The Archbishop of Canterbury and other bishops, richly robed, and carrying the cross, holy water, and censers, led the stately procession that escorted the king from his palace to the Abbey. After these dignitaries of the Church, came four barons in court dress, bearing each a golden candlestick; then four earls, carrying the king's cup, the golden spurs, the scepter of state, and the royal rod of majesty—a mace adorned with a golden dove. Four great earls walked next, brandishing aloft their glittering swords; and behind these noblemen marched six more, as bearers of the royal robes and regalia. William, Earl of Essex, proudly carried the gold and jeweled crown immediately before Richard himself, who walked beneath a magnificent canopy of state, upheld by richly clad nobles.
Before the brilliant assemblage of lords Richard took the solemn oath to be a just and righteous ruler. Then after the archbishop had anointed him with holy oil, shoes of golden tissue were put on the king's feet, the golden spurs were buckled on, and he was clad in the vestments of royalty and led to the high altar. There he promised to be faithful to his kingly oath, and was crowned with the royal diadem and given the scepter and rod of office.
So Richard Plantagenet became King of England. No one beholding the proud bearing of the new monarch would have supposed that his family emblem, the lowly broom-plant (Planta genista), from which came the name Plantagenet, had been adopted by an ancestor of Richard's in token of humility. For, in very truth, the Plantagenets were an arrogant race, and Richard was the proudest of his line.
As he strode down the aisle of Westminster in all the glittering and jeweled splendor of his coronation robes, Richard's appearance was truly royal. He looked every inch a king. The people gazed with delight on his tall, powerful frame, graceful and strong as that of Mars himself; on his proudly poised head, whose red-gold curls waved beneath the jeweled crown; on the fair, haughty face with its square, determined jaw, aquiline nose, full, proud lips, and fierce, restless blue eyes. Heartily the multitude admired Richard's manly beauty, his lordly air; and with a right good-will they shouted joyously: "Long live the king! Long live our Richard Lionheart!"
Before his accession to the throne, Richard had determined to go as a Crusader to the rescue of the Holy Land. From his mother, who had herself taken part in the Second Crusade, he had heard many stories of the East,—that land of wonders and marvelous adventures. Richard was by nature a rover, a warrior, a knight-errant. So it seemed to him a most delightful prospect to travel, to see strange lands and peoples, to fight in a holy war; and thus to indulge his own love of adventure and of battle while advancing the glory of God. Nay, to do him justice, Richard was religious too, in the strange fierce fashion of those days,—days when one could be pious without being good; when the warrior prayed and fought with equal zeal, deeming both acts of equal merit in the sight of heaven; when the Christian believed the slaughter of infidels well-pleasing to God; when the knight of the Cross was confident that Christ pardoned all sins to the warrior who did battle for His Holy Sepulchre. So Richard, though far from pious or exemplary in his daily life, was moved by a genuine and fervent desire to deliver Jerusalem from the infidels, into whose hands it had fallen again after its conquest by Godfrey de Bouillon.
When all the tedious and costly preparations necessary for the Crusade had been completed, Richard sent his fleet around by the Strait of Gibraltar. He himself crossed over to France with the troops, intending to march through that country to meet his ships at Marseilles, and there to embark for Palestine.
At Vézelai, Richard met Philip of France, who had agreed to join him in the Crusade. The two kings and their great armies marched together for some distance, but finally separated, and proceeded southward by different routes,—the French to Genoa, the English to Marseilles.
When Richard reached that seaport, he was much disappointed to find that the fleet had not arrived. Leaving the main body of troops there to await the arrival of the vessels, he procured a ship, and proceeded on his way by sea, sailing along the coast of France and Italy. He stopped at many cities, and sometimes traveled on land with only a few attendants, like a simple knight-errant.
When he reached the Gulf of Salernum, Richard was joined by his fleet, and sailed toward Messina, a coast town of Sicily, where he was to meet Philip. On approaching the city, Richard ordered every trumpet to be sounded. The people, rushing to the walls, beheld with surprise the great fleet of England, manned by thousands of steel-clad warriors, and flying the red cross of Saint George, the lion-emblazoned banner of Richard, and hundreds of gay baronial flags. The arrival is thus described:—
"O Holy Mary, no man ever saw
Such galleys, such dromonds, such transports before;
Rowing on, rowing on, across the deep sea,
Rowing on, rowing on to fair Sicily!