CHAPTER VI.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE CRUSADE.

1189

At the time of his accession to the throne, Richard, as has already
been remarked, was about thirty-two years of age. On the following
page you have a portrait of him, with the crown upon his head.

This portrait is taken from a sculpture on his tomb, and is
undoubtedly a good representation of him as he appeared when he was
alive.

The first thing that Richard turned his attention to, when he found           
himself securely seated on his throne, was the preparation for a
crusade. It had been the height of his ambition for a long time to
lead a crusade. It was undoubtedly through the influence of his
mother, and of her early conversations with him, that he imbibed his
extraordinary eagerness to seek adventures in the Holy Land. She had
been a crusader herself during her first marriage, as has already been
related in this volume, and she had undoubtedly, in Richard's early
life, entertained him with a thousand stories of what she had seen,
and of the romantic adventures which she had met with there. These
stories, and the various conversations which arose out of them,
kindled Richard's youthful imagination with ardent desires to go and
distinguish himself on the same field. These desires had been greatly
increased as Richard grew up to manhood by observing the exalted
military glory to which successful crusaders attained. And then,
besides this, Richard was endued with a sort of reckless and lion-like
courage, which led him to look upon danger as a sport, and made him
long for a field where there were plenty of enemies to fight, and
enemies so abhorred by the whole Christian world that he could indulge
in the excitement of hatred and rage against them without any
restraint whatever. He could there satiate himself, too, with the
luxury of killing men without any misgiving of conscience, or, at
least, without any condemnation on the part of his fellow-men, for it
was understood throughout Christendom that the crimes committed
against the Saracens in the Holy Land were committed in the name of
Christ. What a strange delusion! To think of honoring the memory of
the meek and lowly Jesus by utterly disregarding his peaceful precepts
and his loving and gentle example, and going forth in thousands to the
work of murder, rapine, and devastation, in order to get possession of
his tomb.

       *       *       *       *       *

In preparing for the crusade, the first and most important thing to
be attended to, in Richard's view, was the raising of money. A great
deal of money would be required, as has already been intimated, to fit
out the expedition on the magnificent scale which Richard intended.
There was a fleet of ships to be built and equipped, and stores of
provisions to be put on board. There were armies to be levied and
paid, and immense expenses were to be incurred in the manufacture of
arms and ammunition. The armor and the arms used in those days,
especially those worn by knights and noblemen, and the caparisons of
the horses, were extremely costly. The armor was fashioned with great
labor and skill out of plates or rings of steel, and the helmets, and
the bucklers, and the swords, and all the military trappings of the
horses and horsemen, being fashioned altogether by hand, required
great labor and skill in the artisan who made them; and then,
moreover, it was customary to decorate them very profusely with
embroidery, and gold, and gems. At the present day, men display their
wealth in the costliness of their houses, and the gorgeousness and
luxury of the furniture which they contain. It is not considered in
good taste--except for ladies--to make a display of wealth upon the
person. In those days, however, the reverse was the case. The knights
and barons lived in the rudest stone castles, dark and frowning
without, and meagerly furnished and comfortless within, while all the
means of display which the owners possessed were lavished in arming
and decorating themselves and their horses magnificently for the field
of battle.

For all these things Richard knew that he should require a large sum
of money, and he proceeded at once to carry into effect the most
wasteful and reckless measures for obtaining it. His father, Henry the
Second, had in various ways acquired a great many estates in different
parts of the kingdom, which estates he had added to the royal domains.
These Richard at once proceeded to sell to whomsoever would give the
most for them. In this manner he disposed of a great number of
castles, fortresses, and towns, so as greatly to diminish the value of
the crown property. The purchasers of this property, if they had not
money enough of their own to pay for what they bought, would borrow of
the Jews. Some of the king's counselors remonstrated with him against
this wasteful policy, but he replied that he needed money so much for
the crusade, that, if necessary, he would sell the city of London
itself to raise it, if he could only find a man rich enough to be the
purchaser.

After having raised as much money as he could by the sale of the royal
lands, the next resource to which Richard turned was the sale of
public offices and titles of honor. He looked about the country for
wealthy men, and he offered them severally high office on condition of
their paying large sums of money into the treasury as a consideration
for them. He sold titles of nobility, too, in the same way. If any man
who was not rich held a high or important office, he would find some
pretext for removing him, and then would offer the office for sale.
One of the historians of those times says that at this period
Richard's presence-chamber became a regular place of trade--like the
counting-room of a merchant or an exchange--where every thing that
could be derived from the bounty of the crown or bestowed by the royal
prerogative was offered for sale in open market to the man who would
give the best bargain for it.

Another of the modes which the king adopted for raising money, and in
some respects the worst of all, was to impose fines as a punishment
for crime, and then, in order to make the fines produce as much as
possible, every imaginable pretext was resorted to to charge wealthy
persons with offenses, with a view of exacting large sums from them as
the penalty. It was said that a great officer of state was charged
with some offense, and was put in prison and not released until he had
paid a fine of three thousand pounds.

One of the worst of these cases was that of his half-brother Geoffrey,
the son of Rosamond. Geoffrey had been appointed Archbishop of York in
accordance with the wish that his father Henry had expressed on his
death-bed. Richard pretended to be displeased with this. Perhaps he
wished to have had that office to dispose of like the rest. At any
rate, he exacted a very large sum from Geoffrey as the condition on
which he would "grant him his peace," as he termed it, and Geoffrey
paid the money.

