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RICHARD OF DEVIZES

IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD MCLXXXIX.

SECT. 3. Now in the year of our Lord’s incarnation 1189, Richard, the son of king Henry II. by Eleanor, brother or Henry III.,* was consecrated king of the English by Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, at Westminster, on the third of the nones of September (3 Sept.). On the very day of the coronation, about that solemn hour, in which the Son was immolated to the Father, a sacrifice of the Jews to their father the devil was commenced in the city of London, and so long was the duration of this famous mystery, that the holocaust could scarcely be accomplished the ensuing day. The other cities and towns of the kingdom emulated the faith of the Londoners, and with a like devotion despatched their blood-suckers† with blood to hell. In this commotion there was prepared, although unequally, some evil against the wicked, everywhere throughout the realm, only Winchester alone, the people being prudent and circumspect, and the city always acting mildly spared its vermin. It never did any thing over-speedily; fearing nothing more than to repent, it considers the result of every thing before the commencement. It was unwilling, unprepared, to cast up violently through the parts the indigestion by which it was oppressed to its bodily peril, and it was careful for its bowels, in the mean time temperately concealing its uneasiness, until it should be possible for it, at a convenient time for cure, to cast out the whole cause of the disease at once and once for all.

Sect. 4. Not without the anxious solicitude and amazement of many, a bat was seen, in the middle and bright part of the day, to flutter through the monastery, inconveniently recircling in the same tracks, and especially around the king’s throne.

Sect. 5. William de Longchamp, who had been the chancellor of the earl of Poitiers before his accession, when the garl was crowned king, considered his office to have profited as much for the better, as a kingdom is superior to an earldom.

Sect. 6. A circumstance happened on the selfsame day of the coronation in Westminster Abbey, a presage of such portentous omen, as then was hardly allowable to be related even in a whisper. At Complin, the last hour of the day, the first peal that day happened to be rung, neither by any agreement, nor even the ministers of the church themselves being aware of it, till after it was done; for Prime, Tierce, Sext, Nones, and the solemn service of vespers and two masses were celebrated without any ringing of peals.

Sect. 7. Stephen de Marzia,* seneschal of Anjou, under the king lately deceased, he great and mighty, singularly fierce, and the master of his lord, being taken and cast into chains, was dragged to Winchester, where being made a gazing-stock to angels and to men, emaciated with woeful hunger, and broken with the weight of his irons, he was constrained to the payment of thirty thousand pounds of money of Anjou, and the promise of fifteen thousand pounds, for his ransom. Ralph de Glanville, justiciary of the realm of England and the king’s eye, a man not inferior to Stephen, except in manners and riches, being deprived of authority and given into custody, redeemed merely his liberty to go and come for fifteen thousand pounds of silver. And whereas this name, Glanville, had been so great the day before, a name as it were above every name, so that whosoever, to whom it should be given by the Lord, would converse among princes, and would be adored by the people, yet the next morning there remained not one in the land who could be called by this name. That was the ruin of those two, to wit, of Stephen and Ralph, which also it is certain has been the ruin of thousands before them, and which hereafter may ruin others, namely, a suspicion arising from the confidence of their former lord.

Sect. 8. John, the king’s brother, who alone of the sons of his mother, queen Eleanor, survived his brother, besides the earldom of Mortain, which, by his father’s gift, he had long enjoyed, was so greatly enriched and increased in England by his brother, that both privately and publicly it was affirmed by many that the king had no thoughts of returning to the kingdom, and that his brother, already no less powerful than himself, if he should not restrain his innate temper, would, impelled by the desire of sovereignty, endeavour to drive him vanquished from the realm.

Sect. 9. The time of commencing his journey pressed hard upon King Richard, as he, who had been first of all the princes on this side the Alps in the taking up of the cross, was unwilling to be last in setting out. A king worthy of the name of king, who, in the first year of his reign, left the kingdom of England for Christ, scarcely otherwise than if he had departed never to return. So great was the devotion of the man, so hastily, so quickly and so speedily did he run, yea fly, to avenge the wrongs of Christ. However, whilst he kept the greater matter in his mind, giving himself in some little measure to deliberation for the kingdom, having received power from the pope that he might withdraw the cross from such of his own subjects, as he should desire, for the government of his kingdom, he first appointed Hugh Pudsey, bishop of Durham, to be chief justice of the whole realm, and with design, as is thought by many, further creating him a young earl of Northumberland out of an old bishop, the custody of as many castles as he liked being yielded to him, he diligently cleared from his coffers ten thousand pounds of silver. Geoffrey Fitz Peter, William Briwere, and Hugh Bardulf being permitted to remain at home, the cross being withdrawn from them, the king’s treasurer transferred the whole collections of the three as three nuts into the Exchequer. All the sheriffs of the kingdom, on any trivial accusation falling under the king’s displeasure, were deprived of their unlucky power, and scarcely permitted to see his face, even by the mediation of inestimable treasure. Ralph de Glanville, than whom none of his time was more subtle whilst he was in power, now being reduced to a private person by his prince, was so stupified through grief, that his son-in-law, Ralph de Ardenne, utterly lost, by reason of his careless talk, whatever he had previously acquired by the judgment of his mouth. He too, himself, because he was an old man, and not able to bear fatigue, if he had been willing to give the king that little which remained after the payment of the fine, as a gratuity, would easily have obtained a remission of the peril of the journey. The king received security from the tributary kings of the Welsh and of the Scots, that they would not pass their borders for the annoyance of England during his absence.

Sect. 10. Godfrey, son of that renowned Richard de Luci, Richard (Fitz Neale) the treasurer, Hubert Walter, and William de Longchamp, four men of no small virtue, and of no mean praise, were elected at Pippewelle to the four vacant sees, viz. Winchester, London, Salisbury, and Ely. They all obtained sufficient canonical nomination, and especially the elect of Winchester, who obtained his nomination to the dignity on the seventeenth of the kalends of October (Sept. 15), while the election of the other three was delayed till the morrow, the king consenting and the archbishop confirming what was done, although at the first he would rather have had it somewhat otherwise: concerning which it wonderfully happened that he, who had been nominated to one of the sees by the archbishop’s means, died that very day. William, bishop elect of Ely, retained the king’s seal on the payment of three thousand pounds of silver, although Reginald the Italian had bid one thousand more. The bishops elect of Winchester and Salisbury were consecrated at Westminster, by Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, on the eleventh of the kalends of November (Oct. 22). On that day, Hugh de Nonante, bishop of Coventry, laid his complaint before the archbishop and bishops assembled at the consecration of the bishops elect, against his monks of Coventry, for having laid violent hands on him and drawn his blood before the altar. He had also expelled the greater part of the congregation before his complaint, nor did he cease from his importunity until he had obtained the sanction of all the bishops in attestation to the pope against the monks.

Sect. 11. Godfrey, bishop of Winchester, mindful of his profession, suing for the restoration of the possessions of his church, which had been taken away, as no one had any right of replevin against the church of Winchester with respect to its two manors, namely Meones and Weregrave, recovered them by judicial decree, three thousand pounds of silver being privately given to the king. Nor did the considerate man omit at the same time to pay a fine to the king for the indemnity of the church’s treasure, for his patrimony, for the county of Hampshire and for the custody of the castles of Winchester and Porchester. And because the time for the payment of so much money was nigh at hand, as he could not pass over the day fixed for the payment without detriment to the whole business, and he could find no nearer resource under heaven, although against his will, he laid his hand on the treasure of his church, to restore which, however, he obliged himself and his successors, providing security to the convent by the testimony of a sealed bond. A man of such courtesy and moderation, who not even when angry ever did any thing to those who were under him, but what savoured of mildness: truly of his family, and one of his familiars, of whom it is said, under whom to live is to reign.

Sect. 12. The king readily disburthened all, whose money was a burthen to them, such powers and possessions as they chose being given to anybody at pleasure; wherewith also on a time an old acquaintance in the company joking him, he broke off with this evasion, “I would sell London if I could find a chapman.” Many a one might have been forewarned by that expression, had it been uttered sooner, not to learn to be a wise merchant, after the English proverb, “by buying for a dozen, and selling for one and a half.”

IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD MCXC.

Sect. 13. In the year from the incarnation of the Lord 1190,* the king crossed the Channel to Neustria (Normandy), the care of the whole kingdom being committed to the chancellor.

Richard, bishop elect of London, and William of Ely, were consecrated by Archbishop Baldwin at Westminster, the second of the kalends of January (Dec. 31, 1189). William de Mandeville, earl of Albemarle, being seized with delirium in an acute semitertian fever, died at Gisorz: whose relict, a woman almost a man, who was deficient in nothing masculine but manhood, William de Fortibus, a knight a thousand times approved in arms, received to wife by King Richard’s gift, together with all the honours of her former husband.

Sect. 14. William, bishop of Ely, and the king’s chancellor, by nature a second Jacob, although he did not wrestle with the angel, a goodly person, making up in mind for his shortness in stature, secure for his master’s love, and presuming on his favour, because all power was, is, and will be impatient of a partner, expelled Hugh de Pusac from the Exchequer, and barely leaving him even his sword with which he had been invested as an earl of the king’s hand, after a short time, deprived him of the honour of his earldom also. And lest the bishop of Durham alone should bewail his misfortunes, the villain, who was now more cruel than a wild beast, and spared nobody, fell upon the bishop of Winchester also. The custody of the castles and county is taken away from him, nor is he even permitted to enjoy his own patrimony. The kingdom is disturbed, and the discontented are charged with disaffection to the king. Everybody crosses the sea to importune the king against the tyrant, but he having crossed first of all, briefly related before the king a partial account of his entire proceeding and expulsion; by whom also he was fully instructed in all things to be done; he thus foiled the adverse wishes of his rivals, and was on his return before those who assailed him could obtain admission to the king’s presence. So he returns to the English not less powerful and prosperous, than one who has accomplished all things whatsoever he desired. The king having returned from Gascony, where he had forcibly put down the thieves, and captured the holds they had occupied, all those whom the chancellor had injured assembled before him, who satisfying every one as then to each seemed good, sent them all back to the chancellor with such letters as they then desired. John, bishop of Norwich, being also one of those who threatened Saladin, amply furnished for his journey and the cause, whilst proceeding on his way in the borders of Burgundy, fell among robbers, who took from him all his substance; and, as he had no means loft wherewith he might proceed, he turned his course towards the pope, and when with his insinuation he had bemoaned his mischance and poverty to him, the clemency of the Holy See dismissed him home, absolved from his vow.

Sect. 15. The bishop of Winchester, being affected with a serious disease, remained some time beyond the sea. The bishop of Durham in haste proceeded direct to London, but not being received by the barons of the Exchequer, he hastily, as if sure to triumph, pursues his way after the chancellor, who at that time had gone on an expedition towards Lincoln; whom having overtaken, he saluted in the king’s name, not freely nor without a frown, and then questioned him seriously concerning the affairs of state, and, indeed, as if he would not suffer any thing to be done without his consent. He neglected fine language and long words, and while he boasted too much of power not yet received, not considering with whom he was speaking, he loosely uttered whatever he ought to have kept secret. At the conclusion of his address, the staff is put forth to silence talk, the king’s solemn act much to be reverenced is exhibited for recital. The mountains travail, the silly mouse is produced. The observance of strict silence is enjoined during the king’s mandate; all were hushed, and attentive held their tongues. The epistle is read in public, which would have been much more to be feared if it had not been so soon read; he (Longchamp), well able to conceal his device, shrewdly deferred to answer what he had heard till the seventh day, appointing their place of conference at Tickhill. On the day appointed the bishop of Durham comes to the castle, and his attendants being commanded to wait for him before the gates, he goes into the chancellor quite alone; he who before had held his peace, speaks first, and compels the deceived to recite with his own mouth letters he had obtained after the former against whatever he had hoped. As he was preparing to answer, he added, “The other day while you were speaking it was time for me to be silent; now that you may discern why I have taken a time for speaking, you being silent; as my lord the king lives, you shall not depart hence until you have given me hostages for all the castles which you hold being delivered up to me, for I do not take you as a bishop a bishop, but as a chancellor a chancellor!” The ensnared had neither the firmness nor the opportunity to resist; the hostages are given, and at the term assigned the castles are given up for the restoring of the hostages. William, bishop of Worcester, who succeeded next to Baldwin, went the way of all flesh.

Sect. 16. The lord bishop of Winchester, at length recovering in Neustria, and also desiring to receive back the things taken from him, recrossed with all the speed he could, and found the chancellor besieging the castle of Gloucester. Whose arrival being known, the chancellor goes forth to meet him as he comes, and having heartily embraced and kissed him, says, “You have come at a most desirable time, dear friend! are we to prosecute the siege or desist?” To whom the bishop replies, “If you desire peace, lay down arms.” He, quick of apprehension, perceived the force of the words, and commanded the heralds to sound the retreat; he also restored to the bishop his patrimony without dispute, but that only. All the others, who had crossed the sea against the chancellor, profited less than nothing. William, legate of the Apostolic See, held a council at Westminster, in which, lest there should be nothing done to be reported of him hereafter, he sentenced all religion to be expelled from Coventry cathedral, and prebendary clerks to be substituted in place of the monks.

Sect. 17. William, the wonderful bishop of Ely, chancellor of the king, justiciary of the kingdom, of threefold charge and threefold title, that he might use both hands as the right, and that the sword of Peter might succour the sword of the ruler, took upon himself the office of legate of all England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, which he obtained from the pope at the instance of the king, who would not otherwise set out, by Reginald, bishop of Bath. Therefore successful in every office which he craved, he passed to and fro through the kingdom with the rapidity of a flash of lightning.

