Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

by Charlotte M. Yonge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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