly among all ranks of the host; but in a day or two the lesser
folk began to clamour for an immediate advance on Jerusalem. The native
umpires who a fortnight before had given their award against the siege
repeated the arguments which they had then used, laying special stress on
the impossibility of procuring water, now that all the artificial stores of it
for two miles round the city were known to have been destroyed by the
enemy, and at a season when every drop of moisture, except the little
fountain of Siloam, would be dried up by the heat of the Syrian midsummer.
[953]
There were also other difficulties. One which Richard had urged in
January—the numerical insufficiency of the host—does not seem to have
been appreciably lessened by the results of Count Henry’s recruiting
expedition. The worst difficulty of all was internal disunion. Hugh of
Burgundy’s self-will and his jealousy of Richard were shown more openly
1192 than ever now that his share of the caravan spoils had made him
independent of Richard’s bounty. He and his men had long been in the
habit, wherever the host went, of camping apart from their fellow-Crusaders
at night as if desirous to avoid their company; by day, when they and the
men of other nations had to associate together, there were constant
bickerings and altercations; and the duke crowned all this mischief by
“causing a song full of all vileness to be made about the king, and this song
was sung amid the host. Was the king blameworthy,” asks the Norman poet-
chronicler, “when he in return made a song upon these people who were

always thwarting and insulting him? and truly no good song could be sung
about such outrageous folk.”[954] According to one English writer, Hugh
even entered into a secret negotiation with Saladin, which the vigilance of a
scout enabled Richard to unmask, to the utter confusion of the duke; but the
details of the story are somewhat doubtful.[955] Clearly, however, there was
no exaggeration in the report transmitted to Saladin from his advanced
guard as to dissensions in the Christian camp; and there is no reason to
doubt the correctness of Bohadin’s account—derived likewise from the
statements of a scout who was secretly present—of the final council held on
the night of Thursday-Friday, July 2-3. After much debate, three hundred
arbitrators were appointed from among the nobles and knights; these three
hundred delegated their powers to twelve others, and these twelve chose
1192 three umpires, from whose decision there was to be no appeal.[956] In
the morning the pilgrims were, for the second time when at a July 3
distance of little more than four hours’ march from their goal, told that they
must prepare for a retreat.[957]
The disappointment was perhaps all the more keenly felt because it
followed closely not only upon the victory over the Egyptians, but also
upon two incidents which had heightened the religious fervour and thus
encouraged the hopes of the Christian soldiers. Several relics of the Holy
Cross besides the famous one which had been lost at Hattin were preserved
in various places in Palestine, and had been hidden at the time of the
Saracen conquest to save them from falling into Infidel hands. A Syrian
bishop who had held the see of Lydda is said to have come with a great
company of men and women of his flock and presented one of these
fragments to Richard shortly after the host reached Beit Nuba.[958] A little
later—seemingly just before Richard heard of the coming of the Egyptian
caravan—the abbot of Saint Elias, a monastery situated on the road from
Jerusalem to Bethlehem,[959] came and told the king that he had a piece of
the Cross hidden in a place known only to himself, which Saladin, who
knew the relic had been secreted, had vainly tried to bribe him into
revealing. Richard rode with him to the place and brought the sacred
1192 treasure back, to the great joy of the host.[960] If we may trust an
English writer who, though he did not take part in the Crusade, had a
special opportunity of obtaining information about Richard’s personal share
in it, a third fragment of the Holy Rood came into the king’s hands under
yet stranger circumstances, one of which may possibly have had some

influence on his conduct two months later. On the last night of the July 3
army’s sojourn at Beit Nuba a monk brought him a message from a certain
hermit who dwelt on the “Mount of Saint Samuel”—that is, Nebi Samwîl,
the Arabic name for what the Crusaders usually called the Montjoie—
bidding him, in God’s Name, come to him without delay. Richard arose,
called up an escort of horsemen, and rode to the place. The hermit was
believed to have the spirit of prophecy; he wore no clothes, and was
covered only by his long unshorn hair and beard. Richard, after gazing for a
while in wonder at this strange-looking personage, asked him what was his
will. The hermit led his guest into an oratory, removed a stone from the
wall, and brought out a wooden cross “of a cubit’s length” which he
reverently handed to the king, telling him it was made from the sacred Tree
of Calvary. He added a prediction that the king would not at this time
succeed in winning the land, however hard he might strive for it; and to
demonstrate the reality of his own prophetic gift, he further foretold his own
death on that day week. Richard took him back to the camp to prove
whether his words would come true. Seven days afterwards the prophet
died.[961] Sixty years later, there was a tradition in Palestine that on one
occasion when the men of the Third Crusade, on the point of marching upon
the Holy City, were by the jealousies among their leaders compelled to turn
back, a knight in Richard’s service “cried out to him, ‘Sire, sire, come here
1192 and I will shew you Jerusalem.’ And when he heard that, he cast his
surcoat before his eyes all weeping, and said to our Lord: ‘Fair Lord God, I
pray Thee that Thou suffer me not to behold Thy Holy City, since I cannot
deliver it from the hands of Thine enemies.’”[962] This incident, in itself
quite possible, is in Joinville’s report of the story placed in a setting of
which the details are certainly not historically accurate. If it really occurred,
its true place is most probably at the close of Richard’s nocturnal visit to the
Mount of S. Samuel, as the sunrise on July 4 lighted up the lower slopes of
the mountain-range of which that eminence was the crown, and revealed the
city on its coign of vantage at the south-eastern angle of the plateau. July 4
A few hours later the whole host was back at Ramlah.[963]
The umpires at Beit Nuba had reasoned soundly from the premisses
before them; and those premisses were sound likewise, except in one
particular: the Franks did not—as we do from Bohadin—know what was
passing behind the scenes in the Saracen headquarters. They therefore
probably over-estimated the enemy’s powers of resistance. On the other

hand, there was a similar miscalculation on the Moslem side; Saladin’s
anxiety and alarm would scarcely have been so great had he realized how
completely the unity of the Christian host was broken. Even when fully
assured that the Franks had really withdrawn from the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem, he was still extremely uneasy, fearing they might now take up
again the project of an attempt on Cairo, and feeling by no means sanguine
that they might not, with the coast of Palestine in their possession and with
the supply of beasts of burden which they had recently acquired, bring it to
a successful issue.[964] A new game of diplomacy now began. The first move
in it was made, on the morrow, if not on the very day, of the retirement from
Beit Nuba, in the name of the king-elect of Jerusalem, Henry of
Champagne; but the Saracens at once recognized that the king-elect could
1192 be nothing more than a cipher so long as he was uncrowned and his
uncle was in the land, and that the game was not worth playing with anyone
except the king-guardian. From him overtures for peace arrived on July 6,
and negotiations continued till the 19th. It is difficult to decide how far
either the king or the Sultan was in earnest. Richard made so many different
proposals that they cannot all have been seriously meant. He and Saladin
alike seem to have been really disposed to content themselves with a
division of the land; each of them hoping that the division would be merely
temporary, and would serve as a breathing-space enabling his own party to
recover strength for a new effort. On one point, however, both were equally
determined not to give way. Saladin, while agreeing that the Franks should
keep the sea-coast, made it an essential condition that Ascalon should be
again dismantled. This Richard persistently refused; so on July 19 the
negotiations dropped, and Saladin began to prepare again for war.[965]
His rival was doing the like. By Richard’s orders three hundred Knights
of the Temple and Hospital had already gone from Casal Maen (whither he
and the host had retired on July 6)[966] to Darum, dismantled that fortress,
and transferred its garrison to Ascalon to reinforce the defences of “Syria’s
Summit.” As soon as the three hundred returned, the whole host proceeded
to Joppa; here the sick folk were left, and also some of the able-bodied for
the greater security of the place; the rest set out on July 21 or 22 for Acre,
which they reached on Sunday the 26th.[967] The weary pilgrims of lower
rank grew more dispirited at every stage in this northward journey; Richard
having given orders for the whole fleet to accompany it, whence they
inferred that he intended sailing for Europe immediately. He had, however,

another purpose. The Frank re-conquest of the coast of the Latin kingdom
of Jerusalem was still incomplete; the northernmost sea-port of the realm,
1192 Beyrout, was still in Moslem hands. An attempt on Beyrout had been
one of the alternative schemes suggested by Richard before the final
retirement from Beit Nuba. The place, though of less military importance
than Tyre or Acre or Ascalon, was well worth the winning; it had a good
harbour, and its loss would deprive the Moslems of their only remaining
outlet on the sea between Laodicea and the mouth of the Nile. As soon as
Acre was reached, Richard despatched seven galleys to make a Sunday,
July 26
demonstration before Beyrout. On the morrow (Monday, July 27)
he took leave of the Knights of the Temple and Hospital—with whom he
had always acted in concert, and who probably undertook the control of the
host during his absence—and prepared to follow next day with the rest of
1192 the fleet.[968] But his plans were upset by an unexpected counterstroke
on the part of Saladin.
The Sultan had been rejoined at Jerusalem on July 17 by his son Ed-
Daher, who ruled at Aleppo; and Safadin, recalled from Mesopotamia, was
close at hand with further reinforcements when on the 22nd Saladin learned
that the Christian host had left Joppa and was on its way to Beyrout. He at
once went to Beit Nuba to reconnoitre, leaving orders for all his troops to
follow him thither. Safadin joined him there next day. By the 25th July 23
their united forces were on the old camping-ground of the Franks between
Lydda and Ramlah. On the 26th—the day of Richard’s arrival at July 25
Acre—Saladin reconnoitred Joppa; before nightfall his men were around its
walls, and on Monday 27th they assaulted the town.[969] After four days of
furious fighting Saladin’s engines made, on Friday the 31st, a breach
through which his men swarmed into the town; it was given over to pillage
and slaughter, and the garrison in the citadel promised to surrender, on
terms arranged between them and the Sultan, if they were not relieved
before three o’clock on the morrow.[970] They were in hourly expectation of
Richard’s return; for they had, as soon as the Moslem army came in sight,
despatched by sea an urgent message to recall him from Acre.[971] The
message was delivered to Richard as he sat in his tent on the evening of
Tuesday July 28.[972] He at once summoned the host to go back with him to
Joppa; but the French “declared they would not stir a foot with him.”[973] A
number of Templars, Hospitaliers, and other “good knights,” however, set
off by land to the rescue, while Richard with another party, comprising the