When, by these and other similar means, Richard had raised all that he
could in England, he prepared to cross the Channel into Normandy, in
order to see what more he could do there. Before he went, however, he
had first to make arrangements for a regency to govern England while
he should be away. This is always the custom in monarchical countries.
Whenever, for any reason, the true sovereign can not personally
exercise the supreme power, whether from minority, insanity,
long-continued sickness, or protracted absence from the realm, a
regency, as it is called, is created to govern the kingdom in his
stead. The person appointed to act as regent is usually some near
relation of the king. Richard's brother John hoped to be made regent,
but this did not suit Richard's views, for he wished to make this
office the means, as all the others had been, of raising money, and
John had no money to give. For the same reason, he could not appoint
his mother, who in other respects would have been a very suitable
person. So Richard contrived a sort of middle course. He sold the
nominal regency to two wealthy courtiers, whom he associated together
for the purpose. One was a bishop, and the other was an earl. It may,
perhaps, be too much to say that he directly sold them the office,
but, at any rate, he appointed them jointly to it, and under the
arrangement that was made he received a large sum of money. He,
however, stipulated that John, and also his mother, should have a
large share of influence in deciding upon all the measures of the
government. John would have been by no means satisfied with this
divided and uncertain share of power were it not that he was so
desirous of favoring the expedition in every possible way, in hopes
that if Richard could once get to the Holy Land he would soon perish
there, and that then he should be king altogether. It was of
comparatively little consequence who was regent in the mean time. So
he resolved to make no objection to any plan that the king might
propose.

Richard was now ready to cross to Normandy; but just before he went
there came a deputation from Philip to consult with him in respect to
the plans of the crusade, and to fix upon the time for setting out.
The time proposed by Philip was the latter part of March. It was now
late in the fall. It would not be safe to set out before March on
account of the inclemency of the season, and Richard supposed that he
should have ample time to complete his preparations by the time that
Philip named. So both parties agreed to it, and they took a solemn
oath on both sides that they would all be ready without fail.

Soon after this Richard took leave of his friends, and, accompanied
by a long retinue of earls, barons, knights, and other adventurers who
were to accompany him to the Holy Land, he left England, and crossed
the Channel to Normandy.

In such cases as this there are always a great many last words to be
said and a great many last arrangements to be made, and Richard found
it necessary to see his mother and his brother John again before
finally taking his departure from Europe. So he sent for them to come
to Normandy, and there another great council of state was held, at
which every thing in relation to the internal affairs of his dominions
was finally arranged. There was still one other danger to be guarded
against, and that was some treachery on the part of Philip himself. So
little reliance did these valiant champions of Christianity place in
each other in those days, that both Richard and Philip, in joining
together to form this expedition, had many misgivings and suspicions
in respect to each other's honesty. Undoubtedly neither of them would
have thought it safe to leave his dominions and go on a crusade unless
the other had been going too. The one left behind would have been sure
to have found some pretext, during the absence of his neighbor, to
invade his dominions and plunder him of some of his possessions. This
was one reason why the two kings had agreed to go together; and now,
as an additional safeguard, they made a formal treaty of alliance and
fraternity, in which they bound themselves by the most solemn oaths to
stand by each other, and to be faithful and true to each other to the
last. They agreed that each would defend the life and honor of the
other on all occasions; that neither would desert the other in the
hour of danger; and that, in respect to the dominions that they were
respectively to leave behind them, neither would form any designs
against the other, but that Philip would cherish and protect the
rights of Richard even as he would protect his own city of Paris, and
that Richard would do the like by Philip, even as he would protect his
own city of Rouen.

It is a curious circumstance that in this treaty Richard should name
Rouen, and not London, as his principal capital. It confirms what is
known in many other ways, that the kings of this line, reigning over
both Normandy and England, considered Normandy as the chief centre of
their power, and England as subordinate. It may be, however, that one
reason why Rouen was named in this instance may have been because it
was nearer to the dominions of the King of France, and so better known
to him.

This treaty was signed in February, and the preparations were now
nearly complete for setting forth on the expedition in March, at the
appointed time.

THE EMBARKATION.

1190

The plan which Richard had formed for conveying his expedition to the
Holy Land was to embark it on board a fleet of ships which he was
sending round to Marseilles for this purpose, with orders to await him
there. Marseilles is in the south of France, not far from the
Mediterranean Sea. Richard might have embarked his troops in the
English Channel; but that, as the reader will see from looking on the
map of Europe, would require them to take a long sea voyage around the
coasts of France and Spain, and through the Straits of Gibraltar.
Richard thought it best to avoid this long circuit for his troops, and
so he sent the ships round, with no more men on board than necessary
to manoeuvre them, while he marched his army across France by land.

As for Philip, he had no ships of his own. England was a maritime
country, and had long possessed a fleet. This fleet had been very much
increased by the exertions of Henry the Second, Richard's father, who
had built several new ships, some of them of very large size,
expressly for the purpose of transporting troops to Palestine. Henry
himself did not live to execute his plans, and so he left his ships
for Richard.

France, on the other hand, was not then a maritime country. Most of
the harbors on the northern coast belonged to Normandy, and even at
the south the ports did not belong to the King of France. Philip,
therefore, had no fleet of his own, but he had made arrangements with
the republic of Genoa to furnish him with ships, and so his plan was
to march over the mountains to that city and embark there, while
Richard should go south to Marseilles.

