THE ADVANCE ON JERUSALEM
1191-1192.
Ambulantes et flentes properabunt.... In Sion interrogabunt viam,
huc facies eorum.
While Richard was building, Saladin was pulling down. Having razed
Ascalon, he on September 23 rejoined his main force at Jafna,
thence returned with it next day to Ramlah, and set his men to raze
the citadel of this latter place and the great fortified church
of S. George at the neighbouring town of Lydda. On the 25th he
left his army at Ramlah under Safadin to complete this work and
watch the enemy, while he went to see with his own eyes the state
of the defences of Jerusalem and take measures for securing their
efficiency. On the 30th he returned to Ramlah.[797] To Richard
this abandonment of all attempt to hold the country seemed like
the conduct of “a man bereft of all counsel, and of all hope of
succour”;[798] but Richard himself was not without secret misgivings
as to the ultimate success of the Crusade. On the same day on which
he wrote—probably to one of his ministers, for communication to his
subjects in general[799]—the letter declaring his hope that Jerusalem
would be won by the middle of January, he wrote also a letter to the
abbot of Clairvaux which reveals more clearly the actual condition of
affairs and the king’s real expectations as to their future course.
He thought there was good hope that the whole “heritage of the Lord”
would be speedily recovered; indeed, part of it was recovered
already. But in the recovering of that part he had, as he truly said,
borne the burden and heat of the day and exhausted not only his money
but also his health and strength, so that he felt he could not stay
in Syria beyond Easter; and the other western leaders, having spent
all they had, would return to their homes unless fresh supplies of
men, money, and other necessaries were sent out from Europe to enable
them to remain. He therefore besought the abbot to stir up princes
and peoples by his preaching, and induce them to make provision
for the safety and defence, after Easter, of the Lord’s heritage,
“which,” he said, “by God’s grace we shall have fully won by that
time.”[800]
A nearer future than Easter had a share in Richard’s secret
anxieties. All these weeks ships had been plying to and fro between
Joppa and Acre, too many of them bringing from the northern city
visitors who were not merely useless but undesirable, and carrying
back thither lukewarm Crusaders who preferred its pleasures and
indulgences to the hard work of the Holy War; whereby the host was
considerably diminished in numbers.[801] The extent of the leakage
seems to have been made fully apparent to the princes when at the
end of September they removed their troops from the gardens to a new
encampment somewhat further out, near the Casal of S. Habakkuk.[802]
King Guy was commissioned to go to Acre and bring the truants
back;[803] and while awaiting their return Richard, probably to keep
the enemy inactive, sent on October 3 a messenger to Safadin to
propose a renewal of the suspended negotiations. A few days earlier,
Saladin had received from Conrad of Montferrat overtures for an
alliance; Conrad offered to make peace with the Moslems, break openly
with the Franks, and recover Acre for the former, if they would
give him Sidon and Beyrout. Saladin was quite willing to agree to
these terms—“for,” says Bohadin, “the marquis was a most terrible
adversary to us”—but not to grant Conrad’s demand that the Sultan
should pledge himself by oath to the cession of the two sea-ports,
till Conrad should first have proved his sincerity by attacking his
fellow-Christians at Acre and releasing his Moslem prisoners at
Tyre.[804]
On October 4 Saladin, finding that at Ramlah he could not get enough
fodder for his horses and camels, owing to his foragers being too
much exposed to attacks from the enemy, removed his army some eight
or nine miles south-eastward into the hills, close to a place whose
character is expressed in one form of its name, Natroun, “post of
observation.”[805] The Franks called the place Toron of the Knights;
“toron” meaning height or mount, and the knights being those of
the Temple, who had built on its summit a tower of great strength
overlooking two of the roads to Jerusalem. This tower Saladin at
once began to pull down; like the other strongholds which he had
demolished, it was useless to him for present purposes, and could be
of value only to his enemies, should the site fall [Sidenote: _Oct.
8_] into their hands. Four days later Safadin, whom he had left at
Ramlah in command of the advanced guard, sent him word that Richard,
having discovered Conrad’s dealings with the Sultan, had sailed
for Acre in order to put a stop to them by making friends with the
marquis.[806] There was, however, another reason for the king’s visit
to Acre. The loiterers there were so slow to move at the bidding of
Guy that it was clearly necessary to bring a stronger influence to
bear upon them. Richard’s exhortations took such effect [Sidenote:
_Oct. 13_] that within a fortnight[807] he was back at Joppa
accompanied not only by the two queens, whom he established there
with their attendants, but also by so “much people” that the host
seemed to have become more numerous than ever.[808] It took another
fortnight to clear out of Acre and convey by sea to the new base the
remaining stragglers and the stores needed for a fresh advance.[809]
During this enforced delay the host was once at least very near
losing its commander-in-chief. Richard, having ridden out with a very
small escort partly to exercise his hawks,[810] partly to look out
for an opportunity of surprising the Turks, was himself surprised by
some of them when he had stopped to rest and fallen asleep. Awaking
just in time, he sprang to horse and drove them off, but they led him
into an ambush, and he was only saved from capture by the devotion
of William des Préaux, who concentrated the attention of the enemies
on himself by shouting, “Saracens, I am Melec”—that is, the king—and
was seized and hurried away accordingly, while the real king escaped.
The whole host was aghast when the adventure became known, and some
of Richard’s friends upbraided him for his rashness and implored him,
for the sake of the cause to which his safety was so important, never
again to expose himself thus without sufficient escort; but it was
all in vain. “In every conflict he delighted in being the first to
attack and the last to return.”[811]
Meanwhile Richard had, immediately on his return to Joppa, renewed
his friendly intercourse with Safadin by sending him a beautiful
horse as a present. A few days later an envoy from Safadin came,
by the king’s desire, to meet him at Yazour, some four miles, from
Joppa on the road to Ramlah, to receive his proposals for a treaty.
Of these proposals the Moslem envoy carried back two sets, one for
direct transmission to the Sultan, the other intended primarily for
Safadin’s personal consideration. To Saladin the king wrote that,
with Franks and Moslems alike perishing and the country ruined, the
war had gone far enough; the only matters in dispute were the Holy
City, the Cross, and the limits of the two realms, Christian and
Mussulman. Their claim to Jerusalem, as the most sacred seat of their
Faith, the Christians could not renounce so long as there was one
man of them left alive. Of the country they claimed restitution up
to the western bank of the Jordan. As for the Cross, “seeing that to
the Moslems it is but a piece of wood,” Saladin might well give it
back to those who accounted it a sacred treasure; and thus should
there be for both parties peace and rest from their labours. Saladin
at once decisively refused all three conditions.[812] To Safadin the
king had proposed another scheme: that Safadin should take Queen Joan
of Sicily to wife, and reign over the land jointly with her, she
holding Jerusalem as her royal seat, Richard endowing her with Acre,
Joppa, and Ascalon (which he accounted his own conquests), the Sultan
[Sidenote: c. _Oct. 18_] giving the Holy Cross to the Christians, and
all the places which he held in the Sahel or Maritime Plain to his
brother and declaring him king of the land. With these terms Safadin
appeared well pleased, and Saladin, when they were laid before him,
answered immediately and emphatically, “Yes! yes! yes!”—“being,” says
Bohadin who was present and who knew him well enough to read his
thoughts, “persuaded that the king would never really sanction such
a thing, and proposed it only in trickery and play.” His persuasion
was justified; when on October 23 an envoy from the Sultan and his
brother again came to the Christian camp, he was sent back with
a message that when the king had told his sister of the marriage
proposed for her, she had become “furious with indignation and
wrath,” and sworn by all she held sacred that she would never submit
to it; whereupon her brother had promised to bring, if he could,
Safadin to accept Christianity. All this was of course mere diplomacy
to wile away the time till the host was ready for a further advance;
and on the 27th Saladin received [Sidenote: _Oct. 28_] tidings that
the enemy was preparing to leave Joppa. Next day the Sultan returned
to Ramlah. On the 29th he sent some troops to surprise the Christian
camp, but they were driven off and put to flight.[813] On the 30th
Richard, “wandering about in the plain towards Ramlah,” espied a
reconnoitring party of Saracens, attacked them without hesitation,
slew several of them and scattered the rest.[814] On the 31st, having
completed his arrangements for the security of Joppa, he led the host
on the first stage of its advance towards Jerusalem.