1192 rest of his own men and some Genoese and Pisans, went on board the
galleys. The land party on reaching Caesarea learned that the road between
that place and Arsuf was blocked by “the son of the Assassin”; not daring to
risk an encounter with forces of whose numbers they knew nothing and of
whose military repute all Syria stood in awe, they made no attempt to
proceed further. The ships were caught by a contrary wind off Haïfa,
detained by it for three days, and so dispersed by its violence that only three
of them at last came in sight of Joppa, late in the evening of Friday July 31
the 31st, and had to wait at a safe distance for the rest to overtake them, and
also for the light of day.[974] One of the three carried Richard, chafing sorely
at all these hindrances: “God, have mercy! Why dost Thou keep me here,
when I am going in Thy service?”[975] In the afternoon of that same Friday
Saladin had received from Acre a letter telling him that Richard had given
up his intended expedition against Beyrout and was hastening to the relief
of Joppa. The Sultan and his confidant Bohadin at once decided that the
agreement with the garrison must be flung to the winds, and an effort made
to get the garrison out of the citadel before Richard should arrive. Saladin
spent some time in haranguing his troops and exhorting them to storm it
that evening; but they were worn out with the day’s fight, and so sullenly
unresponsive to his appeal that he dared not give it the form of a command;
and at last he and his staff withdrew for the night to their usual Aug. 1
quarters in the rear. At daybreak they heard a trumpet-call, and learned that
the king’s ships were in sight. Saladin despatched Bohadin with orders to
“get into the citadel and get the Franks out of it.” With a body of troops
Bohadin entered the town, went to the castle gate, and bade the garrison
come out. They answered that they would do so, and began to make their
1192 preparations. The morning wore on to noon, and still the relief party
showed no sign of trying to disembark: Richard in fact, while the garrison
were waiting for him to land, was waiting to ascertain what had become of
them, for the shore was lined and the town, to all appearance, filled with
Mussulman troops, so that the whole place, as seen from the sea, looked as
if it were in the enemy’s hands. On the other hand, it seems that only a
small part of the fleet was as yet visible from the castle-tower. The garrison
therefore, growing hopeless of rescue, yielded to Bohadin’s urgency and
began to march out. Forty-nine men, besides some women and some horses,
thus came forth.[976] As each man passed through the gate he paid down the
ransom appointed in the capitulation, although the hour fixed for its

fulfilment had not yet come; and a Frankish version of the story adds that in
some cases at least, as soon as the money was paid, the payer’s head was
struck off by the Turkish guards.[977] Suddenly the procession stopped. The
ships were spreading out in line and becoming more distinguishable under
the noon-tide sun; the Moslems could see that there were at least thirty-five;
the anxious watchers on the castle-tower could probably see that there were
more than fifty. The remaining men in the citadel hastily put on their
armour, made a sally, and drove Bohadin and his followers out of the town.
They themselves, however, were quickly driven back, and the fighting
became fiercer and more confused than ever. Once more the garrison, in
despair, sent the Patriarch of Jerusalem (who chanced to be in Joppa when
the siege began) and a chaplain to renew their offer of submission to
Saladin on the terms originally proposed.[978] Then another priest, “after
commending himself to the Messiah” as Bohadin says, leaped from the top
of the tower into the harbour. Falling in shallow water, with soft sand
beneath it, he was unharmed, and made his way to the nearest galley,
whence he was transported to that of the king.[979] “Gentle king,” said he,
1192 “the people who await you here are lost, unless God and you have
compassion on them.” “How!” cried Richard, “are any of them still living?
Where are they?” “Before the tower, awaiting their death.” Richard
hesitated no longer. “God sent us here to suffer death, if need be; shame to
him who lags behind now!”[980] The royal galley, “painted all red, with a red
canopy on the deck, and a red flag,” shot forward;[981] the king, without
greaves or mail-shoes, sprang out, up to his waist in the water, came first
ashore, and dashed into the midst of the Turks, cutting them down right and
left. His shipmates followed close behind him; the other vessels quickly
came up, and each disembarked its freight of men; and in little more than an
hour the shore of the harbour was cleared of Turks.[982] Bohadin, under
whose eyes all this had taken place, went round to Saladin’s tent in the rear
and whispered his tidings into the ear of the Sultan, who was writing (or
dictating) a letter for the Patriarch and the chaplain to take back to their
friends in the citadel. The envoys were present; Saladin detained them till
some flying Moslems passed the door of the tent. Then he placed the
envoys under arrest, and ordered his whole army to retreat to Yazour.[983]
Meanwhile Richard, as soon as the harbour was cleared, had set his men
to barricade it on the land side with planks, barrels, pieces of old ships and
boats, and other wood hastily piled up to form a rampart behind which they

could safely defy the Saracens.[984] He himself made his way “by a Aug. 1
stair that led to the house of the Templars” into the town, where he found a
crowd of Saracens so busy pillaging that they made no attempt to interfere
when he caused his banners to be reared on the walls as a signal to the
Christians in the tower. These latter at once sallied forth to meet him, and
the Turks, thus caught at unawares between two fires, were slaughtered
wholesale. Then the victors turned towards the retreating army of Saladin.
The crossbowmen tried to overtake it with a volley of arrows; the king
1192 galloped after it on a horse which he had found in Joppa; but as this
and two other horses, also found in the town, were the only ones he
possessed, he soon gave up the pursuit, and pitched his tents on the site
lately occupied by Saladin,[985] in the open ground where the Frank host had
camped in the previous October, between Joppa and S. Habakkuk’s.[986] No
sooner was Richard in his tent than several of Saladin’s emirs and favourite
Mameluks went to visit him; seemingly not as accredited envoys from the
Sultan, but to ascertain informally what was now the king’s attitude towards
the question of peace. He received them willingly, and sent a special
invitation to the chamberlain Abu Bekr, who had previously acted as a
medium of communication between him and Safadin, to join the assembly.
Abu Bekr found him talking over the recent fight in a tone half serious, half
bantering. “That Sultan of yours is truly admirable! But why did he run
away at my very landing? I did not come prepared to fight; I am still in my
boating-sandals! Why, in God’s Name, did he retreat, when I thought he
could not take Joppa in two months, and he took it in a couple of days!”
Then he turned to Abu Bekr and spoke seriously: “Greet the Sultan from
me, and beg him to let us have peace. My country needs me, and the state of
things in this land is bad alike for you and for us.” Saladin was still close at
hand, and twice in that night proposals and counter-proposals of terms
passed between the two sovereigns. Ascalon was still the stumbling-block;
neither of them would renounce his claim to it. To a daring suggestion of
Richard’s, that Saladin should enfeoff him after the manner of the Franks
with the counties of Ascalon and Joppa, to hold by military service
including, if required, the personal service of the king himself—“of which,”
he added, “you know the value”[987]—Saladin returned an answer in which
Ascalon was not named at all. The Sultan then followed his army to Aug. 2
1192 Yazour, and thence, early next morning, went to Ramlah.[988] Thither
a messenger from Richard followed him, and pressed for a definite cession

of Ascalon. Saladin’s reply was given instantly and finally: “It is
impossible.”[989]
That Sunday and the two following days were spent by Richard Aug. 2-4
and his men in repairing the walls of Joppa as well as they could by piling
up the stones without mortar or cement.[990] On one of these three days they
were joined by Count Henry, who came from Caesarea in a galley; the rest
of the troops being still detained there by “the ambushes of the Turks” on
land and the lack of ships to convey them by sea.[991] It was seemingly to
ascertain what chance there was of intercepting these troops, of whose
departure from Acre he had only just been made aware, that Saladin on the
Monday (August 4) moved northward as far as the banks of the Aug. 4
Aoudjeh (the River of Arsuf). There, however, he further learned that they
were safe in Caesarea, and also that a not less important and probably easier
prey lay within his reach—King Richard and his little band, in their
unprotected tents in the fields outside Joppa. At nightfall he turned back,
hoping to surround Richard’s camp in the darkness and surprise it at break
of day.[992] The first body of Moslem troops which approached the camp,
however, was discovered by a watchful Crusader who at once aroused the
king. Richard slipped his mail-coat over his night-gear, sprang bare-legged
on horseback, and with the few knights in his company—most of them
dressed and armed in a like hasty fashion—began to array his men.[993] The
Saracens, finding they could not take him by surprise, sent a party to force
an entrance through the still uncompleted walls into the town, in order to
1192 deprive him of a refuge there.[994] The scared townsfolk sent word to
the king that they were all lost, for “a countless host of heathen” were
taking possession of the city. Richard sternly silenced the messenger, swore
to cut off his head if he let anyone else hear the message, and went on with
his preparations for defence. Behind a low barricade hastily made up of
pieces of wood from the tents the tiny army was arrayed with the utmost
skill[995] so as to leave in its ranks no opening for attack. Then the king
addressed his men, bidding them have no fear of the foe; he himself, he
added, would go and see what was taking place in the town.[996] His knights
numbered some three or four score,[997] but the horses only six.[998] Aug. 5
On these five of the knights and a “hardy and valiant” German man-at-arms
named Henry, bearing the king’s banner,[999] mounted, and with a few
crossbowmen[1000] followed the king as with lance and sword he forced his
way into Joppa. He probably found its Turkish invaders engaged, as he had