The King of Darkness, that old incendiary, having added fresh fuel, fanned the ancient spark between the church of Salisbury and the monastery of Malmesbury into renewed flames. The abbot is roused not now to make the profession of pontiff, but to disavow the very title of the bishop as well as his crosier. Royal letters to the chancellor were obtained, by which the abbot should be compelled to respond at law to the motions of the bishop. Nor did the man whose affairs were at stake forget himself; no peril could ever overtake him unprovided, who never knew the loss of any thing through sloth. He repelled one nail by another, being presented by the king with letters invalidating the former letters. The chancellor having perceived the shameful contrariety of the mandates of his prince, lest the king’s fame should be injured by the fact, if he proceeded in the cause, deferred all process of both the one party and the other till the king’s return.

Sect. 18. King Richard exacted an oath from his two brothers, John, his own brother, and Geoffrey, a bastard, that they would not enter England within three years from his departure, the three years to be reckoned from the day of his starting from Tours; through the entreaties of his mother, however, dispensing so far concerning John, that passing into England with the chancellor’s approbation, he should abide his judgment, and at his pleasure he should either remain in the kingdom, or live in exile.

Queen Eleanor’s dowry was recognized throughout the king’s territories by a solemn act, and delivered up to her, so that she who had before lived on the Exchequer might thenceforward live on her own.

The king’s fleet, having left its own shores, sailed round Spain, and from the ocean having entered the Mediterranean, which further on is called the Grecian Sea, by the Straits of Africa, steered on to Marseilles, there to await the king.

The king of France and the king of England, having held a council at Tours and again at Vezelay, and confirmed the treaty between themselves and their kingdoms, and having settled and disposed of all things on both sides according to their pleasure, depart from each other with their respective armies. The Frenchman, being subject to sickness at sea, marches by land to Sicily; the Englishman, on the contrary, about to proceed by sea, comes to Marseilles to his ships. Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, and Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury, being the only bishops of all England who accomplished their vows, follow the king to Sicily, and arrive first in the land of Juda.

Sect. 19. The monks of the order of Cluni were not wont to supplant one another in their priories and government either by entreaty or bribes, and although some of them have sometimes attempted something of that sort, that however we have seen visited with condign punishment. There was a certain venerable man elected prior of Montacute solely on account of his worth, Josceline by name, in whom you could discern nothing but what was praiseworthy. To supplant this so good a man there came a certain one, whose name it is not necessary to mention, one of his false brethren, with letters, obtained by great cunning from the abbot of Cluni, by which it was commanded that the prior should resign to the bearer of the present letters, and the congregation receive him for their prelate. The prior by some means foreknew what commodity the dealer had come to seek, wherefore, without awaiting the mandate, he vacated his seat in the chapter, and the congregation being present, addressed him, “Friend, for what art thou come?” He, having tarried long that he might appear unwillingly to receive that, which he had come to take by violence, at length betook himself to his seat, and anon imprecated himself, saying, “O thou, who with unalterable purpose governest the world, whose power takes its pastime in human affairs, who puttest down the mighty and exaltest the humble! O thou just judge Jesu Christ, if wrongfully I here preside, without delay and manifestly do thou vouchsafe to shew!” Behold the miracle! On that same day he lost his speech; on the next, his life; on the third, being consigned to the earth, he learnt by experience, and taught by example, that sordid plunder is never followed by prosperous results.

A certain monk of Glastonbury, in hopes of promotion, courted Earl John with many presents; but just as he should have come to receive it, a certain beam having suddenly given way, fell in his face, so that, bruised and wholly disfigured, he lost both his eggs (qy. expectations) and his money together.

Sect. 20. The ships which the king found already prepared on the shore were one hundred in number, and fourteen busses, vessels of great magnitude and admirable swiftness, strong vessels and very sound, whereof this was the equipage and appointment. The first of the ships had three spare rudders, thirteen anchors, thirty oars, two sails, three sets of ropes of all kinds, and besides these double whatever a ship can want, except the mast and the ship’s boat. There is appointed to the ship’s command a most experienced steersman, and fourteen subordinate attendants picked for the service are assigned him. The ship is freighted with forty horses of value, trained to arms, and with arms of all kinds for as many horsemen, and forty foot, and fifteen sailors, and with an entire year’s provisions for as many men and horses. There was one appointment for all the ships, but each of the busses received a double appointment and freight. The king’s treasure, which was very great and inestimable, was divided amongst the ships and busses, that if one part should experience danger, the rest might be saved. All things being thus arranged, the king himself, with a small household, and the chief men of his army, with his attendants, having quitted the shore, advanced before the fleet in galleys, and being daily entertained by the maritime towns, taking along with them the larger ships and busses of that sea, arrived prosperously at Messina.* So great was the splendour of the approaching armament, such the clashing and brilliancy of their arms, so noble the sound of the trumpets and clarions, that the city quaked and was greatly astounded, and there came to meet the king a multitude of all ages, people without number, wondering and proclaiming with what exceeding glory and magnificence that king had arrived, surpassing the king of France, who with his forces had arrived seven days before. And forasmuch as the king of France had been already received into the palace of Tancred, king of Sicily, within the walls, the king of England pitched his camp without the city. The same day the king of France, knowing of the arrival of his comrade and brother, flies to his reception, nor could their gestures sufficiently express in embraces and kisses how much each of them rejoiced in the other. The armies cheered one another with mutual applause and intercourse, as if so many thousand men had been all of one heart and one mind. In such pastimes is the holiday spent until the evening, and the weary kings departing, although not satiated, return every one to his own quarters. On the next day the king of England presently caused gibbets to be erected without the camp to hang thereon thieves and robbers. The judges delegated spared neither sex nor age: the cause of the stranger and the native found the like law and the like punishment. The king of France, whatever transgression his people committed, or whatever offence was committed against them, took no notice and held his peace; the king of England esteeming the country of those implicated in guilt as a matter of no consequence, considered every man his own, and left no transgression unpunished, wherefore the one was called a Lamb by the Griffones, the other obtained the name of a Lion.

Sect. 21. The king of England sent his messengers to the king of Sicily, demanding Johanna his sister, formerly queen of Sicily, and her dowry, with a golden seat and the whole legacy which King William had bequeathed to his father, King Henry, namely, a golden table of twelve feet in length, a silk tent, a hundred of the best galleys with all their necessaries for two years, sixty thousand silinas of wheat, sixty thousand of barley, sixty thousand of wine, four and twenty golden cups, and four and twenty golden dishes. The king of Sicily, setting little by the demands of the king of the English, and still less considering his own exigencies, sent him back his sister with the ordinary furniture of her bed, having given her, however, with royal consideration, a thousand thousand terrini for her expenses. On the third day following, the king of England, having passed over the great river Del Far, which separates Calabria from Sicily, entered Calabria in arms, and took therein the well-fortified town which is called La Banniere, and having expelled the Griffones, established his sister there, and secured the place with an armed garrison. Again the king took a very strong castle, which is called the Griffones’ Monastery, on the same river Del Far, situated between La Banniere and Messina, and fortified it when taken; and having without mercy despatched by various tortures the Griffones who had resisted, caused them to be exhibited as a gazing-stock to their friends. Wido, king of Jerusalem, sent word to Philip, king of the French, and Richard, king of the English, whilst wintering in Sicily, that the residue of the Christians who lay before Acre would, on account of their weakness and the violence of the pagans, either be obliged to depart or perish, unless very shortly sustained. To aid whom, the kings sent forward Henry, count of Champagne, and Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, and Hubert, bishop of Salisbury, and Ralph de Glanville, with a strong army; of whom Archbishop Baldwin and Ralph de Glanville died at the siege of the city, which the Latins call Acre and the Jews Accaron, while the kings still remained in Sicily.

Sect. 22. The Griffones, before King Richard’s arrival in Sicily, were more powerful than all the mighty of that region, and having moreover always hated the people beyond the Alps, and now irritated by recent occurrences more inveterate than ever, kept the peace with all who claimed the king of France for their master, but sought to wreak the entire vengeance of their wrongs on the king of the English and his tailed* followers, for the Greeks and Sicilians followed that king about and called them tailed English. Thereupon all intercourse with the country is denied the English by proclamation; they are murdered both day and night by forties and fifties, wherever they are found unarmed. The slaughter was daily multiplied, and it was madly purposed to go on until they should either destroy or put them all to flight. The king of England, excited by these disorders, raged like the fiercest lion, and vented his anger in a manner worthy that noble beast. His fury astounded his nearest friends, and his whole court, the famous princes of his army sat around his throne, each according to his rank, and if any one might dare to raise his eyes to look him in the face, it would be very easy to read in the ruler’s countenance what he silently considered in his mind. After a long and deep silence, the king disburdened his indignant lips as follows.

Sect. 23. “O, my soldiers! my kingdom’s strength and crown! who have endured with me a thousand perils, you, who by might have subdued before me so many tyrants and cities, do you now see how a cowardly rabble insults us? Shall we vanquish Turks and Arabs? shall we be a terror to nations the most invincible? shall our right hand make us a way even to the ends of the world for the cross of Christ? shall we restore the kingdom to Israel, when we have turned our backs before vile and effeminate Griffones? Shall we, subdued here in the confines of our own country, proceed further, that the sloth of the English may become a by-word to the ends of the earth? Am I not right, then, O my friends, in regarding this as a new cause of sorrow? Truly, methinks I see you deliberately spare your pains, that perchance you may the better contend with Saladin hereafter. I, your lord and king, love you; I am solicitous for your honour; I tell you, I warn you again and again, if now you depart thus unrevenged, the mention of this base flight will both precede and accompany you. Old women and children will be raised up against you, and assurance will yield a double energy to every enemy against the runaways. I know that he who saves any one by constraint, does the same as kill him; the king will retain no man against his will. I am unwilling to compel any one of you to stay with me, lest the fear of one should shake another’s confidence in the battle. Let every one follow what he may have chosen, but I will either die here or will revenge these wrongs common to me and you. If hence I depart alive, Saladin will see me only a conqueror; will you depart, and leave me, your king, alone to meet the conflict?”

Sect. 24. The king had scarcely well concluded his harangue, when all his brave and valiant men burst out, troubled only that their lord appeared to mistrust his men. They promise that they will comply from their souls with whatever he shall enjoin; they are ready to penetrate mountains and walls of brass, should he but give a nod: all Sicily, at his command alone, shall be subjected to him by their labour; if he should but desire it, as far as the Pillars of Hercules shall be steeped in blood. As the clamour, hushed by the ruler’s gravity, subsided, “I am pleased,” said he, “with what I hear; you refresh my spirits by your readiness to cast off your disgrace. And, as delay has always been hurtful to those who are prepared, we must make haste, so that whatever we design may be sudden. Messina shall be taken by me in the first place, the Griffones shall either ransom themselves, or be sold. If King Tancred do not more speedily satisfy me for my sister’s dowry and the legacy of King William, which fails to me in right of my father, after the depopulation of his kingdom, he shall be compelled to restore them fourfold. Whatever belongs to the inhabitants shall be a prey for everybody to whom it shall fall; only with my lord the king of the French, who lodges in the city, and with all his followers, shall perfect peace be preserved. Let two thousand bold knights,* the choice of the entire army, and a thousand foot, archers, be made ready within two days. Let the law be enforced without remission; let the footman, who flies full speed, lose his foot, the knight be deprived of his girdle. Let every man, according to military discipline, be disposed in line in exact array, and on the third day, at the sound of the horn, let them follow me. I will head them and shew them the way to the city!” The assembly separated with the greatest applause; the king, having relaxed the sternness of his countenance, was seen returning thanks for their good-will with his wonted affability of expression.

Sect. 25. It wonderfully fell out that not even the king’s enemy could pretend that his cause was unjust. On the third day on which the army was to have been led forth to battle, very early in the morning, Richard, archbishop of Messina, the archbishop of Montreal, the archbishop of Pisa, Margaritus Admiralis, Jordan de Pin, and many other of King Tancred’s familiar friends, having taken with them Philip, king of the French, the bishop of Carnot, the duke of Burgundy, the counts of Nevers and Perch, and many followers of the king of France, also, the archbishops of Rouen and Auch, the bishops of Evreux and Bayonne, and all who were supposed to have any influence with the English, came reverently to the king of England, that they might cause satisfaction for all his complaints to be given to his content. The king, after long and earnest solicitation, is prevailed on by the entreaty of such honourable men, and commits the matter to be settled by their arbitration. They would consider well the enormity or what he had had to brook, and would provide that the satisfaction should be answerable to the offence. Whatever their general deliberation should have determined to be sufficient, would be satisfactory to him, if only, from that very moment, none of the Griffones would lay hands on his men. Those who had come were even more astonished than rejoiced at this unhoped-for clemency, and giving him at once what he had last propounded, they retired from the king’s presence, and were assembled at some distance to treat of the rest.

Sect. 26. The king’s army having on the previous day been numbered according to the aforementioned order, was with, solemn silence in arms before the camp, awaiting the herald, from the rising of the sun, and the framers of the peace, not so easily coming to a determination, had protracted the day till full the third hour, when behold, suddenly and unexpectedly, there was proclaimed by a voice, too distinctly heard, before the gates, “To arms, to arms, men! Hugo Brunus is taken and being murdered by the Griffones, all he has is being plundered, and his men are being slaughtered.” The cry of the breach of peace confounded those who were treating for the peace, and the king of France broke forth in the following speech: “I take it that God has hated these men, and hardened their hearts that they may fall into the hands of the destroyer:” and having quickly returned, with all who were with him, to the king’s pavilion, he found him already girding on his sword, whom he thus briefly addressed: “I will be a witness before all men, whatever be the consequence, that thou art blameless, if at length thou takest arms against the cursed Griffones.” When he had said this, he departed; those who had accompanied him followed, and were received into the city. The king of England proceeds in arms; the terrible standard of the dragon is borne in front unfurled, while behind the king the sound of the trumpet excites the army. The sun shone brightly on the golden shields, and the mountains were resplendent in their glare; they marched cautiously and orderly, and the affair was managed without show. The Griffones, on the contrary, the city gates being closed, stood armed at the battlements of the walls and towers, as yet fearing nothing, and incessantly discharged their darts upon the enemy. The king, acquainted with nothing better than to take cities by storm and batter forts, let their quivers be emptied first, and then at length made his first assault by his archers who preceded the army. The sky is hidden by the shower of arrows, a thousand darts pierce through the shields spread abroad on the ramparts, nothing could save the rebels against the force of the darts. The walls are left without guard, because no one could look out of doors, but he would have an arrow in his eye before he could shut it.

