RICHARD I.
THE KING'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE CRUSADE.--SETS OUT ON THE CRUSADE.--
TRANSACTIONS IN SICILY.--KING'S ARRIVAL IN PALESTINE.--STATE OF
PALESTINE.--DISORDERS IN ENGLAND.--THE KING'S HEROIC ACTIONS IN
PALESTINE.--HIS RETURN FROM PALESTINE.--CAPTIVITY IN GERMANY.--WAR
WITH FRANCE.--THE KING'S DELIVERY.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--WAR WITH
FRANCE.--DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THE KING.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS
OF THIS REIGN.
[MN 1189.] The compunction of Richard for his undutiful behaviour
towards his father was durable, and influenced him in the choice of
his ministers and servants after his accession. Those who had
seconded and favoured his rebellion, instead of meeting with that
trust and honour which they expected, were surprised to find that they
lay under disgrace with the new king, and were on all occasions hated
and despised by him. The faithful ministers of Henry, who had
vigorously opposed all the enterprises of his sons, were received with
open arms, and were continued in those offices which they had
honourably discharged to their former master [a]. This prudent
conduct might be the result of reflection; but in a prince like
Richard, so much guided by passion, and so little by policy, it was
commonly ascribed to a principle still more virtuous and more
honourable.
[FN [a] Hoveden, p. 655. Bened. Abb. p. 547. M. Paris, p. 107.]
Richard, that he might make atonement to one parent for his breach of
duty to the other, immediately sent orders for releasing the queen-
dowager from the confinement in which she had long been detained; and
he intrusted her with the government of England till his arrival in
that kingdom. His bounty to his brother John was rather profuse and
imprudent. Besides bestowing on him the county of Mortaigne, in
Normandy, granting him a pension of four thousand marks a year, and
marrying him to Avisa, the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, by whom
he inherited all the possessions of that opulent family, he increased
his appanage, which the late king had destined him, by other extensive
grants and concessions. He conferred on him the whole estate of
William Peverell, which had escheated to the crown: he put him in
possession of eight castles, with all the forests and honours annexed
to them: he delivered over to him no less than six earldoms, Cornwall,
Devon, Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster, and Derby. And
endeavouring by favours, to fix that vicious prince in his duty, he
put it too much in his power, whenever he pleased, to depart from it.
[MN The kings preparations for the crusade.]
The king, impelled more by the love of military glory than by
superstition, acted from the beginning of his reign, as if the sole
purpose of his government had been the relief of the Holy Land, and
the recovery of Jerusalem from the Saracens. This zeal against
infidels, being communicated to his subjects, broke out in London on
the day of his coronation, and made them find a crusade less
dangerous, and attended with more immediate profit. The prejudices of
the age had made the lending of money on interest pass by the
invidious name of usury; yet the necessity of the practice had still
continued it, and the greater part of that kind of dealing fell
everywhere into the hands of the Jews; who being already infamous on
account of their religion, had no honour to lose, and were apt to
exercise a profession, odious in itself, by every kind of rigour, and
even sometimes by rapine and extortion. The industry and frugality of
this people had put them in possession of all the ready money, which
the idleness and profusion, common to the English with other European
nations, enabled them to lend at exorbitant and unequal interest. The
monkish writers represent it as a great stain on the wise and
equitable government of Henry, that he had carefully protected this
infidel race from all injures and insults; but the zeal of Richard
afforded the populace a pretence for venting their animosity against
them. The king had issued an edict prohibiting their appearance at
his coronation; but some of them, bringing him large presents from
their nation, presumed, in confidence of that merit, to approach the
hall in which he dined: being discovered, they were exposed to the
insults of the bystanders; they took to flight; the people pursued
them; the rumour was spread that the king had issued orders to
massacre all the Jews; a command so agreeable was executed in an
instant on such as fell into the hands of the populace; those who had
kept at home were exposed to equal danger; the people, moved by
rapacity and zeal, broke into their houses, which they plundered,
after having murdered the owners; where the Jews barricaded their
doors, and defended themselves with vigour, the rabble set fire to the
houses, and made way through the flames to exercise their pillage and
violence; the usual licentiousness of London, which the sovereign
power with difficulty restrained, broke out with fury, and continued
these outrages; the houses of the richest citizens, though Christians,
were next attacked and plundered; and weariness and satiety at last
put an end to the disorder: yet, when the king empowered Glanville,
the justiciary, to inquire into the authors of these crimes, the guilt
was found to involve so many of the most considerable citizens, that
it was deemed more prudent to drop the prosecution; and very few
suffered the punishment due to this enormity. But the disorder
stopped not at London. The inhabitants of the other cities of
England, hearing of this slaughter of the Jews, imitated the example:
in York, five hundred of that nation, who had retired into the castle
for safety, and found themselves unable to defend the place, murdered
their own wives and children, threw the dead bodies over the walls
upon the populace, and then setting fire to the houses perished in the
flames. The gentry of the neighbourhood, who were all indebted to the
Jews, ran to the cathedral, where their bonds were kept, and made a
solemn bonfire of the papers before the altar. The compiler of the
Annals of Waverley, in relating these events, blesses the Almighty for
thus delivering over this impious race to destruction [b].
[FN [b] Gale's Collect. vol. iii. p. 165.]
The ancient situation of England, when the people possessed little
riches and the public no credit, made it impossible for sovereigns to
bear the expense of a steady or durable war, even on their frontiers;
much less could they find regular means for the support of distant
expeditions like those into Palestine, which were more the result of
popular frenzy than of sober reason or deliberate policy. Richard,
therefore, knew that he must carry with him all the treasure necessary
for his enterprise, and that both the remoteness of his own country
and its poverty made it unable to furnish him with those continued
supplies, which the exigencies of so perilous a war must necessarily
require. His father had left him a treasure of above a hundred
thousand marks; and the king, negligent of every consideration but his
present object, endeavoured to augment this sum by all expedients, how
pernicious soever to the public, or dangerous to royal authority. He
put to sale the revenues and manors of the crown; the offices of
greatest trust and power, even those of forester and sheriff, which
anciently were so important [c], became venal; the dignity of chief
justiciary, in whose hands was lodged the whole execution of the laws,
was sold to Hugh de Puzas, Bishop of Durham, for a thousand marks; the
same prelate bought the earldom of Northumberland for life [d]; many
of the champions of the cross, who had repented of the vow, purchased
the liberty of violating it; and Richard, who stood less in need of
men than of money, dispensed, on these conditions, with their
attendance. Elated with the hopes of fame, which, in that age,
attended no wars but those against the infidels, he was blind to every
other consideration; and when some of his wiser ministers objected to
this dissipation of the revenue and power of the crown, he replied
that he would sell London itself, could he find a purchaser [e].
Nothing, indeed, could be a stronger proof how negligent he was of all
future interests in comparison of the crusade, than his selling, for
so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the vassalage of Scotland,
together with the fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick, the greatest
acquisition that had been made by his father during the course of his
victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in the usual
terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in England
[f]. The English of all ranks and stations were oppressed by numerous
exactions; menaces were employed, both against the innocent and the
guilty, in order to extort money from them; and where a pretence was
wanting against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his
displeasure, to lend him sums which, he knew, it would never be in his
power to repay.
[FN [c] The sheriff had anciently both the administration of justice
and the management of the king's revenue committed to him in the
county. See HALE, OF SHERIFFS ACCOUNTS. [d] M. Paris, p. 109. [e]
W. Heming. p. 519. Knyghton, p. 2402. [f] Hoveden, p. 662. Rymer,
vol. i. p. 64. M. West. p. 257.]
