A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (6 page)

As he passed through Italy Richard had
learned of many things that displeased him about Tancred. His sister, the
Dowager Queen Joanna, was being kept in confinement and her dower was withheld
from her. She had some influence in the kingdom and Tancred clearly did not
trust her. Moreover, William II had left a large legacy to his father-in-law,
Henry II, consisting of gold plate and gold furniture, a silk tent, two armed
galleys and many sacks of provisions. As Henry was dead, Tancred proposed to retain
them for himself. From Salerno Richard had sent to Tancred to demand the
release of his sister and the cession of her dowry and the legacy. These
demands, followed by news of Richard’s behaviour in Calabria, frightened
Tancred. He saw to it that Richard was lodged in a palace outside the walls of
Messina, but, to conciliate him, he sent Joanna with a royal escort to join her
brother and opened negotiations about money payments in lieu of the dowry and
legacy. King Philip, whom Richard had visited two days after his arrival,
offered his friendly offices; and when Queen Joanna went to pay her respects to
him, he received her so cordially that everyone expected to hear of their
forthcoming marriage. But Richard was not in a conciliatory mood. First, he sent
a detachment across the Straits to occupy the town of Bagnara, on the Calabrian
coast, and installed his sister there. Then he attacked a small island just off
Messina, where there was a Greek convent. The monks were brutally ejected to
give place to his troops. The treatment given to these holy men horrified the
people of Messina, who were mainly Greeks, while the wealthier citizens were
enraged by the conduct of the English soldiers towards their wives and
daughters.

1190: Richard seizes Messina

On 3 October a quarrel in a suburb between
some English soldiers and a group of citizens led to a riot. A rumour spread
through the town that Richard intended to conquer the whole of Sicily; and the
gates were closed against his men. An attempt by his ships to force the harbour
was repulsed. King Philip hastily summoned the Archbishop of Messina and
Tancred’s admiral Margaritus and the other Sicilian notables in the town to his
palace, and went with them next morning to pacify Richard at his headquarters
outside the walls. Just as it seemed that some arrangement would be made,
Richard heard some of the citizens, collected on a hill outside the windows,
hurl insults against his name. In a fury he left the assembly and ordered his
troops to attack once more. This time the citizens were taken by surprise. In a
few hours the English had captured Messina and had pillaged every quarter
except for the streets by the palace where King Philip was lodged. Margaritus
and the other notables barely had time to escape with their families. Their
houses were seized by Richard. The Sicilian fleet anchored in the harbour was
burnt. By afternoon the standard of the Plantagenets floated over the town.

Richard’s truculence did not end there.
Though he agreed to let King Philip’s standard float next to his own, he forced
the citizens to give him hostages against their King’s good behaviour, and
announced that he was ready to take the whole province. Meanwhile he
constructed a great wooden castle just outside the town, to which he gave the scornful
name of Mategrifon, ‘the curb on the Greeks’.

Philip was disquieted by this example of
his rival’s temper. He sent his cousin, the Duke of Burgundy, to find King
Tancred at Catania, to warn him of Richard’s intentions, and to offer him help
if worse were to follow. Tancred was in a difficult position. He knew that
Henry of Hohenstaufen was about to invade his lands; and he knew that his own
vassals were untrustworthy. A rapid calculation decided him that Richard would
be a better ally than Philip. Philip was unlikely to attack him now; but the
Kings of France were on good terms with the Hohenstaufens, and Philip’s future
friendship was uncertain. Richard, on the other hand, was the greatest present
menace, but was known to dislike the Hohenstaufen, the enemies of his Welf
cousins. Tancred rejected the French offer of help and entered into
negotiations with the English. He offered Richard twenty thousand ounces of
gold in lieu of the legacy due to Henry II, and Joanna the same sum in lieu of
her dowry.

Richard’s wrath could usually be assuaged
by the sight of gold. He accepted the offer on his own and his sister’s behalf,
and further agreed that his young heir, Arthur Duke of Brittany, should be
betrothed to one of Tancred’s daughters. When Tancred further revealed the
propositions made to him by King Philip, Richard willingly had the terms
embodied in a treaty, which the Pope was asked to sponsor. Peace was restored;
and, on the advice of the Archbishop of Rouen, Richard grudgingly gave back to
Margaritus and the other leading citizens of Messina the goods that he had
confiscated.