[Sidenote: _Oct. 31_]
The stage was a very short one—only two miles, to Yazour, or as the
Franks called it, the Casal of the Plains. This place and Casal Maen,
which seems to have been the Frankish name for Beit Dejan, about
two miles further to the south-east, had been Frankish strongholds,
recently dismantled by the Saracens; it was important that they
should be restored in order to secure the command of the road leading
from Joppa into the hills. Richard undertook the restoration of
Casal Maen, and the Templars that of Casal des Plains; the host
lay encamped between the two places for [Sidenote: _Nov. 1-15_] a
fortnight while the work was in progress. The Turks did their utmost
to hinder it by sending out skirmishing parties. One of these,
having been put to flight, was pursued by Richard so far that before
he turned back he actually saw [Sidenote: _Nov. 6_] Ramlah and the
Sultan’s army there.[815] Another day a foraging party protected by
a small escort of Templars was suddenly surrounded by a numerous
body of Turks at “Bombrac,” properly Ibn Ibrak or Beni Berak, about
two miles from Casal Maen. On learning their peril Richard, who was
busy superintending the works at Casal Maen, sent some knights to
the rescue and quickly followed in person. When he reached the spot
the position of the little band looked so hopeless and the enemy’s
numbers so overwhelming that his companions besought him to retire,
“for,” said they, “if mischief should befall you, there would be
an end of Christendom!”[816] “I sent those men here; if they die
without me, may I never again be called king,” was his reply. Setting
spurs to his horse and giving him the rein, he burst “like lightning”
into the enemy’s ranks, and laid about him so furiously that they
all either fled “like beasts,” or were slain or made prisoners.[817]
Such is the Frankish version of this encounter; Bohadin, however,
describes it as a success for the Saracens,[818] and makes no mention
of Richard’s presence.
That evening Richard sent a messenger to Safadin, complaining of
these attacks as breaches of their friendly relations, [Sidenote:
_Nov. 3_] and again asking him for a personal interview.[819]
Three days before, Reginald of Sidon had come to Saladin from Tyre
with a renewal of Conrad’s proposal of an alliance against the
Crusaders. As before, Saladin gave equal encouragement to both
parties. On the 8th Safadin and Richard met in a large tent set up
for the purpose[820] “between the Casal of the Temple and that of
Josaphat”;[821] each brought with him “all such gifts as princes are
wont to give to one another,” and the special delicacies in food
and drink most esteemed among his own people, for the delectation
of the other.[822] Safadin crowned the entertainment by introducing
a singing girl, and Richard professed himself greatly pleased with
the Saracen mode of singing.[823] The rest of the day was spent in
talk, and they parted with a mutual promise of fast friendship and
a renewed request from Richard that Safadin would procure for him
an interview with the Sultan. Saladin refused to meet him, giving
the same reason as on a previous occasion.[824] Meanwhile Reginald
was in the Sultan’s camp, splendidly lodged in a tent filled with
every oriental luxury, treated with marked courtesy, and sometimes
accompanying Safadin when that prince rode out to reconnoitre the
Christian host. Saladin himself inclined to accept the offers of
Conrad. “If we make peace with the western Franks,” he said privately
to Bohadin, “it will never be a secure one; if I were to die, it
would be very difficult to get our army together again, and before
this could be done all the forces of our foes would have united. It
were wiser to fight on till we have either expelled them from our
coasts or died in the attempt.” Richard, however, anxious to prevent
an alliance between Saladin and Conrad which would undoubtedly have
been fraught with grave peril to the Christian cause, twice renewed
his proposals in a modified form, each time lowering his demands
and offering fresh concessions; so when on November 11[825] Saladin
laid the propositions of the marquis and those of the king before a
council of his emirs, they declared in favour of the latter. Saladin
yielded to their opinion. But Richard had reserved for himself a way
of escape. “The whole Christian community,” he said, “is blaming me
for proposing to wed my sister to a Mussulman without leave from the
Pope. I will therefore send an envoy to him, and in six months I
shall have his answer. If he consents, well; if not, I will give you
my brother’s daughter, in which case the Pope’s sanction will not be
needed.” To this Saladin replied: “If the alliance is to be made, let
it be made on the original terms; I will not go back from my word;
but if that marriage fail, we want no other.”[826] Thus the matter
remained in abeyance for several months. On the day (November 15) on
which he sent this last rejoinder Saladin again retired from Ramlah
to the neighbourhood of Natroun[827]; and shortly afterwards the
Christian host advanced from its encampment between the two restored
Casals into the plain between Ramlah and Lydda. Here they pitched
their tents and waited for reinforcements and supplies.[828]
[Sidenote: _Nov. 15-22_]
The rank and file were naturally puzzled and scandalized by Richard’s
diplomatic dealings with the Infidels, which seemed to them unlawful,
and of which they neither understood the purpose nor knew the real
character. The Frank chroniclers excuse him as a simple-minded
Christian duped by the cunning of the Saracens. He cleared himself in
the eyes of his accusers in a fashion of his own. “Right and left the
enemies came swarming about the camp; and the king met them and gave
practical proof of his loyalty to God and Christendom, for several
times he shewed in the host the many Turks’ heads that he had cut
off.”[829]
Besides the enemy, the Crusaders had now another obstacle to contend
with—the climate. The “former rains,” or heavy showers which open
the agricultural year in Palestine, would begin about the time
when the host left Joppa, at the end of October, and continue
through November; these would be followed by a season of constantly
increasing rainfall lasting throughout the next three months. This
great rain “pursued the soldiers of the Cross,” as one of them
says, till it drove them to take what shelter they could find
within the ruins of Ramlah and Lydda.[830] Here they remained “in
great discomfort and difficulties”[831] till the end of December or
beginning of January. Saladin held them in check by remaining in his
camp near Natroun till December 12; then he withdrew to Jerusalem
and disbanded his army[832] for the rest of the winter, trusting
for the defence of Judea to the guerilla troops who still remained
among the hills, to the weather, and above all, to the physical
character of the country. The Christian host was now on the edge of
the Shephelah, or Lowlands of Judea, so called in distinction from
the “Hills” proper, the loftier central range, or ridge, which forms
the backbone of the land, and on whose eastern side lie Jerusalem
and Bethlehem. The low, soft chalk-hills of the Shephelah are not a
range; they lie in groups and clusters interspersed with level spaces
and valleys opening into the plain on the west, and falling on the
east into the long, deep trench which runs between the “Lowlands” and
the “Highlands” like—as a modern writer says—“a great fosse planted
along the ramparts of Judea.” At the mouth of the northernmost of
these cross-valleys—Joshua’s Valley of Ajalon—Lydda and Ramlah were
frontier towns of the Shephelah and the maritime plain. Along this
vale or over the low hills on each side of it, and through the narrow
defiles which at its other end penetrate the central range, ran the
most direct lines of communication between the Holy City and the
coast. One of these was the old “way that goeth to Beth-horon” from
Gibeon on the plateau above Jerusalem. This road led to Joppa through
Lydda; so did another which crossed the fosse some three miles south
of the first. The two were linked together by a cross-road which
ran on south-westward to the ancient Nicopolis—called Amwas by the
Arabs and Emmaus by the Franks—and then divided into two branches,
one going southward by Natroun, the other to Joppa through Ramlah.