The king put the fleet under the command of three grand officers of
his court, and he commanded all his seamen and marines to obey them
strictly in all things, as they would obey the king himself if he had
been on board.

The fleet met with a great variety of adventures on its way to
Marseilles. It had not proceeded far before a great tempest arose,
and scattered the ships in every direction. At last, a considerable
number of them succeeded in making their way, in a disabled condition,
into the Tagus, in order to seek succor in Lisbon. The King of
Portugal was at this time at war with the Moors, who had come over
from Africa and invaded his dominions. He proposed to the Crusaders on
board the ships to wait a little while, and assist him in fighting the
Moors. "They are as great infidels," said he, "as any that you will
find in the Holy Land." The commanders of the fleet acceded to this
proposal, but the crews, when they were landed, soon made so many
riots in Lisbon, and involved themselves in such frequent and bloody
affrays with the people of the city, that the King of Portugal was
soon eager to send them away; so, in due time, they embarked again, in
order to continue their voyage.

In the mean time, while the fleet was thus going round by sea, Richard
and Philip were engaged in assembling their forces and making
preparation to march by land. The two armies, when finally organized,
came together at a place of rendezvous called Vezelai, where there
were great plains suitable for the camping-ground of a great military
force. Vezelai was on the road to Lyons, and the armies, after they
had met, marched in company to the latter city. The number of troops
assembled was very great. The united army amounted, it is said, to one
hundred thousand men. This was a very large force for those days. The
great difficulty was to find provision for them from day to day during
the march. Supplies of provisions for such a host can not be carried
far, so that armies are obliged to live on the produce of the country
that they march through, which is collected for this purpose by
foragers from day to day. The allied armies, as they moved slowly on,
impoverished and distressed the whole country through which they
passed, by devouring every thing that the people had in store. At
length, after marching together for some time, they came to the place
where the roads separated, and King Philip turned off to the left in
order to proceed through the passes of the Alps toward Genoa, while
Richard and his hosts proceeded southward toward Marseilles.

When he reached Marseilles, Richard found that his fleet had not
arrived. The delay was occasioned by the storm, and the subsequent
detention of the crews at Lisbon. And yet this was very long after
the time originally appointed for the sailing of the expedition. The
time first appointed was the last of March; but Philip could not go at
that time, on account of the death of his queen, which took place just
before the appointed period. Nor was Richard himself ready. It was not
until the thirtieth of August that the fleet arrived at Marseilles.

When Richard found that the fleet had not come he was greatly
disappointed. He had no means of knowing when to expect it, for there
were no postal or other communications across the country in those
days, as now, by which tidings could be conveyed to him. He waited
eight days very impatiently, and then concluded to go on himself
toward the East, and leave orders for the fleet to follow him. So he
hired ten large vessels and twenty galleys of the merchants of
Marseilles, and in these he embarked a portion of his forces, leaving
the rest to come in the great fleet when it should arrive. They were
to proceed to Messina in Sicily, where Richard was to join them. With
the vessels that he had hired he proceeded along the coast to Genoa,
where he found Philip, the French king, who had arrived there safely
before him by land.

From Marseilles to Genoa the course lies toward the northeast along
the coast of France. Thence, in going toward Messina, it turns toward
the southeast, and follows the coast of Italy. The route may be traced
very easily on any map of modern Europe. The reason why Messina had
been appointed as the great intermediate rendezvous of the fleet was
two-fold. In the first place, it was a convenient port for this
purpose, being a good harbor, and being favorably situated about
midway of the voyage. Then, besides, Richard had a sister residing
there. Her name was Joanna. She had married the king of the country.
Her husband had died, it is true, and she was, at that time in some
sense retired from public life. She was, indeed, in some distress, for
the throne had been seized by a certain Tancred, who was her enemy,
and, as she maintained, not the rightful successor of her husband. So
Richard resolved, in stopping at Messina, to inquire into and redress
his sister's wrongs; or, rather, he thought the occasion offered him a
favorable opportunity to interfere in the affairs of Sicily, and to
lord it over the government and people there in his usual arrogant and
domineering manner.

After waiting a short time at Genoa, Richard set sail again in one of
his small vessels, and proceeded to the southward along the coast of
Italy. He touched at several places on the coast, in order to visit
celebrated cities or other places of interest. He sailed up the River
Arno, which you will find, on the map, flowing into the Gulf of Genoa
a little to the northward of Leghorn. There are two renowned cities on
this river, which are very much visited by tourists and travelers of
the present day, Florence and Pisa. Pisa is near the mouth of the
river. Florence is much farther inland. Richard sailed up as far as
Pisa. After visiting that city, he returned again to the mouth of the
river, and then proceeded on his way down the coast until he came to
the Tiber, and entered that river. He landed at Ostia, a small port
near the mouth of it--the port, in fact, of Rome. One reason why he
landed at Ostia was that the galley in which he was making the voyage
required some repairs, and this was a convenient place for making
them.