1190: Negotiations in Sicily

King Philip was outwitted but made no
public objection. On 8 October, while the treaty was being drawn up, he and
Richard met once more to discuss the future conduct of the Crusade. Rules were
made about the price-control of foodstuffs. Serving men were bound to their
masters. A half of every knight’s money was to be devoted to the needs of the
Crusaders. Gambling was forbidden, except to knights and clerks; and if they
gambled excessively they were to be punished. Debts contracted on the
pilgrimage must be honoured. The clergy gave sanction to the regulations,
promising to excommunicate offenders. It was easy for the Kings to agree on
such matters; but there were political questions that were less readily
settled. After some discussion it was agreed that future conquests should be
held equally between them. A more delicate problem concerned King Philip’s
sister Alice. This unfortunate princess had been sent as a child, years before,
to the English court to marry Richard or another of Henry II’s sons. Henry II
had detained her, in spite of Richard’s unwillingness to agree to the proposed
marriage. Soon there had been ugly rumours that Henry was too intimate with her
himself. Richard, whose own tastes did not lie in the direction of marriage,
refused to carry out his father’s arrangement, in spite of Philip’s reiterated
demand. Nor would his mother, Queen Eleanor, now that Henry’s death had freed
her from restraint, see her favourite son tied to a member of a family that she
hated, and one whom she believed to have been her husband’s mistress. With the
interests of her native Guienne at heart she had determined to marry him to a
princess of Navarre; and he accepted her choice. So, when Philip brought up
again the question of Alice’s marriage, Richard refused to consider it, giving
Alice’s reputation as his reason. Philip was quite indifferent to his family’s
happiness. He never intervened to help his miserable sister Agnes, the widow of
Alexius II of Byzantium. But the insult was hard to bear. His relations with
Richard grew still chillier, and he planned to leave Messina at once for the
East. But the day after he sailed a great tempest drove him back to Sicily. As
it was now mid-October he decided that it would be more prudent to winter at
Messina. That, it seems, had always been Richard’s intention. His treaty with
Tancred was not signed till 11 November. In the meantime he sent to ask his
mother to bring Berengaria of Navarre to join him in Sicily.

The winter passed quietly enough in
Sicily. On Christmas Day Richard gave a sumptuous banquet at Mategrifon, to
which he invited the King of France and the Sicilian notables. A few days later
he had an interesting interview with the aged Abbot of Corazzo, Joachim,
founder of the Order of Fiore. The venerable saint expounded to him the meaning
of the Apocalypse. The seven heads of the Dragon were, he said, Herod, Nero,
Constantius, Mahomet, Melsemuth (by whom he probably meant Abdul Muneim,
founder of the Almohad sect), Saladin, and finally Antichrist himself, who, he
declared, had already been born fifteen years ago at Rome and would sit upon
the Papal throne. Richard’s flippant reply, that in that case Antichrist was
probably the actual Pope, Clement III, whom he personally disliked, was not
well received; nor would the Saint agree with him that Antichrist would be born
of the tribe of Dan in Babylon or Antioch, and reign in Jerusalem. But it was
comforting to learn from Joachim that Richard would be victorious in Palestine
and that Saladin soon would be slain. In February Richard organized tilting
matches, in the course of which he quarrelled with a French knight, William of
Barres; but Philip was able to reconcile them. Indeed, Richard behaved very
correctly towards Philip, and a few days later even gave him several galleys
that had recently arrived from England. About the same time he heard that Queen
Eleanor and Berengaria had arrived at Naples and sent to meet them and escort
them to Brindisi, as their company was too large for the strained resources of
Messina, where the Count of Flanders had just arrived with a considerable
following.

As spring came near, the Kings prepared to
resume their journey. Richard went to Catania to visit Tancred, with whom he
swore a lasting friendship. Philip was frightened by this alliance and joined
them at Taormina. He was ready now to patch up all his disagreements with
Richard, and formally declared him free to marry whomsoever he chose. It was in
an atmosphere of general good-will that Philip sailed with all his men from
Messina on 30 March. As soon as he had left the harbour, Queen Eleanor and
Princess Berengaria arrived there. Eleanor remained only three days with her
son, then left for England, travelling by way of Rome, in order to do some
business for him at the Papal Court. Berengaria remained, under the chaperonage
of Queen Joanna.