This latter way seems to have been in general use since the eighth
century, when the first Moslem conquerors overthrew Lydda and founded
Ramlah to supersede it.[833] The First Crusaders had marched by the
road from Ramlah to Emmaus and thence to Beth-horon, Gibeon, and
Jerusalem, without opposition. Richard resolved to try how far he
could follow in their steps; but he knew he could not expect such
good fortune as theirs, for the Shephelah was still full of what one
Frank writer calls “the outside Turkish army,”[834] that is, the
troops whom Saladin had left to keep guard and to prowl about among
the hills, in contradistinction to the “inner” force which was
with him at Jerusalem. In this district of tumbled hill and dale,
moorland, glen, and torrent-bed, of chalky slopes and limestone
boulders covered with thick scrub and brushwood that sheltered caves
and hiding-places innumerable, these light-armed Saracen horsemen
were at home, and had every advantage for the guerilla warfare in
which they excelled; and the ease and rapidity with which they could
move about through the intricacies of the hills enabled them to
swoop down suddenly from the most unexpected quarters, with fatal
effect, upon foraging or reconnoitring parties and convoys.[835]
One chronicler says that when the bulk of the host sought shelter
in Lydda and Ramlah, the count of Saint-Pol betook himself to “the
Casal of the Baths”; which seems to represent a place now called
Umm-el-Hummum, about twelve miles north-east of Lydda.[836] If this
statement be correct, the count’s object may perhaps have been to act
as an advanced guard on that side of the host and keep watch against
a possible gathering of the Saracens in force on the lower slopes
of the hills of Samaria—especially at Mirabel, or as the Saracens
called it Mejdel Yaba, which was close to Umm-el-Hummum and one of
the few castles which Saladin had not caused to be evacuated—and
their descent thence on the Christians at Lydda. It is at any rate
probable that Richard’s purpose was to render some such service
as this in another direction, towards the south and south-east of
Ramlah, when on December 22 or 23 he removed his own headquarters
to the “Post of Observation,” Natroun, which Saladin had quitted
ten days before.[837] On that day, however, a convoy from Joppa
was intercepted by the enemy; and similar mishaps occurred several
times in the ensuing week.[838] To this unsatisfactory [Sidenote:
_Dec._] state of affairs the leaders, having now fully ascertained
that Saladin and his main army had really “taken to the Mountains”
properly so called—the mountain-wall which shelters Jerusalem from
the world—“and left the champaign to us,” boldly decided to put an
end by advancing to the foot of the said mountains, where they told
their followers they would find a resting-place and be able to get
food for themselves.[839]
[Sidenote: 1192]
The advance was ordered for January 3. Some of the Saracen guerilla
bands which were constantly scouring the country between Joppa
and the hills had apparently discovered that a movement was in
contemplation, but were uncertain as to its object; they spent the
night of the [Sidenote: _Jan. 3_] 2nd lying hid near Casal des Plains
and at daybreak dashed forward in the direction which the host was
about to take; probably they hoped to lie hidden while it passed, and
fall at unawares on the rearguard or the slow-moving baggage-train.
Richard, however, knew of their lying in wait, and had himself, with
Geoffrey de Lusignan, been lying in wait for them all the preceding
night at the Casal of the Baths; a locality where, seeing that it
was quite as far (in a different direction) from Lydda as their own
lurking-place and double that distance from his known headquarters
at Natroun, they were not likely to suspect his presence. While they
were hurrying up from the west, he was spurring to meet them from
the north, the very opposite quarter to that where they doubtless
supposed him to be; and scarcely had they pounced upon and slain two
men-at-arms who went forth alone in advance of the host, when the
unexpected apparition of a banner which they well knew to be the
king’s, and a figure whose bearing and headlong onset were equally
unmistakeable,[840] threw them into utter confusion. Most of them
fled in the very direction whence Richard had come, towards Mirabel;
probably hoping to escape pursuit among the hills. Richard, who was
mounted on Fauvel, dashed after them and unhorsed two before any of
his own followers could rejoin him; some twenty others were slain or
brought back prisoners to the Christian camp.[841]
A march of ten miles brought the host to Beit Nuba, on a level space
of high ground close to the northern end of the natural fosse which
lies between the Shephelah and the mountain range. The hearts of
the pilgrims “were glad with the hope that they were going to the
Sepulchre”; but “their bodies were ill at ease,” for the Syrian
winter was now at its worst, and in their present exposed encampment
there was no shelter from its ravages. Stormy wind and tempest,
torrential rain and hail, beat down or tore up the tents; armour
rusted, clothes rotted, biscuits and bacon were so soaked that they
became putrid; horses died, men sickened; and in less than a week
“the wise Templars, the brave Hospitaliers, and the men of the land”
came to the conclusion that under the existing circumstances an
attempt to besiege Jerusalem could lead to nothing but disaster.