Sect. 27. In the mean time, the king with his troops, without repulse, freely and as though with permission, approached the gates of the city, which, with the application of the battering-ram, he forced in an instant, and having led in his army, took every hold in the city, even to Tancred’s palace and the lodgings of the French around their king’s quarters, which he spared in respect of the king his lord. The standards of the victors are planted on the towers through the whole circuit of the city, and each of the surrendered fortifications he intrusted to particular captains of his army, and caused his nobles to take up their quarters in the city. He took the sons of all the nobility both of the city and surrounding country as hostages, that they should either be redeemed at the king’s price, or the remainder of the city should be delivered up to him without conflict, and he should take to himself satisfaction for his demands from their king Tancred. He began to attack the city about the fifth hour of the day, and took it the tenth hour; and having withdrawn his army, returned victorious to his camp. King Tancred, terrified at the words of those who announced to him the issue of the transaction, hastened to make an agreement with him, sending him twenty thousand ounces of gold for his sister’s dowry, and other twenty thousand ounces of gold for the legacy of King William and the observance of perpetual peace towards him and his. This small sum is accepted with much ado and scornfully enough, the hostages are given back, and peace is sworn and confirmed by the nobles of both nations.

Sect. 28. The king of England, now having little confidence in the natives, built a new wooden fort of great strength and height by the walls of Messina, which, to the reproach of the Griffones, he called “Mategriffun.” The king’s valour was greatly extolled, and the land kept silence in his presence. Walter, who from a monk and prior of St. Swithin’s church at Winchester, had been advanced to be abbot of Westminster, died on the fifth of the calends of October.

Sect. 29. Queen Eleanor,* a matchless woman, beautiful and chaste, powerful and modest, meek and eloquent, which is rarely wont to be met with in a woman, who was advanced in years enough to have had two husbands and two sons crowned kings, still indefatigable for every undertaking, whose power was the admiration of her age, having taken with her the daughter of the king of the Navarrese, a maid more accomplished than beautiful, followed the king her son, and having overtaken him still abiding in Sicily, she came to Pisa, a city full of every good, and convenient for her reception, there to await the king’s pleasure, together with the king of Navarre’s ambassadors and the damsel. Many knew, what I wish that none of us had known. The same queen, in the time of her former husband, went to Jerusalem. Let none speak more thereof; I also know well. Be silent.

IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD MCXCI.

Sect. 30. The first conference between the earl of Mortain, the king’s brother, and the chancellor, respecting the custody of certain castles and the money out of the Exchequer conceded to the earl by his brother,* was held at Winchester on Lætare Hierusalem.

Robert, prior of St. Swithin’s, at Winchester, having left his priory and forsaken his profession, cast himself into the sect of the Carthusians, at Witham, for grief (or shall I say for devotion?)

Walter, prior of Bath, with a like fervour or distraction, had before presumed the selfsame thing; but once withdrawn, he seemed as yet to think of nothing less than a return.

Sect. 31. The king, although he had long ago sworn to the king of France that he would accept his sister as a consort, whom his father King Henry had provided for him, and for a long time had taken care of, because he was suspicious of the custody had of her, contemplated marrying the princess his mother had engaged. And that he might accomplish the desire without difficulty, with which he vehemently burned, he consulted the count of Flanders, a most eloquent man, and one who possessed an invaluable power of speech, by whose mediation the king of France released the king of England from his oath to marry his sister, and quit-claimed to him for ever the whole territory of Vægesin and Gisorz, having received from him ten thousand pounds of silver.

Sect. 32. The king of France, with his army, departing for Jerusalem before the king of England, put to sea the third of the calends of April. The king of England, about to leave Sicily, caused the fort which he had built to be taken down, and stowed the whole of the materials in his ships to take along with him. Every sort of engine for the attack of fortifications, and every kind of arms which the heart of man could invent, he had all ready in his ships. Robert, son of William Fitz Ralph, was consecrated for the bishopric of Worcester by William de Longchamp, as yet legate, at Canterbury, on the third of the nones of May. The convent of Canterbury deposed their prior, whom Archbishop Baldwin had set over them, and substituted another in the place of the deposed.

Sect. 33. Walter, archbishop of Rouen, because, as is usual with the clergy, he was pusillanimous and timorous, having bidden adieu to Jerusalem from afar, resigned, unasked, all indignation against Saladin, and gave to the king all the provision he had brought for attacking him, and the cross; whilst, forgetting shame, he pretended, with that devotion which diffidence, the most wretched of mothers, brought forth, that pastors of the church should rather preach than fight, and that it is not meet for a bishop to wield other arms than those of virtue. But the king, to whom his money appeared more necessary than his personal presence, as if convinced by the overpowering argument, approved the allegations, and having arranged concerning the three years’ contribution that he should furnish of a certain number of men and horses, sent him back again into England with his letters to William the chancellor; this being added at the end of the letters for honour and for all, that the chancellor should use his counsel in affairs of state. The king, having gained experience from the proceedings of this archbishop, purified his army, not permitting any one to come with him but such as could bear arms, and with a ready mind would use them; nor did he suffer those who returned to take back with them their money, which they had brought thus far, or their arms. The queen, also, his mother, who had been received with all honour, as it was meet, and after affectionate embraces had been led forth with great splendour, he caused to return with the archbishop; having retained for himself the princess whom he had sought, and intrusted her to the safe custody of his sister, who had now returned to the camp to meet her mother.

Sect. 34. John, bishop of Exeter, closed his last day.

Savaricus, archdeacon of Northampton, being also one of the many who had followed the king of England out of England to Sicily, was supplied by the king with letters patent, in the presence of the king’s mother, to the justiciaries of England, containing the king’s assent, and something more than an assent, that he should be promoted to whatever vacant diocese he could be elected to. These honourable acquisitions Savaricus sent to his kinsman, the bishop of Bath, into England, but he himself retired to Rome as one who had been best known among the Romans.

Sect. 35. Richard, king of England, in letters destined for England, taking leave of his whole kingdom, and giving strict injunction for the chancellor to be honoured by all, his fleet, more to be prized for its quality than its numbers, being in readiness, with a chosen and brave army, with his sister Johanna and the princess he was to marry, with all things which could be necessary for those going to war, or going to set out on a long journey, set sail on the fourth of the ides of April. In the fleet, moreover, there were one hundred and fifty-six ships, four-and-twenty busses, and thirty and nine galleys; the sum of the vessels two hundred and nineteen.

Sect. 36. The archbishop of Rouen came to England to the chancellor, by whom he was received and treated honourably, and much better than the king had commanded. Others also followed with many mandates, in all of which the conclusion was, that the chancellor should be obeyed by all. To his brother John especially, he sent word by every messenger, that he should adhere to the chancellor, that he should be a support to him against all men, and that he should not violate the oath he had given him. The king of England sent orders to the chancellor, and to the convent of Canterbury, and to the bishops of the province, that they should canonically and jointly provide for the metropolitan see, because, Baldwin being dead, it had been bereft of its prelate; for the abbacy, however, of Westminster, now vacant, it is permitted to the chancellor alone to ordain as he pleases. There happened an eclipse of the sun about the third hour of the day: those who were ignorant of the causes of things were astonished, that in the middle of the day, no clouds obstructing the sun, the sun’s rays should give a much feebler light than usual; but those whom the motion of the universe occupies, say that the making deficiencies of the sun and moon does not signify any thing.

Sect. 37. John, the king’s brother, who had long kept his ears open for it, when he knew for certain that his brother had turned his back on England, presently perambulated the kingdom in a more popular manner, nor did he forbid his followers calling him the king’s heir. And as the earth is dreary in the sun’s absence, so was the face of the kingdom altered at the king’s departure. The nobles are all stirred up in arms, the castles are closed, the cities are fortified, intrenchments are thrown up. The archbishop of Rouen, not foreseeing more of the future than the fuel of error which was praised, knew well how so to give contentment to the chancellor, that at the same time he might not displease his rivals. Writs are privately despatched to the heads of the clergy and of the people, and the minds of everybody are excited against the chancellor. The knights of parliament willingly, though secretly, consented; but the clergy, more fearful by nature, dared not swear obedience to either master. The chancellor, perceiving these things, dissembled, disdaining to know that any one would presume any how to attempt any thing against him.

Sect. 38. At length the pot is uncovered; it is announced to him, that Gerard de Camville, a factious man and reckless of allegiance, had done homage to Earl John, the king’s brother, for the castle of Lincoln, the custody whereof is known to belong to the inheritance of Nicholaa, the wife of the same Gerard, but under the king. The deed is considered to infringe upon the crown, and he resolves to go and revenge its commission. So having quickly collected a numerous army, he came into those parts, and having first made an attack against Wigmore, he compelled Roger de Mortimer, impeached for a conspiracy made against the king, with the Welsh, to surrender the castles, and abjure England for three years. As he departed, he was blamed by his associates for want of courage, because, while supported by the numerous soldiery of the castles, and abounding in advantages, he had given way, without a blow, at the bare threats of the priest. Reproof was too late after the error; Roger leaves the kingdom, and the chancellor gives orders to besiege Lincoln. Gerard was with the earl; and his wife Nicholaa, proposing to herself nothing effeminate, defended the castle like a man The chancellor was wholly busied about Lincoln, whilst Earl John occupied the castle of Nottingham and that of Tickhill, both very strong, the warden being compelled to the surrender by fear alone. He proceeded, moreover, to send word to the chancellor that he must raise the siege, or otherwise he would avenge the cause of his vassal; that it was not proper to take from the loyal men of the kingdom, well known and free, their charges, and commit them to strangers and men unknown; that it was a mark of his folly that he had intrusted the king’s castles to such, because they would expose them to adventurers; that if it should go with every barbarian with that facility, that even the castles should be ready at all times for their reception, that he would no longer bear in silence the destruction of his brother’s kingdom and affairs.

Sect. 39. The chancellor, incredibly troubled at these threats, having summoned before him the peers and chiefs of the army, begins: “Never trust me if this man seeks not to subjugate the kingdom to himself; what he presumes is exorbitant, even if he had a right to wear the crown by annual turns with his brother, for Eteocles has not yet completed a full year in his government.” He uttered many words of anguish after this manner; and then again having taken heart, as he was greater in moral courage than in physical, conceiving great things in his mind, he sent the archbishop of Rouen to the earl, demanding in an imperative manner that he should deliver up the castles, and that he should answer before the court of King’s Bench for the breach of his oath to his brother. The archbishop, skilful in working with either hand, praised the constancy of the chancellor; and having proceeded to the earl, after the delivery of the mandates, he whispered in his ear, that whatever others might say, he should dare something great, worthy of Gyara and the dungeon, if he desired to be any thing. In public, however, he advised that the earl and the chancellor should agree to an interview, and that a reference to arbitration should end their disagreement.

Sect. 40. The earl, greatly exasperated at the impropriety of the mandates, was so altered in his whole body that a man would hardly have known him. Rancour made deep furrows in his forehead, his flaming eyes glistened, paleness discoloured the rosy complexion of his face, and I know what would have become of the chancellor, if in that hour of fury he had fallen as an apple into his hands while frantically raging. His indignation increased so much in his stifled breast, that it could not be kept from bursting out at least in part. “This son,” said he, “of perdition, the worst of the evil ones, who first borrowed from the pleasantry of the French, and introduced among the English, the preposterous practice of kneeling, would not harass me, as you perceive, if I had not refused to learn the new craft offered to me!” He would fain have said more, whether true or false, but recalling his presence of mind, and repressing his rage, “If I have spoken amiss,” said he, “O archbishop, I ask pardon.” After these frivolous expressions, they applied themselves to the weighty matters. They consulted about the demands of the chancellor; and the counsel of the archbishop, that there should be a meeting of them both, was agreed to, about the middle of the day. The day was fixed for the fifth of the calends of August; the place without Winchester. The chancellor allowed what they had settled to stand, and, having broken up the siege, returned to London.

Sect. 41. The earl, however, fearing his craftiness, brought thither four thousand Welsh, that, if the chancellor should endeavour to take him during the truce, they, being placed in ambush close beside the conference, might thwart his endeavours by a sally. Moreover, he commanded that it should be summoned, and required that every one of his men, and others, his adherents, should be prepared to go to battle, should attend him at the place and on the day of the engagement, so that as the interview between himself and the lord of the whole land had been undertaken, at least he might escape alive, if he, who was more than a king, though less in his eyes, should transgress against the law, or should not consent to an arrangement. The chancellor, however, on the other hand, commanded that one-third of the soldiery, with all the arms of all England, should proceed to Winchester by the they appointed; moreover, at the expense of the king’s revenue he also hired some Welsh, that if it should come to a contest with the earl, he might have an equal array, and javelins threatening javelins.