But Richard, though he sacrificed every interest and consideration to
the success of this pious enterprise, carried so little the appearance
of sanctity in his conduct, that Fulk, curate of Neuilly, a zealous
preacher of the crusade, who, from that merit, had acquired the
privilege of speaking the boldest truths, advised him to rid himself
of his notorious vices, particularly his pride, avarice, and
voluptuousness, which he called the king's three favourite daughters.
YOU COUNSEL WELL, replied Richard, and I HEREBY DISPOSE OF THE FIRST
TO THE TEMPLARS, OF THE SECOND TO THE BENEDICTINES, AND OF THE THIRD
TO MY PRELATES.
Richard, jealous of attempts which might be made on England during his
absence, laid Prince John, as well as his natural brother, Geoffrey,
Archbishop of York, under engagements, confirmed by their oaths, that
neither of them should enter the kingdom till his return; though he
thought proper, before his departure, to withdraw this prohibition.
The administration was left in the hands of Hugh, Bishop of Durham,
and of Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and
guardians of the realm. The latter was a Frenchman, of mean birth,
and of a violent character; who, by art and address, had insinuated
himself into favour, whom Richard had created chancellor, and whom he
had engaged the pope also to invest with the legatine authority, that,
by centering every kind of power in his person, he might the better
ensure the public tranquillity. All the military and turbulent
spirits flocked about the person of the king, and were impatient to
distinguish themselves against the infidels in Asia; whither his
inclinations, his engagements, led him, and whither he was impelled by
messages from the King of France, ready to embark in this enterprise.
The Emperor Frederic, a prince of great spirit and conduct, had
already taken the road to Palestine, at the head of one hundred and
fifty thousand men, collected from Germany and all the northern
states. Having surmounted every obstacle thrown in his way by the
artifices of the Greeks and the power of the infidels, he had
penetrated to the borders of Syria; when, bathing in the cold river
Cydnus during the greatest heat of the summer season, he was seized
with a mortal distemper, which put an end to his life and his rash
enterprise [g]. His army, under the command of his son, Conrade,
reached Palestine; but was so diminished by fatigue, famine, maladies,
and the sword, that it scarcely amounted to eight thousand men; and
was unable to make any progress against the great power, valour, and
conduct of Saladin. These reiterated calamities attending the
crusades had taught the Kings of France and England the necessity of
trying another road to the Holy Land; and they determined to conduct
their armies thither by sea, to carry provisions along with them, and,
by means of their naval power, to maintain an open communication with
their own states, and with the western parts of Europe. The place of
rendezvous was appointed in the plains of Vezelay, on the borders of
Burgundy [h]: [MN 1190. 29th June.] Philip and Richard, on their
arrival there, found their combined army amount to one hundred
thousand men [i]; a mighty force, animated with glory and religion,
conducted by two warlike monarchs, provided with every thing which
their several dominions could supply, and not to be overcome but by
their own misconduct, or by the unsurmountable obstacles of nature.
[FN [g] Bened. Abb. p. 556. [h] Hoveden, p. 660. [i] Vinisauf, p.
305.]
[MN King sets out on the crusade.]
The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises of
cordial friendship, pledged their faith not to invade each other's
dominions during the crusade, mutually exchanged the oaths of all
their barons and prelates to the same effect, and subjected themselves
to the penalty of interdicts and excommunications, if they should ever
violate this public and solemn engagement. They then separated;
Philip took the road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view
of meeting their fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous
in these harbours. [MN 14th Sept.] They put to sea; and, nearly
about the same time, were obliged, by stress of weather, to take
shelter in Messina, where they were detained during the whole winter.
This incident laid the foundation of animosities which proved fatal to
their enterprise.
Richard and Philip were, by the situation and extent of their
dominions, rivals in power; by their age and inclinations, competitors
for glory; and these causes of emulation which, had the princes been
employed in the field against the common enemy, might have stimulated
them to martial enterprises, soon excited, during the present leisure
and repose, quarrels between monarchs of such a fiery character.
Equally haughty, ambitious, intrepid, and inflexible, they were
irritated with the least appearance of injury, and were incapable, by
mutual condescensions, to efface those causes of complaint, which
unavoidably arose between them. Richard, candid, sincere,
undesigning, impolitic, violent, laid himself open, on every occasion,
to the designs of his antagonist; who, provident, interested,
intriguing, failed not to take all advantages against him: and thus,
both the circumstances of their disposition in which they were
similar, and those in which they differed, rendered it impossible for
them to persevere in that harmony which was so necessary to the
success of their undertaking.
[MN Transactions in Sicily.]
The last King of Sicily and Naples was William II., who had married
Joan, sister to Richard, and who, dying without issue, had bequeathed
his dominions to his paternal aunt, Constantia, the only legitimate
descendant surviving of Roger, the first sovereign of those states who
had been honoured with the royal title. This princess had, in
expectation of that rich inheritance, been married to Henry VI., the
reigning emperor [k]; but Tancred, her natural brother, had fixed such
an interest among the barons, that, taking advantage of Henry's
absence, he had acquired possession of the throne, and maintained his
claim, by force of arms, against all the efforts of the Germans [l].
The approach of the crusaders naturally gave him apprehensions for his
unstable government; and he was uncertain, whether he had most reason
to dread the presence of the French or of the English monarch. Philip
was engaged in a strict alliance with the emperor his competitor;
Richard was disgusted by his rigours towards the queen-dowager, whom
the Sicilian prince had confined in Palermo, because she had opposed
with all her interest his succession to the crown. Tancred,
therefore, sensible of the present necessity, resolved to pay court to
both these formidable princes; and he was not unsuccessful in his
endeavours. He persuaded Philip that it was highly improper for him
to interrupt his enterprise against the infidels, by any attempt
against a Christian state: he restored Queen Joan to her liberty; and
even found means to make an alliance with Richard, who stipulated by
treaty to marry his nephew, Arthur, the young Duke of Britany, to one
of the daughters of Tancred [m]. But before these terms of friendship
were settled, Richard, jealous both of Tancred and of the inhabitants
of Messina, had taken up his quarters in the suburbs, and had
possessed himself of a small fort, which commanded the harbour; and he
kept himself extremely on his guard against their enterprises. [MN 3d
Oct.] The citizens took umbrage. Mutual insults and attacks passed
between them and the English: Philip, who had quartered his troops in
the town, endeavoured to accommodate the quarrel, and held a
conference with Richard for that purpose. While the two kings,
meeting in the open fields, were engaged in discourse on this subject,
a body of those Sicilians seemed to be drawing towards them; and
Richard pushed forwards, in order to inquire into the reason of this
extraordinary movement [n]. The English, insolent from their power,
and inflamed with former animosities, wanted but a pretence for
attacking the Messinese: they soon chased them off the field, drove
them into the town, and entered with them at the gates. The king
employed his authority to restrain them from pillaging and massacring
the defenceless inhabitants; but he gave orders, in token of his
victory, that the standard of England should be erected on the walls.
Philip, who considered that place as his quarters, exclaimed against
the insult, and ordered some of his troops to pull down the standard:
but Richard informed him by a messenger, that, though he himself would
willingly remove that ground of offence, he would not permit it to be
done by others; and if the French king attempted such an insult upon
him, he should not succeed but by the utmost effusion of blood.
Philip, content with this species of haughty submission, recalled his
orders [o]; the difference was seemingly accommodated; but still left
the remains of rancour and jealousy in the breasts of the two
monarchs.