Perhaps, too, it was his intention to visit Rome; but while at Ostia
he became involved in a quarrel with the bishop that resided there,
which led him at length to leave Ostia abruptly, and to refuse to go
to Rome. The cause of the quarrel was the bishop's asking him to pay
some money that he owed the Pope. In all the Catholic countries of
Europe, in those days, there were certain taxes and fees that were
collected for the Pope, the income from which was of great importance
in making up the papal revenues. Now Richard, in his eagerness to
secure all the money he could obtain in England to supply his wants
for the crusade, had appropriated to his own use certain of these
church funds, and the bishop now called upon him to reimburse them.
This application, as might have been expected, made Richard extremely
angry. He assailed the bishop with the most violent and abusive
language, and charged all sorts of corruption and wickedness against
the papal government itself. These charges may have been true, but the
occasion of being called upon to pay a debt was not the proper time
for making them. To make the faults or misconduct of others, whether
real or pretended, an excuse for not rendering them their just dues,
is a very base proceeding.

As soon as Richard's galley was repaired, he embarked on board of it
in a rage, and sailed away. The next point at which he landed was
Naples.

Richard was greatly delighted with the city of Naples, which, rising
as it does from the shores of an enchanting bay, and near the base of
the volcano Vesuvius, has long been celebrated for the romantic beauty
of its situation. Richard remained at Naples several days. There is an
account of his going, while there, to perform his devotions in the
crypt of a church. The crypt is a subterranean apartment beneath the
church, the floors above it, as well as the pillars and walls of the
church, being supported by immense piers and arches, which give the
crypt the appearance of a dungeon. The place is commonly used for
tombs and places of sepulture for the dead. In the crypt where Richard
worshiped at Naples, the dead bodies were arranged in niches all
around the walls. They were dressed as they had been when alive, and
their countenances, dry and shriveled, were exposed to view,
presenting a ghastly and horrid spectacle. It was such means as these
that were resorted to, in the Middle Ages, for making religious
impressions on the minds of men.

After spending some days in Naples, Richard concluded that he would
continue his route; but, instead of embarking at once on board his
galley, he determined to go across the mountains by land to Salerno,
which town lies on the sea-coast at some distance south of Naples. By
looking at any map of Italy, you will observe that a great promontory
puts out into the sea just below Naples, forming the Gulf of Salerno
on the south side of it. The pass through the mountains which Richard
followed led across the neck of this promontory. His galley, together
with the other galleys that accompanied him, he sent round by water.
There was a great deal to interest him at Salerno, for it was a place
where many parties of crusaders, Normans among the rest, had landed
before, and they had built churches and monasteries, and founded
institutions of learning there, all of which Richard was much
interested in visiting.

He accordingly remained in Salerno several days, until at length his
fleet of galleys, which had come round from Naples by sea, arrived.
Richard, however, in the mean time, had found traveling by land so
agreeable, that he concluded to continue his journey in that way,
leaving his fleet to sail down the coast, keeping all the time as near
as possible to the shore. The king himself rode on upon the land,
accompanied by a very small troop of attendants. His way led him
sometimes among the mountains of the interior, and sometimes near the
margin of the shore. At some points, where the road approached so near
to the cliffs as to afford a good view of the sea, the fleet of
galleys were to be seen in the offing prosperously pursuing their
voyage.

The king went on in this way till he reached Calabria, which is the
country situated in the southern portion of Italy. The roads here were
very bad, and as the autumn was now coming on, many of the streams
became so swollen with rains that it was difficult sometimes for him
to proceed on his way. At one time, while he was thus journeying, he
became involved in a difficulty with a party of peasants which was
extremely discreditable to him, and exhibits his character in a very
unfavorable light. It seems that he was traveling by an obscure
country road, in company with only a single attendant, when he
happened to pass by a village, where he was told a peasant lived who
had a very fine hunting hawk or falcon. Hunting by means of these
hawks was a common amusement of the knights and nobles of those days;
and Richard, when he heard about this hawk, said that a plain
countryman had no business with such a bird. He declared that he
would go to his house and take it away from him. This act, so
characteristic of the despotic arrogance which marked Richard's
character, shows that the reckless ferocity for which he was so
renowned was not softened or alleviated by any true and genuine
nobleness or generosity. For a rich and powerful king thus to rob a
poor, helpless peasant, and on such a pretext too, was as base a deed
as we can well conceive a royal personage to perform.

Richard at once proceeded to carry his design into execution. He went
into the peasant's house, and having, under some pretext or other, got
possession of the falcon, he began to ride away with the bird on  his
wrist. The peasant called out to him to give him back his bird.
Richard paid no attention to him, but rode on. The peasant then called
for help, and other villagers joining him, they followed the king,
each one having seized in the mean time such weapons as came most
readily to hand. They surrounded the king in order to take the falcon
away, while he attempted to beat them off with his sword. Pretty soon
he broke his sword by a blow which he struck at one of the peasants,
and then he was in a great measure defenseless. His only safety now
was in flight. He contrived to force his way through the circle that
surrounded him, and began to gallop away, followed by his attendant.
At length he succeeded in reaching a priory, where he was received and
protected from farther danger, having, in the mean time, given up the
falcon. When the excitement had subsided he resumed his journey, and
at length, without any farther adventures, reached the coast at the
point nearest to Sicily. Here he passed the night in a tent, which he
pitched upon the rocks on the shore, waiting for arrangements to be
made on the next day for his public entrance into the harbor of
Messina, which lay just opposite to him, across the narrow strait that
here separates the island of Sicily from the main land.

KING RICHARD AT MESSINA.

