III.—THE FIGHTING TROUBADOUR’S RETURN FROM THE WAR.
Concerning the “good old days” of chivalry and the crusades, the London Quarterly Review once said: “Life was earnest in its beliefs, stormy in its ambition, hearty in its sports.” There is a funny story going the rounds in these “degenerate days” of a disciple of Peter Cartwright, who resisted a western rough’s invitation to drink and to fight. The concluding remark of the bully, as he picked himself out of the elder bushes, was, in the tones of a deeply-deceived man: “What do you come around here for, with a long face on, saying you ‘never have fun with the boys,’ when you are chock full of fun? You’ve nearly broke my back.” In this contest the champions of religion and of “fun” were arrayed against each other, but it was the advantage of the old crusaders that both religion and “fun” lay in the same direction.
The chief of those romantic bruisers, King Richard Cœur de Lion, is thus practically described by Charles Dickens: “He was a strong, restless, burly man, with one idea always in his head, and that the very troublesome idea of breaking the heads of other men.” Anyway, the crusades were the great safety-valve of Europe for surplus religious zeal and pugnacity, and a great relief they proved to the people who stayed at home, as Motley and Prof. Fiske have splendidly argued. Richard sought this outlet for his “idea.”
His career in the Holy Land was romantically ferocious. He was, indeed, so impatient to get to business that he fought two or three battles with Christians on the way. He showed but one redeeming trait, brute courage; and a historian declares that the Saracen Saladin shows as the Christian statesman, and Richard as the fighting barbarian in these crusades. He was far more considerate of his Saracen prisoners than of his own soldiers, and treated the Mohammedan leaders with more chivalry than he did the allied kings and dukes. His hot temper and overbearing manner really defeated the crusade, for it drove every other prince and general home in anger. The Duke of Austria, for instance: The walls of Ascalon had to be hastily repaired to repel an assault, but the Duke held back from manual labor, saying he “was no stone mason.” Whereupon King Richard incontinently kicked his Grace till he went to work.
The crusade collapsed. Richard heard that his amiable brother John, encouraged by the angry King of France, was plotting his deposition, and he started for home, undismayed by the fact that he had not a friend left on the continent, and must needs cross hostile territory to reach England. His accustomed luck and pluck seem to have deserted him, for he was cast ashore in Austria, and he tried to skulk through the booted Duke’s dominions in disguise. And so this proud, grand hero of a hundred fights was captured in an inn kitchen, attired like a scullion, wrestling with pots and pans—was Richard of the Lion Heart. He was buried in a rocky dungeon, high above the Rhine, and for months no one in England knew what had become of him.
Curiously enough, Richard owed his discovery and consequent deliverance, not to his own courage, wit, or influence, but to his ability to write songs and sing them. One of his ballads he had taught to a friend named Blondel and Blondel now went troubadouring through Europe, singing a verse of the song under the windows of every dungeon and castle. He was at length relieved to hear the second stanza of the verse trolled, or, perhaps, roared through the bars. The secret was out, but Richard was not. The Duke of Austria and the Emperor of Germany now went into partnership, trading on the expected ransom of the royal prisoner—offering him to the highest bidder. Avarice proved a worse obstacle than hatred to his release. His brother John and Philip of France promised his captors more money to keep him, or to deliver him to them, than they might get from England for his release, and so he lingered in jail for fourteen months, while friends and enemies were competitively striving to get together the price of his release or his destruction. During this time Richard busied himself composing verses lamenting his lot, and sighing for freedom and “fun,”—the most profitable and least discreditable portion of his career, for the verses were very good.
For all this time we have the following picture of affairs in England:
“The condition of the English nation was at this time sufficiently miserable. John was strengthening his own faction in the kingdom, of which he proposed to dispute the succession. His own character being light, profligate, and perfidious, John easily attached to his person and faction not only all who had reason to dread the resentment of Richard for criminal proceedings during his absence, but also the numerous class of ‘lawless resolutes,’ whom the crusades had turned back on their country, accomplished in the vices of the East, impoverished in substance, hardened in character, and who placed their hopes of harvest in civil commotion.
“To these causes of public distress and apprehension, must be added the multitude of outlaws who, driven to despair by the oppression of the feudal nobility and the severe exercise of the forest laws, banded together in large gangs, and, keeping possession of the forests and wastes, set at defiance the justice and magistracy of the country. The nobles themselves, each fortified within his own castle, and playing the petty sovereign over his own dominions, were the leaders of bands scarce less lawless and oppressive than those of the avowed depredators. Under the various burdens imposed by this unhappy state of affairs, the people of England suffered deeply for the present, and had yet more dreadful cause to fear for the future.
“Yet amid these accumulated distresses, the poor as well as the rich, the vulgar as well as the noble, in the event of a tournament, which was the grand spectacle of the age, felt as much interested as the half-starved citizen of Madrid, who has not a real left to buy provisions for his family, feels in the issue of a bull-feast. Neither duty nor infirmity could keep youth or age from such exhibitions.”[A]