found them before, in pillaging, and less numerous than the messenger had
represented, for he very soon drove them all out. After ordering a
detachment of the garrison to come down from the tower and guard the
1192 town against further attack,[1001] he rode down to the shore, brought
back thence some townsfolk who had fled to the ships for refuge, and all the
sailors except just enough to take care of the ships, and with these
reinforcements, in addition to his gallant six, rejoined his little army in the
field.[1002]
Saladin meanwhile had arrayed his host in seven divisions.[1003] While the
first of these was advancing to the attack, the king issued his final orders.
“Only keep your ranks unbroken—let not the foes make their way in. If we
stand thus firm against their first onset, we may make light of the next, and
by God’s help we shall defeat them. But if I see one of you, through fear,
giving way or yielding ground or trying to flee, I swear by Almighty God I
will straightway cut off his head!”[1004] So when the first division of the
Turks charged them the Christian ranks stood immoveable and
impenetrable. The attacking force fell back, baffled and amazed, stood for a
while within two spears’ length of them without any interchange of
hostilities except verbal ones, and then retired, grumbling, to its original
position.[1005] Richard burst out laughing: “Did not I tell you how it would
be? Now they have done their utmost; we have only to stand firm against
every fresh attempt, till by God’s help victory shall be ours.”[1006] As he
ceased speaking, another body of Turks came forth; they, too, fell back from
the living wall, now firmer than ever, and retired to their former station.
This process was repeated five or six times, while the day wore on “from
prime almost to nones.”[1007] The Arab historians relate that in one of the
intervals between these futile charges Richard rode alone, lance in hand,
along the whole front of the Moslem army, challenging it to fight, and not a
man came forth to meet him;[1008] according to one account, he ended by
stopping his horse midway between the two hosts, asking the Moslems for
1192 some food, and calmly dismounting to eat what they gave him.[1009] It
was not only the dread of him that held the enemies in check; Saladin’s
troops were thoroughly discontented with their ruler’s conduct of this
expedition to Joppa and with its failure to bring them either the success or
the booty which they had expected. In vain the Sultan rode up and down
among them, promising them splendid rewards for one more charge; his son
Ed-Daher sprang forward alone, only to be hastily called back by his father,

for not another man broke the stillness of the silent, motionless ranks.[1010]
At last, it seems, they yielded a sullen obedience to Saladin’s impassioned
exhortations, and made another attempt to advance. But this time a volley
of arrows, with which the crossbowmen had hitherto speeded their
retirement, greeted them on their approach, and under cover of this the king
and his men charged. “Brandishing his lance, and laying about him as if he
had done nothing yet that day,”[1011] Richard with his few mounted followers
burst right through the Turkish host and came out facing the rearguard.
Looking round, he saw that the earl of Leicester was unhorsed and in
danger of capture; he at once rescued him and helped him to remount. A
crowd of Turks rushed at a banner which from its device—a lion—they
probably took for the king’s, but which seems to have been really that of
Ralf of Mauléon. Ralf was surrounded, and was actually being led away by
his captors when he, too, was rescued by his sovereign.[1012] At another
moment a large body of Turks closed in upon Richard, all alone; but he laid
about him with his sword, smiting off heads and limbs on every side, till he
had slain or disabled so many of his assailants that the rest took to flight “as
from the face of a furious lion.” His first sudden irruption had thrown into
confusion the whole array of Saladin’s host; and when the guard which he
had left in Joppa, seeing how matters were going, came out to help their
comrades, the Moslem defeat became a rout.[1013] At the close of the long
day’s fighting the victor returned “with arrows sticking out all over him like
1192 the bristles of a hedgehog, and with his horse in the same plight.”[1014]
Saladin retired to Yazour, and on the following day to Natroun.[1015]
The victory at Joppa was Richard’s crowning exploit in Holy Land; and
he himself very soon realized that it was to be his last. Both in him and his
men the tremendous physical and mental strain of those five August days
was followed by a sudden breakdown which was aggravated by the
unhealthiness of their surroundings. The Turks when they evacuated Joppa
had not only left in its streets the bodies of those who had been slain in the
siege, but also slaughtered all the pigs in the town and interspersed the
carcases with the human corpses, as an insult to the Christians.[1016] No
sanitary measures had been possible during the stress of the succeeding
days; the consequence of this state of things had therefore spread beyond
the walls on every side, and the king and his men, too much exhausted to
move far enough to escape from it, lay helpless and sick almost unto death.
[1017]
Nevertheless, Richard’s next message to the Sultan was practically a

defiance. The envoy whom he had despatched on August 2 to Saladin at
Ramlah had proceeded thence on a further mission to Safadin, who was
then lying sick at Gibeon, near Neby Samwîl.[1018] This envoy returned to
Joppa on the 7th or 8th[1019] with a message from Safadin proposing a
colloquy. He was accompanied by the chamberlain Abu Bekr. Richard gave
an audience to Abu Bekr outside the town and said to him: “How far am I to
put myself in the Sultan’s hand before he will deign to receive me? Truly, I
was very desirous of returning home; but now I have decided to stay
through the winter, and want no further conferences with you.”[1020] For
nearly three weeks after this, Saladin made no move of any kind; he was
waiting for reinforcements. On the 20th the long-desired contingent Aug. 20
1192 from Egypt at last arrived; and two days later the forces of the lands
beyond the Euphrates were brought up by the Sultan’s once rebel great-
nephew, El Mansour. Messengers still passed between the two camps;
Richard, exhausted by fever, asked Saladin for fruit and snow, which the
Sultan readily sent him; the friendly intercourse enabling each party to learn
how matters went with the other.[1021] Meanwhile Richard’s sickness was
increasing, and so were his anxieties. In vain he sent Count Henry back to
Caesarea to insist that the laggards there should come and help to hold the
land; they would not stir. Then he called Henry, the Templars, and the
Hospitaliers around his bed, and begged that some of them would take
charge of Ascalon and others of Joppa, and thus set him free to seek pure air
and medical treatment at Acre, as the only chance of restoring his health.
“But they all declared they would not undertake the custody of the
fortresses without him; and they went out [of his tent] without another
word.”[1022] A proclamation published throughout the coast-towns, Aug.
9-26
calling upon all fit men to come and serve under the king at his
expense, brought a crowd of foot-soldiers, but so few horsemen that he was
compelled to reject them all, both horse and foot, as useless for his purpose.
[1023]
As the conviction grew upon him that he must either quit the country or
die in it, he felt also that in either case, if he left it in its present unsettled
condition, the whole labour of the Crusade would be lost, and thus that a
truce on almost any terms had become a necessity for the realm’s sake as
well as for his own.[1024] He therefore asked that Abu Bekr might be sent to
him once more. Through this man the king intimated his willingness, if
Saladin still absolutely insisted on the restitution of Ascalon to the
Moslems, to accept a money indemnity for the expense which he had

incurred in fortifying the place, and to abide by the other conditions which
he had formerly agreed upon with Safadin.[1025]
On the morrow—Friday, August 28—Bedr-ed-din Dolderim, the emir in
1192 command of the Moslem advanced guard, sent to ask the Sultan
whether he might accede to a request which had been made to him by five
Frank officers, one of them an intimate counsellor of Richard’s—probably
the bishop of Salisbury, Hubert Walter[1026]—for a parley. With Saladin’s
consent the parley took place; and the same night Bedr-ed-din in person
reported to his sovereign that, according to these men, Richard now
consented to give up Ascalon unconditionally. Saladin refused to Aug. 28
proceed further without some security that on this point the king would not
go back from his word. Next day Bedr-ed-din announced that he had
received, by a sure hand, Richard’s pledge on the subject. Saladin then
called his council together and with them drew up the details of the partition
of the land. The king was to have Joppa and its dependent territory, except
Ramlah, Lydda, Ibelin, Yebna, and Mirabel; also Acre, Haïfa, Arsuf, and
Caesarea, with all their dependencies except Nazareth and Safforia. These
terms were drawn up in writing and carried back to Richard by an envoy
who came from him on the afternoon of Saturday, August 29, and returned
to Joppa with a Moslem colleague next day. Richard, when the terms were
read to him, denied that he had ever withdrawn his claim to compensation;
but as “the persons who had gone to Dolderim” all declared that the thing
was so, he answered: “If I did say it, I will not go back from my word. Tell
the Sultan I agree to these conditions; only I appeal to his generosity, and
acknowledge that if he grants me anything further, it will be of his own
bounty.” He then sent the envoys on to Safadin, to beg that he would obtain
from Saladin the cession of Ramlah.[1027]
Saladin was quite as anxious for a truce as Richard could be. On the night
of August 27 he had despatched several emirs on a reconnoitring expedition
to ascertain the chances of success in another attempt on Joppa, or, failing
this, a night attack on Ascalon. They came back to him at Ramlah with
1192 tidings that there were at Joppa scarcely three hundred mounted
troops, most of whom had only mules for chargers. Yet against this small
and ill-mounted force Saladin dared not pit his great army, “because,” says
Bohadin, “he knew that his men were weakened and wearied and longing
for their homes, and he feared that they would refuse, as they had refused

once already at Joppa, to attack the foe, or would desert him altogether.”[1028]
He therefore drew up his final terms on Monday, August 31. The truce was
to last for three years, beginning on Wednesday, September 22. Ramlah or
Lydda was to be added to the king’s share of the land, or even both places,
unless he would be content with half of each; and Ascalon was to be
dismantled again. All the Moslem territories were to be included in the
truce, and also the princes of Antioch and Tripoli. When on September 1 the
schedule was brought to Richard, he said he was too ill to read it, but he
added: “I have already confirmed the agreement by giving my hand on it.”
Count Henry and the other leaders were then informed of its details, and
accepted them all, including the proposed partition of Lydda and Ramlah.
Next day (Wednesday, September 2) they and Saladin’s envoys all met in
Richard’s tent. Richard again confirmed the truce by giving his hand to the
Moslems; they asked him for his oath, but he explained that it was not
customary in the West for a king to swear on such occasions, and they
accepted the explanation. The other Frank leaders then took the usual oath,
and several of them went back with the Moslems to Saladin’s camp to
1192 witness his ratification of the treaty.[1029] Immediately afterwards
Richard despatched to Saladin a special message setting forth his own
purpose in making the truce. That purpose, he said, was first to revisit his
home-lands and see how they did, and next, to collect there men and money
wherewith he hoped to return and to wrest from the Sultan the whole “Land
of Jerusalem.” Saladin answered in the spirit of true chivalry: if he were to
lose the Land, he would rather it were won by Richard than by any prince
whom he had ever known.[1030]
The dismantling of Ascalon was a precaution on which Richard had
insisted when he found himself compelled to cede the place; if the Moslems
must have it, they should at any rate be unable to make any military use of
it till they had had the expense and trouble of rebuilding it again. The work
of demolition was entrusted to the joint superintendence of a party of
Moslems and one of Franks, who all set out for Ascalon on September 5,
and who were also to bring back its Frankish garrison.[1031] As under the
terms of the truce Christian pilgrims were to have free access to the Holy
Sepulchre, the rest of the Franks at Joppa and many from Acre and
elsewhere now began crowding to Jerusalem to fulfil their vow of
pilgrimage.[1032] An English writer tells us that some of them urged the king
1192 to do likewise; “but his lofty spirit would not suffer him to accept