[FN [k] Bened. Abb. p. 580. [1] Hoveden, p. 663. [m] Hoveden, p.
676, 677. Bened Abb. p. 615. [n] Bened. Abb. p. 608. [o] Hoveden,
p. 674.]
Tancred, who, for his own security, desired to inflame their mutual
hatred, employed an artifice which might have been attended with
consequences still more fatal. [MN 1191.] He showed Richard a
letter, signed by the French king, and delivered to him, as he
pretended, by the Duke of Burgundy; in which that monarch desired
Tancred to fall upon the quarters of the English, and promised to
assist him in putting them to the sword, as common enemies. The
unwary Richard gave credit to the information; but was too candid not
to betray his discontent to Philip, who absolutely denied the letter,
and charged the Sicilian prince with forgery and falsehood. Richard
either was, or pretended to be, entirely satisfied [p].
[FN [p] Ibid. p. 688. Bened. Abb. p. 642, 643. Brompton, p. 1195.]
Lest these jealousies and complaints should multiply between them, it
was proposed, that they should, by a solemn treaty, obviate all future
differences, and adjust every point that could possibly hereafter
become a controversy between them. But this expedient started a new
dispute, which might have proved more dangerous than any of the
foregoing, and which deeply concerned the honour of Philip's family.
When Richard, in every treaty with the late king, insisted so
strenuously on being allowed to marry Alice of France, he had only
sought a pretence for quarrelling; and never meant to take to his bed
a princess suspected of a criminal amour with his own father. After
he became master, he no longer spake of that alliance: he even took
measures for espousing Berengaria, daughter of Sanchez, King of
Navarre, with whom he had become enamoured during his abode in Guienne
[q]; Queen Eleanor was daily expected with that princess at Messina
[r] and when Philip renewed to him his applications for espousing his
sister Alice, Richard was obliged to give him an absolute refusal. It
is pretended by Hoveden and other historians [s], that he was able to
produce such convincing proofs of Alice's infidelity, and even of her
having borne a child to Henry, that her brother desisted from his
applications, and chose to wrap up the dishonour of his family in
silence and oblivion. It is certain, from the treaty itself, which
remains [t], that whatever were his motives, he permitted Richard to
give his hand to Berengaria; and having settled all other
controversies with that prince, he immediately set sail for the Holy
Land. Richard awaited some time the arrival of his mother and bride;
and when they joined him, he separated his fleet into two squadrons,
and set forward on his enterprise. Queen Eleanor returned to England,
but Berengaria and the queen-dowager of Sicily, his sister, attended
him on the expedition [u].
[FN [q] Vinisauf, p. 316. [r] M. Paris, p. 112. Trivet, p. 102. W.
Heming, p. 519. [s] Hoveden, p. 688. [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 69.
Chron. de Dunst, p. 44. [u] Bened. Abb. p. 644.]
The English fleet, on leaving the port of Messina, met with a furious
tempest, and the squadron on which the two princesses were embarked
was driven on the coast of Cyprus, and some of the vessels were
wrecked near Limisso in that island. [MN 12th April.] Isaac, Prince
of Cyprus, who assumed the magnificent title of Emperor, pillaged the
ships that were stranded, threw the seamen and passengers into prison,
and even refused to the princesses liberty, in their dangerous
situation, of entering the harbour of Limisso. But Richard, who
arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on him for the injury. He
disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant, who opposed his landing;
entered Limisso by storm; gained next day a second victory; obliged
Isaac to surrender at discretion; and established governors over the
island. The Greek prince, being thrown into prison and loaded with
irons, complained of the little regard with which he was treated: upon
which, Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him; and this
emperor, pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the
generosity of his conqueror [w]. [MN 1191. 12th May.] The king here
espoused Berengaria, who, immediately embarking, carried along with
her to Palestine the daughter of the Cypriot prince; a dangerous
rival, who was believed to have seduced the affections of her husband.
Such were the libertine character and conduct of the heroes engaged in
this pious enterprise!
[FN [w] Bened. Abb. p. 650. Ann. Waverl. p. 164. Vinisauf, p. 328.
W. Heming. p. 523.]
[MN The kings arrival in Palestine.]
The English army arrived in time to partake in the glory of the siege
of Acre or Ptolemais, which had been attacked for above two years by
the united forces of all the Christians in Palestine, and had been
defended by the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens. The
remains of the German army, conducted by the Emperor Frederic, and the
separate bodies of adventurers who continually poured in from the
West, had enabled the King of Jerusalem to form this important
enterprise [x]: but Saladin, having thrown a strong garrison into the
place under the command of Caracos, his own master in the art of war,
and molesting the besiegers with continual attacks and sallies, had
protracted the success of the enterprise, and wasted the force of his
enemies. The arrival of Philip and Richard inspired new life into the
Christians; and these princes, acting by concert, and sharing the
honour and danger of every action, gave hopes of a final victory over
the infidels. They agreed on this plan of operations: when the French
monarch attacked the town, the English guarded the trenches: next day,
when the English prince conducted the assault, the French succeeded
him in providing for the safety of the assailants. The emulation
between those rival kings and rival nations produced extraordinary
acts of valour: Richard in particular, animated with a more
precipitate courage than Philip, and more agreeable to the romantic
spirit of that age, drew to himself the general attention, and
acquired a great and splendid reputation. But this harmony was of
short duration; and occasions of discord soon arose between these
jealous and haughty princes.
[FN [x] Vinisauf, p. 269, 271, 279.]
[MN 1191. State of Palestine.]
The family of Bouillon, which had first been placed on the throne of
Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, Count of Anjou, grandfather to
Henry II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and
transmitted his title to the younger branches of his family. The
Anjevin race ending also in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing
Sibylla, the heiress, had succeeded to the title; and though he lost
his kingdom by the invasion of Saladin, he was still acknowledged by
all the Christians for king of Jerusalem [y]. But as Sibylla died
without issue, during the siege of Acre, Isabella, her younger sister,
put in her claim to that titular kingdom, and required Lusignan to
resign his pretensions to her husband, Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat.
Lusignan maintaining that the royal title was unalienable and
indefeasible, had recourse to the protection of Richard, attended on
him before he left Cyprus, and engaged him to embrace his cause [z].
There needed no other reason for throwing Philip into the party of
Conrade; and the opposite views of these great monarchs brought
faction and dissension into the Christian army, and retarded all its
operations. The Templars, the Genoese, and the Germans declared for
Philip and Conrade; the Flemings, the Pisans, the Knights of the
Hospital of St. John, adhered to Richard and Lusignan. But
notwithstanding these disputes, as the length of the siege had reduced
the Saracen garrison to the last extremity, [MN 12th July.] they
surrendered themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return for their
lives, other advantages to the Christians, such as the restoring of
the Christian prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true
cross [a]; and this great enterprise, which had long engaged the
attention of all Europe and Asia, was, at last, after the loss of
three hundred thousand men, brought to a happy period.
[FN [y] Vinisauf, p. 281. [z] Trivet, p. 134. Vinisauf, p. 342. W.
Heming. p. 524. [a] This true cross was lost in the battle of
Tiberiade, to which it had been carried by the crusaders for their
protection. Rigord, an author of that age, says, that after this
dismal event, all the children who were born throughout all
Christendom had only twenty or twenty-two teeth, instead of thirty or
thirty-two, which was their former complement, p. 14.]
But Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of farther conquest, and of
redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the
ascendant assumed and acquired by Richard, and having views of many
advantages, which he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared
his resolution of returning to France; and he pleaded his bad state of
health as an excuse for his desertion of the common cause. He left,
however, to Richard ten thousand of his troops, under the command of
the Duke of Burgundy; and he renewed his oath never to commence
hostilities against that princes dominions during his absence. But
he had no sooner reached Italy than he applied, it is pretended, to
Pope Celestine III. for a dispensation from his vow; and when denied
that request, he still proceeded, though after a covert manner, in a
project, which the present situation of England rendered inviting, and
which gratified, in an eminent degree, both his resentment and his
ambition.
[MN Disorders in England.]
Immediately after Richard had left England, and begun his march to the
Holy Land, the two prelates, whom he had appointed guardians of the
realm, broke out into animosities against each other, and threw the
kingdom into combustion. Longchamp, presumptuous in his nature,
elated by the favour which he enjoyed with his master, and armed with
the legatine commission, could not submit to an equality with the
Bishop of Durham: he even went so far as to arrest his colleague, and
to extort from him a resignation of the earldom of Northumberland, and
of his other dignities, as the price of his liberty [b]. The king,
informed of these dissensions, ordered, by letters from Marseilles,
that the bishop should be reinstated in his offices; but Longchamp had
still the boldness to refuse compliance, on pretence that he himself
was better acquainted with the kings secret intentions [c]. He
proceeded to govern the kingdom by his sole authority; to treat all
the nobility with arrogance; and to display his power and riches with
an invidious ostentation. He never travelled without a strong guard
of fifteen hundred foreign soldiers, collected from that licentious
tribe with which the age was generally infested: nobles and knights
were proud of being admitted into his train: his retinue wore the
aspect of royal magnificence: and when, in his progress through the
kingdom, he lodged in any monastery, his attendants, it is said, were
sufficient to devour, in one night, the revenue of several years [d].
The king, who was detained in Europe longer than the haughty prelate
expected, hearing of this ostentation, which exceeded even what the
habits of that age indulged in ecclesiastics; being also informed of
the insolent, tyrannical conduct of his minister, thought proper to
restrain his power: he sent new orders, appointing Walter Archbishop
of Rouen, William Mareschal Earl of Strigul, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter,
William Briewere, and Hugh Bardolf, counsellors to Longchamp, and
commanding him to take no measure of importance without their
concurrence and approbation. But such general terror had this man
impressed by his violent conduct, that even the Archbishop of Rouen
and the Earl of Strigul durst not produce this mandate of the king's;
and Longchamp still maintained an uncontrolled authority over the
nation. But when he proceeded so far as to throw into prison
Geoffrey, Archbishop of York, who had opposed his measures, this
breach of ecclesiastical privileges excited such an universal ferment,
that Prince John, disgusted with the small share he possessed in the
government, and personally disobliged by Longchamp, ventured to
summon, at Reading, a general council of the nobility and prelates,
and cite him to appear before them. Longchamp thought it dangerous to
intrust his person in their hands, and he shut himself up in the Tower
of London; but being soon obliged to surrender that fortress, he fled
beyond sea, concealed under a female habit, and was deprived of his
offices of chancellor and chief justiciary; the last of which was
conferred on the Archbishop of Rouen, a prelate of prudence and
moderation. The commission of legate, however, which had been renewed
to Longchamp by Pope Celestine, still gave him, notwithstanding his
absence, great authority in the kingdom, enabled him to disturb the
government, and forwarded the views of Philip, who watched every
opportunity of annoying Richard's dominions. [MN 1192.] That monarch
first attempted to carry open war into Normandy; but as the French
nobility refused to follow him in an invasion of a state which they
had sworn to protect, and as the pope, who was the general guardian of
all princes that had taken the cross, threatened him with
ecclesiastical censures, he desisted from his enterprise, and employed
against England the expedient of secret policy and intrigue. He
debauched Prince John from his allegiance; promised him his sister
Alice in marriage; offered to give him possession of all Richard's
transmarine dominions; and had not the authority of Queen Eleanor, and
the menaces of the English council, prevailed over the inclinations of
that turbulent prince, he was ready to have crossed the seas, and to
have put in execution his criminal enterprises.
[FN [b] Hoveden, p. 665. Knyghton, p. 2403. [c] W. Heming. p. 528.
[d] Hoveden, p. 680. Bened. Abb. p. 626, 700. Brompton, p. 1193.]
[MN The kings heroic actions in Palestine.]
The jealousy of Philip was every moment excited by the glory which the
great actions of Richard were gaining him in the East, and which,
being compared to his own desertion of that popular cause, threw a
double lustre on his rival. His envy, therefore, prompted him to
obscure that fame which he had not equalled; and he embraced every
pretence of throwing the most violent and most improbable calumnies on
the King of England. There was a petty prince in Asia, commonly
called THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, who had acquired such an ascendant
over his fanatical subjects, that they paid the most implicit
deference to his commands; esteemed assassination meritorious when
sanctified by his mandate; courted danger, and even certain death, in
the execution of his orders; and fancied, that when they sacrificed
their lives for his sake, the highest joys of paradise were the
infallible reward of their devoted obedience [e]. It was the custom
of this prince, when he imagined himself injured, to despatch secretly
some of his subjects against the aggressor, to charge them with the
execution of his revenge, to instruct them in every art of disguising
their purpose; and no precaution was sufficient to guard any man,
however powerful, against the attempts of these subtle and determined
ruffians. The greatest monarchs stood in awe of this Prince of the
Assassins, (for that was the name of his people; whence the word has
passed into most European languages,) and it was the highest
indiscretion in Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat, to offend and affront
him. The inhabitants of Tyre, who were governed by that nobleman, had
put to death some of this dangerous people: the prince demanded
satisfaction; for, as he piqued himself on never beginning any offence
[f], he had his regular and established formalities in requiring
atonement: Conrade treated his messengers with disdain: the prince
issued the fatal order: two of his subjects, who had insinuated
themselves in disguise among Conrade's guards, openly, in the streets
of Sidon, wounded him mortally; and when they were seized and put to
the most cruel tortures, they triumphed amidst their agonies, and
rejoiced that they had been destined by heaven to suffer in so just
and meritorious a cause.
[FN [e] W. Heming. p. 532. Brompton, p. 1243. [f] Rymer, vol. i. p.
71.]
Every one in Palestine knew from what hand the blow came. Richard was
entirely free from suspicion. Though that monarch had formerly
maintained the cause of Lusignan against Conrade, he had become
sensible of the bad effects attending those dissensions, and had
voluntarily conferred on the former the kingdom of Cyprus, on
condition that he should resign to his rival all pretensions to the
crown of Jerusalem [g]. Conrade himself, with his dying breath, had
recommended his widow to the protection of Richard [h]; the Prince of
the Assassins avowed the action in a formal narrative which he sent to
Europe [i]; yet, on this foundation, the King of France thought fit to
build the most egregious calumnies, and to impute to Richard the
murder of the Marquis of Montferrat, whose elevation he had once
openly opposed. He filled all Europe with exclamations against the
crime; appointed a guard for his own person, in order to defend
himself against a like attempt [k]; and endeavoured, by these shallow
artifices, to cover the infamy of attacking the dominions of a prince
whom he himself had deserted, and who was engaged with so much glory
in a war, universally acknowledged to be the common cause of
Christendom.
[FN [g] Vinisauf, p. 391. [h] Brompton, p. 1243. [i] Rymer, vol. i.
p. 71. Trivet, p. 124. W. Heming. p. 544. Diceto, p. 680. [k] W
Heming. p. 532. Brompton, p. 1245.]