1190

Although Richard came down to the Italian shore, opposite to Messina,
almost unattended and alone, and under circumstances so
ignoble--fugitive as he was from a party of peasants whom he had
incensed by an act of petty robbery--he yet made his entry at last
into the town itself with a great display of pomp and parade. He
remained on the Italian side of the strait, after he arrived on the
shore, until he had sent over to Messina, and informed the officers of
his fleet, which, by the way, had already arrived there, that he had
come. The whole fleet immediately got ready, and came over to the
Italian side to take Richard on board and escort him over. Richard
entered the harbor with his fleet as if he were a conqueror returning
home. The ships and galleys were all fully manned and gayly decorated,
and Richard arranged such a number of musicians on the decks of them
to blow trumpets and horns as the fleet sailed along the shores and
entered the harbor that the air was filled with the echoes of them,
and the whole country was called out by the sound. The Sicilians were
quite alarmed to see so formidable a host of foreign soldiers coming
among them; and even their allies, the French, were not pleased.
Philip began to be jealous of Richard's superior power, and to be
alarmed at his assuming and arrogant demeanor. Philip had arrived in
Messina some time before this, but his fleet, which was originally an
inferior one, having consisted of such vessels only as he could hire
at Genoa, had been greatly injured by storms during the passage, so
that he had reached Messina in a very crippled condition. And now to
see Richard coming in apparently so much his superior, and with so
evident a disposition to make a parade of his superiority, made him
anxious and uneasy.

The same feeling manifested itself, too, among his troops, and this to
such a degree as to threaten to break out into open quarrels between
the soldiers of the two armies.

"It will never answer," thought Philip, "for us both to remain long at
Messina; so I will set out again myself as soon as I possibly can."

Indeed, there was another very decisive reason for Philip's soon
continuing his voyage, and that was the necessity of diminishing the
number of soldiers now at Messina on account of the difficulty of
finding sustenance for them all. Philip accordingly made all haste to
refit his fleet and to sail away; but he was again unfortunate. He
encountered another storm, and was obliged to put back again, and
before he could be ready a second time the winter set in, and he was
obliged to give up all hope of leaving Sicily until the spring.

The two kings had foreseen this difficulty, and had earnestly
endeavored to avoid it by making all their arrangements in the first
instance for setting out from England and France in March, which was
the earliest possible season for navigating the Mediterranean safely
with such vessels as they had in those days. But this plan the reader
will recollect had been frustrated by the death of Philip's queen, and
the delays attendant upon that event, as well as other delays arising
from other causes, and it was past midsummer before the expedition was
ready to take its departure. The kings had still hoped to have reached
the Holy Land before winter, but now they found themselves stopped on
the way, and Philip, with many misgivings in respect to the result,
prepared to make the best arrangements that he could for putting his
men into winter quarters.

Richard did in the end become involved in difficulties with Philip and
with the French troops, but the most serious affair which occupied his
attention was a very extraordinary quarrel which he instigated between
himself and the king of the country. The name of this king was
Tancred.

The kingdom of Sicily in those days included not merely the island of
Sicily, but also nearly all the southern part of Italy--all that part,
namely, which forms the foot and ankle of Italy, as seen upon the map.
It has already been said that Richard's sister Joanna some years ago
married the king of this country. The name of the king whom Joanna
married was William, and he was now dead. Tancred was his successor,
though not the regular and rightful heir. In order that the reader may
understand the nature of the quarrel which broke out between Tancred
and Richard, it is necessary to explain how it happened that Tancred
succeeded to the throne.

If William, Joanna's husband, had had a son, he would have been the
rightful successor; but William had no children, and some time before
his death he gave up all expectation of ever having any, so he began
to look around and consider who should be his heir.

He fixed his mind upon a lady, the Princess Constance, who was his
cousin and his nearest relative. She would have been the heir had it
not been that the usages of the realm did not allow a woman to reign.
There was another relative of William, a young man named Tancred. For
some reasons, William was very unwilling that Tancred should succeed
him. He knew, however, that the people would be extremely averse to
receive Constance as their sovereign instead of Tancred, on account of
her being a woman; but he thought that he might obviate this objection
in some degree by arranging a marriage for her with some powerful
prince. This he finally succeeded in doing. The prince whom he chose
was a son of the Emperor of Germany. His name was Henry. Constance was
married to him, and after her marriage she left Sicily and went home
with her husband. William then assembled all his barons, and made them
take an oath of allegiance to Constance and Henry, as rightful
sovereigns after his decease. Supposing every thing to be thus
amicably arranged, he settled himself quietly in his capital, the city
of Palermo, intending to live there in peace with his wife for the
remainder of his days.

When he married Joanna, he had given her, for her dower, a large
territory of rich estates in Italy. These estates were all together,
and comprised what is called the promontory of Mont Gargano. You will
see this promontory represented on any map of Italy by a small
projection on the heel, or, rather, a little way above the heel of the
foot, on the eastern side of the peninsula. It is nearly opposite to
Naples. This territory was large, and contained, besides a number of
valuable landed estates, several castles, with lakes and forests
adjoining; also two monasteries, with their pastures, woods, and
vineyards, and several beautiful lakes. These estates, and all the
income from them, were secured to Joanna forever.

