Tancred, who, for his own security, desired to inflame their mutual hatred, employed an artifice which might have been attended with consequences still more fatal. [MN 1191.] He showed Richard a letter, signed by the French king, and delivered to him, as he pretended, by the Duke of Burgundy; in which that monarch desired Tancred to fall upon the quarters of the English, and promised to assist him in putting them to the sword, as common enemies. The unwary Richard gave credit to the information; but was too candid not to betray his discontent to Philip, who absolutely denied the letter, and charged the Sicilian prince with forgery and falsehood. Richard either was, or pretended to be, entirely satisfied [p]. [FN [p] Ibid. p. 688. Bened. Abb. p. 642, 643. Brompton, p. 1195.]
Lest these jealousies and complaints should multiply between them, it was proposed, that they should, by a solemn treaty, obviate all future differences, and adjust every point that could possibly hereafter become a controversy between them. But this expedient started a new dispute, which might have proved more dangerous than any of the foregoing, and which deeply concerned the honour of Philip's family. When Richard, in every treaty with the late king, insisted so strenuously on being allowed to marry Alice of France, he had only sought a pretence for quarrelling; and never meant to take to his bed a princess suspected of a criminal amour with his own father. After he became master, he no longer spake of that alliance: he even took measures for espousing Berengaria, daughter of Sanchez, King of Navarre, with whom he had become enamoured during his abode in Guienne [q]; Queen Eleanor was daily expected with that princess at Messina [r] and when Philip renewed to him his applications for espousing his sister Alice, Richard was obliged to give him an absolute refusal. It is pretended by Hoveden and other historians , that he was able to produce such convincing proofs of Alice's infidelity, and even of her having borne a child to Henry, that her brother desisted from his applications, and chose to wrap up the dishonour of his family in silence and oblivion. It is certain, from the treaty itself, which remains [t], that whatever were his motives, he permitted Richard to give his hand to Berengaria; and having settled all other controversies with that prince, he immediately set sail for the Holy Land. Richard awaited some time the arrival of his mother and bride; and when they joined him, he separated his fleet into two squadrons, and set forward on his enterprise. Queen Eleanor returned to England, but Berengaria and the queen-dowager of Sicily, his sister, attended him on the expedition . [FN [q] Vinisauf, p. 316. [r] M. Paris, p. 112. Trivet, p. 102. W. Heming, p. 519. Hoveden, p. 688. [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 69. Chron. de Dunst, p. 44. Bened. Abb. p. 644.]
The English fleet, on leaving the port of Messina, met with a furious tempest, and the squadron on which the two princesses were embarked was driven on the coast of Cyprus, and some of the vessels were wrecked near Limisso in that island. [MN 12th April.] Isaac, Prince of Cyprus, who assumed the magnificent title of Emperor, pillaged the ships that were stranded, threw the seamen and passengers into prison, and even refused to the princesses liberty, in their dangerous situation, of entering the harbour of Limisso. But Richard, who arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on him for the injury. He disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant, who opposed his landing; entered Limisso by storm; gained next day a second victory; obliged Isaac to surrender at discretion; and established governors over the island. The Greek prince, being thrown into prison and loaded with irons, complained of the little regard with which he was treated: upon which, Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him; and this emperor, pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the generosity of his conqueror [w]. [MN 1191. 12th May.] The king here espoused Berengaria, who, immediately embarking, carried along with her to Palestine the daughter of the Cypriot prince; a dangerous rival, who was believed to have seduced the affections of her husband. Such were the libertine character and conduct of the heroes engaged in this pious enterprise! [FN [w] Bened. Abb. p. 650. Ann. Waverl. p. 164. Vinisauf, p. 328. W. Heming. p. 523.]