But Richard's heroic actions in Palestine were the best apology for
his conduct. The Christian adventurers under his command determined,
on opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order to
prepare the way for that of Jerusalem; and they marched along the sea-
coast with that intention. Saladin purposed to intercept their
passage; and he placed himself on the road with an army, amounting to
three hundred thousand combatants. On this occasion was fought one of
the greatest battles of that age; and the most celebrated, for the
military genius of the commanders, for the number and valour of the
troops, and for the great variety of events which attended it. Both
the right wing of the Christians, commanded by d'Avesnes, and the
left, conducted by the Duke of Burgundy, were, in the beginning of the
day, broken and defeated; when Richard, who led on the main body,
restored the battle; attacked the enemy with intrepidity and presence
of mind; performed the part both of a consummate general and gallant
soldier; and not only gave his two wings leisure to recover from their
confusion, but obtained a complete victory over the Saracens, of whom
forty thousand are said to have perished in the field [l]. Ascalon
soon after fell into the hands of the Christians: other sieges were
carried on with equal success: Richard was even able to advance within
sight of Jerusalem, the object of his enterprise, when he had the
mortification to find that he must abandon all hopes of immediate
success, and must put a stop to his career of victory. The crusaders,
animated with an enthusiastic ardour for the holy wars, broke at first
through all regards to safety or interest in the prosecution of their
purpose; and trusting to the immediate assistance of Heaven, set
nothing before their eyes but fame and victory in this world, and a
crown of glory in the next. But long absence from home, fatigue,
disease, want, and the variety of incidents which naturally attend
war, had gradually abated that fury, which nothing was able directly
to withstand; and every one, except the King of England, expressed a
desire of speedily returning into Europe. The Germans and the
Italians declared their resolution of desisting from the enterprise:
the French were still more obstinate in this purpose: the Duke of
Burgundy, in order to pay court to Philip, took all opportunities of
mortifying and opposing Richard [m]: and there appeared an absolute
necessity of abandoning for the present all hopes of farther conquest,
and of securing the acquisitions of the Christians by an accommodation
with Saladin. Richard, therefore, concluded a truce with that
monarch; and stipulated that Acre, Joppa, and other sea-port towns of
Palestine, should remain in the hands of the Christians, and that
every one of that religion should have liberty to perform his
pilgrimage to Jerusalem unmolested. This truce was concluded for
three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; a
magical number, which had probably been devised by the Europeans, and
which was suggested by a superstition well suited to the object of the
war.
[FN [l] Hoveden, p. 698. Bened. Abb. p. 677. Diceto, p. 662.
Brompton, p. 1214. [m] Vinisauf, p. 380.]
The liberty, in which Saladin indulged the Christians, to perform
their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, was an easy sacrifice on his part; and
the furious wars which he waged in defence of the barren territory of
Judea were not with him, as with the European adventurers, the result
of superstition, but of policy. The advantage indeed of science,
moderation, humanity, was at that time entirely on the side of the
Saracens; and this gallant emperor, in particular, displayed, during
the course of the war, a spirit and generosity, which even his bigoted
enemies were obliged to acknowledge and admire. Richard, equally
martial and brave, carried with him more of the barbarian character,
and was guilty of acts of ferocity, which threw a stain on his
celebrated victories. When Saladin refused to ratify the capitulation
of Acre, the king of England ordered all his prisoners, to the number
of five thousand, to be butchered; and the Saracens found themselves
obliged to retaliate upon the Christians by a like cruelty [n].
Saladin died at Damascus soon after concluding this truce with the
princes of the crusade: it is memorable that, before he expired, he
ordered his winding-sheet to be carried as a standard through every
street of the city; while a crier went before, and proclaimed with a
loud voice, THIS IS ALL THAT REMAINS TO THE MIGHTY SALADIN, THE
CONQUEROR OF THE EAST. By his last will he ordered charities to be
distributed to the poor without distinction of Jew, Christian, or
Mahometan.
[FN [n] Hoveden, p. 697. Bened. Abb. p. 673. M. Paris, p. 115.
Vinisauf, p. 346. W. Heming. p. 531.]
[MN 1192. The kings return from Palestine.]
There remained, after the truce, no business of importance to detain
Richard in Palestine; and the intelligence which he received,
concerning the intrigues of his brother John, and those of the King of
France, made him sensible that his presence was necessary in Europe.
As he dared not to pass through France, be sailed to the Adriatic; and
being shipwrecked near Aquileia, he put on the disguise of a pilgrim,
with a purpose of taking his journey secretly through Germany.
Pursued by the governor of Istria, he was forced out of the direct
road to England, and was obliged to pass by Vienna, [MN 20th Dec.]
where his expenses and liberalities betrayed the monarch in the habit
of the pilgrim; and he was arrested by orders of Leopold, Duke of
Austria. This prince had served under Richard at the siege of Acre;
but being disgusted by some insult of that haughty monarch, he was so
ungenerous as to seize the present opportunity of gratifying at once
his avarice and revenge; and he threw the king into prison. [MN
1193.] The emperor, Henry VI., who also considered Richard as an
enemy, on account of the alliance contracted by him with Tancred, King
of Sicily, despatched messengers to the Duke of Austria, required the
royal captive to be delivered to him, and stipulated a large sum of
money as a reward for this service. [MN Captivity in Germany.] Thus,
the King of England, who had filled the whole world with his renown,
found himself, during the most critical state of his affairs, confined
in a dungeon, and loaded with irons, in the heart of Germany [o], and
entirely at the mercy of his enemies, the basest and most sordid of
mankind.
[FN [o] Chron. T. Wykes, p. 35.]
The English council was astonished on receiving this fatal
intelligence; and foresaw all the dangerous consequences which might
naturally arise from that event. The queen-dowager wrote reiterated
letters to Pope Celestine, exclaiming against the injury which her son
had sustained; representing the impiety of detaining in prison the
most illustrious prince that had yet carried the banners of Christ
into the Holy Land; claiming the protection of the apostolic see,
which was due even to the meanest of those adventurers; and upbraiding
the pope, that in a cause where justice, religion, and the dignity of
the church, were so much concerned, a cause which it might well befit
his holiness himself to support, by taking in person a journey to
Germany, the spiritual thunders should so long be suspended over those
sacrilegious offenders [p]. The zeal of Celestine corresponded not to
the impatience of the queen-mother; and the regency of England were,
for a long time, left to struggle alone with all their domestic and
foreign enemies.
[FN [p] Rymer, vol. i. p. 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, &c.]
[MN War with France.]
The King of France, quickly informed of Richard's confinement by a
message from the emperor [q], prepared himself to take advantage of
the incident; and he employed every means of force and intrigue, of
war and negotiation, against the dominions and the person of his
unfortunate rival. He revived the calumny of Richard's assassinating
the Marquis of Montferrat; and by that absurd pretence he induced his
barons to violate their oaths, by which they had engaged that, during
the crusade, they never would, on any account, attack the dominions of
the King of England. He made the emperor the largest offers, if he
would deliver into his hands the royal prisoner, or at least detain
him in perpetual captivity: he even formed an alliance by marriage
with the King of Denmark, desired that the ancient Danish claim to the
crown of England should be transferred to him, and solicited a supply
of shipping to maintain it. But the most successful of Philip's
negotiations was with Prince John, who, forgetting every tie to his
brother, his sovereign, and his benefactor, thought of nothing but how
to make his own advantage of the public calamities. That traitor, on
the first invitation from the court of France, suddenly went abroad,
had a conference with Philip, and made a treaty, of which the object
was the perpetual ruin of his unhappy brother. He stipulated to
deliver into Philip's hands a great part of Normandy [r]; he received,
in return, the investiture of all Richard's transmarine dominions; and
it is reported by several historians, that he even did homage to the
French king for the crown of England.
