BERENGARIA.
1190
Richard's betrothal to Berengaria--The obstacles which prevented the
marriage of Richard and Alice.--The first acquaintance of Richard
and the Princess Berengaria.--The fame of Berengaria.--Her
accomplishments.--Eleanora sent to King Sancho to ask his daughter
in marriage.--Berengaria's acceptance.--The expedition to meet
Richard.--Berengaria at Brindisi with Joanna.--The friendship
between Joanna and Berengaria.--Tancred receives a letter from
Philip.--Treachery.--Philip's letter to Tancred.--Richard's opinion
of it.--The etiquette of dueling.--Richard charges the letter upon
Philip.--Philip's reply.--Richard's declaration.--Richard and Philip
compromise their quarrel.--Re-embarkation.--Preparations for the
marriage.--Richard escorting Philip.--Why the wedding was
postponed.--Richard puts Joanna and Berengaria in charge of
Stephen.--The vow to conquer Acre.--Richard's present to Tancred.
While Richard was in the kingdom of Sicily during this memorable
winter, he made a new contract of marriage. The lady was a Spanish
princess named Berengaria. The circumstances of this betrothment were
somewhat extraordinary.
The reader will recollect that he had been betrothed in his earliest
youth to Alice, an infant princess of France. His father had thrown
him in, as it were, as a sort of makeweight, in arranging some
compromise with the King of France for the settlement of a quarrel,
and also to obtain the dower of the young princess for his own use.
This dower consisted of various castles and estates, which were
immediately put into the hands of Henry, Richard's father, and which
he continued to hold as long as he lived, using and enjoying the rents
and revenues from them as his own property. When Richard grew old
enough to claim his bride, Henry, under whose custody and charge she
had been placed, would not give her up to him; and long and serious
quarrels arose between the father and the son on this account, as has
already been related in this volume. The most obvious reason for which
Henry might be supposed unwilling to give up Alice to her affianced
husband, when he became old enough to be married to her, was, that he
wished to retain longer the use of the castles and estates that
constituted her dowry. But, in addition to this, it was surmised by
many that he had actually fallen in love with her himself, and that he
was determined that Richard should not have her at all. Richard
himself believed, or pretended to believe, that this was the case. He
was consequently very angry, and he justified himself in the wars and
rebellions that he raised against his father during the lifetime of
the king by this great wrong which he alleged that his father had done
him. On the other hand, many persons supposed that Richard did not
really wish to marry Alice, and that he only made the fact of his
father's withholding her from him a pretext for his unnatural
hostility, the real ends and aims of which were objects altogether
different.
However this may be, when Henry died, and there was no longer any
thing in the way of his marriage, he showed no desire to consummate
it. Alice's father, too, had died, and Philip, the present King of
France, and Richard's ally, was her brother. Philip called upon
Richard from time to time to complete the marriage, but Richard found
various pretexts for postponing it, and thus the matter stood when the
expedition for the Holy Land set sail from Marseilles.
The next reason why Richard did not now wish to carry his marriage
with Alice into effect was that, in the mean time, while his father
had been withholding Alice from him, he had seen and fallen in love
with another lady, the Princess Berengaria. Richard first saw
Berengaria several years before, at a time when he was with his mother
in Aquitaine, during the life of his father. The first time that he
saw her was at a grand tournament which was celebrated in her native
city in Spain, and which Richard went to attend. The families had been
well acquainted with each other before, though, until the tournament,
Richard had never seen Berengaria. Richard had, however, known one of
her brothers from his boyhood, and they had always been very great
friends. The father of Berengaria, too, Sancho the Wise, King of
Navarre, had always been a warm friend of Eleanora, Richard's mother,
and in the course of the difficulties and quarrels that took place
between her and her husband, as related in the early chapters of this
volume, he had rendered her very valuable services. Still, Richard
never saw Berengaria until she had grown up to womanhood.