[MN The kings arrival in Palestine.] The English army arrived in time to partake in the glory of the siege of Acre or Ptolemais, which had been attacked for above two years by the united forces of all the Christians in Palestine, and had been defended by the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens. The remains of the German army, conducted by the Emperor Frederic, and the separate bodies of adventurers who continually poured in from the West, had enabled the King of Jerusalem to form this important enterprise [x]: but Saladin, having thrown a strong garrison into the place under the command of Caracos, his own master in the art of war, and molesting the besiegers with continual attacks and sallies, had protracted the success of the enterprise, and wasted the force of his enemies. The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the Christians; and these princes, acting by concert, and sharing the honour and danger of every action, gave hopes of a final victory over the infidels. They agreed on this plan of operations: when the French monarch attacked the town, the English guarded the trenches: next day, when the English prince conducted the assault, the French succeeded him in providing for the safety of the assailants. The emulation between those rival kings and rival nations produced extraordinary acts of valour: Richard in particular, animated with a more precipitate courage than Philip, and more agreeable to the romantic spirit of that age, drew to himself the general attention, and acquired a great and splendid reputation. But this harmony was of short duration; and occasions of discord soon arose between these jealous and haughty princes. [FN [x] Vinisauf, p. 269, 271, 279.]
[MN 1191. State of Palestine.] The family of Bouillon, which had first been placed on the throne of Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, Count of Anjou, grandfather to Henry II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and transmitted his title to the younger branches of his family. The Anjevin race ending also in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing Sibylla, the heiress, had succeeded to the title; and though he lost his kingdom by the invasion of Saladin, he was still acknowledged by all the Christians for king of Jerusalem [y]. But as Sibylla died without issue, during the siege of Acre, Isabella, her younger sister, put in her claim to that titular kingdom, and required Lusignan to resign his pretensions to her husband, Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat. Lusignan maintaining that the royal title was unalienable and indefeasible, had recourse to the protection of Richard, attended on him before he left Cyprus, and engaged him to embrace his cause [z]. There needed no other reason for throwing Philip into the party of Conrade; and the opposite views of these great monarchs brought faction and dissension into the Christian army, and retarded all its operations. The Templars, the Genoese, and the Germans declared for Philip and Conrade; the Flemings, the Pisans, the Knights of the Hospital of St. John, adhered to Richard and Lusignan. But notwithstanding these disputes, as the length of the siege had reduced the Saracen garrison to the last extremity, [MN 12th July.] they surrendered themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return for their lives, other advantages to the Christians, such as the restoring of the Christian prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true cross [a]; and this great enterprise, which had long engaged the attention of all Europe and Asia, was, at last, after the loss of three hundred thousand men, brought to a happy period. [FN [y] Vinisauf, p. 281. [z] Trivet, p. 134. Vinisauf, p. 342. W. Heming. p. 524. [a] This true cross was lost in the battle of Tiberiade, to which it had been carried by the crusaders for their protection. Rigord, an author of that age, says, that after this dismal event, all the children who were born throughout all Christendom had only twenty or twenty-two teeth, instead of thirty or thirty-two, which was their former complement, p. 14.]
But Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of farther conquest, and of redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the ascendant assumed and acquired by Richard, and having views of many advantages, which he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared his resolution of returning to France; and he pleaded his bad state of health as an excuse for his desertion of the common cause. He left, however, to Richard ten thousand of his troops, under the command of the Duke of Burgundy; and he renewed his oath never to commence hostilities against that princes dominions during his absence. But he had no sooner reached Italy than he applied, it is pretended, to Pope Celestine III. for a dispensation from his vow; and when denied that request, he still proceeded, though after a covert manner, in a project, which the present situation of England rendered inviting, and which gratified, in an eminent degree, both his resentment and his ambition.