Sect. 42. They came to the interview as was before agreed on, and it happened to terminate better than was feared. The agreement, moreover, made between the earl and the chancellor was thus, and in this way provided. First of all were named the three bishops of Winchester, London, and Bath, in whose fidelity each party considered himself secure. The bishops chose for the chancellor’s part the three earls of Warren, of Arundel, of Clare, and certain other eight by name. For the earl’s part, Stephen Ridel, the earl’s chancellor, William de Venneval, Reginald de Wasseville, and certain other eight by name. These all, some beholding some touching the holy gospels, swore that they would provide satisfaction between the earl and the chancellor concerning their quarrels and questions to the honour of both parties and the peace of the kingdom. And if hereafter any disagreement should happen between them, they would faithfully end it. The earl also, and the chancellor, swore that they would consent to whatever the aforesaid jury should settle; and this was the provision. Gerard de Camville, being received into the chancellor’s favour, the custody of the castle of Lincoln was reserved to him in peace and safety; the earl gave up the castles which he had taken, and the chancellor having received them, gave them over to the king’s faithful and liege men, namely, to William de Wenn the castle of Nottingham, and to Reginald de Wasseville the castle of Tickhill; and each of them gave an hostage to the chancellor, that they would keep those castles in the safe peace and fidelity of their lord the king, if he should return alive. If, however, the king should die before his return, the aforesaid castles should be delivered up to the earl, and the chancellor should restore the hostages. The constables of the castles of the earl’s honours should be changed by the chancellor, if the earl should shew reason for their being changed. The chancellor, if the king should die, should not seek the disherison of the earl; but should promote him to the kingdom with all his power. Concluded solemnly at Winchester, on the seventh of the calends of May.

Sect. 43. The chancellor, by wonderful importunity and earnestness, persuaded first a part of the monks, and afterwards the whole congregation of Westminster, to permit his brother, a monk of Cadomo, to profess a cohabitation in Westminster, and to be elected by all for their abbot for his profession and cohabitation on a day appointed; and that this election should not be broken, security was taken by a bond, with the church’s seal affixed as a testimony.

Sect. 44. Geoffrey, a brother of King Richard and Earl John, but not by their mother, who had been consecrated archbishop of York at Tours, by the archbishop of Tours, by the pope’s command, continually solicited by message John the king’s brother and his own, that at the least it might be permitted him to return to England; and having obtained his consent, he prepared to return. The intercourse of the brothers did not escape the chancellor’s knowledge, who providing, lest their natural genuine perverseness should increase, commanded the keepers of the coasts, that wherever that archbishop, who had abjured England for the three years of the king’s travels, should disembark within the bounds of the kingdom, he should not be permitted to proceed, but by the will of the jury, to whose award the earl and the chancellor had taken oath to stand concerning every thing that should happen.

Sect. 45. A certain Robert, prior of Hereford, a monk who did not think very meanly of himself, and gladly forced himself into other people’s business that he might intermix his own, had gone into Sicily to the king on the chancellor’s messages, where after the rest he did not forget his own interests; and having by some means or other worried everybody, succeeded in obtaining the abbacy of Muchelney to be granted to him and confirmed by the king. Into possession of which, by the chancellor’s means, he entered, against the will of the convent, neither canonically, nor with a benediction; and presently on the first day, at the first dinner, by greedily partaking of fresh eels without wine, and more than was proper, he fell into a languor, which the food, undigested and lying heavily on an inflamed stomach, brought on. And lest the languor should be ascribed to his gluttony, he caused the monks of that place to be slandered of having given him poison.

Sect. 46. Geoffrey, archbishop of York, presuming upon the consent of his brother Earl John, his shipping being ready, came to Dover, and presently having landed, first sought a church for prayer. There is there a priory of monks of the profession of Canterbury, whose oratory he entered with his clerks to hear mass, and his household was intent about unlading the ships. No sooner had the whole of his goods been landed, than suddenly the constable of the castle caused whatever he thought was the archbishop’s to be brought into the town, understanding more in the command of his lord the chancellor than he had commanded. Certain also of the soldiers, armed under their tumcs, and girt with swords, came into the monastery, that they might apprehend the pontiff; whom when he saw, their intention being foreknown, he took a cross in his hands, and first addressing them and extending his hands towards his followers, he says, “I am the archbishop; if ye seek me, let these go their way.” And the soldiers reply, “Whether you be an archbishop or not, it is nothing to us; one thing we know, that you are Geoffrey, the son of King Henry, whom he begot on some strange bed, who before the king, whose brother you make yourself, have forsworn England for three years; if you are not come into the kingdom as a traitor to the kingdom; if you have brought letters of absolution, either say, or take the reproach.” Then said the archbishop, “I am not a traitor, neither will I shew you any letters.” They then laid their hands on him there before the very altar, and violently dragged him out of the church against his will, and resisting, but not with force; who immediately being set without the threshold, excommunicated by name those who had laid hands on him, both present and whilst they were still holding him; nor did he receive the horse that they offered him that he might ride with them to the castle, because it was the property of the excommunicated. And so, outraging humanity, they dragged him on foot by the hands, and carrying the cross, all through the mud of the streets to the castle. After this they desired of their own good will to deal humanely with their captive, bringing him some of the best provisions which they had prepared for themselves; but he, being firmly resolved, by what he had now suffered, rejected their victuals as if it were an offering to idols, and refused to live on any thing but his own. The report spread over the kingdom more rapidly than the wind, those who had followed their lord at a distance came after, relating and complaining to all that the archbishop, the king’s brother, thus landed, had been so treated and detained in prison.

Sect. 47. The archbishop was already three days in custody, and the chancellor, as soon as the case was made known to him, restored to him all his goods, and set him at liberty to depart whithersoever he should desire. He wrote, moreover, to Earl John, and to all the bishops, asserting, with an oath, that the aforesaid man had suffered the above-written injuries without his knowledge. The excuse profited little, because the occasion, which had been long sought and which spontaneously offered itself against him, was most eagerly and tenaciously laid hold of. The authors of this daring act, who laid hands on the archbishop, as well as those who consented thereto, were all specially excommunicated in every church of the whole kingdom, that at least the chancellor, who was hateful to everybody, might be involved in the general malediction.

Sect. 48. Earl John, gnashing his teeth with anger against the chancellor, whom he hated, brought a weighty complaint before all the bishops and lords of the kingdom, of the infringement of the convention by the adverse party, by the arrest of his brother, to his own dishonour. The jurors are summoned and are sworn to stand by their plighted promise, and to bring it to pass as quickly as possible, that the perjurer and breaker of his faith should repair what he had done amiss by giving ample satisfaction. The affair, hitherto confined to trifles, now bears a serious aspect; the chancellor is summoned by the powerful authority of all his and the earl’s mediators, to meet him and answer to the earl’s accusations, and to submit to the law, the place at Lodbridge, the day the third of the nones of October.

Sect. 49. The earl, with the greatest part of the nobility of the kingdom all favouring him, had awaited the chancellor two days at the place of meeting, and on the third, in the morning, he sent on certain of his followers to London, still waiting at the place of meeting in case he who was expected should either dare or deign to come. The chancellor, dreading in himself the earl, and being suspicious of the judges, delayed to come to the place for two days; on the third (because as every one feels conscious in his mind, so does he conceive in his breast both hope and fear for his deeds), halfway between hope and fear, he attempted to go to the meeting. And behold! Henry Biset, a faithful man of his, who had seen the above-mentioned party of the earl’s friends passing on, putting frequently the spur to his horse, comes to meet the chancellor, and tells him that the earl, before daylight, had gone in arms to take London; and who was there, on that day, that did not take every thing as gospel, which that honourable man told them? but yet he was not guilty of falsehood, because he thought that what he had said was true. The chancellor, deceived, as all men are liable to be, immediately caused all the force that was with him to arm; and thinking that he was following close upon the earl, came before him to the city. The citizens being asked by him, for the earl was not yet come, that they would close the gates against him when he should come, refused, calling him a disturber of the land, and a traitor. For the archbishop of York, conscious of what would happen, whilst he was tarrying there some days, that he might see the end of the matter, by continual complaints and entreaties had excited them all against him; and then, for the first time, perceiving himself betrayed, he betook himself to the Tower, and the Londoners set a watch, both by land and water, that he might not escape. The earl, having knowledge of his flight, following him up with his forces, was received by the joyful citizens with lanterns and torches, for he came to town by night; and there was nothing wanting in the salutations of the flattering people, save that barbarous Chaire Basileus! which is, “Hail, dear lord!”

Sect. 50. On the next day, the earl and all the nobles of the land assembled in St. Paul’s church, and first of all was heard the archbishop of York’s complaint; after that, whosoever had aught against him was admitted. The accusers of the absent had an attentive and diligent hearing, and especially Hugh, bishop of Coventry, so prolix in words, who the day before had been his most familiar friend, who, as the worst pest, is a familiar enemy, having harangued more bitterly and perversely than all the rest, against his friend, did not desist until it was said by all, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” So the whole assembly, without any delay, elected Earl John, the king’s brother, chief justiciary of the whole kingdom, and ordaining that all the castles should be delivered to the custody of such as he should choose, they left only three of the weakest, and lying at a great distance from each other, to the now merely nominal chancellor. The chief justice after the earl, the justices itinerant, the barons of the Exchequer, the constables of castles, all new, are appointed afresh. Amongst others then gainers, both the bishop of Winchester received the custodies which the chancellor had taken from him, without diminution, and the lord bishop of Durham received the county of Northumberland.

Sect. 51. That unlucky day was declining towards evening, when four bishops, and as many earls, sent on the part of the assembly to the chancellor, explained to him, to the letter, the acts of the whole day. He was horror-struck at such unexpected presumption and arrogance, and, his vigour of mind failing, he fell to the earth so exhausted, that he foamed at the mouth. Cold water being sprinkled on his face, he revived, and having risen on his feet, he addressed the messengers with a stern countenance, saying, “There is one help for the vanquished, to hope for no help.* You have conquered and you have bound incautiously. If the Lord God shall grant me to see my lord the king with my two eyes, be sure this day has shone inauspiciously for you. As much as in you lay, you have now delivered to the earl, whatever was the king’s in the kingdom. Say to him, Priam still lives. You, who forgetful of your still surviving king, have elected to yourselves another to be lord, tell to that your lord, that all will turn out otherwise than he supposes. I will not give up the castles, I will not resign the seal.” The messengers, having returned from him, related to the earl what they had received, who ordered the Tower to be more closely besieged.

Sect. 52. The chancellor was sleepless the greater part of the night (because he who does not set his mind on honest studies and pursuits will toss about wakeful through hate or love); and at the same time his people disturbed him more than his conscience, falling prostrate at his feet, and entreating with tears that he would yield to necessity, and not stretch forth his arms against the torrent. He, though harder than iron, is softened by the piteous counsel of those who were weeping round him; again and again having fainted with grief, at last, he with much ado assented that that should be done, which, being entirely destitute of aid, he was compelled to do. One of his brothers, and three, not ignoble, of his adherents, being permitted, not commissioned, announced to the earl at that time of night, that the chancellor, with what readiness it does not matter, was prepared to do and suffer whatever had been determined. He should avoid delay, because it has always been injurious for those who are prepared to defer. It should be done the next day, lest the wind should so veer, that it might be deferred for a year. These return to the Tower, and before day, the earl made known to his adherents that these things had passed.

Sect. 53. Meanwhile, the rising dawn left the ocean, and the sun having now appeared, the earl, with his whole troop, withdrew to the open field, which is without London towards the east; the chancellor went thither also, but less early than his adversaries. The nobles took the centre, around whom was next a circle of citizens, and beyond an attentive populace, estimated at ten thousand men. The bishop of Coventry first attacked the chancellor, rehearsing the several accusations of the preceding day, and ever adding something of his own. “It is not,” said he, “either fit or bearable that such gross incapacity of one should so often cause so many noble and honourable men, and from such remote parts, to assemble for nothing. And since it is better to be troubled once for all, than always, I will conclude all in few words. It does not please, because it is not convenient, that you should any longer bear rule in the kingdom. You will be content with your bishopric, and the three castles with which we have indulged you, and the shelter of a great name. You will in the next place give hostages for giving up all the other castles, and for not seeking increased power or making tumults, and afterwards you will be able to depart freely whithersoever you may desire.” Many spoke much in favour of this, none against; the lord of Winchester, although he was more eloquent than most of them, alone observed continued silence. At length the chancellor, scarcely permitted to speak, exclaimed, “Am I always to be a hearer only? and snail I never answer?* Before all things, know ye each and every one, that I feel myself guilty of nothing that I should fear the mouth of any of you. I solemnly declare that the archbishop of York was taken, without either my knowledge or my will; that I will prove in the civil courts if you wish, or in the ecclesiastical. Respecting the deficiencies of the king, if I have done any thing amiss in that matter, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, William Briwere, and Hugh Bardolf, whom I received from the king as councillors, would, if it were permitted them to speak, give satisfaction for me. Why and in what I have spent the king’s treasure, I am ready to give account to the utmost farthing. I do not refuse to give hostages for delivering up the castles, though in this I ought rather to fear the king; yet as I must, I must. The name which you are not able to take away, and I am still to bear, I do not set light by. In short, I give you all to know, that I depose myself from no administration given me by the king. You, being many, have besieged me alone; you are stronger than I, and I, the king’s chancellor and justiciary of the kingdom, am condemned against all form of law; it is through necessity I yield to the stronger.” The sun declining to the west, put an end to the allegations of the parties; the two brothers of the chancellor that was, and a certain third person, his chamberlain, who had also been his secretary, were received in hostage. The assembly is dissolved, the keys of the Tower of London being given up on the sixth of the ides of October. The chancellor started for Dover, one, to wit, of the three castles of which mention was made; and the earl delivered, to those he chose and whom he trusted most, all the fortresses of the land which had been given up to him.