[FN [q] Ibid. p. 70. [r] Rymer, vol. i. p. 85.]
In consequence of this treaty, Philip invaded Normandy; and by the
treachery of John's emissaries, made himself master, without
opposition, of many fortresses, Neuf-chatel, Neaufle, Gisors, Pacey,
Ivree: he subdued the counties of Eu and Aumale; and advancing to form
the siege of Rouen, he threatened to put all the inhabitants to the
sword if they dared to make resistance. Happily, Robert, Earl of
Leicester, appeared in that critical moment; a gallant nobleman, who
had acquired great honour during the crusade, and who, being more
fortunate than his master in finding his passage homewards, took on
him the command in Rouen, and exerted himself, by his exhortations and
example, to infuse courage into the dismayed Normans. Philip was
repulsed in every attack; the time of service from his vassals
expired; and he consented to a truce with the English regency,
received in return the promise of twenty thousand marks, and had four
castles put into his hands, as security for the payment [s].
[FN [s] Hoveden, p.730, 731. Rymer, vol. i. p. 81.]
Prince John, who, with a view of increasing the general confusion,
went over to England, was still less successful in his enterprises.
He was only able to make himself master of the castles of Windsor and
Wallingford; but when he arrived in London, and claimed the kingdom as
heir to his brother, of whose death he pretended to have received
certain intelligence, he was rejected by all the barons, and measures
were taken to oppose and subdue him [t]. The justiciaries, supported
by the general affection of the people, provided so well for the
defence of the kingdom, that John was obliged, after some fruitless
efforts, to conclude a truce with them; and before its expiration, he
thought it prudent to return to France, where he openly avowed his
alliance with Philip [u].
[FN [t] Hoveden, p. 724. [u] W. Heming. p. 536.]
Meanwhile the high spirit of Richard suffered in Germany every kind of
insult and indignity. The French ambassadors, in their master's name,
renounced him as a vassal to the crown of France, and declared all
his fiefs to be forfeited to his liege lord. The emperor, that he
might render him more impatient for the recovery of his liberty, and
make him submit to the payment of a larger ransom, treated him with
the greatest severity, and reduced him to a condition worse than that
of the meanest malefactor. He was even produced before the diet of
the empire at Worms, and accused by Henry of many crimes and
misdemeanours; of making an alliance with Tancred, the usurper of
Sicily; of turning the arms of the crusade against a Christian prince,
and subduing Cyprus; of affronting the Duke of Austria before Acre; of
obstructing the progress of the Christian arms by his quarrels with
the King of France; of assassinating Conrade, Marquis of Montferrat;
and of concluding a truce with Saladin, and leaving Jerusalem in the
hands of the Saracen emperor [w]. Richard, whose spirit was not
broken by his misfortunes, and whose genius was rather roused by these
frivolous or scandalous imputations; after premising, that his dignity
exempted him from answering before any jurisdiction, except that of
Heaven; yet condescended, for the sake of his reputation, to justify
his conduct before that great assembly. He observed, that he had no
hand in Tancred's elevation, and only concluded a treaty with a prince
whom he found in possession of the throne; that the king, or rather
tyrant of Cyprus, had provoked his indignation by the most ungenerous
and unjust proceedings; and though he chastised this aggressor, he had
not retarded a moment the progress of his chief enterprise: that if he
had at any time been wanting in civility to the Duke of Austria, he
had already been sufficiently punished for that sally of passion; and
it better became men, embarked together in so holy a cause, to forgive
each other's infirmities, than to pursue a slight offence with such
unrelenting vengeance: that it had sufficiently appeared by the event,
whether the King of France or he were most zealous for the conquest of
the Holy Land, and were most likely to sacrifice private passions and
animosities to that great object: that if the whole tenour of his life
had not shown him incapable of a base assassination, and justified him
from that imputation in the eyes of his very enemies, it was in vain
for him, at present, to make his apology, or plead the many
irrefragable arguments which he could produce in his own favour: and
that, however he might regret the necessity, he was so far from being
ashamed of his truce with Saladin, that he rather gloried in that
event; and thought it extremely honourable, that, though abandoned by
all the world, supported only by his own courage, and by the small
remains of his national troops, he could yet obtain such conditions
from the most powerful and most warlike emperor that the East had ever
yet produced. Richard, after thus deigning to apologize for his
conduct, burst out into indignation at the cruel treatment which he
had met with; that he, the champion of the cross, still wearing that
honourable badge, should, after expending the blood and treasure of
his subjects in the common cause of Christendom, be intercepted by
Christian princes in his return to his own country, be thrown into a
dungeon, be loaded with irons, be obliged to plead his cause, as if he
were a subject and a malefactor; and what he still more regretted, be
thereby prevented from making preparations for a new crusade, which he
had projected, after the expiration of the truce, and from redeeming
the sepulchre of Christ, which had so long been profaned by the
dominion of infidels. The spirit and eloquence of Richard made such
impression on the German princes, that they exclaimed loudly against
the conduct of the emperor; the pope threatened him with
excommunication; and Henry, who had hearkened to the proposals of the
King of France and Prince John, found that it would be impracticable
for him to execute his and their base purposes, or to detain the King
of England any longer in captivity. [MN The kings delivery.] He
therefore concluded with him a treaty for his ransom, and agreed to
restore him to his freedom for the sum of a hundred and fifty thousand
marks, about three hundred thousand pounds of our present money; of
which a hundred thousand marks were to be paid before he received his
liberty, and sixty-seven hostages delivered for the remainder [x].
The emperor, as if to gloss over the infamy of this transaction, made
at the same time a present to Richard of the kingdom of Arles,
comprehending Provence, Dauphiny, Narbonne, and other states, over
which the empire had some antiquated claims; a present which the king
very wisely neglected.
[FN [w] M Paris, p. 121. W. Heming. p. 536. [x] Rymer, vol. i. p.
84.]
The captivity of the superior lord was one of the cases provided for
by the feudal tenures; and all the vassals were in that event obliged
to give an aid for his ransom. Twenty shillings were therefore levied
on each knight's fee in England; but as this money came in slowly, and
was not sufficient for the intended purpose, the voluntary zeal of the
people readily supplied the deficiency. The churches and monasteries
melted down their plate, to the amount of thirty thousand marks; the
bishops, abbots, and nobles, paid a fourth of their yearly rent; the
parochial clergy contributed a tenth of their tithes; [MN 1194. 4th
Feb.] and the requisite sum being thus collected, Queen Eleanor, and
Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, set out with it for Germany; paid the
money to the emperor and the Duke of Austria at Mentz; delivered them
hostages for the remainder; and freed Richard from captivity. His
escape was very critical. Henry had been detected in the
assassination of the Bishop of Liege, and in an attempt of a like
nature on the Duke of Louvaine; and finding himself extremely
obnoxious to the German princes on account of these odious practices,
he had determined to seek support from an alliance with the King of
France; to detain Richard, the enemy of that prince, in perpetual
captivity; to keep in his hands the money which he had already
received for his ransom; and to extort fresh sums from Philip and
Prince John, who were very liberal in their offers to him. He
therefore gave orders that Richard should be pursued and arrested; but
the king, making all imaginable haste, had already embarked at the
mouth of the Schelde, and was out of sight of land, when the
messengers of the emperor reached Antwerp.