They told Richard that if the city were invested its besiegers would
be between two fires, Saladin breaking forth upon them from within
and the “outside” Turkish army cutting them off from communication
with the coast and depriving them of supplies.[842] The men who
spoke thus knew well that it was vain to dream of existing by
foraging on the barren, rocky tableland which forms the summit of
the Judean mountain-range, and that the host, if it got there at
all, would probably starve long before the defenders of the city,
which Saladin was sure to have victualled for a siege, and which
it would hardly be possible to blockade so completely as to cut it
off from all means of obtaining further provisions. Nor was this
all. Supposing—these counsellors urged—that the city were taken,
its capture would be useless unless it could be at once filled with
troops capable of holding it permanently; and this would be no
easy matter, for the western pilgrims, who formed the bulk of the
host, would return to their home-lands as soon as their pilgrimage
was accomplished, and thus when they were gone all that had been
won would be lost again.[843] Hereupon the western leaders called
a council of war at Natroun;[844] they may have retired there on
purpose to be well away from the rest of the army while discussing
the matter. However this may be, they asked “the wise folk who were
born in the land” what course they would recommend under existing
circumstances. The Templars and Hospitaliers [Sidenote: _Jan. 6-13_]
at once answered that what they would advise was not to proceed
towards Jerusalem at present, but to re-fortify and occupy Ascalon,
so as to obtain some control over the transit of provisions from
the great Saracen storehouse, Cairo, to the Holy City.[845] An
Arab historian gives, very likely from the report of some spy who
overheard the proceedings of the council, a curious account of the
way in which the final decision was reached. Richard, he says, asked
to see a plan of Jerusalem, that he might judge for himself of the
force of the arguments put forward by the Knights. They drew a plan
for him; and when he thoroughly understood the character of the site
and surroundings of the city, he pronounced them such as to make
the city, in his opinion, virtually impregnable “so long”—thus the
Arab reports the words of the western king—“as Saladin lives and the
Moslems are united.”[846] Before the middle of January the host was
back at Ramlah.[847]
Whether Richard’s verdict on the prospects of the Crusade was really
quite so pessimistic as Ibn Alathyr represents may be doubted. The
scheme now proposed by the Military Orders and accepted by the
king was simply a reversion to the original plan of campaign with
which they had all set out from Acre, and from which Saladin’s
seeming panic after Arsuf had tempted them to diverge; and there
can be little doubt that the divergence was unwise. The Frank
pilgrim-chroniclers, sharing and voicing the disappointment of the
rank and file, declare indeed that the retirement from Beit Nuba
was a blunder, and that if their leaders had but known the evil
plight—due, like their own, to the weather—of Saladin and his men
at Jerusalem, the city might, “without doubt,” have been taken
easily.[848] But those who spoke thus could have no real knowledge as
to the state of affairs in Jerusalem, and their version of it finds
no countenance in the pages of Bohadin, who was there, and who may
fairly be trusted on the subject, since he makes no mystery about
the Sultan’s perils and alarms on other occasions. The picture drawn
by the very same Frankish chroniclers of the condition in which the
host, “doleful and down-hearted,” marched back to Ramlah shows that
it was quite unfit to attempt an invasion of the hill-country. Men
and beasts were alike worn out with weakness and fever, caused by
the wet and cold, and many of the “lesser folk,” sick and helpless,
would have been left behind but for King Richard, who caused them
to be sought out and brought away in safety.[849] Among the French
Crusaders discontent took the form of wholesale desertion. Some
went to Joppa; of these, some stayed there, and others sailed back
to Acre, “where living was not dear,” sarcastically observes the
Norman poet; some joined the marquis at Tyre, whither he had long
been trying to entice them; the duke of Burgundy himself went off
in dudgeon with his followers to Casal of the Plains. Extremely
angry, but nothing daunted, Richard and the faithful remnant of the
host set out on January 19 by a road which, crossing the plain from
Ramlah, brought them back at Ibelin[850] to the main road along the
coast. The ten miles’ march through mud and mire to Ibelin was a
sufficiently [Sidenote: _Jan. 20_] hard day’s work; but “that day was
nothing compared to the next,” when nearly double that distance had
to be covered, on a road where men and horses were constantly sinking
into swamps, and beneath a ceaseless downpour of rain, hail and snow;
and when at length they arrived before Ascalon, they could only make
their way into the place by clambering over heaps of broken wall, and
find a partial shelter among the ruins within.[851]
Ascalon stood amid what the poet-pilgrim Ambrose emphatically calls
“a very good country”; but the stormy season, and the uncertainty
as to how many armed enemies might be still lurking around, made
this practically useless for foraging purposes; and the harbour was
a dangerous one, the sea being often so rough that no ship could
ride in it. This was the case for a week after the arrival of the
Crusaders, who were thus limited to what little food they had brought
with them—much of the stores with which they started from Ramlah
having been lost in the swamps on the way—till by a change in the
weather the transports coming from Joppa to meet them were enabled to
land their supplies. Scarcely was this done, however, when the storms
rose again, and barges and galleys and “all our beautiful smacks”
were dashed to pieces and some of the sailors drowned. Richard caused
all the wood that drifted ashore to be collected and employed for
the construction of some galleys, which he destined for his own use;
“but,” adds Ambrose, “it was not to be.” Towards Candlemas he sent
a message to the French, exhorting them to restore the unity of the
host by coming to rejoin their brethren and take counsel with them
as to what should be done next. They answered that they would come,
and would continue with him till Easter (April 5), on condition that
if they then wished to depart, he would give them safe-conduct by
land to Acre or Tyre. To this he agreed; whereupon they came, and—the
worst of the winter’s rages having now subsided—the reunited host by
common consent set to work to rebuild Ascalon. The task was no light
one; it was said that the fortifications had originally included no
less than fifty-three great towers, all now almost levelled with the
ground. Most of the nobles were by this time too short of money to be
able to hire workmen; so knights, men-at-arms, squires, clerks, and
laymen of all ranks set themselves to make a clearance of the ruins,
with such a will that soon they were astonished at their own success.
As the rebuilding, however, required more skilled labour than theirs,
Richard took the direction of it upon himself, and not only caused
the greater part of it to be performed at his expense, but also made
good whatever was lacking of labour and of the money to pay for it
in the parts assigned to the charge of others.[852] The English
chronicler of the Crusade says the king wrought at the building with
his own hands,[853] and we can well believe the story. Saladin was
about this time doing the same thing at Jerusalem.[854]
Another small point of resemblance between the two sovereigns was a
preference for doing their own scouting. One morning Richard, with
a handful of picked knights, rode out from Ascalon to reconnoitre
Darum. This castle, built by the late King Amalric on the site of an
earlier fortification, had been the extreme south-western outpost of
the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem; it lay three or four miles south
of the point where the coast-road crosses a watercourse which the
historians of the Crusade called the Torrent or River of Egypt,
because above that point it was in fact, in Amalric’s and Richard’s
days and long afterwards, the boundary between Syria and Egypt.[855]
Now that both these countries were under Moslem rule, Darum was the
first halting-place in Syria for the caravans which brought supplies
from “Babylon”—that is, Cairo—to Jerusalem. It chanced that when
Richard drew near the place, a thousand Christian prisoners whom the
Sultan was sending to Cairo under the charge of some of his household
guards had just arrived there. At the sight of the king’s banner the
escort, doubtless thinking the whole host from Ascalon was upon them,
left the prisoners and sought shelter for themselves in the castle;
but before they could reach it some were slain and twenty captured by
Richard and his men. Thus, says Ambrose, “God delivered His people
who were appointed to death, by sending King Richard to take the
place of Saint Leonard, the liberator of captives.”[856]
Some of the Christians, Frank and Syrian, thus rescued made, no
doubt, a welcome addition to the diminished numbers of the host.