He, however, felt a strong desire to see her, for she was quite
celebrated for her beauty and her accomplishments. The accomplishments
in which she excelled were chiefly music and poetry. Richard himself
was greatly interested in these arts, especially in the songs of the
Troubadours, whose performances always formed a very important part of
the entertainment at the feasts and tournaments, and other great
public celebrations of those days.
When Richard came to see Berengaria, he fell deeply in love with her.
But he could not seek her hand in marriage on account of his
engagement with Alice. To have given up Alice, and to have entered
instead into an engagement with her, would have involved both him and
his mother, and all the family of Berengaria too, in a fierce quarrel
with the King of France, the father of Alice, and also with his own
father. These were too serious consequences for him to brave while he
was still only a prince, and nominally under his father's authority.
So he did nothing openly, though a strong secret attachment sprang up
between him and Berengaria, and all desire ever to make Alice his wife
gradually disappeared.
At length, when his father died, and Richard became King of England,
he felt at once that the power was now in his own hands, and that he
would do as he liked in respect to his marriage. Alice's father, too,
had died, and her brother Philip was now king, and he was not likely
to feel so strong an interest in resenting any supposed slight to his
sister as her father would have been. Richard determined, therefore,
to give up Alice altogether, and ask Berengaria to be his wife. So,
while he was engaged in England in making his preparations for the
crusade, and when he was nearly ready to set out, he sent his mother,
Eleanora, to Navarre to ask Berengaria in marriage of her father, King
Sancho. He did not, however, give Philip any notice of this change in
his plans, not wishing to embarrass the alliance that he and Philip
were forming with any unnecessary difficulties which might interfere
with the success of it, and retard the preparations for the crusade.
So, while his mother had gone to Spain to secure Berengaria for him
as his wife, he himself, in England and Normandy, went on with his
preparations for the crusade in connection with Philip, just as if the
original engagement with Alice was going regularly on.
Eleanora was very successful in her mission. Sancho, Berengaria's
father, was very much pleased with so magnificent an offer as that of
the hand of Richard, Duke of Normandy and King of England, for his
daughter. Berengaria herself made no objection. Eleanora said that her
son had not been able to come himself and claim his bride, on account
of the necessity that he was under of accompanying his army to the
East, but she said that he would stop at Messina, and she proposed
that Berengaria should put herself under her protection, and go and
join him there.
Berengaria was a lady of an ardent and romantic temperament, and
nothing could please her better than such a proposal as this. She very
readily acceded to it, and her father was very willing to intrust her
to the charge of Eleanora. So the two ladies, with a proper train of
barons, knights, and other attendants, set out together. They crossed
the Pyrenees into France, and then, after traversing France, they
passed over the Alps into Italy. Thence they continued their journey
down the Italian coast by land, as Richard had done by water, until at
last they arrived at a place called Brindisi, which is on the coast of
Italy, not far from Messina. Here they halted, and sent word to
Richard to inform him of their arrival.
Eleanora thought that Berengaria could not go any farther with
propriety, for her engagement with Richard was not yet made public.
Indeed, the betrothal of Richard with Alice still remained nominally
in force, and a serious difficulty was to be apprehended with Philip
so soon as the new plans which Richard had formed should be announced
to him.
Eleanora said that she could not remain long in Italy, but must return
to Normandy very soon, without waiting for Richard to prepare the way
for receiving his bride. So she left Berengaria under the charge of
Joanna, who, being her own--that is, Eleanora's--daughter, was a very
proper person to be the young lady's protector. Joanna and Berengaria
immediately conceived a strong attachment for each other, and they
lived together in a very happy manner. Joanna was glad to have for a
companion so charming a young lady, and one of so high a rank, and
Berengaria, on the other hand, was much pleased to be placed under the
charge of so kind a protector. Joanna, too, having long lived in
Sicily, could give Berengaria a great deal of interesting intelligence
about the country and the people, and could answer all the thousand
questions which she asked about what she heard and saw in the new
world, as it were, into which she had been ushered.