Sect. 54. Messengers are immediately despatched to the Land of Promise, to the king himself, both by the condemned and the condemners, each by his own party, sufficiently instructed to accuse or excuse. The chancellor, being uncomfortable here under the appellation of his lost authority, and the recollection of his present state, whilst he endeavoured by all means to elude the prohibition of his going abroad, got scoffed, not uniformly, nor once only. I will not recount how he was taken and detained, both in the habit of a monk and in that of a woman, because it is enough, and more than enough, to recollect what inestimable property and immense treasures the Flemish stripped him of, when at length he arrived in Flanders. His passage over being known, whatever revenue he had possessed in England was confiscated. A most dreadful contention is carried on between the mighty. The chancellor suspends his diocese which had been taken from him, and he denounces his anathema upon all those who trespassed against him. Nor was the archbishop of Rouen more remiss in the same way, for in revenge for his presumptuous excommunication of the Exchequer barons, he commanded it to be announced throughout Normandy that William de Longchamp should be held as excommunicated. He was, however, unwilling to seem to fear the malediction uttered against the invaders of the aforesaid bishopric, nor did he believe that the sentence of a fugitive prelate could find its way before his majesty’s throne. So the face of the church of Ely was disfigured, they ceased throughout the diocese from every work of the Lord, the bodies of the dead lay unburied by all the ways. In Normandy, the like being returned, none under the archbishop’s authority communicated with the chancellor; on his entry every church was suspended, and on his departure all the bells were rung, and the altars where he officiated cast down.

Sect. 55. Two legates despatched into France by the pope, at the instigation, though secret, as is reported, of the king of the French, came to Gisorz to visit Normandy, which they understood was a chief part of the kingdom of the French; but both the constable of the castle and the seneschal of Normandy would not admit them, excusing themselves with this shadow of a reason, that the visitation of any province should not be made unless with the approbation or in the presence of the lord of the land; all the kings of the English, and particularly Richard, being especially indulged with this privilege by the Holy See. No allegation, whether real or probable, availed with the legates; their almost divine power rose and swelled with rage, though against those who heeded them not: the contemned authority of Roman majesty is exercised; they lay aside high-flown sentences and long words. They threaten their adversaries with much bitterness; but, however, as they had not to plead with boys, the castle gates being shut against them, they stood without the doors. But their solace was not wanting, though they were repulsed They reached with their power, where they could not approach in person. They excommunicated by name the constable of Gisorz and the seneschal of Normandy, there present, and suspended the whole of Normandy from every administration of the rites of the church. It was necessary to yield to their power; the church was silent immediately, and so remained the space of three weeks, until, the pope being supplicated, both the sentence against those named was remitted, and the suspension given out against Normandy. The book of liberty was restored to Normandy, and the voice of gladness, and the legates were prohibited to set foot therein.

Sect. 56. The Westminster monks, who before those days had so greatly excelled in magnanimity, that they would not stain their deeds for death itself, as soon as they saw a new era, changed also with the time, putting behind their backs whatever they had covenanted with the chancellor for his brother; with the connivance of the earl, they elected the prior of their house to be abbat, who also received immediately the benediction and staff from the bishop of London. The chancellor’s brother, who by agreement should have been elected abbat, seeing the convent break their engagement, troubled thereat, departed with his half-modesty, carrying off with him, however, the bond of security, having made an appeal prior to the second election before legitimate witnesses, that nothing should be done againt his stipulated promotion.

The monks of Muchelney, after the example of those of Westminster, though not altogether in a similar way, expelled their principal, I do not know whether abbat or abbat elect, whom they had been forced to accept, casting forth the straw of his bed after him, and thrust him with much insult out of their island to the four winds of heaven.

Sect. 57. The archbishop of Rouen being constituted by the earl justiciary of the kingdom, and supreme over affairs, having convoked, at Canterbury, the clergy and people, as the king himself had enjoined him, directed them to proceed to the election of an archbishop. The bishops of London and Winchester, however, were not present, being detained at London by the king’s business, and the question being broached among the bishops who had assembled, which of them should be esteemed the greater, whose the election ought to be, as the two aforesaid of chief dignity were absent, the prior of Canterbury solving the point of difficulty, made all equal in choosing a pontiff, and proceeding forth in public with his monks, in the face of the whole church, elected, as archbishop, Reginald, bishop of Bath, from the midst of the clergy.

Sect. 58. Reginald, elect of Canterbury, who would have proceeded to Rome for his pall, had the fates permitted, having completed the solemnities which are usually celebrated for the elect at Canterbury, came to set things in order in the diocese of Bath, which he greatly loved, and by which he was more beloved. It is reported also, that he had obtained, as he desired, the assent of the prior and convent for electing and substituting in his place, Savaricus, archdeacon of Northampton, and had received the security. Returning from thence, he fell sick by the way, and was laid up very ill at his manor of Dokemeresfeld; and seeing nothing more likely to happen to him than death, he took the habit of a monk at the hands of his prior Walter, then tarrying with him, and receiving it, spoke these words, “God willed not that I should be archbishop, and I will not; God willed that I should be a monk, and I will!” Moreover, being in the last extremities, he took the king’s letters to the justices, for conceding to Savaricus whatever diocese he should be elected to, and gave them to the prior of Bath, that by the authority of this instrument he might the sooner be promoted. Then having accomplished all things which relate to faith and penitence devoutly and with a sane mind, he fell asleep in the Lord on the seventh of the calends of January.* His

EPITAPH.

Dum Reginaldus erat bene seque suosque regebat;

Nemo plus quærat; quicquid docuit faciebat.

Sancti Swithuni nisi pratum præripuisset

Hunc de communi mors tam cito non rapuisset.

Sed, qui poenituit, minuit mors passa reatum;

Fecit quod potuit, se dedidit ad monachatum.

Whilst Reginald lived, he well governed both himself and his men. Let no one ask more; whatsoever he taught, he practised. If he had not grasped at Saint Swithin’s pasture, death would not have snatched him so soon from the public. But, because he was penitent, a premature death diminished his supposed guilt; he did what he could, he dedicated himself to the monastic life.

Walter, prior of Bath, and his convent, without the clergy, elected to themselves for their future bishop Savaricus, archdeacon of Northampton, who was absent, and as yet ignorant of the decease of his fellow-pontiff; and although the clergy resisted, they carried it out.

Sect. 59. The fleet of Richard, king of the English, put out to sea, and proceeded in this order. In the forefront went three ships only, in one of which was the queen of Sicily and the young damsel of Navarre, probably still a virgin; in the other two, a certain part of the king’s treasure and arms; in each of the three, marines and provisions. In the second line there were, what with ships and busses and men-of-war, thirteen; in the third, fourteen; in the fourth, twenty; in the fifth, thirty; in the sixth, forty; in the seventh, sixty; in the last, the king himself, followed with his galleys. There was between the ships, and between their lines, a certain space left by the sailors at such interval, that from one line to another the sound of the trumpet, from one ship to another, the human voice, could be heard. This also was admirable, that the king was no less cheerful and healthy, strong and mighty, light and gay, at sea, than he was wont to be by land. I conclude, therefore, that there was not one man more powerful than he in the world, either by land or sea.

Sect. 60. Now, as the ships were proceeding in the aforesaid manner and order, some being before others, two of the three first, driven by the violence of the winds, were broken on the rocks near the port of Cyprus; the third, which was English, more speedy than they, having turned back into the deep, escaped the peril. Almost all the men of both ships got away alive to land, many of whom the hostile Cypriotes slew, some they took captive, some, taking refuge in a certain church, were besieged. Whatever also in the ships was cast up by the sea, fell a prey to the Cypriotes. The prince also of that island coming up, received for his share the gold and the arms; and he caused the shore to be guarded by all the armed force he could summon together, that he might not permit the fleet which followed to approach, lest the king should take again what had been thus stolen from him. Above the port, was a strong city, and upon a natural rock, a high and fortified castle. The whole of that nation was warlike, and accustomed to live by theft. They placed beams and planks at the entrance of the port, across the passage, the gates and entrances; and the whole land, with one mind, prepared themselves for a conflict against the English. God so willed, that the cursed people should receive the reward of their evil deeds by the hands of one who would not spare. The third English ship, in which were the women, having cast out its anchors, rode out at sea, and watched all things from opposite, to report the misfortune to the king, lest haply, being ignorant of the loss and disgrace, he should pass the place unrevenged. The next line of the king’s ships came up after the other, and they all stopped at the first. A full report reached the king, who, sending heralds to the lord of the island, and obtaining no satisfaction, commanded his entire army to arm, from the first even to the last, and to get out of the great ships into the galleys and boats, and follow him to the shore. What he commanded, was immediately performed; they came in arms to the port. The king being armed, leaped first from his galley, and gave the first blow in the war; but before he was able to strike a second, he had three thousand of his followers with him striking away by his side. All the timber that had been placed as a barricade in the port was cast down instantly, and the brave fellows went up into the city, as ferocious as lionesses are wont to be when robbed of their young. The fight was carried on manfully against them, numbers fell down wounded on both sides, and the swords of both parties were made drunk with blood. The Cypriotes are vanquished, the city is taken, with the castle besides; whatever the victors choose is ransacked, and the lord of the island is himself taken and brought to the king. He, being taken, supplicates and obtains pardon; be offers homage to the king, and it is received; and he swears, though unasked, that henceforth he will hold the island of him as his liege lord, and will open all the castles of the land to him, make satisfaction for the damage already done; and further, bring presents of his own. On being dismissed after the oath, he is commanded to fulfil the conditions in the morning.

Sect. 61. That night the king remained peaceably in the castle; and his newly-sworn vassal flying, retired to another castle, and caused the whole of the men of that land, who were able to bear arms, to be summoned to repair to him, and so they did. The king of Jerusalem, however, that same night, landed in Cyprus, that he might assist the king and salute him, whose arrival he had desired above that of any other in the whole world. On the morrow, the lord of Cyprus was sought for and found to have fled. The king, seeing that he was abused, and having been informed where he was, directed the king of Jerusalem to follow the traitor by land with the half of the army, while he conducted the other part by water, intending to be in the way, that he might not escape by sea. The divisions reassembled around the city in which he had taken refuge, and he, having sallied out against the king, fought with the English, and the battle was carried on sharply by both sides. The English would that day have been beaten, had they not fought under the command of King Richard. They at length obtained a dear-bought victory, the Cypriote flies, and the castle is taken. The kings pursue him as before, the one by land, the other by water, and he is besieged in the third castle. Its walls are cast down by engines hurling huge stones; he, being overcome, promises to surrender, if only he might not be put in iron fetters. The king consents to the prayers of the supplicant, and caused silver shackles to be made for him. The prince of the pirates being thus taken, the king traversed the whole island, and took all its castles, and placed his constables in each, and constituted justiciaries and sheriffs; and the whole land was subjected to him in every thing just like England. The gold, and the silk, and the jewels from the treasures that were broken open, he retained for himself; the silver and victuals he gave to the army. To the king of Jerusalem also he made a handsome present out of his booty.

And because Lent had already passed, and the lawful time of contract was come, he caused Berengaria, daughter of the king of Navarre, whom his mother had brought to him in Lent, to be affianced to him in the island.

Sect. 62, After these things, having taken again to the ships, whilst sailing prosperously towards Acre, he falls in with a merchant ship of immense dimensions, destined by Saladin to the besieged, laden with provisions and full of armed soldiers. A wonderful ship, a ship than which, with the exception of Noah’s ark, we do not read of any being greater. The intrepid king here rejoices, because everywhere he meets with a fit object for valour; he, first of his warriors, having summoned to his, the galleys of his followers, commences the naval action with the Turks. The ship was fortified with towers and bulwarks, and the desperate fought furiously, because “the only hope for the conquered is to have nothing to hope for.” The assault was dreadful and the defence stout; but what is there so hard, that the sturdy man who stoutly perseveres shall not subdue? The followers of Mahomet* are vanquished: that ship, the queen of ships, is shattered and sunk, as lead in the mighty waters, and the whole property perished with its possessors.

The king, proceeding thence, came to the siege of Acre, and was welcomed by the besiegers with as great joy as if it had been Christ that had come again on earth to restore the kingdom of Israel. The king of the French had arrived at Acre first, and was very highly esteemed by the natives; but on Richard’s arrival he became obscured and without consideration, just as the moon is wont to relinquish her lustre at the rising of the sun.

Sect. 63. Henry, count of Champagne, whose whole store that he had brought both of provision and money was now wasted, comes to his king. He asks relief, to whom his king and lord caused to be offered a hundred thousand of Paris money, if, in that case, he would be ready to pledge to him Champagne. To that the count replied, “I have done what I could and what I ought; now I shall do what I am compelled by necessity. I desired to fight for my king, but he would not accept of me, unless for my own; I will go to him who will accept me: who is more ready to give than to receive.” The king of the English, Richard, gave to Henry, count of Champagne, when he came to him, four thousand bushels of wheat, four thousand bacons, and four thousand pounds of silver. So the whole army of strangers out of every nation under heaven bearing the Christian name, who had already assembled to the siege long before the coming of the kings, at the report of so great a largess, took King Richard to be their general and lord; the Franks only who had followed their lord remained with their poor king of the French.

Sect. 64. The king of the English, unused to delay, on the third day of his arrival at the siege, caused his wooden fortress, which he had called “Mate Grifun,” when it was made in Sicily, to be built and set up, and before the dawn of the fourth day the machine stood erect by the walls of Acre, and from its height looked down upon the city lying beneath it; and there were thereon by sunrise archers casting missiles without intermission on the Turks and Thracians. Engines also for casting stones, placed in convenient positions, battered the walls with frequent volleys. More important than these, sappers making themselves a way beneath the ground, undermined the foundations of the walls; while soldiers bearing shields, having planted ladders, sought an entrance over the ramparts. The king himself was running up and down through the ranks, directing some, reproving some, and urging others, and thus was ho everywhere present with every one of them, so that whatever they all did, ought properly to be ascribed to him. The king of the French also himself did not lightly assail them, making as bold an assault as he could on the tower of the city which is called Cursed.

Sect. 65. The renowned Carracois and Mestocus, after Saladin the most powerful princes of the heathen, had at that time the charge of the besieged city, who, after a contest of many days, promised by their interpreters the surrender of the city, and a ransom for their heads; but the king of the English desired to subdue their obstinacy by force; and wished that the vanquished should pay their heads for the ransom of their bodies, but, by the mediation of the king of the French, their life and indemnity of limbs only was accorded them, if, after surrender of the city and yielding of every thing they possessed, the Holy Cross should be given up.

