Richard I

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Abbott Jacob. Richard I

PREFACE

Chapter I. King Richard's Mother

Chapter II. Richard's early Life

Chapter III. Fair Rosamond

Chapter IV. Accession of Richard to the Throne

Chapter V. The Coronation

Chapter VI. Preparations for the Crusade

Chapter VII. The Embarkation

Chapter VIII. King Richard at Messina

Chapter IX. Berengaria

Chapter X. The Campaign in Cyprus

Chapter XI. Voyage to Acre

Chapter XII. The Arrival at Acre

Chapter XIII. Difficulties

Chapter XIV. The Fall of Acre

Chapter XV. Progress of the Crusade

Chapter XVI. Reverses

Chapter XVII. The old Man of the Mountains

Chapter XVIII. The Battle of Jaffa

Chapter XIX. The Truce

Chapter XX. The Departure from Palestine

Chapter XXI. Richard made Captive

Chapter XXII. The Return to England

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King Richard the First, the Crusader, was a boisterous, reckless, and desperate man, and he made a great deal of noise in the world in his day. He began his career very early in life by quarreling with his father. Indeed, his father, his mother, and all his brothers and sisters were engaged, as long as the father lived, in perpetual wars against each other, which were waged with the most desperate fierceness on all sides. The subject of these quarrels was the different possessions which the various branches of the family held or claimed in France and in England, each endeavoring to dispossess the others. In order to understand the nature of these difficulties, and also to comprehend fully what sort of a woman Richard's mother was, we must first pay a little attention to the map of the countries over which these royal personages held sway.

We have already seen, in another volume of this series,1 how the two countries of Normandy on the Continent, and of England, became united under one government. England, however, did not conquer and hold Normandy; it was Normandy that conquered and held England. The relative situation of these two countries is shown on the map. Normandy, it will be seen, was situated in the northern part of France, being separated from England by the English Channel. Besides Normandy, the sovereigns of the country held various other possessions in France, and this French portion of the compound realm over which they reigned they considered as far the most important portion. England was but a sort of appendage to their empire.

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The king, too, on his part, was as much out of humor as the queen. He determined that he would not allow her to accompany him any more on the campaign; so he left her at Jerusalem, a sort of prisoner, while he put himself at the head of his army and went forth to prosecute the war. By-and-by, when he came back to Jerusalem, and inquired about his wife's conduct while he had been gone, he learned some facts in respect to the intimacy which she had formed with a prince of the country during his absence, that made him more angry than ever. He declared that he would sue for a divorce. She was a wicked woman, he said, and he would repudiate her.

One of his ministers, however, contrived to appease him, at least so far as to induce him to abandon this design. The minister did not pretend to say that Eleanora was innocent, or that she did not deserve to be repudiated, but he said that if the divorce was to be carried into effect, then Louis would lose all claim to Eleanora's possessions, for it will be recollected that the dukedom of Aquitaine, and the other rich possessions which belonged to Eleanora before her marriage, continued entirely separate from the kingdom of France, and still belonged to her.

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