from the grace of a heathen ruler a privilege which he had been unable to
obtain as a gift of God.”[1033] On the night of Tuesday, September 9, he set
out on his northward journey.[1034] Haïfa, in its quiet, sheltered corner
between the foot of Carmel and the mouth of the Kishon, and with its
outlook northward across the sea to Acre at the opposite end of the bay,
offered probably a better resting-place for an invalid than Acre itself, to
which it was near enough for medical aid to be easily available. At Haïfa
the king stayed a while to recover his strength.[1035] Then he went on to Acre
and completed his preparations for departure. He ransomed William des
Préaux, who had been made a voluntary prisoner in his stead in September
1191, by exchanging for him ten valuable Saracen captives.[1036] He called,
by public proclamation, all his creditors to come and claim whatever he
owed them, that they might all be paid in full, “and even overpaid, lest there
should be any complaints or disputes after he was gone about anything that
they had lost through him.”[1037] He had some months before made provision
for the future of Cyprus, and also for that of his earliest friend among the
Franks in Holy Land, Guy of Lusignan, who had so greatly helped him to
conquer that island. He had conquered it not for his own benefit, but for the
benefit of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, to which its preservation in
friendly hands was a matter of great importance. He at first agreed to make
it over to the Order of the Temple for twenty-five thousand marks;[1038] but
this agreement came to nothing; and when Henry of Champagne was
chosen King of Jerusalem in April 1192, Richard made substantial
compensation to the displaced King Guy by giving him the island realm of
1192 Cyprus.[1039] The grant was perhaps put into legal form during
Richard’s last days at Acre.[1040] The two queens sailed on Michaelmas day,
[1041]
the king on October 9.[1042]

The causes of the comparative failure of the third Crusade have been
much discussed; yet after following in detail the story of that expedition one
is led to marvel not at its so-called failure, but at the extent of its success.
The truce restored to the Christians, for the period of its duration, the whole
coast of Palestine from Haïfa to Joppa, left the southern remainder deprived
of its chief stronghold, Ascalon, and secured to the pilgrims the right of free
and safe access to the holy places of Jerusalem. If at its expiration Richard
had been able to return—as he hoped and intended—to take up again his

task in Holy Land, he would have done so with far other prospects of
success than those with which he and his followers had set out from Acre in
1190. Saladin himself regarded the position of the Moslem power in Holy
Land with grave misgiving. His own health was failing, and he confessed to
Bohadin his fears that in case of his death the Franks would come forth
from the strongholds which the truce had placed in their hands, and once
more become masters of the country.[1043] It was to Richard that the measure
of success gained by the Crusade was mainly due; and this fact was fully
recognized by the Moslems. A writer of the next generation reports that “the
fear of him was so constantly in the hearts and on the lips of the Saracens
that when their children cried they said to them, ‘Be quiet! England is
coming!’ and when their horses started with affright, they mocked at them
saying, ‘What is the matter? Is England in front of us?’”[1044] “England,” in
1192 the sense in which they used the word—as representing England’s
king—was destined never to confront them again. But seven centuries later
the attainment of the goal was to be granted to “England” in another form,
that of an army which, having set out from what Richard had once proposed
to secure as the fittest starting-point for the purpose—Egypt—finally closed
round the Holy City by ways in every one of which it was almost literally
treading in the footsteps of the Lion-Heart.

BOOK III
RICHARD AND EUROPE
1192-1199
—Thy harvest, fame;
Thy study, conquest; war, thy game.

CHAPTER I
RICHARD AND THE EMPIRE

1192-1194

There was I beaten down by little men,
Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword
And shadow of my spear had been enow
To scare them from me once.
1192
After a last visit to Cyprus[1045]—perhaps for the purpose of
removing the officers whom he had placed there and transferring the
custody of the island to representatives of Guy—Richard directed his
course straight for Marseille, and in less than a month was off the coast of
Barbary, within three days’ sail of his destination. Disquieting rumours had,
however, reached him; from passing ships, or at sea-ports where he had
touched, there had come to him repeated warnings that the count of
Toulouse, so long his determined enemy and now his unwilling vassal, was
in league with some of the neighbouring princes and nobles to seize him as
soon as he should land. He could not but suspect that Philip Oct.-Nov.
Augustus was either an accomplice in the plot or would at least be only too
ready to support the plotters; he therefore suddenly altered his course, and
1192 sailed to Corfu.[1046] It is difficult to guess why he did not proceed
through the Pillars of Hercules direct to England. Instead, he seems to have
deliberately chosen the much more hazardous adventure of a voyage up the
Adriatic and an overland journey through the territories of the Empire. His

motives for this strange choice can only be conjectured. He may have
counted on a personal meeting with Henry VI as a means of renewing and
cementing the old alliance of England with the Empire, and thus securing a
valuable support in the struggle with France for which he knew he must
prepare himself in every possible way. But if so, the moment and the
circumstances were extraordinarily ill chosen. Richard indeed could not
fully know how untoward the circumstances really were. That the young
Emperor was as unscrupulous and false as his father had been upright and
honourable; that he was just then making an attempt—destined to failure—
to obtain possession of Naples; that on his way back to Germany Philip
would meet him; and that there were symptoms of coming trouble in the
Empire from the party of Richard’s brother-in-law Henry of Saxony, to
whom Richard, like his father, had given shelter and protection, and at
whose return to Germany in violation of an oath to set foot there no more
Richard was said to have connived[1047]—all these things Richard could not
know. But he did know, or ought to have known, that the German
contingent had been a source of constant disturbance in the crusading host;
that his own alliance with Tancred, the Emperor’s successful rival for the
crown of Sicily, had made the Emperor his natural enemy; and that he had
also a personal enemy—again of his own making—in Duke Leopold of
Austria, who, though his territorial possessions were insignificant, was of
considerable importance in German politics by reason of his close family
connexion with the imperial house and with several of the chief feudataries
of both the German and Italian realms.
1192 Richard’s scheme seems, in fact, to have been prompted by the
spirit of sheer adventure and knight-errantry; and in the same spirit he set
out to carry it into effect. On reaching Corfu he saw three galleys lying off
the coast of the mainland; he at once put off in a little boat to hail them.[1048]
Their crews were pirates, and instantly attacked the boat; but Nov.
Richard, through one of his sailors, entered into a parley with them, “and
for their laudable bravery and boldness” made a bargain that they should
carry him, with a few attendants,[1049] for two hundred marks of silver, to
Ragusa.[1050] Probably, and not unreasonably, he preferred to embark with a
crew as familiar with the intricacies of the Dalmatian coast as they were
hardened to its perils. So furiously, however, did the wind drive the ships up
the gulf that a wreck seemed imminent; and the king made a solemn vow to
spend a hundred thousand ducats in building a church on whatever spot he

should come safe to land.[1051] He found refuge on a little rocky island called
Lacroma, lying half a mile south of Ragusa, and at that time forming part of
the territory of that city, which was an independent republic. The rulers of
Ragusa, on hearing of his arrival, begged him to accept a lodging in their
city, and gave him a respectful and hospitable welcome. The chief
inhabitants of Lacroma were a community of Benedictine monks; Richard
at once proposed to fulfil his vow by rebuilding their monastic church. The
rulers of the republic, however, represented to him that the sum which he
1192 had vowed was out of all proportion to the size of the monastery and
the requirements of the monks, and would be far better employed in
rebuilding the cathedral church of Ragusa on a scale befitting its
metropolitan dignity. To this he agreed, on condition that the republic
should obtain the Pope’s sanction to this deviation from the terms of his
vow, and should at its own cost rebuild the little church on the island; and
that, further, the abbot of Lacroma, assisted by his monks, should have in
perpetuity the privilege of celebrating Mass in the cathedral church once a
year, on the feast of the Purification of our Lady. Hereupon, it seems, “the
good king having borrowed a large sum of money for the purpose,” the
work was begun immediately. The zeal of the pilgrim king fired that of the
people of the diocese, and his gift, supplemented by contributions from
them, resulted in the erection of a church which for nearly five centuries
stood without a peer in Illyria for the stately grace of its proportions and the
beauty of its architectural details.[1052] An earthquake destroyed it in 1667;
but Richard had, all unknowing, laid in a nation’s heart the foundation of
something more precious and more lasting than any material edifice. The
little republic of Ragusa kept her independence till 1810, when she was
conquered by Napoleon. Four years later she was annexed to Dalmatia
under the yoke of Austria. Although never before incorporated into any of
the Slavonic states which surrounded her, she had a natural affinity with
them; the greater part of her inhabitants were, like theirs, of Serbian blood.
Her cause thus became bound up with that of the whole Serb race in its
aspirations after freedom and a national existence. When there came upon
that sorely tried race the darkest hour it had ever yet known, a Serbian
statesman publicly appealed, as the ground of his confidence in England’s
help, to the memory of the mutual obligations formed more than seven
centuries before between Ragusa and Richard the Lion Heart.[1053]
1192

