In his presence the selfish quarrel of the two kings was shamed into silence. The king of France took the cross at once, and the king of England followed his example, this time without waiting for his people’s consent; the archbishops of Reims and Rouen, the counts of Flanders, Burgundy, Blois and Champagne, and a crowd of French and Norman barons did the like.[1192] The two kings set up a wooden cross, afterwards replaced by a church, to mark the spot, which they called the “Holy Field”;[1193] then they separated to make their preparations. Henry at once sent to request a safe-conduct for himself and his troops through the dominions of the king of Hungary and those of the Western and Eastern Emperors.[1194] Before the end of the month he issued from Le Mans an ordinance known as that of the “Saladin tithe,” requiring every man in his dominions to give towards the expenses of the crusade a tithe of all his personal property, excepting only the necessary outfit of a knight or a priest.[1195] This was accompanied by eight other ordinances also relating to the crusade,[1196] and was imitated two months later in France by Philip Augustus.[1197] On January 30 Henry returned to England;[1198] on February 11 he met the bishops and barons in council at Geddington near Northampton, to obtain their assent to the Saladin tithe and make arrangements for its collection.[1199] It was chiefly to superintend this that the king remained in England, while the archbishop of Canterbury went to preach the crusade in Wales.[1200]

Meanwhile Richard was eager to start without delay; but his father refused his consent, insisting that their expedition should be made in common. The impatient “Lion-heart,” however, was not to be thus restrained, and in his father’s absence he made all his preparations and wrote to bespeak the aid of his brother-in-law William of Sicily for the voyage which he was determined to begin as soon as the summer should arrive.[1201] But his plans were checked by a fresh rising of the Poitevin barons, headed as usual by the count of Angoulême, Geoffrey of Rancogne and Geoffrey of Lusignan.[1202] This last was the worst offender, having treacherously slain a personal friend of Richard’s.[1203] But, like Richard himself, he had taken the cross; and it was doubtless owing to this protection that, before the summer was over, he was suffered to make his escape to the realm of his hapless brother in Palestine.[1204] The other rebels were scarcely put down when Raymond of Toulouse seized and cruelly maltreated some Poitevin merchants who were passing through his territory. Richard at once avenged this outrage by an armed raid upon the frontier-districts of Toulouse, and presently managed to catch and imprison the count’s chief adviser Peter Seilun, who was said to have instigated the seizure of the merchants. Raymond retaliated by capturing two knights attached to the household of the English king, Robert Poer and Ralf Fraser, on their way back from a pilgrimage to Compostella; and neither Richard’s protest against the sacrilege of keeping pilgrims in prison, nor even the express command of the king of France for their liberation out of reverence to S. James, could induce him to give them up on any condition save the release of Peter Seilun, which Richard firmly refused.[1205] A heavy ransom offered by the two English captives themselves shortly afterwards changed Raymond’s determination;[1206] but this was of course no satisfaction to Richard, and after Whitsuntide he again invaded Toulouse with fire and sword; castle after castle fell into his hands, till at last he began to threaten the capital itself.[1207]

In Aquitaine even more than elsewhere, the beginning of strife was like the letting-out of water. This time the strife of Richard and Raymond led to the outbursting of a flood which ended by overspreading the whole Angevin dominions and sweeping away Henry Fitz-Empress himself. If Richard’s story was true, neither he nor Raymond was the real originator of the mischief; it was Philip of France who had secretly urged him to the attack;[1208] while another rumour, which Richard was only too ready to believe, accused Henry himself of stirring up the count of Toulouse and the Aquitanian rebels against his son, in order to prevent him from starting on the Crusade.[1209] Little as we can credit such a tale, it is easy to imagine how dexterously Philip would use it to sow dissensions between father and son and entangle the impetuous Richard in a coil such as only the sword could cut. Openly, meanwhile, Philip was taking the part of Toulouse, and peremptorily insisting that Henry should put a stop to his son’s aggressions in that quarter.[1210] Without waiting for Henry’s reply, he marched upon Berry and laid siege to Châteauroux, which surrendered to him on June 16.[1211] It was now Henry’s turn to remonstrate against this breach of truce, all the more flagrant because committed against a brother-crusader. He knew however that nothing but his own presence could make his remonstrances of any avail; sending John over before him, on the night of July 10 he hurried across the sea to Barfleur, and thence went to muster his forces at Alençon.[1212] They consisted of the feudal levies of England and Normandy, and a multitude of Welsh under the command of Ralf de Glanville,[1213] together with some Bretons and Flemish mercenaries,[1214] and apparently some Angevins and Cenomannians.[1215] Henry was however very unwilling to resort to force; his old scruple about making war upon his overlord seems not to have been yet quite extinguished, and moreover he shrank alike from the bloodshed and the expense of war. During some weeks his forces were still kept idle, save for an occasional plundering-raid across the French border.[1216] Philip meanwhile was carrying all before him in Berry, and having conquered nearly the whole district, made a dash upon Auvergne.[1217] Richard seized the opportunity for an attempt to regain Châteauroux, in which however he failed, and was only saved from capture or death by the help of a friendly butcher.[1218] His advance however had been enough to make Philip retire into his own domains.[1219] Soon afterwards the approach of the vintage-season compelled the French king to disband a part of his forces; the remainder, under command of the bishop of Beauvais, went to ravage the Norman frontier-lands. Henry demanded reparation, and threatened to cast off his allegiance in default of it; Philip retorted that he would not cease from the warfare which he had begun till all Berry and the Vexin were in his hands.[1220] At last, in the middle of August, the two kings met in person once more between Gisors and Trie; but the meeting broke up in anger; and when they parted, Philip in his rage cut down the great elm tree under which the conferences between the rulers of France and Normandy had so long been held, vowing that no conference should ever be held there again.[1221]

Richard had now rejoined his father,[1222] and at his instigation an attack was made by their united forces upon Mantes, which was occupied by a small French force under William des Barres, lately the commandant of Châteauroux. Richard succeeded in avenging his recent mishap at Châteauroux by taking William prisoner, but he made his escape immediately, and nothing was gained by the expedition.[1223] Richard again went into Berry; Henry lingered on the Norman border, where soon afterwards he received from Philip a demand for another conference. It took place at Châtillon on October 7, but again without result. Philip now followed Richard, who thereupon opened negotiations on his own account, offering to submit his quarrel with Toulouse to the judgement of the French king’s court;[1224] but this also came to nothing. Still the negotiations went on, and Henry’s difficulties were increasing. Chief among them was the want of money to pay his soldiers. His realms had been almost drained for the Saladin tithe; his own treasury was exhausted; his troops, seeing no prospect of either wages or plunder, began to slip away; and at last he was obliged to disband his mercenaries and send his Welsh auxiliaries back to their own country.[1225] Philip meanwhile was secretly in communication with Richard;[1226] and Richard was growing eager to bring matters to a crisis. The insidious whispers of France and Flanders had done their work in his too credulous mind. To the end of his life Richard was but little of a statesman and less of a diplomatist; it is therefore no wonder that he failed on the one hand to fathom the subtle policy of his father, and on the other to see through the wiles of Philip. His fault lay in this—that while Henry’s servants were content to trust him where they could not understand him, his own son was ready to find a ground of suspicion in every word and action of his father’s for which his own intelligence was incapable of accounting, and to credit every calumny reported to him by his father’s enemies. More than a year ago they had contrived, as has been seen, to awaken in his mind an idea that he was in danger of being disinherited in favour of his youngest brother; and it was with a determination to ascertain once for all the extent of this danger that he brought the two kings to a meeting with each other and with himself near Bonmoulins on November 18.[1227]