Not very long after William had completed his arrangements for the
succession, he died unexpectedly, while Constance was away from the
kingdom, at home with her husband. Immediately a great number of
competitors started up and claimed the crown. Among them was Tancred.
Tancred took the field, and, after a desperate contest with his
rivals, at length carried the day. He considered Joanna, the queen
dowager, as his enemy, and either confiscated her estates or allowed
others to seize them. He then took her with him to Palermo, where, as
Richard was led to believe, he kept her a prisoner. All these things
happened a few months only before Richard arrived in Messina.

Palermo, as you will see from any map of Sicily, lies near the
northwest corner of Sicily, and Messina near the northeast. In
consequence of these occurrences, it happened that when Richard landed
in Sicily he found his sister, the wife of the former king of the
country, a widow and a prisoner, and her estates confiscated, while a
person whom he considered a usurper was on the throne. A better state
of things to furnish him with a pretext for aggressions on the country
or the people he could not possibly have desired.

As soon as he had landed his troops, he formed a great encampment for
them on the sea-shore, outside the town. The place of the encampment
was bordered at one extremity by the suburbs of the town, and at the
other extremity was a monastery built on a height. As soon as Richard
had established himself here, he sent a delegation to Tancred at
Palermo, demanding that he should release Joanna and send her to him.
Tancred denied that Joanna had been imprisoned at all, and, at any
rate, he immediately acceded to her brother's demand that she should
be sent to him. He placed her on board one of his own royal galleys,
and caused her to be conveyed in it, with a very honorable escort, to
Messina, and there delivered up to Richard's care.

In respect to the dower which Richard had demanded that he should
restore, Tancred commenced giving some explanations in regard to it,
but Richard was too impatient to listen to them. "We will not wait,"
said he to his sister, "to hear any talking on the subject; we will go
and take possession of the territory ourselves."

So he embarked a part of his army on board some ships and transported
them across the Straits, and, landing on the Italian shore, he seized
a castle and a portion of territory surrounding it. He put a strong
garrison in the castle, and gave the command of it to Joanna, while he
went back to Messina to strengthen the position of the remainder of
his army there. He thought that the monastery which flanked his
encampment on the side farthest from the town would make a good
fortress if he had possession of it, and that, if well fortified, it
would strengthen very much the defenses of his encampment in case
Tancred should attempt to molest him. So he at once took possession of
it. He turned the monks out of doors, removed all the sacred
implements and emblems, and turned the buildings into a fortress. He
put in a garrison of soldiers to guard it, and filled the rooms which
the monks had been accustomed to use for their studies and their
prayers with stores of arms and ammunition brought in from the ships,
and with other apparatus of war. His object was to be ready to meet
Tancred, at a moment's warning, if he should attempt to attack him.

Soon after this a very serious difficulty broke out between the
soldiers of the army and the people of Messina. There is almost always
difficulty between the soldiers of an army and the people of any town
near which the army is encamped. The soldiers, brutal in their
passions, and standing in awe of none but their own officers, are
often exceedingly violent and unjust in their demeanor toward unarmed
and helpless citizens, and the citizens, though they usually endure
very long and very patiently, sometimes become aroused to resentment
and retaliation at last. In this case, parties of Richard's soldiers
went into Messina, and behaved so outrageously toward the inhabitants,
and especially toward the young women, that the indignation of the
husbands and fathers was excited to the highest degree. The soldiers
were attacked in the streets. Several of them were killed. The rest
fled, and were pursued by the crowd of citizens to the gates. Those
that escaped went to the camp, breathless with excitement and burning
with rage, and called upon all their fellow-soldiers to join them and
revenge their wrongs. A great riot was created, and bands of furious
men, hastily collected together, advanced toward the city, brandishing
their arms and uttering furious cries, determined to break through the
gates and kill every body that they could find. Richard heard of the
danger just in time to mount his horse and ride to the gates of the
city, and there to head off the soldiers and drive them back; but they
were so furious that, for a time, they would not hear him, but still
pressed on. He was obliged to ride in among them, and actually beat
them back with his truncheon, before he could compel them to give up
their design.

The next day a meeting of the chief officers in the two armies, with
the chief magistrates and some of the principal citizens of Messina,
was held, to consider what to do to settle this dispute, and to
prevent future outbreaks of this character. But the state of
excitement between the two parties was too great to be settled yet in
any amicable manner. While the conference was proceeding, a great
crowd of people from the town collected on a rising ground just above
the place where the conference was sitting. They said they only came
as spectators. Richard alleged, on the other hand, that they were
preparing to attack the conference. At any rate, they were excited and
angry, and assumed a very threatening attitude. Some Normans who
approached them got into an altercation with them, and at length one
of the Normans was killed, and the rest cried out, "To arms!" The
conference broke up in confusion. Richard rushed to the camp and
called out his men. He was in a state of fury. Philip did all in his
power to allay the storm and to prevent a combat, and when he found
that Richard would not listen to him, he declared that he had a great
mind to join with the Sicilians and fight him. This, however, he did
not do, but contented himself with doing all he could to calm the
excitement of his angry ally. But Richard was not to be controlled. He
rushed on, at the head of his troops, up the hill to the ground where
the Sicilians were assembled. He attacked them furiously. They were,
to some extent, armed, but they were not organized, and, of course,
they could not stand against the charge of the soldiers. They fled in
confusion toward the city. Richard and his troops followed them,
killing as many of them as they could in the pursuit. The Sicilians
crowded into the city and shut the gates. Of course, the whole town
was now alarmed, and all the people that could fight were marshaled on
the walls and at the gates to defend themselves.