Richard had several times already sent letters or messages to the
marquis, calling on him to come and rejoin the Crusade and render the
military service due to the Crown of Jerusalem for the fiefs which
he held of it. Conrad at first took no notice of these appeals; to
another and more urgent summons he finally answered that he would not
set foot in the camp till he had had a personal interview elsewhere
with the king of England.[857] Richard seemingly felt it necessary
to overlook his insolence and consent to a meeting at Casal Imbert,
half way between Acre and Tyre. But meanwhile a new trouble arose.
Philip of France had gone home in August 1191 without leaving his
lieutenant in Palestine, the duke of Burgundy, any money for the pay
of the French soldiers, counting for that purpose on the share due to
him of the bezants which the two kings then expected to receive in a
few weeks from Saladin. When this expectation had become hopeless,
Hugh asked Richard for a loan, and Richard, to avoid losing the
French troops altogether, lent him five thousand marks.[858] This
sum was exhausted long before February 1192; the French troops
clamoured for their dues; Hugh asked Richard for another loan. This
Richard refused. High words passed, and the duke, with the greater
part of the Frenchmen, straightway departed to Acre.[859] There they
found the Pisans and Genoese at strife. Pending the recovery of
Jerusalem, Acre served as temporary capital of the kingdom, and there
accordingly King Guy seems to have remained since his return thither
in September. His authority was upheld by the Pisans, who from
the outset of the Crusade had attached themselves to Richard; the
Genoese, having done homage to Philip Augustus, favoured the marquis,
and were intriguing to put him in possession of the city. A skirmish
between these two parties seems to have been going on when the French
arrived; they took to their arms, whereupon the Pisans set themselves
to bar their way; the duke’s horse was killed under him; then the
Pisans rushed back into the city and shut the gates against him and
his men. At this juncture Conrad, in response to the invitation of
the Genoese, arrived by sea with his forces. The Pisans “took to
the mangonels and stone-casters” and thus kept him off for three
days while they sent to call Richard to the rescue. Their messenger
found the king at Caesarea, on his way to the projected meeting with
Conrad. A hasty ride brought him to Acre at dead of night, and “when
the marquis knew that the king had come, nothing could hold him
there, but he went with all speed back to Tyre,” whither Burgundy and
the French were gone already.[860]
On the morrow Richard called together the people of [Sidenote: _Feb.
20_] the city and made peace among them.[861] Soon afterwards the
meeting with Conrad at Casal Imbert took place, but without any
practical result.[862] Next, Richard demanded repayment of the loan
which he had made to the duke of Burgundy six months before. Hugh
acquitted himself of the debt by assigning to the king the most
valuable of Philip’s Saracen prisoners, who were still in Conrad’s
custody at Tyre; but he made no sign of rejoining the Crusade. Such
a state of affairs threatened ruin to the whole enterprise, and
after long and anxious deliberation in his own mind Richard took
private counsel with the “elders and wise men of the land” as to what
had best be done. They gave their judgement that the marquis had
forfeited his rights under the settlement of July 1191, and should be
deprived of the revenues then assigned to him in the kingdom.[863]
It was doubtless to keep some sort of watch upon Conrad that Richard
remained at Acre till the end of March.[864] During the latter part
of his stay there he was again engaged in negotiations with Saladin.
When a messenger arrived at Jerusalem with a request that Safadin
might be sent to confer with the king, nothing was known there of the
Crusaders’ advance to Ascalon; Richard was believed by the Sultan
to have placed his troops in winter quarters at Joppa and gone back
thence straight to Acre.[865] Saladin [Sidenote: _Feb.-Mar._] bade
his brother go by way of the Jordan valley and Mount Tabor, collect
the troops of those parts in readiness for a renewal of hostilities,
and then—as usual—go and hear Richard’s proposals, and if they
were not acceptable, drag out negotiations till the whole Saracen
army had had time to re-assemble. A note was given him containing
the utmost concessions that Saladin was willing to make. They were
these: an equal division of the land; the Cross to be given back; the
Christians to have priests in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and
pilgrims to have access to it, provided they went unarmed. “He was,”
says Bohadin, “driven to offer these terms, by the general weariness
of long-continued warfare, by a load of debt, and by the long absence
of his followers from their homes; for there were many who never left
him, and who dared not ask for leave.”[866]
[Sidenote: _March 20_]
Safadin set out on March 20. At Keisan he was met by Humphry of
Toron with a message to this effect: “The division of the land is
agreed upon already; but we must have the whole of the Holy City
except the Temple of the Rock,” otherwise called the Mosque of Omar.
This message Safadin transmitted to his brother, and the Sultan’s
council—so Bohadin says—actually thought its terms near enough to
their own to be “quite acceptable.” Safadin’s first messenger,
however, was followed by another who [Sidenote: _March 27_] reached
Jerusalem on the 27th with tidings that Richard had gone back to
Joppa.[867] If it be true that Richard knighted Safadin’s son on
Palm Sunday, March 29, at Acre,[868] the announcement must have been
slightly premature; but by the time that Safadin himself returned
to Jerusalem, on April 1,[869] Richard was certainly back at
Ascalon.[870]
The king was “much chafed and troubled in mind”; for Holy Week was
begun, and he knew that Conrad and Hugh had been urging the French
who were still at Ascalon to join them at Tyre, and that his promise
of a safe-conduct to those who wished to depart at Easter for home
would in all likelihood be immediately claimed by every one of
them; and so it was, on Wednesday, April 1.[871] He gave them an
escort,[872] and when they set out next day himself rode a little
way with them, “weeping, and beseeching them to stay with him at
his expense, and so keep together; but they would not.” Finding his
efforts useless, he returned to Ascalon and sent off a messenger in
haste to Acre bidding his officers in charge of that city not to
admit the French within its walls.[873] This desertion of more than
seven hundred of the finest chivalry of Christendom was a grievous
loss to the host. Richard did what he could to comfort and encourage
the faithful remnant by holding on Easter Day (April 5) a great
court outside Ascalon; his tents were thrown open to all comers, and
furnished with abundance of meat and drink and everything that could
be procured to enhance [Sidenote: _April 6_] the magnificence of the
feast. Next day he set everybody to work again on the fortifications,
taking upon himself the responsibility and the expense of completing
the portions which the French had left unfinished.[874]
The season of the “latter rains” was now almost over, and both
Christians and Saracens had to lay their plans for a new campaign.
The former had already, while Richard was at Acre, profited by the
improvement in the weather to make two brilliant raids, one on March
27 from Joppa across the plain to Mirabel, where they seem to have
intercepted a rich caravan, for they slew thirty Turks and brought
back fifty prisoners besides a number of cattle and booty said to
have been worth two thousand eight hundred bezants; the other from
Ascalon next day, when “all men who had horses” rode out by the
southern road to capture a “prey” of which the scouts had told them;
“and they did well this time, for those who were there reported that
they went right into Egypt, four leagues beyond Darum, and they
brought back great troops of horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep,
besides near two hundred prisoners, men, women, and children.”[875]
Saladin heard of it, and promptly despatched some troops to intercept
the raiders on their way back, but they were too quick for him.[876]
Saladin’s wisest policy clearly was to collect his forces and remain
with them in his present position till he saw what his enemies would
do. Richard as usual began by reconnoitring in person. His first
attempt to ascertain the defences of Darum had been cut short by
the necessity of bringing to the camp, or despatching in safety to
their homes, the Christians towards whom he had acted the part of S.