The two ladies lived, of course, in very close seclusion, but they
lived so lovingly together that one of the writers of the day, in a
ballad that he wrote, compared them to two birds in a cage. Speaking
of Eleanora, he says, in the quaint old English of the day,
"She beleft Berengere
At Richard's costage.
Queen Joanne held her dear;
They lived as doves in a cage."
The arrival of Berengaria at Brindisi took place in the spring of the
year, when the time was drawing nigh for the fleets and armaments to
sail for the East. As yet, Philip knew nothing of Richard's plans in
respect to this new marriage, but the time had now arrived when
Richard perceived that they could no longer be concealed. Philip
entertained suspicions that something wrong was going on, though he
did not know exactly what. His suspicions made him watchful and
jealous, and at last they led to a curious train of circumstances,
which brought matters to a crisis very suddenly.
It seems that at one time, when Richard was paying a visit to Tancred,
the King of Sicily, Tancred showed him a letter which he said he had
received from the French king. In this letter, Philip--if, indeed,
Philip really wrote it--endeavored to excite Tancred's enmity against
Richard. It was just after the treaty between Tancred and Richard had
been formed, as related in the last chapter. The letter said that
Richard was a treacherous man, in whom no reliance could be placed;
that he had no intention of keeping the treaty that he had made, but
was laying a scheme for attacking Tancred in his Sicilian dominions;
and, finally, it closed with an offer on the part of the writer to
assist Tancred in driving Richard and all his followers out of the
island.
When Richard read this letter, he was at first in a dreadful rage, and
he broke out into an explosion of the most violent, profane, and
passionate language that can be conceived. Presently he looked at the
letter again, and on reperusing it, and carefully considering its
contents, he declared that he did not believe that Philip ever wrote
it. It was a stratagem of Tancred's, he thought, designed to promote a
quarrel between Richard and his ally. Tancred assured him that Philip
did write the letter, or, at least, that it was brought to him as
from Philip by the Duke of Burgundy, one of his principal officers.
"You may ask the Duke of Burgundy," said he, "and if he denies it, I
will challenge him to a duel through one of my barons."
It was necessary that the parties to a duel, in those days, should be
of equal rank, so that, if a king had a quarrel with a nobleman of
another nation, he could only send one of his own noblemen of the same
rank to be his representative in the combat. But this proposal of
sending another man to risk his life in maintaining the cause of his
king on a question of veracity, in which the person so sent had no
interest whatever, illustrates very curiously the ideas of those
chivalrous times.
Richard did not go to the Duke of Burgundy, but, taking the letter
which Tancred had shown him, he waited until he found a good
opportunity, and then showed it to Philip. The two kings often fell
into altercations and disputes in their interviews with each other,
and it was in one of these that Richard produced the letter, offering
it by way of recrimination to some charges or accusations which Philip
was making against him. Philip denied having written the letter. It
was a forgery, he said, and he believed that Richard himself was the
author of it.
"You are trying every way you can," said he, "to find pretexts for
quarreling with me, and this is one of your devices. I know what you
are aiming at: you wish to quarrel with me so as to find some excuse
for breaking off your marriage with my sister, whom you are bound by a
most solemn oath to marry. But of this you may be sure, that if you
abandon her and take any other wife, you will find me, as long as you
live, your most determined and mortal enemy."
This declaration aroused Richard's temper, and brought the affair at
once to a crisis. Richard declared to Philip that he never would marry
his sister.
"My father," said he, "kept her from me for many years because he
loved her himself, and she returned his love, and now I will never
have any thing to do with her. I am ready to prove to you the truth of
what I say."
So Richard brought forward what he called the proofs of the very
intimate relations which had subsisted between Alice and his father.
Whether there was any thing genuine or conclusive in these proofs is
not known. At all events, they made a very deep and painful
impression on Philip. The disclosure was, as one of the writers of
those times says, "like a nail driven directly through his heart."
