After this bad beginning,Richard and his troops went on,in no very good manner,with the Holy Crusade.It was undertaken jointly by the King of England and his old friend Philip of France.They commenced the business by reviewing their forces,to the number of one hundred thousand men.Afterwards,they severally embarked their troops for Messina,in Sicily,which was appointed as the next place of meeting.
King Richard's sister had married the King of this place,but he was dead:and his uncle TANCRED had usurped the crown,cast the Royal Widow into prison,and possessed himself of her estates.
Richard fiercely demanded his sister's release,the restoration of her lands,and (according to the Royal custom of the Island)that she should have a golden chair,a golden table,four-and-twenty silver cups,and four-and-twenty silver dishes.As he was too powerful to be successfully resisted,Tancred yielded to his demands;and then the French King grew jealous,and complained that the English King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Messina and everywhere else.Richard,however,cared little or nothing for this complaint;and in consideration of a present of twenty thousand pieces of gold,promised his pretty little nephew ARTHUR,then a child of two years old,in marriage to Tancred's daughter.
We shall hear again of pretty little Arthur by-and-by.
This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody's brains being knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him),King Richard took his sister away,and also a fair lady named BERENGARIA,with whom he had fallen in love in France,and whom his mother,Queen Eleanor (so long in prison,you remember,but released by Richard on his coming to the Throne),had brought out there to be his wife;and sailed with them for Cyprus.
He soon had the pleasure of fighting the King of the Island of Cyprus,for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the English troops who were shipwrecked on the shore;and easily conquering this poor monarch,he seized his only daughter,to be a companion to the lady Berengaria,and put the King himself into silver fetters.He then sailed away again with his mother,sister,wife,and the captive princess;and soon arrived before the town of Acre,which the French King with his fleet was besieging from the sea.
But the French King was in no triumphant condition,for his army had been thinned by the swords of the Saracens,and wasted by the plague;and SALADIN,the brave Sultan of the Turks,at the head of a numerous army,was at that time gallantly defending the place from the hills that rise above it.
Wherever the united army of Crusaders went,they agreed in few points except in gaming,drinking,and quarrelling,in a most unholy manner;in debauching the people among whom they tarried,whether they were friends or foes;and in carrying disturbance and ruin into quiet places.The French King was jealous of the English King,and the English King was jealous of the French King,and the disorderly and violent soldiers of the two nations were jealous of one another;consequently,the two Kings could not at first agree,even upon a joint assault on Acre;but when they did make up their quarrel for that purpose,the Saracens promised to yield the town,to give up to the Christians the wood of the Holy Cross,to set at liberty all their Christian captives,and to pay two hundred thousand pieces of gold.All this was to be done within forty days;but,not being done,King Richard ordered some three thousand Saracen prisoners to be brought out in the front of his camp,and there,in full view of their own countrymen,to be butchered.
The French King had no part in this crime;for he was by that time travelling homeward with the greater part of his men;being offended by the overbearing conduct of the English King;being anxious to look after his own dominions;and being ill,besides,from the unwholesome air of that hot and sandy country.King Richard carried on the war without him;and remained in the East,meeting with a variety of adventures,nearly a year and a half.
Every night when his army was on the march,and came to a halt,the heralds cried out three times,to remind all the soldiers of the cause in which they were engaged,'Save the Holy Sepulchre!'and then all the soldiers knelt and said 'Amen!'Marching or encamping,the army had continually to strive with the hot air of the glaring desert,or with the Saracen soldiers animated and directed by the brave Saladin,or with both together.Sickness and death,battle and wounds,were always among them;but through every difficulty King Richard fought like a giant,and worked like a common labourer.Long and long after he was quiet in his grave,his terrible battle-axe,with twenty English pounds of English steel in its mighty head,was a legend among the Saracens;and when all the Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust for many a year,if a Saracen horse started at any object by the wayside,his rider would exclaim,'What dost thou fear,Fool?Dost thou think King Richard is behind it?'
No one admired this King's renown for bravery more than Saladin himself,who was a generous and gallant enemy.When Richard lay ill of a fever,Saladin sent him fresh fruits from Damascus,and snow from the mountain-tops.Courtly messages and compliments were frequently exchanged between them-and then King Richard would mount his horse and kill as many Saracens as he could;and Saladin would mount his,and kill as many Christians as he could.In this way King Richard fought to his heart's content at Arsoof and at Jaffa;and finding himself with nothing exciting to do at Ascalon,except to rebuild,for his own defence,some fortifications there which the Saracens had destroyed,he kicked his ally the Duke of Austria,for being too proud to work at them.
The army at last came within sight of the Holy City of Jerusalem;