Richard retired for a brief period till he could bring on a larger
force, and then made a grand attack on the walls. Several of his
officers and soldiers were killed by darts and arrows from the
battlements, but at length the walls were taken by storm, the gates
were opened, and Richard marched in at the head of his troops. When
the people were entirely subdued, Richard hung out his flag on a high
tower in token that he had taken full and formal possession of
Tancred's capital.

Philip remonstrated against this very strongly, but Richard declared
that, now that he had got possession of Messina, he would keep
possession until Tancred came to terms with him in respect to his
sister Joanna. Philip insisted that he should not do this, but
threatened to break off the alliance unless Richard would give up the
town. Finally the matter was compromised by Richard agreeing that he
would take down the flag and withdraw from the town himself, and for
the present put it under the government of certain knights that he and
Philip should jointly appoint for this purpose.

After the excitement of this affair had a little subsided, Richard and
Philip began to consider how unwise it was for them to quarrel with
each other, engaged as they were together in an enterprise of such
magnitude and of so much hazard, and one in which it was impossible
for them to hope to succeed, unless they continued united, and so they
became reconciled, or, at least, pretended to be so, and made new vows
of eternal friendship and brotherhood.

Still, notwithstanding these protestations, Richard went on lording it
over the Sicilians in the most high-handed manner. Some nobles of
high rank were so indignant at these proceedings that they left the
town. Richard immediately confiscated their estates and converted the
proceeds to his own use. He proceeded to fortify his encampment more
and more. The monastery which he had forcibly taken from the monks he
turned into a complete castle. He made battlements on the walls, and
surrounded the whole with a moat. He also built another castle on the
hills commanding the town. He acted, in a word, in all respects as if
he considered himself master of the country. He did not consult Philip
at all in respect to any of these proceedings, and he paid no
attention to the remonstrances that Philip from time to time addressed
to him. Philip was exceedingly angry, but he did not see what he could
do.

Tancred, too, began to be very much alarmed. He wished to know of
Richard what it was that he demanded in respect to Joanna. Richard
said he would consider and let him know. In a short time he made known
his terms as follows. He said that Tancred must restore to his sister
all the territories which, as he alleged, had belonged to her, and
also give her "a golden chair, a golden table twelve feet long and a
foot and a half broad, two golden supports for the same, four silver
cups, and four silver dishes." He pretended that, by a custom of the
realm, she was entitled to these things. He also demanded for himself
a very large contribution toward the armament and equipment for the
crusade. It seems that at one period during the lifetime of William,
Joanna's husband, her father, King Henry of England, was planning a
crusade, and that William, by a will which he made at that time--so at
least Richard maintained--had bequeathed a large contribution toward
the necessary means for fitting it out. The items were these:

     1. Sixty thousand measures of wheat.

     2. The same quantity of barley.

     3. A fleet of a thousand armed galleys, equipped and
     provisioned for two years.

     4. A silken tent large enough to accommodate two hundred
     knights sitting at a banquet.

These particulars show on how great a scale these military expeditions
for conquering the Holy Land were conducted in those days, the above
list being only a complimentary contribution to one of them by a
friend of the leader of it.

Richard now maintained that, though his father Henry had died without
going on the crusade, still he himself was going, and that he, being
the son, and consequently the representative and heir of Henry, was,
as such, entitled to receive the bequest; so he called upon Tancred to
pay it.

After much negotiation, the dispute was settled by Richard's waiving
these claims, and arranging the matter on a new and different basis.
He had a nephew named Arthur. Arthur was yet very young, being only
about two years old; and as Richard had no children of his own, Arthur
was his presumptive heir. Tancred had a daughter, yet an infant. Now
it was finally proposed that Arthur and this young daughter of Tancred
should be affianced, and that Tancred should pay to Richard twenty
thousand pieces of gold as her dowry! Richard was, of course, to take
this money as the guardian and trustee of his nephew, and he was to
engage that, if any thing should occur hereafter to prevent the
marriage from taking place, he would refund the money. Tancred was
also to pay Richard twenty thousand pieces of gold besides, in full
settlement of all claims in behalf of Joanna. These terms were finally
agreed to on both sides.

Richard also entered into a league, offensive and defensive, with
Tancred, agreeing to assist him in maintaining his position as King of
Sicily against all his enemies. This is a very important circumstance
to be remembered, for the chief of Tancred's enemies was the Emperor
Henry of Germany, the prince who had married Constance, as has been
already related. Henry's father had died, and he had become Emperor of
Germany himself, and he now claimed Sicily as the inheritance of
Constance his wife, according to the will of King William, Joanna's
husband. Tancred, he maintained, was a usurper, and, of course, now
Richard, by his league, offensive and defensive, with Tancred, made
himself Henry's enemy. This led him into serious difficulty with Henry
at a subsequent period, as we shall by-and-by see.

The treaty between Richard and Tancred was drawn up in due form and
duly executed, and it was sent for safe keeping to Rome, and there
deposited with the Pope. Tancred paid Richard the money, and he
immediately began to squander it in the most lavish and extravagant
manner. He expended the infant princess's dower, which he held in
trust for Arthur, as freely as he did the other money. Indeed, this
was a very common way, in those days, for great kings to raise money.
If they had a young son or heir, no matter how young he was, they
would contract to give him in marriage to the little daughter of some
other potentate on condition of receiving some town, or castle, or
province, or large sum of money as dower. The idea was, of course,
that they were to take this dower in charge for the young prince, to
keep it for him until he should become old enough to be actually
married, but in reality they would take possession of the property
themselves, and convert it at once to their own use.