[MN Disorders in England.] Immediately after Richard had left England, and begun his march to the Holy Land, the two prelates, whom he had appointed guardians of the realm, broke out into animosities against each other, and threw the kingdom into combustion. Longchamp, presumptuous in his nature, elated by the favour which he enjoyed with his master, and armed with the legatine commission, could not submit to an equality with the Bishop of Durham: he even went so far as to arrest his colleague, and to extort from him a resignation of the earldom of Northumberland, and of his other dignities, as the price of his liberty . The king, informed of these dissensions, ordered, by letters from Marseilles, that the bishop should be reinstated in his offices; but Longchamp had still the boldness to refuse compliance, on pretence that he himself was better acquainted with the kings secret intentions [c]. He proceeded to govern the kingdom by his sole authority; to treat all the nobility with arrogance; and to display his power and riches with an invidious ostentation. He never travelled without a strong guard of fifteen hundred foreign soldiers, collected from that licentious tribe with which the age was generally infested: nobles and knights were proud of being admitted into his train: his retinue wore the aspect of royal magnificence: and when, in his progress through the kingdom, he lodged in any monastery, his attendants, it is said, were sufficient to devour, in one night, the revenue of several years [d]. The king, who was detained in Europe longer than the haughty prelate expected, hearing of this ostentation, which exceeded even what the habits of that age indulged in ecclesiastics; being also informed of the insolent, tyrannical conduct of his minister, thought proper to restrain his power: he sent new orders, appointing Walter Archbishop of Rouen, William Mareschal Earl of Strigul, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, William Briewere, and Hugh Bardolf, counsellors to Longchamp, and commanding him to take no measure of importance without their concurrence and approbation. But such general terror had this man impressed by his violent conduct, that even the Archbishop of Rouen and the Earl of Strigul durst not produce this mandate of the king's; and Longchamp still maintained an uncontrolled authority over the nation. But when he proceeded so far as to throw into prison Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, who had opposed his measures, this breach of ecclesiastical privileges excited such an universal ferment, that Prince John, disgusted with the small share he possessed in the government, and personally disobliged by Longchamp, ventured to summon, at Reading, a general council of the nobility and prelates, and cite him to appear before them. Longchamp thought it dangerous to intrust his person in their hands, and he shut himself up in the Tower of London; but being soon obliged to surrender that fortress, he fled beyond sea, concealed under a female habit, and was deprived of his offices of chancellor and chief justiciary; the last of which was conferred on the Archbishop of Rouen, a prelate of prudence and moderation. The commission of legate, however, which had been renewed to Longchamp by Pope Celestine, still gave him, notwithstanding his absence, great authority in the kingdom, enabled him to disturb the government, and forwarded the views of Philip, who watched every opportunity of annoying Richard's dominions. [MN 1192.] That monarch first attempted to carry open war into Normandy; but as the French nobility refused to follow him in an invasion of a state which they had sworn to protect, and as the pope, who was the general guardian of all princes that had taken the cross, threatened him with ecclesiastical censures, he desisted from his enterprise, and employed against England the expedient of secret policy and intrigue. He debauched Prince John from his allegiance; promised him his sister Alice in marriage; offered to give him possession of all Richard's transmarine dominions; and had not the authority of Queen Eleanor, and the menaces of the English council, prevailed over the inclinations of that turbulent prince, he was ready to have crossed the seas, and to have put in execution his criminal enterprises. [FN Hoveden, p. 665. Knyghton, p. 2403. [c] W. Heming. p. 528. [d] Hoveden, p. 680. Bened. Abb. p. 626, 700. Brompton, p. 1193.]
[MN The kings heroic actions in Palestine.] The jealousy of Philip was every moment excited by the glory which the great actions of Richard were gaining him in the East, and which, being compared to his own desertion of that popular cause, threw a double lustre on his rival. His envy, therefore, prompted him to obscure that fame which he had not equalled; and he embraced every pretence of throwing the most violent and most improbable calumnies on the King of England. There was a petty prince in Asia, commonly called THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, who had acquired such an ascendant over his fanatical subjects, that they paid the most implicit deference to his commands; esteemed assassination meritorious when sanctified by his mandate; courted danger, and even certain death, in the execution of his orders; and fancied, that when they sacrificed their lives for his sake, the highest joys of paradise were the infallible reward of their devoted obedience [e]. It was the custom of this prince, when he imagined himself injured, to despatch secretly some of his subjects against the aggressor, to charge them with the execution of his revenge, to instruct them in every art of disguising their purpose; and no precaution was sufficient to guard any man, however powerful, against the attempts of these subtle and determined ruffians. The greatest monarchs stood in awe of this Prince of the Assassins, (for that was the name of his people; whence the word has passed into most European languages,) and it was the highest indiscretion in Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat, to offend and affront him. The inhabitants of Tyre, who were governed by that nobleman, had put to death some of this dangerous people: the prince demanded satisfaction; for, as he piqued himself on never beginning any offence [f], he had his regular and established formalities in requiring atonement: Conrade treated his messengers with disdain: the prince issued the fatal order: two of his subjects, who had insinuated themselves in disguise among Conrade's guards, openly, in the streets of Sidon, wounded him mortally; and when they were seized and put to the most cruel tortures, they triumphed amidst their agonies, and rejoiced that they had been destined by heaven to suffer in so just and meritorious a cause. [FN [e] W. Heming. p. 532. Brompton, p. 1243. [f] Rymer, vol. i. p. 71.]
