Notwithstanding all this excitement, the peace which had been sworn to by the kings of France and England was not long held sacred. Richard, who was duke of Guienne, having had a quarrel with the count of Thoulouse, Henry took up arms to assist his son. Philip flew to the defence of his vassal; and Normandy, Berry, and Auvergne were soon in a blaze. The two monarchs, urged by the solicitations of the nobles and bishops, met for a moment in the sacred field in which they had laid down their arms, but they could not agree upon the conditions of the peace; and the elm-tree under which they held their conference, was cut down by the orders of Philip. Negotiations were renewed several times without putting a stop to the war. The king of France required that Richard should be crowned king of England, in the lifetime of his father, and that he should espouse Alice, a French princess, whom Henry detained in prison. The king of England, jealous of his authority, could not consent to accept these conditions; and would neither yield up his crown nor the sister of Philip, of whom he was enamoured. Richard, irritated by his father’s refusal, threw himself into the party of Philip Augustus, and declared openly against Henry; on all sides they flew to arms, and the produce of the Saladin tithe was employed to carry on a sacrilegious war, which outraged both morality and nature.
This war was not a good augury for that which was about to be undertaken in Asia: the pope’s legate excommunicated Richard, and threatened Philip with placing his kingdom under an interdict. Philip despised the menaces of the legate, and told him that the Holy See had no right to meddle with the quarrels of princes; Richard, still more violent, drew his sword, and was on the point of cutting down the legate. Peace seemed every day to be at a greater distance; in vain cries of indignation arose from the people; in vain the great vassals refused to take part in a quarrel which interested neither religion nor country. Henry, who consented to an interview, still haughtily rejected the conditions that were proposed to him. He resisted for a long time both the prayers of his subjects and the counsels of the bishops; and the terror only with which the thunder of Heaven, which fell by his side during the conference, inspired him, could overcome his obstinacy. He at length accepted Philip’s conditions, but soon repented of his acquiescence; and shortly after died of grief, leaving his maledictions to Richard, who had made open war against him, and to his youngest son, who had engaged in a conspiracy against him.
Richard accused himself of the death of his father, and, pressed by repentance, he remembered the vow he had made in the sacred field. Now become king of England, he began seriously his preparations for the holy expedition. He repaired to his kingdom, and convoked, near Northampton, an assembly of the barons and prelates, in which Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, preached the crusade. The preacher of the holy war then went through the provinces of England to raise the zeal and emulation of the faithful.[317] Miraculous adventures attested the sanctity of his mission, and brought under the banners of the cross the wild and credulous inhabitants of Wales, and several other countries where the misfortunes of Jerusalem had never been heard of.
The enthusiasm of the English for this crusade, manifested itself at first by a violent persecution of the Jews, great numbers of whom were massacred in the cities of London and York. A vast many of these unfortunate people found no means of escape from their persecutors but in a self-inflicted death. These horrible scenes were renewed every crusade. When money was required for the holy expedition, it was perceived that the Jews were the depositaries of the general wealth; and the knowledge of the treasures accumulated in their hands, seemed to lead the people to remember that it was they who had crucified their God.
Richard did not take much pains to repress the misguided multitude, but availed himself of the persecution of the Jews to increase his own treasures. But neither the spoils of the Jews, nor the produce of the Saladin tithe, for the non-payment of which the English were threatened with imprisonment, at all satisfied the king of England. Richard alienated the domains of the crown, and put to sale all the great dignities of the kingdom; he would sell, he said, the city of London, if he could find a purchaser. He went afterwards into Normandy, where the “Estates” permitted him to exhaust that rich province, and gave him full means to support a war in which the whole people took so great an interest.