[MN Kings return to England, 20th March.]
The joy of the English was extreme on the appearance of their monarch,
who had suffered so many calamities, who had acquired so much glory,
and who had spread the reputation of their name into the farthest
East, whither their fame had never before been able to extend. He
gave them, soon after his arrival, an opportunity of publicly
displaying their exultation, by ordering himself to be crowned anew at
Winchester; as if he intended, by that ceremony, to reinstate himself
in his throne, and to wipe off the ignominy of his captivity. Their
satisfaction was not damped, even when he declared his purpose of
resuming all those exorbitant grants, which he had been necessitated
to make before his departure for the Holy Land. The barons, also, in
a great council, confiscated, on account of his treason, all Prince
John's possessions in England; and they assisted the king in reducing
the fortresses which still remained in the hands of his brother's
adherents [y]. Richard, having settled every thing in England, passed
over with an army into Normandy; being impatient to make war on
Philip, and to revenge himself for the many injuries which he had
received from that monarch [z]. As soon as Philip heard of the king's
deliverance from captivity, he wrote to his confederate John in these
terms: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF: THE DEVIL IS BROKEN LOOSE [a].
[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 737. Ann. Waverl. p. 165. W. Heming, p. 540.
[z] Hoveden, p. 740. [a] Ibid. p. 739.]
[MN War with France.]
When we consider such powerful and martial monarchs inflamed with
personal animosity against each other, enraged by mutual injuries,
excited by rivalship, impelled by opposite interests, and instigated
by the pride and violence of their own temper; our curiosity is
naturally raised, and we expect an obstinate and furious war,
distinguished by the greatest events, and concluded by some remarkable
catastrophe. Yet are the incidents which attend those hostilities so
frivolous that scarce any historian can entertain such a passion for
military descriptions as to venture on a detail of them: a certain
proof of the extreme weakness of princes in those ages, and of the
little authority they possessed over their refractory vassals! The
whole amount of the exploits on both sides is, the taking of a castle,
the surprise of a straggling party, a rencounter of horse, which
resembles more a rout than a battle. Richard obliged Philip to raise
the siege of Verneuil; he took Loches, a small town in Anjou: he made
himself master of Beaumont, and some other places of little
consequence; and after these trivial exploits, the two kings began
already to hold conferences for an accommodation. Philip insisted
that, if a general peace were concluded, the barons on each side
should, for the future, be prohibited from carrying on private wars
against each other: but Richard replied, that this was a right claimed
by his vassals, and he could not debar them from it. After this
fruitless negotiation, there ensued an action between the French and
English cavalry at Fretteval, in which the former were routed, and the
King of France's cartulary and records, which commonly at that time
attended his person, were taken. But this victory leading to no
important advantages, a truce for a year was at last, from mutual
weakness, concluded between the two monarchs.
During this war, Prince John deserted from Philip, threw himself at
his brother's feet, craved pardon for his offences, and by the
intercession of Queen Eleanor was received into favour. I FORGIVE
HIM, said the king, AND HOPE I SHALL AS EASILY FORGET HIS INJURIES AS
HE WILL MY PARDON. John was incapable even of returning to his duty,
without committing a baseness. Before he left Philip's party, he
invited to dinner all the officers of the garrison, which that prince
had placed in the citadel of Evreux: he massacred them during the
entertainment: fell, with the assistance of the townsmen, on the
garrison, whom he put to the sword; and then delivered up the place to
his brother.
The King of France was the great object of Richard's resentment and
animosity: the conduct of John, as well as that of the emperor and
Duke of Austria, had been so base, and was exposed to such general
odium and reproach, that the king deemed himself sufficiently revenged
for their injuries; and he seems never to have entertained any project
of vengeance against any of them. The Duke of Austria, about this
time, having crushed his leg by the fall of his horse at a tournament,
was thrown into a fever; and being struck, on the approaches of death,
with remorse for his injustice to Richard, he ordered, by will, all
the English hostages in his hands to be set at liberty, and the
remainder of the debt due to him to be remitted: his son, who seemed
inclined to disobey these orders, was constrained by his ecclesiastics
to execute them [b]. [MN 1195.] The emperor also made advances for
Richard's friendship, and offered to give him a discharge of all the
debt not yet paid to him provided he would enter into an offensive
alliance against the King of France; a proposal which was very
acceptable to Richard, and was greedily embraced by him. The treaty
with the emperor took no effect; but it served to rekindle the war
between France and England before the expiration of the truce. This
war was not distinguished by any more remarkable instances than the
foregoing. After mutually ravaging the open country, and taking a few
insignificant castles, the two kings concluded a peace at Louviers,
and made an exchange of some territories with each other [c]. [MN
1196.] Their inability to wage war occasioned the peace: their mutual
antipathy engaged them again in war before two months expired.
Richard imagined that he had now found an opportunity of gaining great
advantages over his rival, by forming an alliance with the Counts of
Flanders, Toulouse, Boulogne, Champagne, and other considerable
vassals of the crown of France [d]. But he soon experienced the
insincerity of those princes, and was not able to make any impression
on that kingdom, while governed by a monarch of so much vigour and
activity as Philip. The most remarkable incident of this war was the
taking prisoner in battle the Bishop of Beauvais, a martial prelate,
who was of the family of Dreux, and a near relation of the French
king's. Richard, who hated that bishop, threw him into prison and
loaded him with irons; and when the pope demanded his liberty, and
claimed him as his son, the king sent to his holiness the coat of mail
which the prelate had worn in battle, and which was all besmeared with
blood; and he replied to him, in the terms employed by Jacob's sons to
that patriarch, THIS HAVE WE FOUND: KNOW NOW WHETHER IT BE THY SON'S
COAT OR NO [e]. This new war between England and France, though
carried out with such animosity that both kings frequently put out the
eyes of their prisoners, was soon finished by a truce of five years;
and immediately after signing this treaty, the kings were ready, on
some new offence, to break out again into hostilities; when the
mediation of the Cardinal of St. Mary, the pope's legate, accommodated
the difference [f]. This prelate even engaged the princes to commence
a treaty for a more durable peace; but the death of Richard put an end
to the negotiation.
[FN [b] Rymer, vol i. p. 88, 102. [c] Ibid. p. 91. [d] W. Heming, p.
549. Brompton, p. 1273. Rymer, vol. i. p. 94. [e] Genesis, chap.
xxxvii. ver. 32. M. Paris, p. 128. Brompton, p. 1273. [f] Rymer,
vol. i. p. 109, 110.]
[MN 1199.] Vidomar, Viscount of Limoges, a vassal of the king's, had
found a treasure, of which he sent part to that prince as a present.
Richard, as superior lord, claimed the whole; and at the head of some
Brabancons, besieged the viscount in the castle of Chalons, near
Limoges, in order to make him comply with his demand [g]. The
garrison offered to surrender; but the king replied, that, since he
had taken the pains to come thither and besiege the place in person,
he would take it by force, and would hang every one of them. The same
day, Richard, accompanied by Marcadee, leader of his Brabancons,
approached the castle in order to survey it; when one Bertrand de
Gourdon, an archer, took aim at him, and pierced his shoulder with an
arrow. [MN 28th March.] The king, however, gave orders for the
assault, took the place, and hanged all the garrison, except Gourdon,
who had wounded him, and whom he reserved for a more deliberate and
more cruel execution [h].
[FN [g] Hoveden, p. 791. Knyghton, p. 2413. [h] Ibid.]