Sect. 66. All the heathen warriors in Acre were chosen men, and were in number nine thousand. Many of whom, swallowing many gold coins, made a purse of their stomachs because they foresaw that whatever they had of any value wou1d be turned against them, even against themselves, if they should again oppose the cross, and would only fall a prey to the victors. So all of them come out before the kings entirely disarmed, and outside the city, without money, are given into custody; and the kings, with triumphal banners, having entered the city, divided the whole with all its stores into two parts between themselves and their soldiers; the pontiff’s seat alone its bishop received by their united gift. The captives, moreover, being divided, Mestocus fell by lot to the portion of the king of the English, and Carracois, as a drop of cold water, fell into the burning mouth of the thirsty Philip, king of the French.

Sect. 67. The duke of Austria, who was also one of the ancient besiegers of Acre, followed the king of the English as a participator in the possession of his portion, and because, as his standard was borne before him, he was thought to take to himself a part of the triumph; if not by command, at least with the consent, of the offended king, the duke’s standard was cast down in the dirt, and to his reproach and ridicule trampled under foot by them. The duke, although grievously enraged against the king, dissembled his offence, which he could not vindicate; and having returned to the place where he had carried on the siege, betook himself that night to his tent, which was set up again, and afterwards, as soon as he could, returned to his own country full of rancour.

Sect. 68. Messengers on the part of the captives having been sent to Saladin for their ransom, when the heathen could by no entreaty be moved to restore the Holy Cross, the king of the English beheaded all his, with the exception of Mestocus only, who on account of his nobility was spared, and declared openly without any ceremony that he would act in the same way towards Saladin himself.

Sect. 69. A certain marquess of Montferrat, a smooth-faced man, had held Tyre, which he had seized on many years ago, to whom the king of the French sold all his captives alive, and promised the crown of the region which was not yet conquered; but the king of the English withstood, him to the face. “It is not proper,” said he, “for a man of your reputation to bestow or promise what is not yet obtained; but further, if the cause of your journey be Christ, when at length you have taken Jerusalem, the chief of the cities of this region, from the hand of the enemy, you will without delay or condition restore the kingdom to Guy, the legitimate king of Jerusalem. For the rest, if you recollect, you did not obtain Acre without a participator, so that neither should that which is the property of two be dealt out by one hand” Oh! oh! how fine for a godly throat! The marquess, bereft of his blissful hope, returns to Tyre, and the king of the French, who had greatly desired to strengthen himself against his envied ally by means of the marquess, now fell off daily; and this added to the continual irritation of his mind,—that even the scullion of the king of the English fared more sumptuously than the cupbearer of the French. After some time, letters were forged in the tent of the king of the French, by which, as if they had been sent by his nobles out of France, the king was recalled to France. A cause is invented which would necessarily be respected more than it deserved; his only son, after a long illness, was now despaired of by the physicians; France exposed to be desolated, if, after the son’s death, the father (as it might fall out) should perish in a foreign land. So, frequent council being held between the kings hereupon, as they were both great and could not dwell together, Abraham remaining, Lot departed from him. Moreover, the king of the French, by his chief nobles, gave security by oath for himself and his vassals, to the king of the English, that he would observe every pledge until he should return to his kingdom in peace.

Sect. 70. On that day the commonalty of the Londoners was granted and instituted, to which all the nobles of the kingdom, and even the very bishops of that province are compelled to swear. Now for the first time London, by the agreement conceded to it, found by experience that there was no king in the kingdom, as neither King Richard himself, nor his predecessor and father Henry, would have suffered it to be concluded for one thousand thousand marks of silver. How great evils forsooth may come forth of this agreement, may be estimated by the very definition, which is this. The commonalty is the pride of the common people, the dread of the kingdom, the ferment of the priesthood.

Sect. 71. The king of the French, with but few followers, returning home from Acre, left at that place the strength of his army to do nothing, to the command of which he appointed the bishop of Beauvais and the duke of Burgundy. The English king, having sent for the commanders of the French, proposed that in the first place they should conjointly attempt Jerusalem itself; but the dissuasion of the French discouraged the hearts of both parties, and dispirited the troops, and restrained the king, thus destitute of men, from his intended march upon that metropolis. The king, troubled at this, though not despairing, from that day forth separated his army from the French, and directing his arms to the storming of castles along the sea-shore, he took every fortress that came in his way from Tyre to Ascalon, though after hard fighting and deep wounds But to Tyre he deigned not to go, because it was not in the compass of his part of the campaign.

IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD MCXCII.

Sect. 72. Philip, king of the French, having left his companion, Richard, king of the English, in the territory of Jerusalem amongst the enemies of the cross of Christ, returned to France, without obtaining either the liberation of the Holy Cross or of the Holy Sepulchre. Godfrey, bishop of Winchester, restored to his church a great part of the treasure, which, as related above, he had appointed, on the third of the calends of February. The feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mary was celebrated on the very Sunday of Septuagesima* at Winchester. But the Sunday had nothing belonging to Sunday but its memory at vespers and matins, and the morning mass. One full hide of land at the manse which is called Morslede, of the village of Ciltecumba, was let to a certain citizen of Winchester of the name of Pentecuste, to hold for twenty years for the annual and free service of twenty shillings, without the privity of the convent.

Sect. 73. Queen Eleanor sailed from Normandy and landed at Portsmouth on the third of the ides of February.† The chancellor repaired to the king of the French, and deposed before him his complaint relative to the loss of his treasures in Flanders, but he got nothing more there than what makes men ridiculous.

The king of the French caused all manner of arms to be fabricated both day and night throughout his whole realm, and fortified his cities and castles, as was thought, by way of preparation for a struggle against the king of the English, if he should return from his journey. Which being known in the territories of the king of the English, his constables throughout Normandy, Le Mans, Anjou, Tours, Bourges, Poitou, and Gascony, of themselves fortified every place that could be fortified in the fullest manner. Moreover, the son of the king of Navarre, to spite the French, ravaged the country about Toulouse. A certain provost of the king of the French, desiring to become greater than his forefathers, set up a castle on the confines of Normandy and France, where there had never yet been any fortification; which, ere it was built, the Normans, by the impulse of their natural anger, totally overthrew, and tore the provost himself to pieces.

Sect. 74. Queen Eleanor, a lady worthy of repeated mention, visited certain houses appertaining to her dower within the diocese of Ely. To meet her there came out of all the hamlets and manors, wherever she passed, men with women and little children, not all of the lowest class, a piteous and pitiable company, with their feet bare, their clothes unwashed, and their hair unshorn. They speak in tears, for which, in very grief, they had failed to utter words, nor was there need of an interpreter, as more than they desired to say might be read in the open page. Human bodies lay unburied everywhere throughout the country, because their bishop had deprived them of sepulture. The queen, on understanding the cause of so great severity, as she was very compassionate, taking pity on the people’s misery for the dead, immediately neglecting her own, and following other men’s matters, repaired to London; she entreated, nay, she demanded, of the archbishop of Rouen, that the confiscated estates of the bishop should be restored to the bishop, and that the same bishop should in the name of the chancery be proclaimed absolved from the excommunication denounced against him, throughout the province of Rouen. And who could be so harsh or obdurate that that lady could not bend him to her wishes? She, too, forgetful of nothing, sent word into Normandy to the lord of Ely, of the public and private restitution which she had obtained for him, and compelled him to revoke the sentence of excommunication he had pronounced against the Exchequer barons. So by the queen’s mediation there was peace between the implacable, though their vexation was apparent, as the disaffection of their minds, contracted in their former hatred, could not be changed, without each giving some utterance to his feelings.

Sect. 75. Earl John, sending messengers to Southampton, commanded shipping to be made ready for him to depart, as was thought, to the king of the French; but the queen his mother, fearing lest the light-minded youth, by the counsels of the French, might go to attempt something against his lord and brother, with anxious mind takes in hand with her utmost ability to divert the intention of her son. The fate of her former sons, and the untimely decease of both under their oppressing sins, recurring to her mind, moved, or rather pierced, the maternal bowels of compassion. She desired that their violence might be enough, and that, at least, good faith being kept amongst her younger children, she, as their mother, might end her days more happily than had fallen to the lot of their deceased father. So having assembled all the peers of the realm, first at Windsor, secondly at Oxford, thirdly at London, and fourthly at Winchester, she with her own tears and the entreaties of the nobles with difficulty obtained that he would not cross the sea for this time. The earl, therefore, being in effect frustrated of his proposed passage, did what he could that way, and received the castles from the king’s constables of Windsor and Wallingford, whom he had secretly called to him; and having received them, he delivered them over to his lieges to keep for him.

Sect. 76. By command of the archbishop of Rouen, there assembled at London, the pillars of the church, the oracles of the laws, to discuss either something or nothing, as it often falls out, in matters of state. There was but one mind among all, to convene Earl John for the pre-occupation of the castles; but, because no one of them durst commit himself to another, every one desired in himself that the question should be proposed rather by a deputy than by his own mouth. So whilst they all clamour to this end, and with this purpose, Æacus alone is wanting, to whom they all simultaneously agreed to resort; but even whilst among other matters they only casually discoursed of the late chancellor, behold! again is Crispinus at hand. The messengers of the chancellor, now again legate, enter the assembly, saluting the queen, who was present, and all the rest, whom by chance they found together, on the part of their lord, who had safely arrived the day before at Dover. The last clause of the mandates prohibited him from following up the ministration of his legation. Long were they all silent, and greatly astonished, intently kept their peace. At length it came to be the vote of all, that they should humbly entreat him to be their dictator and lord, whom they had assembled to judge as a perjurer and transgressor against their lord. So many of the nobles, of whom one was Echion, are sent, and that repeatedly, to Earl John, then staying at Wallingford, and laughing at their conventions. Humbly, and without austerity, they beg that he would hasten to meet the goat. “Lord!” say they, “he wears horns, beware!”

Sect. 77. The earl, not greatly moved, long suffered himself to be reverently entreated; but at length, satiated with the honour offered him, he came to London with the last intercessors, whom he most loved, sufficiently taught to answer to every question that might chance to be asked. The court rises up and compliments him on his entry, no order either of age or rank being observed; everybody that first can, first runs to meet him, and desires himself to be first seen, eager to please the prince, because to have been acceptable to the great is not the last of praises. The leaders were at a stand. Of the castles, no mention is made; the whole discussion and, consultation was about the chancellor. Should the earl advise, all are ready to proscribe him. They strive by all means to soften the earl to consent, but they had a wild beast on their right hand. The earl, on being asked to answer, briefly declares, “The chancellor fears the threats of none of you, nor of you altogether, nor will he beg your love, if only he may succeed to have me alone his friend. He is to give me seven hundred pounds of silver by the seventh day, if I shall not have meddled between you and him. You see I am in want of money. To the wise, a word is sufficient.” He said, and withdrew, leaving the conclusion of his proposition in the midst. The court, placed in a great strait, strained its counsel: it appeared expedient to every one to propitiate the man with more than was promised; the gift or loan of the money is approved, but not of their own, and so in the end it all falls upon the treasury of the absent king. Five hundred pounds of silver sterling out of the Exchequer are lent to the earl by the barons, and letters to their liking against the chancellor are received. Nor is there delay; the queen writes, the clergy write, the people write, all unanimously advertise the chancellor to bolt, to cross the sea without delay, unless his ears are ticklish to hear rumours, unless he wishes to take his meals under the charge of armed soldiers.

Sect. 78. The chancellor stood aghast at the severity of the mandates, and was as pale as one who treads a snake with his bare feet. But, on retiring, is reported to have made only this manly reply:—“Let all who persecute me, know they shall see how great is he whom they have offended. I am not destitute of all counsel, as they reckon. I have one who serves me as a fine ear by true despatches. ‘As long as I am an exile,’ said he, ‘patiently endure the things which you suffer. Every land is a home to the brave, believe one who has found it so by experience; persevere and preserve your life for a better day. A grateful hour, which is not hoped for, will overtake both you and me. Unlooked for, I shall return and triumph over my enemies, and again shall my victory make thee a citizen in my kingdom, forbidden thee, and now not obeying me; haply it may hereafter be gratifying to us to reflect on this event.’”

Sect. 79. Because Winchester ought not to be deprived of its due reward for keeping peace with the Jews, as in the beginning of this book is related, the Winchester Jews (after the manner of the Jews), studious of the honour of their city, procured themselves notoriety by murdering a boy in Winchester, with many signs of the deed, although, perhaps, the deed was never done. The case was thus:—A certain Jew engaged a Christian boy, a pretender to the art of shoemaking, into the household service of his family. He did not reside there continually to work, nor was he permitted to complete any thing great all at once, lest his abiding with them should apprise him of the fate intended for him; and, as he was remunerated better for a little labour there, than for much elsewhere, allured by his gifts and wiles, he frequented the more freely the wretch’s house. Now, he was French by birth, under age, and an orphan, of abject condition and extreme poverty. A certain French Jew, having unfortunately compassioned his great miseries in France, by frequent advice persuaded him that he should go to England, a land flowing with milk and honey; he praised the English as liberal and bountiful, and that there no one would continue poor who could be recommended for honesty: The boy, ready to like whatever you may wish, as is natural with the French, having taken a certain companion of the same age as himself, and of the same country, got ready to set forward on his foreign expedition, having nothing in his hands but a staff, nothing in his wallet but a cobbler’s awl.