At Ragusa the king took ship again. What port he really made for we
cannot tell; for he was wrecked a second time, and came finally ashore
somewhere between Aquileia and Venice.[1054] Stranded in this Nov.-Dec.
remote corner of the Italian border-land, where almost every local magnate
was a connexion or a dependent of either the house of Montferrat, the duke
of Austria, or the Emperor, or of all three, Richard suddenly awoke to his
danger. He despatched one of his followers to ask Count Mainard of
Gorizia, the most powerful noble of the district,[1055] for a safe-conduct for
the little party; he bade the messenger describe them as Baldwin de Béthune
(who really was one of them), a merchant called Hugh, and their
companions, all pilgrims returning from Jerusalem; and he also—most
unwisely—sought to gain the favour of the count by sending him, in the
name of the “merchant Hugh,” a valuable ruby ring. Mainard, who was a
1192 nephew of the marquis of Montferrat, gazed intently at the ring, and
then said: “His name is not Hugh; it is Richard, the king. I have sworn to
seize all pilgrims coming from those parts and to accept no gift from any of
them; but for the worthiness of this gift, and of him who has honoured me, a
man unknown to him, by sending it, I return it and give him free leave to
depart.” On receiving this message the terrified pilgrims bought some
horses and set off in the middle of the night,[1056] Richard, according to one
account, disguised in the habit of the Temple,[1057] of which Order there were
several in the little company.[1058] Their fears were well founded; Mainard
and his men pursued them and captured eight of the party.[1059] The rest
made their way through Friuli[1060] to Freisach in Carinthia;[1061] but Mainard
had sent spies to dog their steps all the way, and warned his brother,
Frederic of Pettau, to lie in wait for them there. Frederic chanced to have in
his household a Norman from Argenton, named Roger, who had been in his
service twenty years and whom he trusted implicitly. He bade this man
search the houses where pilgrims were wont to lodge, if haply he might
recognize the king by his speech or other token; promising Roger half of the
town if the prize were captured. Roger soon penetrated his native
sovereign’s disguise, and instead of delating him, besought him with tears
to flee at once, gave him an excellent horse for the purpose, and then
returned and told his lord that the reports about Richard were all false.
Frederic flew into a rage and ordered all the pilgrims to be arrested.
Meanwhile, however, Richard with two companions had slipped out of the
town. For three days and three nights they rode without food; then hunger

1192 compelled them to halt at a little inn close to Vienna.[1062] To Dec.
pay for his lodging Richard was obliged to send one of his attendants, who
could speak German, into the city to change some bezants. The lad made
too much display of his commission and of his self-importance; detained
and questioned by the citizens, he said that he was in the service of a rich
merchant who was coming to the city in three days. They let him go, and he
hurried back to his master and urged him to instant flight. Richard,
however, was so exhausted by his adventures by sea and land that he
determined to risk a few days’ longer stay, and sent the lad into the town
again several times to make purchases. Once—on December 20 or 21—the
messenger was careless enough to go with his master’s gloves stuck in his
belt. He was seized by the authorities, beaten, and tortured till he confessed
who his master really was. The duke of Austria, who was in the city, was
immediately informed and the king’s lodging surrounded. Richard, Dec.
20-2
feeling himself helpless among such a crowd of “barbarians,”
managed to make them understand that he was willing to surrender, but
only to the duke in person. Leopold came; Richard went forth to meet him
1192 and gave up his sword.[1063] Leopold sent him to “Dirmstein,”[1064]
Dirnstein or Dürrenstein, a remote castle in the mountains near Krems, and
placed him in charge of a strong guard who were to keep watch over him
with drawn swords day and night.[1065] A week later the Emperor Dec. 28
triumphantly announced to Philip of France the fate which had overtaken
“that foe of our Empire and disturber of your realm, the king of
England.”[1066]
Henry was anxious to get Richard into his own keeping; but 1193
Jan. 6
Leopold was not disposed to part unconditionally with such a
valuable prize. On January 6 he brought his prisoner before the Emperor at
Ratisbon.[1067] “The evil counsels of Duke Leopold’s rivals,” says an
Austrian chronicler, “prevented an immediate conclusion of the matter”;
Richard was taken back to his Austrian prison,[1068] and it was not till
February 14 that the Emperor and the duke came to terms. They began by
laying down conditions to be required of the king for his release. They
decided that he should give the Emperor a hundred thousand marks of
silver, whereof Leopold should have half as the dowry of Richard’s niece
Eleanor of Britanny, who should marry Leopold’s son; the marriage to take
place and half the ransom to be paid and divided at Michaelmas, the other
half in the following Lent. Richard was to set free, without ransom,

Leopold’s relations Isaac of Cyprus and his daughter. He was to give the
Emperor fifty galleys manned and furnished at his own cost, and carrying a
hundred knights and fifty crossbowmen; he was also to go in person, with
another hundred knights and fifty crossbowmen, with Henry to Sicily and
help him to conquer it. In other words, the king of England was to be
brought down to the level of the dukes of Austria and Suabia and Bavaria as
a vassal of the Empire, within which neither he nor any of his predecessors,
1193 English, Norman, Angevin, or Poitevin, had ever held a particle of
land. For the fulfilment of these conditions he was to give Henry two
hundred hostages, who were not to be released till he had, furthermore,
obtained for Leopold absolution from Rome—for the Pope on hearing of
the capture of the royal Crusader had at once excommunicated his captor.
[1069]
If Richard did not fulfil all these conditions within a year, fifty of his
hostages or he himself, as Leopold might choose, should be restored to the
latter. The Emperor had to give his Austrian vassal two hundred sureties for
the fulfilment of two further stipulations exacted by Leopold before Feb.
he would part with his prize. In case of Henry’s death while Richard was in
his custody, Richard was to be given back to Leopold; and in case of
Leopold’s death his son was to step into his place for all the purposes of the
treaty.[1070]
Henry of Hohenstaufen was a political visionary, obsessed, more strongly
perhaps than any other German ruler before our own day, by the German
dream of world-dominion; yet even he can scarcely have had any real hope
of extorting Richard’s consent to the terms laid down in this curious
document. Leopold of Austria was a practical-minded person, and moreover
knew Richard too well to have any illusions on the subject; hence the strong
safeguards by which he secured his claims as the original captor of the prize
—safeguards which Henry dared not refuse to grant him. The Emperor
could not afford to forfeit either the friendship of the duke of Austria or the
advantages which the possession of Richard’s person would involve. In the
autumn of 1191 Henry had made an attempt to take possession of Naples,
and it had failed. The Guelfs had profited by his absence from Germany to
stir up discontent and prepare a rising there. In November 1192 the bishop
of Liége was murdered; the malcontents ascribed the sacrilegious crime to
the instigation of the Emperor. The dukes of Brabant and Limburg (one of
1193 whom was brother and the other uncle to the murdered prelate) and
the archbishop of Cologne were soon up in arms; the archbishop of Mentz,

the duke of Bohemia, and other feudataries quickly followed their example;
and at the back of the whole disturbance was King Richard’s brother-in-law,
the old Saxon “Lion.” Nearly half Germany was in revolt.[1071] It was thus a
matter of the utmost importance for the Emperor to secure the support of
the duke of Austria, whose power and influence already extended
considerably beyond the limits of the little territory from which he took his
chief title. Outside his own realm Henry of Germany had now one ally,
though the alliance was a secret one. Philip of France had travelled home
from Palestine very leisurely[1072] by way of Italy; early in December 1191
he had met the Emperor at Milan,[1073] and their meeting had resulted in an
agreement, private and informal, but well understood between them, to
make common cause for the ruin of Richard. The capture of the English
king gave them an opening for joint action sooner than they could have
expected; and it also gave Henry an opportunity of posing before his
malcontent vassals as supreme ruler, judge, and arbiter of all Europe. The
actual transfer of Richard from Leopold’s custody to Henry’s did not take
place till more than a month after the Würzburg compact was made; it was
evidently thus arranged that it might coincide with the gathering of the
imperial court for the Easter festival. On the Tuesday in Holy Week,
probably at Spire, Richard was brought before the Emperor. Henry seems to
have begun by demanding the full terms drawn up at Würzburg; we are told
that he “required many things to which the king felt he could not consent,
were it to save his very life.” Next, the Emperor brought against his captive
1193 a string of accusations, charging him with betrayal of the Holy Land,
[1074]
complicity in the death of Conrad, and violation of some agreement or
compact said to have been made with Henry himself. Finally, some envoys
from France, whose appearance at this opportune moment must surely have
been pre-arranged, came forward and publicly “defied” the English king in
their sovereign’s name. Richard, however, was ready with an answer to
everything; he offered to stand to right in Philip’s court concerning the
matters in dispute between Philip and himself, and met the Emperor’s
charges with a fearless readiness which enhanced the general admiration
already won for him by his frank yet dignified bearing. Henry saw that the
feeling of the assembly was with the prisoner; so he suddenly changed his
tone, assumed the character of Richard’s protector and friend, undertook to
make agreement between him and Philip, and while “the people who stood
around wept for joy,” showered upon him tokens of honour and promises of

