Saracen prisoners to be brought out in the front of his camp, and
there, in full view of their own countrymen, to be butchered.
The French King had no part in this crime; for he was by that time
travelling homeward with the greater part of his men; being
offended by the overbearing conduct of the English King; being
anxious to look after his own dominions; and being ill, besides,
from the unwholesome air of that hot and sandy country. King
Richard carried on the war without him; and remained in the East,
meeting with a variety of adventures, nearly a year and a half.
Every night when his army was on the march, and came to a halt, the
heralds cried out three times, to remind all the soldiers of the
cause in which they were engaged, ‘Save the Holy Sepulchre!’ and
then all the soldiers knelt and said ‘Amen!’ Marching or
encamping, the army had continually to strive with the hot air of
the glaring desert, or with the Saracen soldiers animated and
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Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
directed by the brave Saladin, or with both together. Sickness and
death, battle and wounds, were always among them; but through every
difficulty King Richard fought like a giant, and worked like a
common labourer. Long and long after he was quiet in his grave,
his terrible battle-axe, with twenty English pounds of English
steel in its mighty head, was a legend among the Saracens; and when
all the Saracen and Christian hosts had been dust for many a year,
if a Saracen horse started at any object by the wayside, his rider
would exclaim, ‘What dost thou fear, Fool? Dost thou think King
Richard is behind it?’
No one admired this King’s renown for bravery more than Saladin
himself, who was a generous and gallant enemy. When Richard lay
ill of a fever, Saladin sent him fresh fruits from Damascus, and
snow from the mountain-tops. Courtly messages and compliments were
frequently exchanged between them – and then King Richard would
mount his horse and kill as many Saracens as he could; and Saladin
would mount his, and kill as many Christians as he could. In this
way King Richard fought to his heart’s content at Arsoof and at
Jaffa; and finding himself with nothing exciting to do at Ascalon,
except to rebuild, for his own defence, some fortifications there
which the Saracens had destroyed, he kicked his ally the Duke of
Austria, for being too proud to work at them.
The army at last came within sight of the Holy City of Jerusalem;
but, being then a mere nest of jealousy, and quarrelling and
fighting, soon retired, and agreed with the Saracens upon a truce
for three years, three months, three days, and three hours. Then,
the English Christians, protected by the noble Saladin from Saracen
revenge, visited Our Saviour’s tomb; and then King Richard embarked
with a small force at Acre to return home.
But he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic Sea, and was fain to pass
through Germany, under an assumed name. Now, there were many
people in Germany who had served in the Holy Land under that proud
Duke of Austria who had been kicked; and some of them, easily
recognising a man so remarkable as King Richard, carried their
intelligence to the kicked Duke, who straightway took him prisoner
at a little inn near Vienna.
The Duke’s master the Emperor of Germany, and the King of France,
were equally delighted to have so troublesome a monarch in safe
keeping. Friendships which are founded on a partnership in doing
wrong, are never true; and the King of France was now quite as
heartily King Richard’s foe, as he had ever been his friend in his
unnatural conduct to his father. He monstrously pretended that
King Richard had designed to poison him in the East; he charged him
with having murdered, there, a man whom he had in truth befriended;
he bribed the Emperor of Germany to keep him close prisoner; and,
finally, through the plotting of these two princes, Richard was
brought before the German legislature, charged with the foregoing
crimes, and many others. But he defended himself so well, that