1191: The English Fleet arrives off Cyprus

Richard at last left Messina on 10 April,
after dismantling the tower of Mategrifon. Tancred was sorry to see him go,
with good reason. That same day Pope Clement III died at Rome; and four days
later the Cardinal of Santa Maria in Cosmedin was consecrated as Celestine III.
Henry of Hohenstaufen was in Rome at the time; and the new Pope’s first action,
under pressure, was to crown him and Constance of Sicily as Emperor and
Empress.

The French fleet made a good passage to
Tyre where Philip was gladly welcomed by his cousin, Conrad of Montferrat. He
arrived with Conrad at Acre on 20 April. At once the siege of the Moslem
fortress was tightened. To Philip’s patient and ingenious temperament
siege-warfare was attractive. He reorganized the engines of the besiegers and
built towers for them. But an attempt to assault the walls was postponed till
Richard and his men should arrive.

Richard’s voyage was less peaceful. Strong
winds soon separated the flotilla. The King himself put in for a day at a
Cretan port, from which he had a tempestuous passage to Rhodes, where he stayed
for ten days, 22 April to 1 May, recovering from his seasickness. Meanwhile one
of his ships was lost in a storm, and another three, including the ship
carrying Joanna and Berengaria, were swept on to Cyprus. Two of the ships were
wrecked on the south coast of the island, but Queen Joanna was able to reach an
anchorage off Limassol.

Cyprus had for five years been under the
rule of the self-styled Emperor Isaac Ducas Comnenus, who had led a successful
revolt against Byzantium at the time of Isaac Angelus’s accession, and who had
maintained his independence by volatile alliances, now with the Sicilians, now
with the Armenians of Cilicia, now with Saladin. He was a truculent man, who
hated Latins, and he was not popular on the island owing to the exorbitant
taxation that he raised. Many of his subjects still considered him a rebel and
an adventurer. The appearance of great Frankish fleets in Cypriot waters
alarmed him; and he faced the problem unwisely. When Richard’s shipwrecked men
made their way ashore he arrested them and confiscated all the goods that could
be salvaged. Then he sent a messenger to Queen Joanna’s ship, inviting her and
Berengaria to land. Joanna, who had learned from experience of her value as a
potential hostage, replied that she could not leave the ship without her
brother’s permission; but her request to be allowed to send ashore for fresh
water was rudely refused. Indeed, Isaac came himself to Limassol and built
fortifications along the shore to prevent any landing.

On 8 May, a week after Joanna’s arrival
off Limassol, Richard and his main fleet hove in sight. It had undergone a
ghastly passage from Rhodes; and Richard’s own ship had narrowly escaped
destruction in the Gulf of Attalla. Sea-sickness had not improved Richard’s
temper; and when he heard of the treatment given to his sister and his
betrothed he vowed vengeance. At once he began to land men near Limassol and
marched on the town. Isaac made no resistance but retired to the village of Kilani
on the slopes of Troodos. Not only did the Latin merchants settled in Limassol
welcome Richard, but the Greeks in their dislike of Isaac showed themselves
friendly to the invaders. Isaac therefore said that he was ready to negotiate.
On receiving a safe-conduct he came down to Colossi and went on to Richard’s
camp. There he agreed to pay compensation for the goods that he had stolen, to
allow the English troops to buy provisions free of customs dues and to send a
token force of a hundred men to the Crusade, though he refused to leave the
island himself. He offered to send his daughter to Richard as a hostage.

1191: Richard conquers Cyprus

Isaac’s visit to the camp convinced him
that Richard was not quite as formidable as he thought. So, as soon as he returned
to Colossi, he denounced the agreement and ordered Richard to leave his land.
He made a foolish mistake. Richard had already sent a ship to Acre to announce
his approaching arrival in Cyprus; and on 11 May, the day that Isaac saw
Richard and returned to Colossi, ships put in at Limassol with all the leading
Crusaders opposed to Conrad on board. There was King Guy and his brother,
Geoffrey, Count of Lusignan, one of Richard’s leading vassals in France, there
was Bohemond of Antioch with his son Raymond, there was the Roupenian Prince
Leo, who had recently succeeded his brother Roupen, there was Humphrey of
Toron, Isabella’s divorced husband, and there were many of the leading
Templars. As Philip had taken Conrad’s side, they had come to secure Richard’s
support for their party. This accession of strength decided Richard to
undertake the conquest of the whole island. His visitors doubtless pointed out
to him its strategic value for the defence of the whole Syrian coast and the
danger that might follow should Isaac enter into too close an alliance with
Saladin. It was an opportunity too good to be missed.