aid and publicly gave him the kiss of peace. Hereupon Richard, “through
the mediation of the duke of Austria,” promised the Emperor a hundred
thousand marks by way of ransom and reward. Henry answered that if his
arbitration should not be successful he would be satisfied without any
payment at all; but according to some envoys from England who were
present, he on Maunday Thursday formally accepted Richard’s offer with
the addition of a promise on Richard’s part to furnish him with fifty fully
equipped galleys and two hundred knights for a year’s service.[1075] The
show of friendliness was maintained, it seems, till the Easter festivities were
over; then, when the court broke up, Henry despatched his prisoner to
1193 Triffels, a strong fortress on the highest point of the mountains
between Suabia and Lorraine. The castle was said to have been built
specially to serve as a prison for traitors to the Empire,[1076] and the imperial
insignia were also kept in it.[1077] Here the king was placed under a strong
guard of soldiers “picked out from among all the Germans for strength and
bravery.” Girt with swords, they kept watch on him, as Leopold’s soldiers
had done, day and night, and formed round his bed a ring which none of his
own servants who shared his captivity were ever allowed to penetrate.[1078]
As soon as the justiciars in England heard of their sovereign’s captivity
they took what steps they could in his behalf. They sent Bishop Savaric of
Bath, who claimed some kinship with the house of Hohenstaufen, to
negotiate with the Emperor for his release,[1079] and they endeavoured to
ascertain where he was confined. All the world knows the story, put into its
earliest and most charming literary shape by a French minstrel some
seventy years later, which has for all after-time linked the name of its hero
Blondel with that of the royal trouveur.[1080] Blondel de Nesle, a trouveur of
some distinction, was a contemporary of Richard, and the story in itself is
not impossible. The minstrel of Reims represents Blondel as having found
Richard in the custody of the duke of Austria; if so, he must have set out at
1193 the very first tidings of the capture. The searchers officially sent from
England, the abbots of Boxley and Robertsbridge, evidently went after the
object of their search was known to have been transferred into the hands of
the Emperor. They “wandered over all Alemannia” (western Germany or
Suabia) “without finding him,” till they met him on Palm Sunday (March
21) at Ochsenfurt on his way to Spire. His guards evidently allowed them to
confer with him freely; he was naturally delighted at the meeting, and
questioned them eagerly about the state of his realm and the attitude of his

vassals.[1081] The tidings they had to give him were not altogether
satisfactory. England was tranquil and loyal, in spite of John’s efforts to
make it otherwise. In Aquitaine a rising of the count of Périgord, the
viscount of La Marche, and “nearly all the Gascon barons,” had been
crushed by the seneschal of Gascony with the help of Richard’s brother-in-
law, the son of the king of Navarre, and the victors had swept the country
almost to the gates of Toulouse.[1082] But the Norman and Angevin lands
sorely needed the presence of their lord. At the close of 1191 King 1191
Dec.
Philip had reached Paris, and invited or summoned the seneschal
and magnates of Normandy to a meeting which took place at Gisors 1192
on January 20, 1192.[1083] He demanded the restitution of Aloysia (who was
in the tower at Rouen) and of Gisors, and the cession of the Jan.
counties of Eu and Aumale, in virtue, seemingly, of a document which he
exhibited as “the agreement made between himself and the king of England
at Messina.” They answered that they had no orders from Richard on the
subject and would not act without them.[1084] Philip then invited John to
1192 come over from England and receive investiture of all Richard’s
continental territories, and the hand of Aloysia. John was nothing loth, but
was detained in England by a threat from his mother and the justiciars to
seize all his castles there if he crossed the sea. Next, Philip summoned his
host for an invasion of Normandy; but his barons refused to attack 1193
the lands of an absent Crusader.[1085] Early in the following year—as soon as
Richard was known to be safely out of the way in a German prison—John
made another attempt to seduce the Norman barons from their allegiance.
Failing in this, he proceeded into France and did homage to Philip on the
conditions which had been proposed a year before.[1086]
Thus matters stood when the two English abbots set out on their quest.
They were present at the Maunday Thursday assembly at Spire, and on their
return home reported that “peace” had been there made between the
Emperor and the king.[1087] If Richard was under the same delusion, he must
have been speedily undeceived when he found himself shut up within the
gloomy walls of Triffels and denied all further access to Henry’s presence.
[1088]
On the other hand, Henry was in all likelihood quite as much
disappointed by the failure of all attempts to break the spirit of his prisoner.
If we may trust an English chronicler whose information was probably
derived from an eye-witness, Richard never gave his jailers the satisfaction
of seeing a cloud on his brow; he was “always cheery and full of jest in talk,

fierce and bold in action, according to circumstances. He would tease his
warders with rough jokes, and enjoy the sport of making them drunk, and of
trying his own strength against that of their big bodies.”[1089] His deeper
feelings were expressed in a song,[1090] addressed to his half-sister Countess
1193 Mary of Champagne, which he seems to have composed in two
languages, French and Provençal, in the autumn or early in the winter of
1193, and which may be roughly translated thus:

“Feeble the words, and faltering the tongue
Wherewith a prisoner moans his doleful plight;
Yet for his comfort he may make a song.
Friends have I many, but their gifts are slight;
Shame to them if unransomed I, poor wight,
Two winters languish here!

“English and Normans, men of Aquitaine,
Well know they all who homage owe to me
That not my lowliest comrade in campaign
Should pine thus, had I gold to set him free;
To none of them would I reproachful be—
Yet—I am prisoner here!

“This have I learned, here thus unransomed left,
That he whom death or prison hides from sight
Of kinsmen and of friends is clean bereft;
Woe’s me! but greater woe on these will light.
Yea, sad and full of shame will be their plight
If long I languish here.

“No marvel is it that my heart is sore
While my lord[1091] tramples down my land, I trow;
Were he but mindful of the oath we swore
Each to the other, surely do I know
That thus in duresse I should long ago
Have ceased to languish here.

“My comrades whom I loved and still do love—
The neighbour-lords who were my friends of yore—[1092]
Strange tales have reached me that are hard to prove;
I ne’er was false to them; for evermore
Vile would men count them, if their arms they bore
’Gainst me, a prisoner here!

“And they, my knights of Anjou and Touraine—
Well know they, who now sit at home at ease,
That I, their lord, in far-off Allemaine
Am captive. They should help to my release;
But now their swords are sheathed, and rust in peace,

While I am prisoner here.”

1193 Two other visitors besides the abbots seem to have found their way
to Richard before his incarceration at Triffels; the English Bishop Hubert of
Salisbury, who, learning in Sicily on his way home from Palestine what had
befallen his sovereign, changed his own course and hurried to seek him out;
[1093]
and a Norman chaplain, William of Sainte-Mère-Eglise. This latter
Richard, before his own removal from Spire, despatched to England on
business connected with the arrangements for the fulfilment of his promises
to Henry, and also for the elevation of Hubert to the see of Canterbury.[1094]
Hubert followed about the middle of April.[1095] Meanwhile Bishop William
of Ely had also come to the help of his royal master and friend. He had been
exiled from England by the queen-mother and the justiciars in 1191 for
misgovernment; but his personal loyalty to the king seems never to have
failed, and was certainly not doubted by Richard, who had never deprived
him of his office of chancellor. Through his diplomacy the Emperor was
induced to let his prisoner be brought to meet him at Hagenau. On April 19
April 19 Richard, writing thence to his mother and his lieges in England,
related that the Emperor and Empress and their court had welcomed him
with all honour and loaded him with gifts, and that “an indissoluble mutual
bond of love” had been formed between him and Henry, each promising to
help the other to obtain and retain his rights against all men; and that he was
“staying with the Emperor”[1096] till some other matters should be settled
between them and seventy thousand marks of the ransom paid. He urgently
desired that this sum and hostages for the rest should be collected with all
speed and sent over under the care of the bishop of Ely, whom he was
apparently despatching to England for that purpose. “Know ye for certain,”
1193 he added, “that were we in England and free, we would give as great
a sum, or a greater, to secure the conditions which by God’s grace we have
obtained, and if we had not the money to our hand we would give our own
person in pledge for it to the Emperor rather than leave uncompleted that
which has been done.”[1097]
Richard evidently anticipated a speedy release, for he sent to England not
only for money and hostages, but also for ships, and for the captain of his
own ship, Alan Trenchemer; and bade Robert of Turnham proceed thither
“with his” (i. e. the king’s) “military accoutrements”—as if he expected
soon to require them there.[1098] He seems to have really believed that the

new agreement secured for him the Emperor’s active support in the matter
about which he was most anxious—the impending struggle with Philip. The
seneschal and baronage of Normandy, as a body, had rejected the
treasonable proposals of John; but there was one traitor among them; on
April 12[1099] Gilbert of Vacoeil, the constable of Gisors and Néaufle,
surrendered these two castles to the king of France. With these keys of the
border in his hands, Philip had no difficulty in entering the duchy. In a few
weeks he was master of the whole Vexin, the county of Aumale, and the
lands of Vaudreuil, Neufbourg, Evreux, and Gournay.[1100] He was April-
May
thus in full career of success when on hearing of the Hagenau
agreement he urgently besought the Emperor either to hand Richard over to
him free “as his homager,” or to keep him in a German prison as long as
possible; and he backed his request with a heavy bribe in money.[1101] Henry
saw that he could not make friends of both kings, and he was in doubt
1193 which of the two would be the most useful friend or the most
dangerous foe; so he staved off the decision for a time, placed Richard in
confinement at Worms,[1102] and arranged to hold a conference with Philip at
Vaucouleurs on June 24 or 25.[1103] Before that day came, however, the
French alliance had ceased to be of much consequence to Henry; for the
matter in which he had been most anxious to obtain Philip’s support, his
quarrel with his own feudataries, had been settled by other means. Richard,
fearing that if Henry and Philip should meet he would be given up to the
latter, “exerted himself greatly” that the meeting should be prevented, and,
to this end, that the Emperor and the German magnates should come to an
agreement; which, “owing to his urgency,” they did.[1104] The result was that
instead of a conference with Philip at Vaucouleurs, Henry on June 25
opened at Worms a great Court[1105] which sat for five days, and at which
there were present, besides a crowd of his own vassals, spiritual and
temporal, four representatives of King Richard—the bishops of Bath and
Ely, and two of the justiciars from England[1106]—and on the 29th the whole
assembly confirmed by an oath “on the soul of the Emperor” a new
agreement between Henry and his royal prisoner.[1107] The money total for
the ransom was now raised to a hundred and fifty thousand marks, of which
a hundred thousand were to be fetched from England by envoys who were
to be despatched thither by both sovereigns immediately. Richard was to
give sixty hostages to Henry for thirty thousand marks more, and seven
hostages to Leopold for the remaining twenty thousand. When these