The wound was not in itself dangerous; but the unskilfulness of the
surgeon made it mortal: he so rankled Richard's shoulder in pulling
out the arrow, that a gangrene ensued; and that prince was now
sensible that his life was drawing towards a period. He sent for
Gourdon, and asked him, WRETCH, WHAT HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU, TO
OBLIGE YOU TO SEEK MY LIFE?--WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? replied coolly
the prisoner: YOU KILLED WITH YOUR OWN HANDS MY FATHER AND MY TWO
BROTHERS; AND YOU INTENDED TO HAVE HANGED MYSELF: I AM NOW IN YOUR
POWER, AND YOU MAY TAKE REVENGE, BY INFLICTING ON ME THE MOST SEVERE
TORMENTS: BUT I SHALL ENDURE THEM ALL WITH PLEASURE, PROVIDED I CAN
THINK THAT I HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY AS TO RID THE WORLD OF SUCH A NUISANCE
[i]. Richard, struck with the reasonableness of this reply, and
humbled by the near approach of death, ordered Gourdon to be set at
liberty, and a sum of money to be given him: but Marcadee, unknown to
him, seized the unhappy man, flayed him alive, and then hanged him.
[MN 6th April. Death,] Richard died in the tenth year of his reign,
and the forty-second of his age; and he left no issue behind him.
[FN [i] Hoveden, p. 791. Brompton, p. 1277. Knyghton, p. 2413.]
[MN and character of the king.]
The most shining parts of this prince's character are his military
talents. No man, even in that romantic age, carried personal courage
and intrepidity to a greater height; and this quality gained him the
appellation of the lion-hearted, COEUR DE LION. He passionately loved
glory, chiefly military glory; and as his conduct in the field was not
inferior to his valour, he seems to have possessed every talent
necessary for acquiring it. His resentments also were high; his pride
unconquerable; and his subjects, as well as his neighbours, had
therefore reason to apprehend, from the continuance of his reign, a
perpetual scene of blood and violence. Of an impetuous and vehement
spirit, he was distinguished by all the good as well as the bad
qualities incident to that character: he was open, frank, generous,
sincere, and brave; he was revengeful, domineering, ambitious,
haughty, and cruel; and was thus better calculated to dazzle men by
the splendour of his enterprises, than either to promote their
happiness or his own grandeur by a sound and well-regulated policy.
As military talents made great impression on the people, he seems to
have been much beloved by his English subjects; and he is remarked to
have been the first prince of the Norman line that bore any sincere
regard to them. He passed however only four months of his reign in
that kingdom: the crusade employed him near three years; he was
detained about fourteen months in captivity; the rest of his reign was
spent either in war, or preparations for war, against France; and he
was so pleased with the fame which he had acquired in the East, that
he determined, notwithstanding his past misfortunes, to have farther
exhausted his kingdom, and to have exposed himself to new hazards, by
conducting another expedition against the infidels.
[MN Miscellaneous transactions of this reign.]
Though the English pleased themselves with the glory which the king's
martial genius procured them, his reign was very oppressive and
somewhat arbitrary, by the high taxes which he levied on them, and
often without consent of the states or great council. In the ninth
year of his reign, he levied five shillings on each hide of land; and
because the clergy refused to contribute their share, he put them out
of the protection of law, and ordered the civil courts to give them no
sentence for any debts which they might claim [k]. Twice in his reign
he ordered all his charters to be sealed anew, and the parties to pay
fees for the renewal [l]. It is said that Hubert, his justiciary,
sent him over to France, in the space of two years, no less a sum than
one million one hundred thousand marks, besides bearing all the
charges of the government in England. But this account is quite
incredible, unless we suppose that Richard made a thorough
dilapidation of the demesnes of the crown, which it is not likely he
could do with any advantage after his former resumption of all grants.
A king who possessed such a revenue could never have endured fourteen
months' captivity for not paying a hundred and fifty thousand marks to
the emperor, and be obliged at last to leave hostages for a third of
the sum. The prices of commodities in this reign are also a certain
proof that no such enormous sum could be levied on the people. A hide
of land, or about a hundred and twenty acres, was commonly let at
twenty shillings a year, money of that time. As there were two
hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides in England, it is
easy to compute the amount of all the landed rents of the kingdom.
The general and stated price of an ox was four shillings; of a
labouring horse the same; of a sow, one shilling; of a sheep with fine
wool, tenpence; with coarse wool, sixpence [m]. These commodities
seem not to have advanced in their prices since the conquest [n], and
to have still been ten times cheaper than at present.
[FN [k] Hoveden, p. 743. Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 563. [l] Prynne's
Chronol. Vindic. tom. i. p. 1133. [m] Hoveden, p. 745. [n] See note
[S], at the end of the volume.]
Richard renewed the severe laws against transgressors in his forests,
whom he punished by castration and putting out their eyes, as in the
reign of his great-grandfather. He established by law one weight and
measure throughout his kingdom [o]: a useful institution, which the
mercenary disposition and necessities of his successor engaged him to
dispense with for money.
[FN [o] M. Paris, p. 109, 134. Trivet, p. 127. Ann. Waverl. p. 165.
Hoveden, p. 774.]
The disorders in London, derived from its bad police, had risen to a
great height during this reign; and in the year 1196, there seemed to
be formed so regular a conspiracy among the numerous malefactors, as
threatened the city with destruction. There was one William
Fitz-Osbert, commonly called LONGBEARD, a lawyer, who had rendered
himself extremely popular among the lower rank of citizens; and, by
defending them on all occasions, had acquired the appellation of the
advocate or saviour of the poor. He exerted his authority, by
injuring and insulting the more substantial citizens, with whom he
lived in a state of hostility, and who were every moment exposed to
the most outrageous violences from him and his licentious emissaries.
Murders were daily committed in the streets; houses were broken open
and pillaged in daylight; and it is pretended that no less than fifty-
two thousand persons had entered into an association, by which they
bound themselves to obey all the orders of this dangerous ruffian.
Archbishop Hubert, who was then chief justiciary, summoned him before
the council to answer for his conduct; but he came so well attended,
that no one durst accuse him, or give evidence against him; and the
primate, finding the impotence of law, contented himself with exacting
from the citizens hostages for their good behaviour. He kept,
however, a watchful eye on Fitz-Osbert; and seizing a favourable
opportunity, attempted to commit him to custody; but the criminal,
murdering one of the public officers, escaped with his concubine to
the church of St. Mary le Bow, where he defended himself by force of
arms. He was at last forced from his retreat, condemned, and
executed, amidst the regrets of the populace, who were so devoted to
his memory, that they stole his gibbet, paid the same veneration to it
as to the cross, and were equally zealous in propagating and attesting
reports of the miracles wrought by it [p]. But though the sectaries
of this superstition were punished by the justiciary [q], it received
so little encouragement from the established clergy, whose property
was endangered by such seditious practices, that it suddenly sunk and
vanished.
[FN [p] Hoveden, p 765. Diceto, p. 691. Neubrig. p. 492, 493. [q]
Gervase, p. 1551.]
It was during the crusades that the custom of using coats of arms was
first introduced into Europe. The knights, cased up in armour, had no
way to make themselves be known and distinguished in battle but by the
devices on their shields; and these were gradually adopted by their
posterity and families, who were proud of the pious and military
enterprises of their ancestors.
King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry; there even remain some
poetical works of his composition; and he bears a rank among the
Provencal poets or TROBADORES, who were the first of the modern
Europeans that distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.