Richard I Part 5

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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sions, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sumed a very threatening att.i.tude. 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 a.s.sembled. 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 n.o.bles 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 ent.i.tled 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 quant.i.ty 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, ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sist him in maintaining his position as King of Sicily against all his enemies. This is a very important circ.u.mstance 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 n.o.bles 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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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 aetna. These engines were for a.s.sailing 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 princ.i.p.al 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 ma.s.sive 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATTERING-RAM.]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BALLISTA.]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CATAPULTA.]

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 grat.i.tude to G.o.d 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.

CHAPTER IX.

BERENGARIA.

1190

Richard's betrothal to Berengaria--The obstacles which prevented the marriage of Richard and Alice.--The first acquaintance of Richard and the Princess Berengaria.--The fame of Berengaria.--Her accomplishments.--Eleanora sent to King Sancho to ask his daughter in marriage.--Berengaria's acceptance.--The expedition to meet Richard.--Berengaria at Brindisi with Joanna.--The friendship between Joanna and Berengaria.--Tancred receives a letter from Philip.--Treachery.--Philip's letter to Tancred.--Richard's opinion of it.--The etiquette of dueling.--Richard charges the letter upon Philip.--Philip's reply.--Richard's declaration.--Richard and Philip compromise their quarrel.--Re-embarkation.--Preparations for the marriage.--Richard escorting Philip.--Why the wedding was postponed.--Richard puts Joanna and Berengaria in charge of Stephen.--The vow to conquer Acre.--Richard's present to Tancred.

While Richard was in the kingdom of Sicily during this memorable winter, he made a new contract of marriage. The lady was a Spanish princess named Berengaria. The circ.u.mstances of this betrothment were somewhat extraordinary.

The reader will recollect that he had been betrothed in his earliest youth to Alice, an infant princess of France. His father had thrown him in, as it were, as a sort of makeweight, in arranging some compromise with the King of France for the settlement of a quarrel, and also to obtain the dower of the young princess for his own use.

This dower consisted of various castles and estates, which were immediately put into the hands of Henry, Richard's father, and which he continued to hold as long as he lived, using and enjoying the rents and revenues from them as his own property. When Richard grew old enough to claim his bride, Henry, under whose custody and charge she had been placed, would not give her up to him; and long and serious quarrels arose between the father and the son on this account, as has already been related in this volume. The most obvious reason for which Henry might be supposed unwilling to give up Alice to her affianced husband, when he became old enough to be married to her, was, that he wished to retain longer the use of the castles and estates that const.i.tuted her dowry. But, in addition to this, it was surmised by many that he had actually fallen in love with her himself, and that he was determined that Richard should not have her at all. Richard himself believed, or pretended to believe, that this was the case. He was consequently very angry, and he justified himself in the wars and rebellions that he raised against his father during the lifetime of the king by this great wrong which he alleged that his father had done him. On the other hand, many persons supposed that Richard did not really wish to marry Alice, and that he only made the fact of his father's withholding her from him a pretext for his unnatural hostility, the real ends and aims of which were objects altogether different.

However this may be, when Henry died, and there was no longer any thing in the way of his marriage, he showed no desire to consummate it. Alice's father, too, had died, and Philip, the present King of France, and Richard's ally, was her brother. Philip called upon Richard from time to time to complete the marriage, but Richard found various pretexts for postponing it, and thus the matter stood when the expedition for the Holy Land set sail from Ma.r.s.eilles.

The next reason why Richard did not now wish to carry his marriage with Alice into effect was that, in the mean time, while his father had been withholding Alice from him, he had seen and fallen in love with another lady, the Princess Berengaria. Richard first saw Berengaria several years before, at a time when he was with his mother in Aquitaine, during the life of his father. The first time that he saw her was at a grand tournament which was celebrated in her native city in Spain, and which Richard went to attend. The families had been well acquainted with each other before, though, until the tournament, Richard had never seen Berengaria. Richard had, however, known one of her brothers from his boyhood, and they had always been very great friends. The father of Berengaria, too, Sancho the Wise, King of Navarre, had always been a warm friend of Eleanora, Richard's mother, and in the course of the difficulties and quarrels that took place between her and her husband, as related in the early chapters of this volume, he had rendered her very valuable services. Still, Richard never saw Berengaria until she had grown up to womanhood.

He, however, felt a strong desire to see her, for she was quite celebrated for her beauty and her accomplishments. The accomplishments in which she excelled were chiefly music and poetry. Richard himself was greatly interested in these arts, especially in the songs of the Troubadours, whose performances always formed a very important part of the entertainment at the feasts and tournaments, and other great public celebrations of those days.

When Richard came to see Berengaria, he fell deeply in love with her.

But he could not seek her hand in marriage on account of his engagement with Alice. To have given up Alice, and to have entered instead into an engagement with her, would have involved both him and his mother, and all the family of Berengaria too, in a fierce quarrel with the King of France, the father of Alice, and also with his own father. These were too serious consequences for him to brave while he was still only a prince, and nominally under his father's authority.

So he did nothing openly, though a strong secret attachment sprang up between him and Berengaria, and all desire ever to make Alice his wife gradually disappeared.

At length, when his father died, and Richard became King of England, he felt at once that the power was now in his own hands, and that he would do as he liked in respect to his marriage. Alice's father, too, had died, and her brother Philip was now king, and he was not likely to feel so strong an interest in resenting any supposed slight to his sister as her father would have been. Richard determined, therefore, to give up Alice altogether, and ask Berengaria to be his wife. So, while he was engaged in England in making his preparations for the crusade, and when he was nearly ready to set out, he sent his mother, Eleanora, to Navarre to ask Berengaria in marriage of her father, King Sancho. He did not, however, give Philip any notice of this change in his plans, not wishing to embarra.s.s the alliance that he and Philip were forming with any unnecessary difficulties which might interfere with the success of it, and r.e.t.a.r.d the preparations for the crusade.

So, while his mother had gone to Spain to secure Berengaria for him as his wife, he himself, in England and Normandy, went on with his preparations for the crusade in connection with Philip, just as if the original engagement with Alice was going regularly on.

Eleanora was very successful in her mission. Sancho, Berengaria's father, was very much pleased with so magnificent an offer as that of the hand of Richard, Duke of Normandy and King of England, for his daughter. Berengaria herself made no objection. Eleanora said that her son had not been able to come himself and claim his bride, on account of the necessity that he was under of accompanying his army to the East, but she said that he would stop at Messina, and she proposed that Berengaria should put herself under her protection, and go and join him there.