Saladin was quite as anxious for a truce as Richard could be. On the night of August 27 he had despatched several emirs on a reconnoitring expedition to ascertain the chances of success in another attempt on Joppa, or, failing this, a night attack on Ascalon. They came back to him at Ramlah with tidings that there were at Joppa scarcely 1192 three hundred mounted troops, most of whom had only mules for chargers. Yet against this small and ill-mounted force Saladin dared not pit his great army, “because,” says Bohadin, “he knew that his men were weakened and wearied and longing for their homes, and he feared that they would refuse, as they had refused once already at Joppa, to attack the foe, or would desert him altogether.”[1028] He therefore drew up his final terms on Monday, August 31. The truce was to last for three years, beginning on Wednesday, September 22. Ramlah or Lydda was to be added to the king’s share of the land, or even both places, unless he would be content with half of each; and Ascalon was to be dismantled again. All the Moslem territories were to be included in the truce, and also the princes of Antioch and Tripoli. When on September 1 the schedule was brought to Richard, he said he was too ill to read it, but he added: “I have already confirmed the agreement by giving my hand on it.” Count Henry and the other leaders were then informed of its details, and accepted them all, including the proposed partition of Lydda and Ramlah. Next day (Wednesday, September 2) they and Saladin’s envoys all met in Richard’s tent. Richard again confirmed the truce by giving his hand to the Moslems; they asked him for his oath, but he explained that it was not customary in the West for a king to swear on such occasions, and they accepted the explanation. The other Frank leaders then took the usual oath, and several of them went back with the Moslems to Saladin’s camp to witness his ratification of the treaty.[1029] 1192 Immediately afterwards Richard despatched to Saladin a special message setting forth his own purpose in making the truce. That purpose, he said, was first to revisit his home-lands and see how they did, and next, to collect there men and money wherewith he hoped to return and to wrest from the Sultan the whole “Land of Jerusalem.” Saladin answered in the spirit of true chivalry: if he were to lose the Land, he would rather it were won by Richard than by any prince whom he had ever known.[1030]
The dismantling of Ascalon was a precaution on which Richard had insisted when he found himself compelled to cede the place; if the Moslems must have it, they should at any rate be unable to make any military use of it till they had had the expense and trouble of rebuilding it again. The work of demolition was entrusted to the joint superintendence of a party of Moslems and one of Franks, who all set out for Ascalon on September 5, and who were also to bring back its Frankish garrison.[1031] As under the terms of the truce Christian pilgrims were to have free access to the Holy Sepulchre, the rest of the Franks at Joppa and many from Acre and elsewhere now began crowding to Jerusalem to fulfil their vow of pilgrimage.[1032] An English writer tells us that some of them urged the king to do likewise; “but his 1192 lofty spirit would not suffer him to accept from the grace of a heathen ruler a privilege which he had been unable to obtain as a gift of God.”[1033] On the night of Tuesday, September 9, he set out on his northward journey.[1034] Haïfa, in its quiet, sheltered corner between the foot of Carmel and the mouth of the Kishon, and with its outlook northward across the sea to Acre at the opposite end of the bay, offered probably a better resting-place for an invalid than Acre itself, to which it was near enough for medical aid to be easily available. At Haïfa the king stayed a while to recover his strength.[1035] Then he went on to Acre and completed his preparations for departure. He ransomed William des Préaux, who had been made a voluntary prisoner in his stead in September 1191, by exchanging for him ten valuable Saracen captives.[1036] He called, by public proclamation, all his creditors to come and claim whatever he owed them, that they might all be paid in full, “and even overpaid, lest there should be any complaints or disputes after he was gone about anything that they had lost through him.”[1037] He had some months before made provision for the future of Cyprus, and also for that of his earliest friend among the Franks in Holy Land, Guy of Lusignan, who had so greatly helped him to conquer that island. He had conquered it not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, to which its preservation in friendly hands was a matter of great importance. He at first agreed to make it over to the Order of the Temple for twenty-five thousand marks;[1038] but this agreement came to nothing; and when Henry of Champagne was chosen King of Jerusalem in April 1192, Richard made substantial compensation to the displaced King Guy by giving him the island realm of Cyprus.[1039] The 1192 grant was perhaps put into legal form during Richard’s last days at Acre.[1040] The two queens sailed on Michaelmas day,[1041] the king on October 9.[1042]
The causes of the comparative failure of the third Crusade have been much discussed; yet after following in detail the story of that expedition one is led to marvel not at its so-called failure, but at the extent of its success. The truce restored to the Christians, for the period of its duration, the whole coast of Palestine from Haïfa to Joppa, left the southern remainder deprived of its chief stronghold, Ascalon, and secured to the pilgrims the right of free and safe access to the holy places of Jerusalem. If at its expiration Richard had been able to return—as he hoped and intended—to take up again his task in Holy Land, he would have done so with far other prospects of success than those with which he and his followers had set out from Acre in 1190. Saladin himself regarded the position of the Moslem power in Holy Land with grave misgiving. His own health was failing, and he confessed to Bohadin his fears that in case of his death the Franks would come forth from the strongholds which the truce had placed in their hands, and once more become masters of the country.[1043] It was to Richard that the measure of success gained by the Crusade was mainly due; and this fact was fully recognized by the Moslems. A writer of the next generation reports that “the fear of him was so constantly in the hearts and on the lips of the Saracens that when their children cried they said to them, ‘Be quiet! England is coming!’ and when their horses started with affright, they mocked at them saying, ‘What is the matter? Is England in front of us?’”[1044] “England,” in the sense in 1192 which they used the word—as representing England’s king—was destined never to confront them again. But seven centuries later the attainment of the goal was to be granted to “England” in another form, that of an army which, having set out from what Richard had once proposed to secure as the fittest starting-point for the purpose—Egypt—finally closed round the Holy City by ways in every one of which it was almost literally treading in the footsteps of the Lion-Heart.
BOOK III
RICHARD AND EUROPE
1192-1199
—Thy harvest, fame;
Thy study, conquest; war, thy game.
CHAPTER I
RICHARD AND THE EMPIRE
1192-1194
There was I beaten down by little men,