Sect. 80. He bade farewell to his Jewish friend; to whom the Jew replied, “Go forth as a man. The God of my fathers lead thee as I desire.” And having laid his hands upon his head, as if he had been the scapegoat, after certain muttering of the throat and silent imprecations, being now secure of his prey, he continued,—” Be of good courage; forget your own people and native land, for every land is the home of the brave, as the sea is for the fish, and as the whole of the wide world is for the bird. When you have entered England, if you should come to London, you will quickly pass through it, as that city greatly displeases me. Every race of men, out of every nation which is under heaven, resort thither in great numbers; every nation has introduced into that city its vices and bad manners. No one lives in it without offence; there is not a single street in it that does not abound in miserable, obscene wretches; there, in proportion as any man has exceeded in wickedness, so much is he the better. I am not ignorant of the disposition I am exhorting; you have, in addition to your youth, an ardent disposition, a slowness of memory, and a soberness of reason between extremes. I feel in myself no uneasiness about you, unless you should abide with men of corrupt lives; for from our associations our manners are formed. But let that be as it may. You will come to London. Behold! I warn you, whatever of evil or of perversity there is in any, whatever in all parts of the world, you will find in that city alone. Go not to the dances of panders, nor mix yourself up with the herds of the stews; avoid the talus and the dice, the theatre and the tavern. You will find more braggadocios there than in all France, while the number of flatterers is infinite. Stage-players, buffoons, those that have no hair on their bodies, Garamantes, pick-thanks, catamites, effeminate sodomites, lewd musical girls, druggists, lustful persons, fortune-tellers, extortioners, nightly strollers, magicians, mimics, common beggars, tatterdemalions,—this whole crew has filled every house. So if you do not wish to live with the shameful, you will not dwell in London. I am not speaking against the learned, whether monks or Jews; although, still, from their very dwelling together with such evil persons, I should esteem them less perfect there than elsewhere.

Sect. 81. “Nor does my advice go so far, as that you should betake yourself to no city; with my counsel you will take up your residence nowhere but in a town, though it remains to say in what. Therefore, if you should land near Canterbury, you will have to lose your way, if even you should but pass through it. It is an assemblage of the vilest entirely devoted to their——I know not whom, but who has been lately canonized, and had been the archbishop of Canterbury, as everywhere they die in open day in the streets for want of bread and employment. Rochester and Chichester are mere villages, and they possess nothing for which they should be called cities, but the sees of their bishops. Oxford scarcely, I will not say satisfies, but sustains, its clerks. Exeter supports men and beasts with the same grain. Bath is placed, or rather buried, in the lowest parts of the valleys, in a very dense atmosphere and sulphury vapour, as it were at the gates of hell. Nor yet will you select your habitation in the northern cities, Worcester, Chester, Hereford, on account of the desperate Welshmen. York abounds in Scots, vile and faithless men, or rather rascals. The town of Ely is always putrefied by the surrounding marshes. In Durham, Norwich, or Lincoln, there are very few of your disposition among the powerful; you will never hear any one speak French. At Bristol, there is nobody who is not, or has not been, a soapmaker, and every Frenchman esteems soapmakers as he does nightmen. After the cities, every market, village, or town, has but rude and rustic inhabitants. Moreover, at all times, account the Cornish people for such as you know our Flemish are accounted in France. For the rest, the kingdom itself is generally most favoured with the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth; and in every place there are some good, but much fewer in them all than in Winchester alone.

Sect. 82. “This is in those parts the Jerusalem of the Jews, in it alone they enjoy perpetual peace; it is the school of those who desire to live well and prosper. Here they become men, here there is bread and wine enough for nothing. There are therein monks of such compassion and gentleness, clergy of such understanding and frankness, citizens of such civility and good faith, ladies of such beauty and modesty, that little hinders but I should go there and become a Christian with such Christians. To that city I direct you, the city of cities, the mother of all, the best above all. There is but one fault, and that alone in which they customarily indulge too much. With the exception I should say of the learned and of the Jews, the Winchester people tell lies like watchmen, but it is in making up reports. For in no place under heaven so many false rumours are fabricated so easily as there; otherwise they are true in every thing. I should have many things too still to tell you about business; but for fear you should not understand or should forget, you will place this familiar note in the hands of the Jew my friend, and I think, too, you may some time be rewarded by him.” The short note was in Hebrew. The Jew made an end of his speech, and the boy having understood all things for good, came to Winchester.

Sect. 83. His awl supplied him, and his companion as well, with food, and the cruel courtesy and deceitful beneficence of the Jew was by the letter unfortunately obtained to their relief. Wherever the poor fellows worked or eat apart by day, they reposed every night in one little bed in the same old cottage of a certain old woman. Days follow days, and months months, and in the same way as we have hitherto so carefully described, our boys hasten the time of their separation that they may meet again. The day of the Holy Cross had arrived, and the boy that same day, whilst working at his Jew’s, being by some means put out of the way, was not forthcoming. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was at hand. His companion, during the evening, greatly surprised at his absence, not returning home to bed, was terrified that night with many visions and dreams. When he had sought him several days in all corners of the city without success, he came to the Jew and simply asked if he had sent his benefactor anywhere; whom when he found violently enraged beyond his general disposition, from having been so courteous the day before, and noticed the incoherence of his words and change of countenance, he presently fired up, and as he was of a shrill voice and admirable readiness of speech, he broke out into abuse, and with great clamour challenged him with taking his companion away. “Thou son of a sordid harlot,” said he; “thou robber, thou traitor, thou devil, thou hast crucified my friend. Alas, me! wherefore have I not now the strength of a man! I would tear you to pieces with my hands.” The noise of his quarrelling in the house is heard in the street, Jews and Christians come running together from all quarters. The boy persists, and now, deriving courage from the crowd, addressing those present, he alleged his concern for his companion as an excuse. “O you good people,” said he, “who are assembled, behold if there is any sorrow like my sorrow. That Jew is a devil; he has stolen away my heart from my breast—he has butchered my only companion, and I presume too that he has eaten him. A certain son of the devil, a Jew of French birth, I neither know nor am acquainted with; that Jew gave, my comrade letters of his death-warrant to that man. To this city he came, induced, or rather seduced. He often gave attendance upon this Jew, and in his house he was last seen.” He was not without a witness to some points, inasmuch as a Christian woman, who, contrary to the canons, had nursed up the young Jews in the same house, constantly swore that she had seen the boy go down into the Jew’s store, without coming up again. The Jew denies it—the case is referred to the judges. The accusers are defective; the boy because he was under age, the woman because the service of Jews had rendered her ignominious. The Jew offered to clear his conscience of the evil report. Gold contented the judges. Phineas gave and pleased, and the controversy ceased.

Sect. 84. The bishop of Chester, who, from his detestation of religion, had expelled the monks from Coventry, entirely broke down all the workshops there were in the monastery, that by the altered appearance of the place, all remembrance of its past state might be taken away from posterity. And further, lest the ruin of the walls should some day bespeak their author, the church of the place, which had not been finished, was found a ready plea, and having bestowed the materials upon it, without charge, he began to build. More over, he appointed the masons and plasterers their hire out of the chattels of the monastery. He selected two principal manors of the monks for his own proper use; this arrangement being made for their abuse—that wherever he should eat, some special delicacy provided out of the issues of the aforesaid manors should be presented to him to eat, that he might glory in the victory, and might batten, as it were, on the viscera of the monks, whom he had by his wickedness overcome. But all the rest of their revenues he allotted to the prebends, some of which he conferred and settled for ever on the Romish church, appropriated to certain cardinals of the Apostolic See, appointing them and their canonical successors in the same titles to be canons of the church of Coventry, that if by any chance there should be any delay to the transactions before the pope, he should make the whole court the more ready in the defence of his part; he conferred the other prebends on others, but not one on any whom he did not know for certain to be an advocate of no religion. They built eagerly, even the absent canons, around the church spacious and lofty villas, perhaps for their own use, if even once in their lives any chance should offer a cause for visiting the place. None of the prebendaries regularly resided there any more than they do elsewhere; but doing great things for the gates of palaces, they have left to poor vicars, induced by a trifling remuneration, to insult God; to them have they intrusted the holy chant and vanquished household gods and bare church walls.

Sect. 85. This forsooth is true religion; this should the church imitate and emulate. It will be permitted the secular canon to be absent from his church as long as he may please, and to consume the patrimony of Christ where, and when, in whatsoever luxuries he may list. Let them only provide this, that a frequent vociferation be heard in the house of the Lord. If the stranger should knock at the doors of such, if the poor should cry, he who lives before the doors will answer (he himself being a sufficiently needy vicar), “Pass on, and seek elsewhere for alms, for the master of the house is not at home.” This is that glorious religion of the clerks, for the sake of which the bishop of Chester, the first of men that durst commit so great iniquity, expelled his monks from Coventry. For the sake of clerks irregularly regular—that is to say, of canons, he capriciously turned out the monks; monks who, not with another’s, but with their own month praised the Lord, who dwelt and walked in the house of the Lord with unanimity all the days of their life, who beyond their food and raiment knew nothing earthly, whose bread was always for the poor, whose door was at all times open to every traveller: nor did they thus please the bishop, who never loved either monks or their order. A man of bitter jocularity, who even, though he might sometimes spare, never ceased to worry the monks. 0 what a fat morsel, and not to be absorbed, is a monk! many a thousand has that bit choked, while the wicked at their death have had it for their viaticum. If as often as a monk was calumniated and reproached he was consumed, all religion would be absorbed before many ages. At all times and in every place, whether the bishop spoke in earnest or in jest, a monk was some part of his discourse. Nor did the expulsion of his own monks satisfy him, but ever after, true to himself, he continued censuring the monks as before. But as he could not desist from speaking of them, lest he should incur the opprobrium of a detractor, if in their absence he should carp at their order, he resolved to keep some monk abiding with him in his court; that his conversation about them might be made less offensive, by the presence and audience of one of them. So he took as his quasi chaplain a certain monk, scarcely of age, but yet who had professed at Burton, whom to the scandal of religion he generally took about with him. 0 excess of sorrow! Even among the angels of God is found iniquity. The monk, wise and prudent, seduced to the delusion, hardened his forehead as a harlot, that he a monk should not blush when monks were reviled. Alas! how great a thirst for roving and riding! Hear me and attend a little; you shall see how the riding of this rider concluded. On a certain day, as the bishop was standing over his workmen at Coventry, his monk attending close by his side, on whom the bishop familiarly resting, said, “Is it not proper and expedient, my monk, even in your judgment, that the great beauty of so fair a church, that such a comely edifice, should rather be appropriated to gods than devils?” And while the monk was hesitating at the obscurity of the words, he added, “I,” said he, “call my clerks gods, and monks devils!” And presently putting forth the forefinger of his right hand towards his clerks, who were standing round him, he continued, “I say ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the Highest!” And having turned again to the left, concluded to the monk, “But ye monks shall die like devils; and as one and the greatest of your princes ye shall fall away into hell, because ye are devils upon earth. Truly if it should befal me to officiate for a dead monk, which I should be very unwilling to do, I would commend his body and soul not to God, but to the devil!” The monk, who was standing in the very place that the monks had been plundered of, did not refute the insult on the monks, and because on such an occasion he was silent, met, as he deserved, with the reward of eternal silence being imposed upon him. For suddenly a stone falling from the steeple of the church, dashed out the brains of the monk who was attending on the bishop, the bishop being preserved in safety for some greater judgment.

Sect. 86. The king of the English, Richard, had already completed two years in conquering the region around Jerusalem, and during all that time there had no aid been sent to him from any of his kingdoms. Nor yet were his only and uterine brother, John, earl of Mortain, nor his justiciaries, nor his other nobles, observed to take any care to send him any part of his revenues; but they did not even think of his return. However, prayer was made without ceasing by the church to God for him. The king’s army was decreased daily in the Land of Promise, and besides those who were slain with the sword, many thousands of the people perished every month by the too sudden extremities of the nightly cold and the daily heat. When it appeared that they would all have to die there, every one had to choose whether he would die as a coward or in battle. On the other side, the strength of the Gentiles greatly increased, and their confidence was strengthened by the misfortunes of the Christians; their army was relieved at certain times by fresh troops; the weather was natural to them; the place was their native country; their labour, health; their frugality, medicine. Amongst the Normans, on the contrary, that became a disadvantage which to the adversaries brought gain. For if our people lived sparingly even once in a week, they were rendered less effective for seven weeks after. The mingled nation of French and English fared sumptuously every day, and (saving the reverence of the French) even to loathing, at whatever cost, while their treasure lasted; and the well-known custom of the English being continually kept up even under the very clarions and the clangour of the trumpet or horn, they gaped with due devotion while the chalices were emptied to the dregs. The merchants of the country, who brought the victuals to the camp, were astonished at their wonderful and extraordinary habits, and could scarcely believe even what they saw to be true, that one people, and that small in number, consumed threefold the bread and a hundred-fold the wine more than that whereon many nations of the Gentiles had been sustained, and some of those nations innumerable. And the hand of the Lord was deservedly laid upon them according to their merits. So great want of food followed their great gluttony, that their teeth scarcely spared their fingers, as their hands presented to their mouths less than their usual allowance. To these and other calamities, which were severe and many, a much greater was added by the sickness of the king.

Sect. 87. The king was extremely sick, and confined to his bed; his fever continued without intermission; the physicians whispered that it was an acute semitertian. And as they despaired of his recovery even from the first terrible dismay was spread from the king’s abode through the camp. There were few among the many thousands who did not meditate on flight, and the utmost confusion of dispersion or surrender would have followed, had not Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury, immediately assembled the council. He obtained by forcible allegations that the army should not break up until a truce was demanded of Saladin. All well armed stand in array more steadily than usual, and with a threatening look concealing the reluctance of their mind, they feign a desire for battle. No one speaks of the indisposition of the king, lest the secret of their intense sorrow should be disclosed to the enemy; for it was thoroughly understood that Saladin feared the charge of the whole army less than that of the king alone; and if he should know that he was dead, he would instantly pelt the French with cow-dung, and intoxicate the best of the English drunkard with a dose which should make them tremble.