hostages and the first hundred thousand marks were all received, Richard
1193 was to be set free. There was, however, an alternative: “If the king
should fulfill the promise which he formerly made to the Emperor
concerning Henry sometime Duke of Saxony, the Emperor, letting the king
off fifty thousand marks, shall pay for him twenty thousand to the Duke of
Austria”; no hostages would then be required, and Richard should be
liberated as soon as the hundred thousand marks were paid and his June 29
promise fulfilled. Furthermore, Richard took an oath that in either case he
would within seven months of his return home send his niece to Germany to
be married to Leopold’s son.[1108]
What was the promise which Richard had made to the Emperor
concerning Henry the Lion, when it was made, and whether or not it was
ever fulfilled, we cannot tell; the only known mention of the matter is the
passage quoted above. From the fact that Richard did on his release leave
some hostages in Germany we might infer that he had not done what he had
promised; but this inference is doubtful, for we shall see that the conditions
of his release were altered again before Henry let him go. Richard’s next
step was to seize his opportunity, while negotiations between Henry and
Philip were at a standstill, to make overtures to Philip. Immediately after
the council at Worms he despatched William of Ely to France with orders to
make “some sort of a peace” for him with the king. This William did at
Mantes on July 9. The terms consisted of a promise in Richard’s name that
he would leave to Philip’s discretion the disposal of whatever territories
within the Angevin dominions were then occupied by Philip himself or by
his men; that he would perform the homages and services due for all and
each of his French fiefs, would grant an amnesty and restitution of their
lands to certain of his vassals[1109] who had incurred forfeiture, and would
clear off the debt which, it seems, Philip still claimed under the treaty of
1193 1189, by paying him twenty thousand marks in half-yearly
instalments of five thousand marks each, the first instalment to be paid
within six months after the payer’s release from captivity, and Philip
meanwhile to hold in pledge the castles of Loches, Châtillon-sur-Indre,
Driencourt and Arques; one of these to be restored to Richard on the
payment of each instalment of the money. Philip promised that meanwhile,
as soon as the castles were placed in his custody, he would “receive the
King of England into his favour and make request to the Emperor for his
liberation.”[1110]

In less than six months the German envoys returned from England,
bringing with them “the greater part” of the ransom—seemingly the
stipulated hundred thousand marks, for the Emperor wrote on December 20
to the English prelates, barons, and people, and Richard on December 22 to
the new archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, announcing that the
captive’s liberation was to take place on Monday, January 17; adding that
on the following Sunday (January 23, 1194) he was to receive the crown of
the kingdom of Provence which the Emperor had granted to him.[1111]
Richard’s place of confinement at this time was probably Spire. 1194 Jan.
17
There, on the appointed day, Henry held a council which “after long
discussion” was adjourned to re-assemble at Mentz on Candlemas Day.[1112]
At this adjourned meeting Richard was present, with his mother, Feb. 2
Archbishop Walter of Rouen, and the bishops of Ely and Bath, who had all
come to witness his release. To the amazement of all parties, Henry
proposed a yet further delay, and shamelessly avowed his motive for the
proposal. He had received in a private audience at Spire, in January, some
messengers charged with letters from Philip and John. He now brought
these messengers before the council, and handed the letters to Richard. In
them the Lion-Heart’s overlord and his brother made to the Emperor three
alternative offers. He should receive from Philip fifty thousand marks and
1194 from John thirty thousand if he would keep Richard prisoner till
Michaelmas; or a thousand pounds of silver (seemingly from the two
jointly) every month, so long as he chose to keep him; or a hundred
thousand marks from Philip and fifty thousand marks from John if he would
either keep him another twelvemonth or deliver him up to them. Richard, in
utter desperation, appealed to the prelates and princes who had stood surety
for the Emperor’s fulfilment of the treaty drawn up at Worms.[1113] Two of
them—the archbishops of Mentz and Cologne—protested strongly against a
breach of so solemn an agreement; the other members of the council seem
to have taken the same side; and after a two days’ struggle Henry Feb. 4
yielded.[1114]
The day was a Friday; “an unlucky day,” remarks an English chronicler
of the time.[1115] There was a special reason for the remark. Henry, as we
have seen, had promised to invest Richard on his release with the kingdom
of Arles or Burgundy. This kingdom, as such, had ceased to exist more than
a century and a half before, and over a great part of the lands which had
composed it the German Emperors had now no practical authority or

control. It seems that at the last moment Henry suddenly required his
prisoner to do him homage, not for Burgundy—of which we hear no more
—but for all the possessions of the Angevin house, including the kingdom
of England; and Richard, seeing no way of escape, and urged by his mother,
went through a ceremony of surrender, investiture and homage Which, if it
had been binding, would have made him a vassal of the Empire for the
whole of his dominions.[1116] Such a transaction was, however, void in law,
on two grounds. Firstly, no account was taken in it either of the French
king’s rights as overlord of Richard’s continental territories, or of the
immemorial right of the English Crown to absolute independence.
Secondly, Richard had been driven to it under compulsion, as the only
means of regaining his freedom and rescuing his dominions from imminent
1194 peril—for a refusal would certainly have resulted in an immediate
alliance between Henry and Philip. Homage done under such conditions
was a mere empty form, a concession to the vanity of the Emperor, who
was ready to clutch at any expedient for magnifying himself in the eyes of
his own vassals and inflicting as much outward degradation as he dared on
the captive whom he—seeing that he could now wring out of him no further
profit, financial or political—thereupon set at liberty.[1117]
Richard’s first act was the despatch of a messenger to Henry of
Champagne and the other Christian nobles in Syria to tell them that he was
free, “and that, if God would avenge him of his enemies and grant him
peace, he would at the appointed time come to help them against the
heathens.” On the same day the Emperor and his magnates wrote to Feb. 4
Philip and John bidding them deliver up immediately whatever they had
taken from Richard during his captivity; otherwise restitution would be
enforced by the writers to the uttermost of their power.[1118] Protected by an
imperial safe-conduct to Antwerp, and accompanied by his mother and his
chancellor, Richard set out on a leisurely progress down the Rhine. At
Cologne he was sumptuously entertained for three days in the Feb.
20-22?
archbishop’s palace, and on the third day was asked to attend Mass
in the church of S. Peter. The day was probably the festival of S. Peter’s
Chair at Antioch (February 22); Archbishop Adolf chose to act as precentor,
and began the Mass not with the proper introit, but with that of the feast of
S. Peter in Chains—“Now know I of a surety that the Lord hath sent His
Angel and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod.” The choice was
doubtless made in compliment to the royal guest; whether the archbishop

failed to notice, or deliberately ignored, the comparison of the Emperor to
Herod which it involved, we are not told. Adolf indeed was only one of a
crowd of imperial feudataries who were eager to make a friend of the
English king. By the time Richard arrived at Antwerp not only Adolf but
1194 also the archbishop of Mentz, the bishop-elect of Liége, the dukes of
Austria, Suabia, Louvain, and Limburg, the count of Holland, the son of the
count of Hainaut, the marquis of Montferrat, and many others, were bound
to him by homage and fealty—saving, of course, their fealty to the Emperor
—for certain revenues which he granted them by charter, on condition of
their help against the king of France.[1119] Possibly the Emperor may have
taken alarm at these alliances between his vassals and his late Feb.
captive, for one English chronicler tells us that he sent out some men to
overtake and recapture him.[1120] Richard, however, under the personal
escort of Archbishop Adolf, passed through the lands of the duke of
Louvain to Antwerp, where some of his own ships awaited him.[1121] The
wind being unfavourable for a direct passage to England,[1122] he slowly
made his way by sea to a port which Roger of Howden calls “Swine in
Flanders, in the lands of the Count of Hainaut”—either Swyn, between
Breeden and Ostend, in the present West Flanders, or Zwin, on the Belgian
frontier of the Dutch province of Seeland—coasting along by day in Alan
Trenchemer’s galley “because in that it was easier to pass through among
the islands,” and spending the nights on “a large and splendid ship which
had come from Rye.” Swine was reached in three days; five more March
1194 were spent in waiting there for a wind; at last, on March 12 4-7
or 13, the king landed at Sandwich, and straightway went to offer up his
thanksgivings at the shrine of S. Thomas the Martyr at Canterbury.[1123] On
March 16 he entered London in a triumphal procession to S. Paul’s. March 16
[1124]
Clergy and people gave him a rapturous welcome; and the sumptuous
decorations of the city were beheld with amazement by some German
nobles who accompanied him, and who had supposed the wealth of
England to be exhausted by his ransom. One of them, it is said, actually told
him that he would not have been released without a much heavier payment
if the Emperor could have known that such riches existed in the island
realm.[1125]
The welcome was mainly a clerical and popular one, because most of the
lay barons were occupied in trying to put down a revolt stirred up by John.
They had made some progress towards this end before Richard’s arrival;

most of John’s castles had been captured, but two, Nottingham and Tickhill,
were still holding out. Richard went to work leisurely. He spent “scarcely a
day” in London; but he left it to make another pilgrimage, to S. Edmund’s.
[1126]
He knew that he could afford to wait. Both castles were closely
besieged, the one by the earls of Huntingdon, Chester, and Ferrars, the other
by the bishop of Durham. Another great rebel stronghold, Mount Saint
Michael’s in Cornwall, had surrendered before the king’s return because at
the tidings of his coming its commandant died of fright. The garrison of
Tickhill now sent two knights to ascertain whether the king was really
home, and if he were, to offer him the castle. He refused to receive it unless
1194 they would all surrender at discretion. While the envoys carried this
message back to Tickhill, he marched upon Nottingham,[1127] and on March
25 arrived there “with such a numerous force and such a noise of trumpets
and horns” as greatly alarmed the garrison; nevertheless, hoping that all this
was merely a display contrived by the nobles to make them believe the king
had returned, they continued to shoot from the walls, and shot down some
of his men almost at his feet. At this he waxed wroth and assaulted the
castle. One rebel knight was killed by a bolt from Richard’s own crossbow;
the barbicans were taken and the outer gates burnt.[1128] The place was,
however, of such strength as to appear, if well defended, impregnable
except by starvation; and it was amply supplied with provisions as well as
with men.[1129] Next morning Richard began to prepare his stone-casters, and
also set up in view of the castle a gallows on which he hanged some of
John’s men-at-arms who had been captured outside it. Meanwhile Tickhill
had been surrendered to Bishop Hugh on his assurance that the lives of the
garrison should be spared; and on March 27 he, with his prisoners, joined
the king.[1130] That day, while the king was at dinner, the constables of
Nottingham castle sent two men “to see him” and report “what they saw
and heard.” Till then the Nottingham constables had not believed that their
sovereign was really in England. Their messengers “looked at him well, and
recognized him. ‘Am I the king? What think you?’ he asked them. They
said ‘Yes.’ ‘Then you may go back; go free, as is right; and do the best you
can.’”[1131] On their report the two constables, with twelve followers, March 28
went and placed themselves at Richard’s mercy; and on the morrow the
castle was surrendered on the same terms by the rest of the garrison,[1132] of
whom some were imprisoned and others put to ransom.[1133]
1194