After a while, the two kings concluded to settle the difficulty by a
sort of compromise. Philip agreed to give up all claims on the part of
Alice to Richard in consideration of a sum of money which Richard was
to pay. Richard was to pay two thousand marks[D] a year for five
years, and was on that condition to be allowed to marry any one he
chose. He was also to restore to Philip the fortresses and estates
which had been conveyed to his father as Alice's dowry at the time of
her betrothment to Richard in her infancy.
[Footnote D: The mark is about three dollars.]
This agreement, being thus made, was confirmed by a great profusion of
oaths, sworn with all solemnity, and the affair was considered as
settled.
Still, Richard seems to have been a little disinclined to bring out
Berengaria at once from her retreat, and let Philip know suddenly how
far his arrangements for marrying another lady had gone; so he
concluded to wait, before publicly announcing his intended marriage,
until Philip should have sailed for the East. Philip was now, indeed,
nearly ready to go; his fleet and his armament, being smaller than
Richard's, could be dispatched earlier; so Richard devoted himself
very earnestly to the work of facilitating and hastening his ally's
departure, determining that immediately afterward he would bring
forward his bride and celebrate his marriage.
It is not, however, certain that he kept his intended marriage with
Berengaria an absolute secret from Philip. There would be no longer
any special necessity for this after the treaty that had been made.
But, notwithstanding this agreement, it is not to be supposed that the
new marriage would be a very agreeable subject for Philip to
contemplate, or that it would be otherwise than very awkward for him
to be present on the occasion of the celebration of it; so Richard
decided that, on all accounts, it was best to postpone the ceremony
until after Philip had gone.
Philip sailed the very last of March. Richard selected from his fleet
a few of his most splendid galleys, and with these, filled with a
chosen company of knights and barons, he accompanied Philip as he left
the harbor, and sailed with him down the Straits of Messina, with
trumpets sounding, and flags and banners waving in the air. As soon as
Philip's fleet reached the open sea, Richard took leave, and set out
with his galleys on his return; but, instead of going back to Messina,
he made the best of his way to the port in Italy where Berengaria and
Joanna were lodging, and there took the ladies, who were all ready,
expecting him, and embarking them on board a very elegantly adorned
galley which he had prepared for them, he conducted them to Messina.
Richard would now probably have been immediately married, but it was
in the season of Lent, and, according to the ideas of those times, it
would be in some sense a desecration of that holy season of fasting to
celebrate any such joyous ceremony as a wedding in it; and it would
not do very well to postpone the sailing of the fleet until after the
season of Lent should have expired, for the time had already fully
arrived when it ought to sail, and Philip, with his division of the
allied force, had already gone; so he concluded to put off his
marriage till they should reach the next place at which the expedition
should land.
Berengaria consented to this, and it was arranged that she was to
accompany the expedition when it should sail, and that at the next
place of landing, which it was expected would be the island of Rhodes,
the marriage ceremony should be performed.
As it was not considered quite proper, however, under these
circumstances, that the princess should sail in the same ship with
Richard, a very strong and excellent ship was provided for her special
use, and that of Joanna who was to accompany her, and it was arranged
that she should sail from the port just before the main body of the
fleet were ready to commence the voyage. The ship in which the ladies
and their suite were conveyed was placed under the command of a brave
and faithful knight named Stephen of Turnham, and the two princesses
were committed to his special charge.
But, although Richard's regard for the sacred season of Lent would not
allow of his celebrating the marriage, he made a grand celebration in
honor of his betrothment to Berengaria before he sailed. At this
celebration he instituted an order of twenty-four knights. These
knights bound themselves in a fraternity with the king, and took a
solemn oath that they would scale the walls of Acre when they reached
the Holy Land. Acre was one of the strongest and most important
fortresses in that country, and one which they were intending first to
attack.
Also, before he went away, Richard made King Tancred a farewell
present of a very valuable antique sword, which had been found, he
said, by his father in the tomb of a famous old English knight who had
lived some centuries before.