Leonard. On Easter Tuesday (April 7) he set out again in the same
direction; that day he viewed Gaza, where also there seems to have
been a Moslem garrison, and on the Wednesday went on [Sidenote:
_April 8_] and perambulated Darum to see on which side it could be
most easily assaulted. Its garrison vainly hurled at him missiles
which failed to reach their aim and insults in a tongue which he did
not understand.[877]
A few days later[878] there came to Ascalon a messenger from England
with tidings which filled the whole host with dismay. He brought
letters from the justiciars beseeching the king to return at once,
as John was trying, with a considerable prospect of success, to make
himself master of the realm. Richard called the barons together and
set forth the matter fully to them. He added that if he should be, as
he feared, obliged to depart from Syria, he would leave three hundred
knights and two thousand men-at-arms to continue serving there at his
expense; and he asked his own followers to let him know who among
them wished to go with him, and who wished to stay, for he would put
no constraint upon any man. The barons, after holding a consultation
among themselves, came back and told him frankly that unless he
appointed as lord over the land someone who had a knowledge of war,
and to whom all, no matter whence they came, could adhere, every
one of them would leave the country and set out for home. Richard
at once asked them which they would have of the only two possible
kings—Guy or Conrad. “And all of them, great and small, knelt down
before him and prayed that he would make the marquis their lord, for
this was the most helpful and useful thing for the realm.” Some of
them had hitherto been bitter against the marquis, and these Richard
upbraided for their sudden change of front; but when fully assured
all were now unanimous in their choice he gave it his assent, and
ordered that an honourable escort should go to fetch the king-elect
and the French, and thus all should be reunited.[879]
As head of the royal house of Jerusalem, guardian of the realm,
and commander-in-chief of the crusading host, Richard would not
have been justified in withholding his assent from the course of
action thus unanimously recommended by both the native and the
western Crusaders. Their decision was probably the wisest possible
under the circumstances. Although Conrad had done more than any
other man (except possibly Philip Augustus) to sow dissension among
the Christian forces, he was nevertheless the leader who, when
Richard was gone, would divide them the least; for when once he
was acknowledged as their chief, it would be his own interest to
keep them together and to further the object of their enterprise to
the utmost of his power; he was, unquestionably, by far the most
capable and energetic, next to Richard, of all the princes of the
Crusade; and his so-called wife and their infant daughter were the
sole surviving representatives of the royal house of Jerusalem. The
crowned king, Guy, had no following of his own, and it seems quite
clear that he had, tacitly at least, resigned all claim to authority
in the realm as well as in the host; so that no disloyalty to him
was involved in Richard’s assent to the election of a new sovereign.
Count Henry of Champagne and three other envoys of rank carried the
great news to Tyre; Conrad and all the folk there were delighted, and
began to prepare for immediate return to the host at Ascalon.[880]
But before any of them had set out, the situation was suddenly
changed again; on April 28 the marquis was assassinated.[881] The
murderers were caught red-handed, and, of course, promptly put to
death. At Saladin’s court they were reported to have declared that
they had been hired by Richard to commit the crime.[882] Saladin,
with whom Conrad had been in negotiation for several weeks past, had
at the time an agent in Tyre from whom this report was derived;[883]
and if it did not actually originate with Conrad’s friends and allies
at Tyre, its circulation among Richard’s enemies and rivals and its
transmission to Europe were certainly encouraged by them.[884] A few
years later, however, one Moslem historian gave a very different
account of the matter: Ibn Alathyr says the men were hired by Saladin
to kill Richard if they could, or, failing him, Conrad, and that
they chose the latter alternative as the easier of the two.[885]
This story is probably worthless except as an illustration of the
importance of both king and marquis in Saracen eyes. The best
confutation of the other tale lies in the simple fact that Conrad’s
death could not be of the slightest profit to Richard, but, on the
contrary, upset all his plans for his own return to Europe. The
Norman pilgrim-poet of the Crusade tells us that the men who stabbed
Conrad were “Assassins” not only in the modern conventional sense
of the word, but also in its original and etymological sense; by
their own confession, they were Hashashîn, that is, followers of the
“Old Man of the Mountain,” and acted under his orders.[886] This
is confirmed by two of our best English authorities,[887] and by
the French historians who lived and wrote in the Holy Land; one of
the earliest of these latter says that “some people” reported the
murderers to have been hired by Richard, “but,” he adds, “this was
not a bit true”;[888] while another states that the deed was done to
avenge certain other Ismaïlites whom the marquis had caused to be
first robbed and then drowned.[889] This story is at any rate more
intrinsically probable than either Ibn Alathyr’s or that which was
accepted at Saladin’s court and sent to Europe by Conrad’s friends;
indeed, the relations between these latter and Richard during the
rest of their stay in the Holy Land seem hardly compatible with a
real belief on their part in Richard’s guilt.
There were now some ten thousand Frenchmen, under Hugh of Burgundy
and other barons, lodging in tents outside Tyre. As soon as Conrad
was buried these barons called upon Isabel to surrender the city to
them to hold in trust for the king of France. She boldly answered
that “when the king returned, she would willingly surrender it to
him, unless before that time it had another lord.”[890] The closing
words of this answer were a scarcely veiled announcement of her
resolve to assert her independence as queen by right of inheritance
and bring in a new claimant to the lordship of the land by taking
another consort; and it is scarcely possible to avoid a suspicion
that she had already made her choice. Count Henry had gone back from
Tyre as far as Acre;[891] there he received the news of Conrad’s
death. He at once returned to Tyre; “and when the people saw him,
they straightway elected him as sent by God to be their ruler and
lord, and prayed him to accept the crown and wed its heiress, the
widow of the marquis.” He answered that he must first ascertain how
his uncle King Richard would regard the project. When Richard heard
the whole of the strange story, he brooded over it for a long while;
at last he said to Henry’s messengers: “Sirs, I should greatly wish
that my nephew might be king, if it please God, when the land shall
be conquered; but not that he wed the marchioness, whom the marquis
took from her rightful lord and lived with in such wise that if Count
Henry trusts my counsel he will not take her in marriage. But let
him accept the kingship, and I will give him in demesne Acre and its
port-dues, Tyre, Joppa, and jurisdiction over all the conquered land.
And then tell him to come back to the host and bring the Frenchmen
with him, as quickly as he can, for I want to go and take Darum—if
the Turks dare wait there for me!”[892]
It is strange that Richard did not see how impracticable was his
advice. The first half of the scheme proposed by the barons at Tyre
was futile without the other half. The kingdom of Jerusalem was sold,
beyond redemption, into the hand of a woman. Isabel’s hour had come;
she was now, beyond all question, the “right heir” of all the land.