Richard spent the next day in visiting two royal Forests “which March 29
he had never seen before,” Clipstone and Sherwood; “and they pleased him
well.” At night he returned to Nottingham, where he had summoned a
council to meet on the following day. It was a great assembly, at March 30
which the queen-mother, the two archbishops, and a number of prelates and
magnates were present.[1134] The king opened the proceedings by disseising
two of John’s chief partizans, Gerard de Camville and Hugh Bardolf, of the
sheriffdoms and royal castles which they held—Lincoln shire and castle,
held by Gerard; Yorkshire and Westmorland by Hugh—all of which he put
up for sale and sold to the highest bidder.[1135] On the second day of the
council (March 31) he “asked for judgement upon Count John and upon
Hugh of Nonant,” the bishop of Coventry, John’s chief ally. “And it was
judged that they should be peremptorily cited, and that if they failed to
come and stand to right, Count John should be declared to have forfeited all
claim to the crown and the bishop be subjected to the judgement of his
fellow-prelates as bishop and that of the lay barons as sheriff.” On the third
day (April 1), the king ordered that for every carucate of land throughout
England a contribution of two shillings should be made to him; and “that
every man should render to him the third part of the military service due
from his fee, to go with him” (the king) “into Normandy.” He also
demanded of the Cistercians all the year’s wool of their flocks: but for this
they compromised by a fine. The fourth day was employed in April 2
hearing appeals from Archbishop Geoffrey of York and Gerard de Camville;
in neither case did the council arrive at any decision. Lastly, the king
“appointed his crowning to take place at Winchester at the close of Easter”
(April 17), and ordered that on the day after that event all the prisoners
taken in John’s castles should be brought before him.[1136]
King William of Scotland was now on his way to a conference with his
1194 English overlord. They met at Southwell on the Monday April 4
before Easter and travelled together on the Tuesday to Malton; there
William “asked for the dignity and honours which his predecessors April 5
had had in England,” and also for the restoration of Northumberland,
Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancaster, which he claimed “by right of
his ancestors.” Richard answered that he would act according to the counsel
of his barons. The two kings spent the rest of Holy Week together in a
progress by Geddington to Northampton, where they kept Easter. April
10-12
On Easter Monday Richard laid William’s requests before the

council, and gave his reply. “He told the king of Scotland that he ought on
no account to have made his demand about Northumberland, especially in
those days, when nearly all the nobles of the French kingdom had become
his (Richard’s) enemies; for if he were to grant this, it would look as if he
did it more from fear than from favour.” About the other counties he seems
to have said nothing; but they were doubtless understood to be included in
his refusal. William apparently made no remonstrance and was pacified by
a charter providing minutely for the proper escort and entertainment of the
Scot kings when summoned to the English court.[1137] He accompanied or
followed Richard to Winchester for the coronation on Low Sunday, when he
carried one of the swords of state before his overlord in the procession.[1138]
The precise significance of this so-called “coronation” is not easy to
determine. Richard, we are told, “when he had called together the prelates
of England, asked and received from them counsel that he should renew his
kingship[1139] and permit the crown to be placed on his head by the
archbishop of Canterbury at the Easter festival. He followed this counsel of
the prelates; and as there was not time to prepare for so great a solemnity by
Easter Day, it was deferred until the octave. And because the manner of a
crowning of this sort had for many years passed away from the minds of
men, the directions for it were sought and found in the church of
1194 Canterbury, where Stephen had been thus crowned with his
queen.”[1140] These directions clearly apply not to a coronation in the usual
sense of the word—a ceremony of which the pattern for all after-time in
England had been set less than five years before—but to the old English
custom, obsolete since 1157, of “wearing the crown” in public on certain
high festivals. The king was arrayed in his full robes, the sceptre and verge
were placed in his hands, and the crown set upon his head by the
archbishop, not in the church, but in the royal chamber; thence he was
conducted in procession to the church, where he was enthroned with special
prayers and suffrages; after which the Mass was celebrated and he made his
offering and his Communion. When the service was ended the procession
returned to the royal apartments, and the king, after changing his heavy
crown for a lighter one, sat down with his magnates to a banquet, held on
this occasion in the refectory of the cathedral monastery.[1141] “Thus,” says
Gervase of Canterbury, “by the counsel of the prelates was King Richard
crowned on the octave of Easter at Winchester, because being set April 17
free from captivity he had unexpectedly returned to his kingdom.”[1142] The

revival of the old custom which Henry II had abandoned thirty-seven years
before seems to be thus sufficiently explained as an expression of the joy
and thankfulness of king, Church, and nation at a deliverance of which they
had almost despaired, and which promised the beginning of a new era in his
reign. There are, however, indications of something behind this. One phrase
used by Gervase, and two other phrases used by other writers of the time,
suggest that during Richard’s captivity something had taken place, or was
supposed or suspected in England to have taken place, derogatory to his
regal dignity and making it advisable for that dignity to be publicly re-
asserted or “renewed.”[1143] That something, if not altogether imaginary,
1194 could hardly be anything else than his alleged homage to the
Emperor; and if that homage were, or were understood to be, merely for the
kingdom of Burgundy, it could scarcely be regarded as affecting his
position or his dignity as king of England. The evidence is, however, too
scanty and too vague to warrant any definite conclusion on the point.
Little was now needed to complete such a re-settlement of affairs in
England as would enable Richard safely to leave the government of the
kingdom in Archbishop Hubert’s hands and devote himself to the more
anxious task which he knew awaited him across the Channel. Two April 19
days after the coronation the old bishop of Durham resigned the sheriffdom
of Northumberland, whereupon William of Scotland offered Richard fifteen
thousand marks for the county and its appurtenances. Richard, after
consulting his ministers, said that for this sum William might have the
county, but without its castles; William refused this offer, and “went home
grieved and humbled,” after another vain attempt to make his overlord
change his mind; Richard was immoveable on the point for the moment,
though he held out a hope that he might yield it “on his return from
Normandy.” The prisoners taken at Nottingham and Tickhill and in John’s
other castles were disposed of by putting the wealthier of them in prison till
they should ransom themselves, and letting the rest go free on their giving
security that they would come up for judgement whenever summoned.[1144]
John himself was in France. On April 25 the king went to Portsmouth,
1194 where a fleet of a hundred ships was assembled to carry him and his
fighting men over sea; but their crossing was delayed by bad weather for
more than three weeks. Once, on May 2, the king in his impatience to be
gone caused the whole fleet to be loaded up ready for departure, and
himself, in defiance of the counsel of his sailors, went on board a “long

ship” and put to sea; “and though the wind was against him he would not
turn back, so while the other ships remained in port, the king and those who
accompanied him were tossed about by the waves, for there was a great
storm.” Next day he was compelled to land in the Isle of Wight and return
to Portsmouth. On May 12 he was at last able to get across with all his fleet
to Barfleur.[1145]

CHAPTER II
RICHARD AND FRANCE

1194-1199

The King must guard
That which he rules.
—Sad stories of the deaths of kings.
1194
Richard’s journey through the Cotentin and the Bessin was a
triumphal progress. Everywhere the people crowded round him with
presents and acclamations, processions, dances, and songs: “God has come
to our aid with His might; the king of France will go away now!” they said.
[1146]
Philip was just then besieging Verneuil, but as usual he withdrew at
Richard’s approach.[1147] He had already lost his most valuable ally in the
duchy; Richard and John had met, and Richard had accepted John’s
submission and sent him to recover Evreux from the French, a charge which
John fulfilled promptly and successfully.[1148] Richard himself, after dashing
into Maine to besiege and capture Beaumont-le-Roger (whose lord had
apparently gone over to Philip), proceeded to secure his lines of
communication along the left bank of the Seine by fortifying Pont-de-
l’Arche, Elbœuf, and La Roche d’Orival, and then turned upon Philip who
was besieging Vaudreuil. A conference between the kings had just been
arranged when the mines dug by the French under the keep suddenly
resulted in its fall. Richard vowed vengeance, and Philip hastily withdrew.
1194 [1149] Before leaving Verneuil Richard had received intelligence that
Montmirail was being besieged by some “Angevins and others”;[1150] an
English chronicler says “Angevins and Cenomannians,”[1151] and another
simply “Angevins.”[1152] Whether the lord of Montmirail, William of Perche-
Gouet, was a partizan of Philip and the besiegers were acting on June
their own initiative in Richard’s interest, does not appear; Richard now
hastened to the place, but before he reached it the besiegers had levelled it
to the ground.[1153] He pushed on into Touraine, where an excellent
opportunity of recovering Loches was offered to him by his wife’s June
1-13
brother, Sancho of Navarre, who had collected a band of Navarrese
and Brabantines and set out with them to act against Philip. Sancho himself
was very soon called home by the death of his father; but his troops went on