Richard himself had been affianced in this way in his infancy to
Alice, the daughter of the then reigning King of France, and the
sister of Philip, and his father, King Henry the Second, had received
and appropriated the dowry.

Indeed, in this case, both the sums of money that Richard received
from Tancred were paid to Richard in trust, or, at least, ought to
have been so regarded, the one amount being for Arthur, and the other
for Joanna. Richard himself, in his own name, had no claims on Tancred
whatever; but as soon as the money came into his hands, he began to
expend it in the most profuse and lavish manner. He adopted a very
extravagant and ostentatious style of living. He made costly presents
to the barons, and knights, and officers of the armies, including the
French army as well as his own, and gave them most magnificent
entertainments. Philip thought that he did this to secure popularity,
and that the presents which he made to the French knights and nobles
were designed to entice them away from their allegiance and fidelity
to him, their lawful sovereign. At Christmas he gave a splendid
entertainment, to which he invited every person of the rank of a
knight or a gentleman in both armies, and at the close of the feast he
made a donation in money to each of the guests, the sum being
different in different cases, according to the rank and station of the
person who received it.

The king, having thus at last settled his quarrels and established
himself in something like peace in Sicily, began to turn his attention
toward the preparations for the spring. Of course, his intention was,
as soon as the spring should open, to set sail with his fleet and
army, and proceed toward the Holy Land. He now caused all his ships to
be examined with a view to ascertain what repairs they needed. Some
had been injured by the storms which they had encountered on the way
from Marseilles or by accidents of the sea. Others had become
worm-eaten and leaky by lying in port. Richard caused them all to be
put thoroughly in repair. He also caused a number of battering engines
to be constructed of timber which his men hauled from the forests
around the base of Mount Жtna. These engines were for assailing the
walls of the towns and fortresses in the Holy Land.

In modern times walls are always attacked with mortars and cannon. The
ordnance of the present day will throw shot and shells of prodigious
weight two or three miles, and these tremendous missiles strike
against the walls of a fortress with such force as in a short time to
batter them down, no matter how strong and thick they may be. But in
those days gunpowder was not in use, and the principal means of
breaking down a wall was by the battering-ram, which consisted of a
heavy beam of wood, hung by a rope or chain from a massive frame, and
then swung against the gate or wall which it was intended to break
through. In the engraving you see such a ram suspended from the frame,
with men at work below, impelling it against a gateway.

Sometimes these battering-rams were very large and heavy, and the men
drew them back and forth, in striking the wall with them, by means of
ropes. There are accounts of some battering-rams which weighed forty
or fifty tons, and required fifteen hundred men to work them.

The men, of course, were very much exposed while engaged in this
operation, for the people whom they were besieging would gather on the
walls above, and shoot spears, darts, and arrows at them, and throw
down stones and other missiles, as you see in the engraving.

Then, besides the battering-ram, which, though very efficient against
walls, was of no service against men, there were other engines made
in those days which were designed to throw stones or monstrous darts.
These last were, of course, designed to operate against bodies of men.
They were made in various forms, and were called catapultas,
ballistas, maginalls, and by other such names. The force with which
they operated consisted of springs made by elastic bars of wood,
twisted ropes, and other such contrivances.

Some were for throwing stones, others for monstrous darts. Of course,
these engines required for their construction heavy frames of sound
timber. Richard did not expect to find such timber in the Holy Land,
nor did he wish to consume the time after he should arrive in making
them; so he employed the winter in constructing a great number of
these engines, and in packing them, in parts, on board his galleys.

Richard performed a great religious ceremony, too, while he was at
Sicily this winter, as a part of the preparation which he deemed it
necessary to make for the campaign. It is a remarkable fact that every
great military freebooter that has organized an armed gang of men to
go forth, and rob and murder his fellow-men, in any age of the world,
has considered some great religious performance necessary at the
outset of the work, to prepare the minds of his soldiers for it, and
to give them the necessary resolution and confidence in it. It was so
with Alexander. It was so with Xerxes and with Darius. It was so with
Pyrrhus. It is so substantially at the present day, when, in all wars,
each side makes itself the champion of heaven in the contest, and
causes Te Deums to be chanted in their respective churches, now on
this side and now on that, in pretended gratitude to God for their
alternate victories.

Richard called a grand convention of all the prelates and monks that
were with his army, and performed a solemn act of worship. A part of
the performance consisted of his kneeling personally before the
priests, confessing his sins and the wicked life that he had led, and
making very fervent promises to sin no more, and then, after
submitting to the penances which they enjoined upon him, receiving
from them pardon and absolution. After the enactment of this
solemnity, the soldiers felt far more safe and strong in going forth
to the work which lay before them in the Holy Land than before.

Nor is it certain that in this act Richard was wholly hypocritical and
insincere. The human heart is a mansion of many chambers, and a
religious sentiment, in no small degree conscientious and honest,
though hollow and mistaken, may have strong possession of some of
them, while others are filled to overflowing with the dear and
besetting sins, whatever they are, by which the general conduct of the
man is controlled.