blood-red, Jocen cut the throat of his beloved wife, and stabbed
himself. All the others who had wives or children, did the like
dreadful deed. When the populace broke in, they found (except the
trembling few, cowering in corners, whom they soon killed) only
heaps of greasy cinders, with here and there something like part of
the blackened trunk of a burnt tree, but which had lately been a
human creature, formed by the beneficent hand of the Creator as
they were.
After this bad beginning, Richard and his troops went on, in no
very good manner, with the Holy Crusade. It was undertaken jointly
by the King of England and his old friend Philip of France. They
commenced the business by reviewing their forces, to the number of
one hundred thousand men. Afterwards, they severally embarked
their troops for Messina, in Sicily, which was appointed as the
next place of meeting.
King Richard’s sister had married the King of this place, but he
was dead: and his uncle TANCRED had usurped the crown, cast the
Royal Widow into prison, and possessed himself of her estates.
Richard fiercely demanded his sister’s release, the restoration of
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her lands, and (according to the Royal custom of the Island) that
she should have a golden chair, a golden table, four-and-twenty
silver cups, and four-and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too
powerful to be successfully resisted, Tancred yielded to his
demands; and then the French King grew jealous, and complained that
the English King wanted to be absolute in the Island of Messina and
everywhere else. Richard, however, cared little or nothing for
this complaint; and in consideration of a present of twenty
thousand pieces of gold, promised his pretty little nephew ARTHUR,
then a child of two years old, in marriage to Tancred’s daughter.
We shall hear again of pretty little Arthur by-and-by.
This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody’s brains being
knocked out (which must have rather disappointed him), King Richard
took his sister away, and also a fair lady named BERENGARIA, with
whom he had fallen in love in France, and whom his mother, Queen
Eleanor (so long in prison, you remember, but released by Richard
on his coming to the Throne), had brought out there to be his wife;
and sailed with them for Cyprus.
He soon had the pleasure of fighting the King of the Island of
Cyprus, for allowing his subjects to pillage some of the English
troops who were shipwrecked on the shore; and easily conquering
this poor monarch, he seized his only daughter, to be a companion
to the lady Berengaria, and put the King himself into silver
fetters. He then sailed away again with his mother, sister, wife,
and the captive princess; and soon arrived before the town of Acre,
which the French King with his fleet was besieging from the sea.
But the French King was in no triumphant condition, for his army
had been thinned by the swords of the Saracens, and wasted by the
plague; and SALADIN, the brave Sultan of the Turks, at the head of
a numerous army, was at that time gallantly defending the place
from the hills that rise above it.
Wherever the united army of Crusaders went, they agreed in few
points except in gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in a most
unholy manner; in debauching the people among whom they tarried,
whether they were friends or foes; and in carrying disturbance and
ruin into quiet places. The French King was jealous of the English
King, and the English King was jealous of the French King, and the
disorderly and violent soldiers of the two nations were jealous of
one another; consequently, the two Kings could not at first agree,
even upon a joint assault on Acre; but when they did make up their
quarrel for that purpose, the Saracens promised to yield the town,
to give up to the Christians the wood of the Holy Cross, to set at
liberty all their Christian captives, and to pay two hundred
thousand pieces of gold. All this was to be done within forty
days; but, not being done, King Richard ordered some three thousand