Every one in Palestine knew from what hand the blow came. Richard was entirely free from suspicion. Though that monarch had formerly maintained the cause of Lusignan against Conrade, he had become sensible of the bad effects attending those dissensions, and had voluntarily conferred on the former the kingdom of Cyprus, on condition that he should resign to his rival all pretensions to the crown of Jerusalem [g]. Conrade himself, with his dying breath, had recommended his widow to the protection of Richard [h]; the Prince of the Assassins avowed the action in a formal narrative which he sent to Europe ; yet, on this foundation, the King of France thought fit to build the most egregious calumnies, and to impute to Richard the murder of the Marquis of Montferrat, whose elevation he had once openly opposed. He filled all Europe with exclamations against the crime; appointed a guard for his own person, in order to defend himself against a like attempt [k]; and endeavoured, by these shallow artifices, to cover the infamy of attacking the dominions of a prince whom he himself had deserted, and who was engaged with so much glory in a war, universally acknowledged to be the common cause of Christendom. [FN [g] Vinisauf, p. 391. [h] Brompton, p. 1243. Rymer, vol. i. p. 71. Trivet, p. 124. W. Heming. p. 544. Diceto, p. 680. [k] W Heming. p. 532. Brompton, p. 1245.]
But Richard's heroic actions in Palestine were the best apology for his conduct. The Christian adventurers under his command determined, on opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order to prepare the way for that of Jerusalem; and they marched along the sea- coast with that intention. Saladin purposed to intercept their passage; and he placed himself on the road with an army, amounting to three hundred thousand combatants. On this occasion was fought one of the greatest battles of that age; and the most celebrated, for the military genius of the commanders, for the number and valour of the troops, and for the great variety of events which attended it. Both the right wing of the Christians, commanded by d'Avesnes, and the left, conducted by the Duke of Burgundy, were, in the beginning of the day, broken and defeated; when Richard, who led on the main body, restored the battle; attacked the enemy with intrepidity and presence of mind; performed the part both of a consummate general and gallant soldier; and not only gave his two wings leisure to recover from their confusion, but obtained a complete victory over the Saracens, of whom forty thousand are said to have perished in the field [l]. Ascalon soon after fell into the hands of the Christians: other sieges were carried on with equal success: Richard was even able to advance within sight of Jerusalem, the object of his enterprise, when he had the mortification to find that he must abandon all hopes of immediate success, and must put a stop to his career of victory. The crusaders, animated with an enthusiastic ardour for the holy wars, broke at first through all regards to safety or interest in the prosecution of their purpose; and trusting to the immediate assistance of Heaven, set nothing before their eyes but fame and victory in this world, and a crown of glory in the next. But long absence from home, fatigue, disease, want, and the variety of incidents which naturally attend war, had gradually abated that fury, which nothing was able directly to withstand; and every one, except the King of England, expressed a desire of speedily returning into Europe. The Germans and the Italians declared their resolution of desisting from the enterprise: the French were still more obstinate in this purpose: the Duke of Burgundy, in order to pay court to Philip, took all opportunities of mortifying and opposing Richard [m]: and there appeared an absolute necessity of abandoning for the present all hopes of farther conquest, and of securing the acquisitions of the Christians by an accommodation with Saladin. Richard, therefore, concluded a truce with that monarch; and stipulated that Acre, Joppa, and other sea-port towns of Palestine, should remain in the hands of the Christians, and that every one of that religion should have liberty to perform his pilgrimage to Jerusalem unmolested. This truce was concluded for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; a magical number, which had probably been devised by the Europeans, and which was suggested by a superstition well suited to the object of the war. [FN [l] Hoveden, p. 698. Bened. Abb. p. 677. Diceto, p. 662. Brompton, p. 1214. [m] Vinisauf, p. 380.]