Henry of Champagne, nephew to both Richard and Philip, constant
companion and faithful follower of the one, yet loyal homager of the
other, was exceptionally qualified to become a sovereign round whom
all parties could rally, and a healer of their divisions; but these
qualifications must prove useless if Isabel should give him a rival
by choosing another consort. His election would be of no avail for
himself or for the realm unless he took the queen with the crown. The
barons at Tyre were urgent that he should do so; he hesitated from
fear of Richard’s displeasure, but his personal inclination seconded
their arguments. Finally Isabel herself brought him the keys of the
city; a priest was hurriedly fetched, and there and then, on May
5, the couple were wedded. The king-elect sent representatives to
Acre, Joppa, and elsewhere, to take seisin of the royal rights, and
summoned his men to join him for an expedition against Darum.[893]
During Henry’s absence from the host Richard had been scorning the
country round Ascalon in a series of bold excursions, made sometimes
almost alone, and from which he always returned “bringing ten or a
dozen, or a score, or may be thirty, Saracens’ heads, and some live
Saracens besides.”[894] Another object of these expeditions probably
was to reconnoitre the inner border of the plain, and endeavour to
find out what were the possibilities of penetrating by some way,
other than the vale of Ajalon and its ramifications, through the
Shephelah and across the trench and the mountain-rampart of Judea.
The most direct way up from the plain to Jerusalem was by the next
valley south of Ajalon, the Wady es Surar (Valley of Sorek); but if
this were to be attempted, the base for the attempt must be some
place further north than Ascalon. The entrance to the third main
inlet into the Shephelah, the Vale of Elah or Wady es Sunt, was
guarded by a great castle set on a height called by the Arabs Tell es
Safiyeh, “the Bright Hill,” and by the Franks (who in earlier days
had built the castle) Blanchegarde; both names being derived from the
nature of the site, a solitary chalk-hill whose gleaming sides were
plainly visible from Ascalon, seventeen miles away, while the tower
on its summit commanded a wide view over the surrounding plain, as
well as of Ascalon itself, and also of the roads leading northward
to Natroun and southward to Ibelin of the Hospital and Hebron. Once
already—in December, from Ramlah—Richard had set out to explore the
neighbourhood of Blanchegarde,[895] but had turned back again without
reaching the place. When on April 22 he led his troops to attack it,
he found it deserted; the Turkish garrison had fled at his approach.
He seems to have left there in their stead the whole force that he
had taken with him, and returned to Ascalon quite alone, for on the
way back he nearly lost his life in an encounter with a wild boar
in which he was evidently single-handed.[896] Six [Sidenote: _Apr.
28_] days later—the day of Conrad’s death—Roger de Glanville, whom
Richard had left in command of the newly won fortress, made a daring
reconnaissance through the Vale of Elah, up the steep mountain-pass
which meets it on the other side of the central valley, across the
plateau, and past the very gates of Jerusalem, and returned in
triumph with [Sidenote: _Apr. 29_] a few stray Saracens whom he had
captured. On the following day the king, riding somewhere “between
Blanchegarde and Gaza,” came upon eight Saracens of whom he slew
three and captured the other five. On the night of May 1 he was at
Furbia, near the coast, between Ascalon and Gaza; here some Turks
tried to surprise him asleep at early morn, but he was the first of
his little band to awake and went forth straight from bed, stopping
for nothing but his sword and shield, to meet the assailants;
four were slain, seven made prisoners; “the rest fled before his
face.”[897] It must have been either between these two exploits or
directly after the latter of them that Count Henry’s messengers met
the king “in the plains of Ramlah, spurring across the open country
in pursuit of a band of Turks who were fleeing before him.”[898] His
restlessness was probably increased by the disturbed state of his
mind. Envoys from his own dominions were arriving one after another
with contradictory letters and messages, some giving alarming
accounts of the state of affairs there, some assuring him that all
was well; some beseeching him to come home, some exhorting him to
continue the sacred task in which he was engaged; all deepening his
perplexities till he knew not which to believe or how to act.[899]
One point alone stood out clear before him. Now that Ascalon was
lost to the Moslems, its place as the key of Egypt, the base and
storehouse which sheltered troops and supplies from the Nile valley
for transmission to Jerusalem and the other fortresses still held by
the Moslems in Syria, had been taken by Darum. Before Richard could
bring himself to quit the country, and also before Saladin’s army
reassembled, Darum must be won for Christendom.
There was no time to lose. The rains were quite over; summer was
beginning; and Saladin’s host would have been at its full strength
again ere now but for some troubles in the northern part of his
dominions. His nephew Taki-ed-Din, the lord of Hamath and Edessa,
had died in October 1191 leaving a son, El Mansour, who was inclined
to rebel against Saladin’s supremacy. On May 14 or 15 the Sultan
despatched his own son El Afdal to seize El Mansour’s lands; but
the diplomatist of the family, Safadin, fearing that this quarrel
would imperil the “Holy” War, was pleading hard for a pacific
settlement.[900] Knowing all this, Richard determined not to wait
for Henry. He had his stone-casters packed on shipboard and sent
them down towards Darum by sea; he hired men-at-arms to increase
the forces at Ascalon; some he distributed in the strong places
round about to guard the roads; then he set out with only the troops
of his own domains,[901] and on Sunday, May 17,[902] this little
band pitched their tents before Darum, a fortress with seventeen
“fine strong towers and turrets,” besides a keep of great height
and strength built against a solid rock which formed one side of
it, while the other sides were of squared stone and surrounded by a
deep fosse. Being too few to encircle such a place, the adventurers
encamped all together a little way off to wait for their machines and
consider on which side they could use them to the best advantage.
The Turkish garrison thought scorn of such an insignificant looking
force, and rode forth and made a feint of provoking them to fight,
but failing to move them, withdrew into the castle and shut the
gates. That night or next day the ships arrived with the engines of
war; “and,” says an eye-witness, “we saw the valiant king of England
himself, and the nobles who were his companions, all sweating under
the burden of the various parts of the stone-casters, which they,
like packhorses, carried on their shoulders near a mile across the
sand.” The pieces were soon put together and the machines at work,
one manned by the Normans of the party, another by the Poitevins, a
third probably by the Englishmen; this last the king took under his
own special command, and he directed its discharge solely against the
keep; a mangonel set up there by the Turks was speedily destroyed by
it. All three machines were kept in ceaseless action day and night.