A great number of warriors assumed the cross in France and England, and the preparations for the crusade were finished amidst general fermentation. Many barons and lords, however, did not announce the period of their departure, and delayed, under various pretexts, the pilgrimage to which they had engaged themselves by oath. The celebrated Peter of Blois, addressed a pathetic exhortation to them, in which he compared them to reapers who put off beginning their work until the harvest was finished. The orator of the holy war represented to them that strong and courageous men found a country everywhere, and that true pilgrims ought to resemble the birds of heaven.[318] He recalled to their ambition the example of Abraham, who abandoned his home to elevate himself among the nations, who crossed the Jordan with a staff only, and returned followed by two troops of warriors. This exhortation revived the ardour for the crusade, which had evidently begun to cool. The monarchs of France and England had an interview at Nonancourt, where they agreed to proceed to Palestine by sea. They made, at the same time, several regulations to secure order and discipline in the armies they were about to lead into Asia. The laws of religion, and the penalties that they inflict, did not appear to them sufficient in this case. The justice of these barbarous ages was charged with the onerous task of suppressing the passions and vices of the Crusaders: whoever gave a blow, was to be plunged three times into the sea; he who struck with the sword, had his hand cut off; he who abused another, gave to the person he had offended as many ounces of silver as he had uttered invectives; when a man was convicted of theft, boiling pitch was poured upon his shaven head, it was then covered with feathers, and he was abandoned on the nearest shore; a murderer, bound to the corpse of his victim, was to be cast into the sea, or buried alive.
As the presence of women had occasioned many disorders in the first crusade, they were forbidden to go to the Holy Land. Gambling with dice, or other games of chance, together with profane swearing or blasphemy, were strictly forbidden among the Crusaders; and luxury of the table or in clothes was repressed by a law. The assembly of Nonancourt made many other regulations, and neglected nothing likely to bring back the soldiers of Christ to the simplicity and virtues of the Gospel.
Whenever princes, nobles, or knights set out for the holy war, they made their wills, as if they were certain never to return to Europe. When Philip came back to his capital, he declared his last will, and regulated, for the period of his absence, the administration of his kingdom, which he confided to Queen Adela, his mother, and his uncle, the Cardinal de Champagne. After having fulfilled the duties of a king, he laid down the sceptre, to take, at St. Denis, the staff and scrip of a pilgrim, and went to Vézelay, where he was to have another interview with Richard. The two kings again swore an eternal friendship, and both called down the thunders of the Church upon the head of him who should break his oaths. They separated full of friendship for each other; Richard hastened to embark at Marseilles, and Philip at Genoa. An English historian remarks that they were the only kings of France and England that ever fought together for the same cause; but this harmony, the work of extraordinary circumstances, was not likely to exist long between two princes acted upon by so many motives of rivalry. Both young, ardent, brave, and magnificent; Philip the greater king, Richard the greater captain; both animated by the same ambition and the same passion for glory. Desire for renown, much more than piety, drew them to the Holy Land: both haughty and prompt to revenge an injury, they acknowledged, in their various differences, no other arbitrator or judge but the sword: religion had not sufficient empire over their minds to humble their pride, and each would have thought himself degraded, if he had either demanded or accepted peace. To ascertain, at a glance, how little hope could be founded on the union of these two princes, it is only necessary to observe, that Philip, on ascending his throne, had shown himself to be the most inveterate enemy of England, and that Richard was the son of that Eleanor of Guienne, the first wife of Louis VII., who, after the second crusade, had quitted her husband, threatening France with her revenge.
After the conference of Gisors, the archbishop of Tyre repaired to Germany, to solicit Frederick Barbarossa to take the cross. This prince had signalized his valour in forty battles; a long and fortunate reign had rendered his name illustrious; but his age recognised no glory as true but that which was won in Asia. He wished to deserve the praises of his pious contemporaries, and took up arms for the deliverance of the Holy Land; he was, likewise, doubtless influenced by the scruples which his quarrels with the pope had left upon his conscience, and by his desire to perfect his reconciliation with the Holy See.
A general diet was assembled at Mayence. The nobles and prelates would not allow Germany to remain indifferent to a cause which had inflamed the zeal of the other nations of Europe. Frederick, whose devotion they encouraged, descended from his throne, amidst general acclamations, and received the sign of the Crusaders from the hands of the archbishop of Tyre. His example was followed by his son, Frederick duke of Swabia; Leopold duke of Austria, and Berthold duke of Moravia; Herman, marquis of Baden, the count of Nassau, the bishops of Besançon, Munster, Osnaburg, and Passau, with a crowd of barons and knights, likewise swore to deliver the tomb of Christ.