Meanwhile the walls were being undermined;[903] and wherever they
began to fall they were set on fire by some men of Aleppo skilled
in wall-breaking, whom Richard had hired during the siege of Acre
and now brought with him to Darum.[904] On the fourth day of the
siege (Friday, May 22), when the castle gate had been shattered by
Richard’s stone-caster and set on fire, the garrison offered to
surrender on condition that their lives and those of their families
should be spared.[905] Richard refused the condition and bade them
defend themselves as best they could. The stone-casters worked more
vigorously than ever; presently one of the undermined towers fell
with a crash. The assailants rushed through the breach; some sixty
Turks were slain; the rest fled into the keep, and when they saw
the Christian banners waving all over the outer [Sidenote: _May 22_]
bailey and the Frank knights and men-at-arms beginning to scale
the keep itself, they “gave themselves up to King Richard as his
captives and slaves.” He kept them securely guarded in the tower for
the night; next morning they were brought out, “and their hands tied
behind their backs so tightly that they roared with pain.” There were
three hundred men; and there were also some women and children in the
place, and, moreover, forty Christian prisoners.[906]
The conquest of the seaboard was complete; the last fortress on the
coast[907] was in Christian hands; and Richard and his men were the
more delighted with their success because they had won it unaided,
before their French comrades rejoined them. Count Henry and his
followers had ridden at full speed, but they came spurring up just
too late. Uncle and nephew met with joyful greetings and mutual
congratulations, and Richard publicly made over his prize to Henry
as a kind of first-fruits of the realm. It was Whitsun Eve; so all
rested where they were on the festival day.[908] On the Monday the
castle was given in charge to constables appointed by Henry,[909]
and the rest of the party set out northward. Henry and his men went
straight on [Sidenote: _May 25_] to Ascalon; Richard and his company
stopped at Furbia,[910] where it seems the king expected to receive
the report of a scout whom he had sent to reconnoitre the approach to
the southernmost of the cross-valleys leading from the plain to the
mountains—the Wady el Hesy, “valley of the wells,” which opens from
the Shephelah about twelve miles east of Furbia and meets the central
trench about eight miles west of Hebron. The scout came and reported
that Caysac, the emir whom Saladin had placed in charge of that
district, was at the “Castle of Figtrees” with more than a thousand
men, making the castle ready for defence against the Christians.
Richard at once called out the host from Ascalon to follow him; they
set out from Furbia on May 27 and advanced up the Wady el Hesy to
a place which they called the Canebrake of Starlings; its Arabic
name was [Sidenote: _May 28_] Cassaba, meaning “the Reeds.”[911] On
the morrow they set out at sunrise and proceeded to the Castle of
Figtrees, but found in it only two Turks; the rest had fled in haste
at tidings of their approach. The Christians therefore returned to
Cassaba.[912] They were less fortunate in an expedition which they
seem to have made next day, against another fortress in the same
neighbourhood; one Moslem historian says the garrison came out and
worsted them in fight; another, that they were surprised within the
castle; and both assert that one of their chief captains or nobles
was slain.[913]
While the host lay thus at the Canebrake of Starlings there came to
the king another messenger from England, [Sidenote: _May 29-31_]
his vice-chancellor, John of Alençon, with such an alarming account
of the state of affairs in both England and Normandy that after
much anxious thought he told the other princes and barons that he
really must and would go home. They hereupon held a council among
themselves, and promptly answered this announcement by another:
whatever he might do or say, wherever he might go, they all would
proceed forthwith to Jerusalem. Someone who was present at their
council carried a report of its outcome to the pilgrims of lower
rank, “and they danced for joy till past midnight”; “there was no man
high or low, young or old, who was not wild with delight, except the
king himself; but he went to bed in a feverish state of perturbation
and perplexity”;[914] for he knew that unless he went home he was
like to lose his lands,[915] yet it was virtually impossible for him
to withdraw from the Crusade in the face of this unanimous resolve.
How the resolve should be carried into effect, was the next question.
The Christians had now secured the entrances to three of the five
natural openings from the plain into the hill-country. There was
clearly nothing to be gained by proceeding further up the Wady el
Hesy. From their present encampment they could easily reach one of
the two openings which they had not yet approached, the Wady el
Afranj. At the western end of this valley, on the border-line of the
Shephelah and the plain—“at the foot of the hills, where the fields
begin,” as William of Tyre[916] describes it—stood a fortress with a
town or village clustering round it, called by the Arabs Beit Djibrin
and by the Franks Ibelin of the Hospital; the latter title, derived
from its owners the Knights of Saint John, being added to distinguish
it from the other Ibelin, on the coast further north. Its site was
probably that of the ancient Eleutheropolis, and it was a central
point whence roads radiated in all directions, to Gaza, to Hebron,
to Blanchegarde and Toron of the Knights (Natroun), to Bethlehem and
Jerusalem. When—probably on June 1—the host left the Canebrake of
Starlings, its destination was apparently understood to be Ibelin.
The pilgrims seem to have proceeded along the border of the plain to
a point—probably Galatia—whence a road ran eastward to Ibelin and
westward to Ascalon.[917] [Sidenote: _June_] Here they halted and
spent two or three days, “suffering a fierce persecution and strange
martyrdom” from swarms of minute flies which stung them in every
exposed part with such poisonous effect that “they all looked like
lepers,” but buoyed up above all troubles by their confident hope of
reaching Jerusalem at last. One alone sat gloomily in his tent apart,
absorbed in ceaseless thought; and that one was the king.[918]
[Sidenote: _June 3_]
As Richard sat thus one day he saw a chaplain from his own land,
William of Poitiers, walking up and down before the open door of
the tent, and weeping bitterly. This man longed to remonstrate with
his sovereign for proposing to desert the Holy Land in its present
perilous condition; but he lacked a fitting opportunity, and was
afraid to use one when it came. Richard called him in and said: “For
what are you weeping? By the fealty that you owe me, tell me the
truth at once.” “Sire,” answered the priest through his tears, “I
will not tell you till you have promised not to be wroth with me.”
Richard gave his word on oath that he would bear him no grudge. Then
William spoke with the impassioned and abundant eloquence of the
south. He bade the king call to mind how all his past career had been
a series of exploits and successes so remarkable as to be manifestly
due to the special grace and protection of Heaven; his early
triumphs, when only count of Poitou, over hostile neighbours and
Brabantine hordes far outnumbering his little forces; his peaceful
and undisputed succession to the throne; his almost instantaneous
victory over the Griffons at Messina; his rapid conquest of Cyprus;
his providential encounter with the Saracen ship whose freight,
had it reached Acre, might have saved that city for Islam; his
timely arrival at Acre, and the prominent share which he had had in
effecting its surrender; his recovery from the sickness of which so
many other Crusaders had died; the deliverance of the prisoners at
Darum, and the speedy capture of that fortress, whereof he had been
the chosen instrument; and his own deliverance from the Turks who had
nearly captured him in his sleep. “Remember how God has given thee
such great honour that no king of thy age ever had so few mishaps—how
often He has helped thee, and how He helps thee still. He has done
such great things for thee that thou needest fear neither king nor
baron. Remember all this, O king, and guard this land whereof He has
made thee protector! for He placed it wholly in thy keeping when the
other king turned back; and all men, great and small, to whom thy
honour is dear, say that if thou, who wert wont to be a father and
brother to the Christian cause, shouldst forsake it now, thou wilt
have betrayed it to death.”[919]
To all this Richard listened without speaking a word, and when the
priest’s discourse was ended he made no comment or reply. But he
pondered over it; “and his thoughts were enlightened.” Next day (June
4) the host was led westward, and by the hour of nones found itself
once more in the fields around Ascalon.[920] Everybody took this to
mean that the king intended to set out for Europe at once. Instead,
he told his nephew and the other nobles that “for no other concern
or need, no messenger and no tidings, nor for any earthly quarrel,
would he depart from them or quit the land before next Easter.” Then
he called for his herald Philip, and bade him proclaim throughout
Ascalon, in God’s Name, that the king had with his own lips promised
to stay in the land till Easter, and that all men were to make
themselves ready with whatsoever means God had given them, for they
were going to Jerusalem to besiege it straightway.[921]