Sect. 88. In the meantime, a certain Gentile, called Saffatin, came down to see the king, as he generally did; he was a brother of Saladin, an ancient man of war of remarkable politeness and intelligence, and one whom the king’s magnanimity and munificence had charmed even to the love of his person and favour of his party. The king’s servants greeting him less joyfully than they were accustomed, and not admitting him to an interview with the king, “I perceive,” said he by his interpreter, “that you are greatly afflicted; nor am I ignorant of the cause. My friend, your king, is sick, and therefore you close his doors to me.” And falling into tears, with his whole heart, he exclaimed, “O God of the Christians, if thou be a God, do not suffer such a man, so necessary to thy people, to fall so suddenly!” He was intrusted with their avowal, and thus spoke on: “In truth I forewarn you. that if the king should die while things stand as they are at present, all you Christians will perish, and all this region will in time to come be ours without contest. Shall we at all dread that stout king of France, who before he came into battle was defeated,—whose whole strength, which three years had contributed, the short space of three months consumed? Hither will he on no account return any more; for we always esteem this as a sure token (I am not speaking craftily, but simply), that those whom at first we think cowardly, we ever after find worse. But that king, of all the princes of the Christian name whom the round circle of the whole world encompasses, is alone worthy of the honour of a captain and the name of a king, because he commenced well, and went on better, and will be crowned by the most prosperous result, if only be shall remain with you a short time.

Sect. 89. “It is not a new thing for us to dread the English, for fame reported to us his father to be such, that had he come even unarmed to our parts, we should all have fled, though armed, nor would it have appeared inglorious to us to be put to flight by him. He our terror, a wonderful man in his day, is dead; but, like the phœnix, renewed himself, a thousand times better, in his son. It was not unknown to us how great that Richard was, even while his father lived; for all the days of his father, we had our agents in those parts, who informed us both of the king’s deeds, and of the birth and death of his sons. He was justly beloved for his probity by his father above all his brothers, and preferred before them to the government of his states. It was not unknown to us that when he was made duke of Aquitaine he speedily and valiantly crushed the tyrants of the province, who had been invincible before his grandfather and great grandfather;—how terrible he was even to the king of France himself, as well as to all the governors of the regions on his borders. None took of his to himself, though he always pushed his bounds into his neighbours’. It was not unknown to us, that his two brothers, the one already crowned king, the other duke of Bretagne, had set themselves up against their dear father, and that he ceased not to persecute them with the rigour of war, till he had given them both eternal repose, vanquished as they were by the length of the prosecution. Besides, as you will the more wonder at, we know all the cities of your parts by name; nor are we ignorant that the king of your country was beaten at Le Mans through the treachery of his own people, that he died at Chinon, and was buried at Fontevraud.

Sect. 90. “It is not through ignorance that I do not relate who made himself the author of such unusual and mighty slaughter against us. O! if that Richard, whom although I love yet I fear, if he were despatched out of the way, how little should we then fear, how very little should we make account of that youngest of the sons, who sleeps at home in clover! It was not unknown to us, that Richard, who nobly succeeded his great father in the kingdom, immediately set forward against us even in the very year of his coronation. The number of his ships and troops was not unknown to us before his setting forth. We knew, even at the very time, with what speed he took Messina, the well-fortified city of Sicily, which he besieged; and although none of our people believed it, yet our fears increased, and fame added false terrors to the true.

Sect. 91. “His valour, unable to rest in one place, proceeded through a boundless region, and everywhere left trophies of his courage. We questioned among ourselves whether he made ready to subdue, for his God, the Land of Promise only, or, at the same time, to take the whole world for himself. Who shall worthily relate the capture of Cyprus? Verily had the island of Cyprus been close to Egypt, and had my brother Saladin subdued it in ten years his name would have been reckoned by the people among the names of the gods. When, however, we at last perceived that he overthrew whatever resisted his purpose, our hearts were melted as the hoar frost melts at the appearance of the approaching sun, forasmuch as it was said of him that he ate his enemies alive. And if he were not presently, on the very day of his arrival before Acre, received freely into the city with open gates, fear alone was the cause. It was not from their desire to preserve the city, but through dread of the torments promised them and their despair of life that they fought so bravely, or rather desperately, fearing this more than death, endeavouring this by all means, namely, that they should not die unrevenged. And this was not from sheer obstinacy, but to follow up the doctrine of our faith. For we believe that the spirits of the unavenged wander for ever, and that they are deprived of all rest. But what did the rashness and timidity of the devoted profit them? Being vanquished by force, and constrained by fear to surrender, they were punished with a more lenient death than they had expected. And yet, oh! shame on the Gentiles! their spirits wandered unavenged! I swear to you by the Great God, that if, after he had gained Acre, he had immediately led his army to Jerusalem, he would not have found even one of our people in the whole circuit of the Christians’ land; on the contrary, we should have offered to him inestimable treasure, that he might not proceed, that he might not prosecute us further.

Sect. 92. “But, thanks be to God! he was burdened with the king of the French, and hindered by him, like a cat with a hammer tied to its tail. To conclude, we, though his rivals, see nothing in Richard that we can find fault with but his valour; nothing to hate but his experience in war. But what glory is there in fighting with a sick man? And although this very morning I could have wished that both you and he had all received your final doom, now I compassionate you on account of your king’s illness. I will either obtain for you a settled peace with my brother, or at the least a good and durable truce. But until I return to you, do not by any means speak of it to the king, lest, if he should be excited, he may get worse, for he is of so lofty and impatient a disposition, that, even though he should needs presently die, he would not consent to an arrangement, without seeing the advantage on his side!” He would have spoken further, but his tongue, languishing and failing for sorrow, would not continue his harangue, so with his head resting in his clasped hands he wept sore.

Sect. 93. The bishop of Salisbury, and such of the most trusty of the king’s household as were present, who had secretly deliberated with him upon this subject, reluctantly consented to the truce which before they had determined to purchase at any price, as if it had been detested, and not desired by them. So their right hands being given and received, Saffatin, when he had washed his face, and disguised his sorrow, returned to Jerusalem, to Saladin. The council was assembled before his brother, and after seventeen days of weighty argument, he with difficulty succeeded in prevailing on the stubbornness of the Gentiles to grant a truce to the Christians. The time was appointed and the form approved. If it please King Richard, for the space of three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours, such a truce shall be observed between the Christians and the Gentiles, that whatever either one party or the other in anywise possesses, he shall possess without molestation to the end; it will be permitted during the interval, that the Christians at their pleasure may fortify Acre only, and the Gentiles Jerusalem. All contracts, commerce, every act and every thing shall be mutually carried on by all in peace. Saffatin himself is despatched to the English as the bearer of this decree.

Sect. 94. Whilst King Richard was sick at Jaffa, word was brought him that the duke of Burgundy was taken dangerously ill at Acre. The day was the day for the king’s fever to take its turn, and through his delight at this report, it left him. The king immediately with uplifted hands imprecated a curse upon him, saying, “May God destroy him, for he would not destroy the enemies of our faith with me, although he had long served in my pay.” On the third day the duke died; as soon as his decease was known, the bishop of Beauvais, having left the king with all his men, came in haste to Acre; the French out of all the towns assembled before him, all but Henry, count of Champagne, King Richard’s nephew by his sister. And the bishop, being made their leader and bully, set forth a proclamation and commanded them all to return home.

Sect. 95. The fleet was made ready, and the glorious prince retreating with his cowardly troop, sails over the Etruscan Sea. Having landed on the German coast, he spreads abroad among the people, during the whole of his journey, that that traitor the king of England, from the first moment of his arrival in Judea, had endeavoured to betray his lord the king of the French to Saladin; that, as soon as he had obtained Tyre, he caused the marquess to be murdered; that he had despatched the duke of Burgundy by poison; that at the last he had sold generally the whole army of the Christians who did not obey him; that he was a man of singular ferocity, of harsh and repulsive manners, subtle in treachery, and most cunning in dissimulation; that on that account the king of the French had returned home so soon; that on that account the French who remained had left Jerusalem unredeemed. This report gained strength by circulation, and provoked against one man the hatred of all.

Sect. 96. The bishop of Beauvais, having returned to France, secretly whispered in the king’s ear, that the king of England had sent assassins to France who would murder him. The king, alarmed at that, appointed, though against the custom of his country, a chosen body-guard; he further sent ambassadors to the emperor of Germany with presents, and carefully persuaded his imperial majesty to a hatred of the king of England. So it was enjoined by an imperial edict, that all cities and princes of the empire should take the king of the English by force, if by chance in his return from Judea he should happen to pass through their countries, and present him to him alive or dead. If any one spared him, he should be punished as the public enemy of the empire. All obeyed the emperor’s charge; and especially that duke of Austria whom the king of England had dismissed at Acre.

Sect. 97. Henry, count of Champagne, now the only one of the French nobles left in Judea, returned to the king of the English, to Jaffa; and when he announced to him both the death of the duke of Burgundy and the departure of the French, the hope of the king so revived, that he presently experienced a perfect convalescence with a healthy perspiration; and having resumed his strength of body more by the high temper of his mind than by repose or nourishment, he issued a command through the whole coast from Tyre to Ascalon, that all who were able to serve in the wars should come to the service at the king’s charges. There assembled before him a countless multitude, the greater part of whom were foot; which being rejected, as they were useless, he mustered the horse, and scarcely found five hundred knights and two thousand shield-bearers whose lords had perished. And not mistrustful on account of their small number, he being a most excellent orator, strengthened the minds of the fearful in a seasonable harangue. He commanded that it should be proclaimed through the companies that on the third day they must follow the king to battle, either to die as martyrs or to take Jerusalem by storm. This was the sum of his project, because as yet he knew nothing of the truce. For there was no one who duist even hint to him, who had so unexpectedly recovered, that which, without his knowledge, they had undertaken through fear of his death. However, Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury, took counsel with Count Henry concerning the truce, and obtained his ready concurrence in his wishes. So having deliberated together by what stratagem they might be able without danger to hinder such a hazardous engagement, they conceived one of a thousand, namely, to dissuade the people if possible from the enterprise. And the matter turned out most favourably; the spirit of those who were going to fight had so greatly failed, even without dissuasion, that on the appointed day, when the king, according to his custom leading the van, marshalled his army, there were not found of all the knights and shield-bearers above nine hundred. On account of which defection, the king, greatly enraged, or rather raving, and champing with his teeth the pine rod which he held in his hand, at length unbridled his indignant lips as follows:—“O God!” said he, “O God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? For whom have we foolish Christians, for whom have we English come hither from the furthest parts of the earth to bear our arms? Is it not for the God of the Christians? O fie! How good art thou to us thy people, who now are for thy name given up to the sword; we shall become a portion for foxes. O how unwilling should I be to forsake thee in so forlorn and dreadful a position, were I thy lord and advocate as thou art mine! In sooth, my standards will in future be despised, not through my fault but through thine; in sooth, not through any cowardice of my warfare, art thou thyself, my King and my God, conquered this day, and not Richard thy vassal.”

Sect. 98. He said, and returned to the camp extremely dejected; and as a fit occasion now offered, Bishop Hubert and Henry, count of Champagne, approaching him with unwonted familiarity, and as if nothing had yet been arranged, importuned under divers pretexts the king’s consent for making such overtures to the Gentiles as were necessary. And thus the king answered them: “Since it generally happens that a troubled mind rather thwarts than affords sound judgment—I, who am greatly perplexed in mind, authorize you, who have as I see a collected mind, to arrange what you shall think most proper for the good of peace.” They having gained their desires, chose messengers to send to Saffatin upon these matters; Saffatin, who had returned from Jerusalem, is suddenly announced to be at hand; the count and the bishop go to meet him, and being assured by him of the truce, they instruct him how he must speak with the lord their king. Saffatin being admitted to an interview with the king as one who before had been his friend, could scarcely prevail with the king not to make himself a sacrifice, and to consent to the truce. For so great were the man’s strength of body, mental courage, and entire trust in Christ, that he could hardly be prevailed upon not to undertake in his own person a single combat with a thousand of the choicest Gentiles, as he was destitute of soldiers. And as he was not permitted to break off in this way, he chose another evasion, that, after a truce of seven weeks, the stipulations of the compact being preserved, it should remain for him to choose whether it were better to fight or to forbear. The right hands are given by both parties for faithfully observing this last agreement; and Saffatin, more honoured than burdened with the king’s present, goes back again to his brother, to return at the expiration of the term for the final conclusion or breaking off of the above truce.

Sect. 99. Richard, king of England, held a council at Acre, and there prudently regulating the government of that state, he appointed his nephew, Henry, count of Champagne, on whom he had formerly conferred Tyre, to be captain and lord of the whole Land of Promise. Only he thought proper to defer his consecration as king till haply he might be crowned at Jerusalem. King Richard now thinking to return home, when with the assistance of Count Henry he had appointed chosen men for all the strongholds that had been taken in his territories, found Ascalon alone without ward or inhabitant for want of people. Wherefore, taking precaution that it might not become a receptacle of the Gentiles, he caused the ramparts and fortifications of the castle to be cast down. The seventh day of the seventh week appeared, and behold Saffatin, with many mighty ones who desired to see the face of the king, drew near; the truce was confirmed on both sides by oath, this being added to that which had been previously settled, that during the continuance of the truce no one, whether Christian or Gentile, should inhabit Ascalon, and that the whole of the tillage pertaining to the town should remain to the Christians. Hubert, bishop of Salisbury, and Henry, captain of Judea, together with a numerous band, went up to Jerusalem to worship in the place where the feet of Christ had stood. And there was woeful misery to be seen—captive confessors of the Christian name, wearing out a hard and constant martyrdom; chained together in gangs, their feet blistered, their shoulders raw, their backsides goaded, their backs wealed, they carried materials to the hands of the masons and stone-layers to make Jerusalem impregnable against the Christians. When the -captain and bishop had returned from the sacred places, they endeavoured to persuade the king to go up; but the worthy indignation of his noble mind could not consent to receive that from the courtesy of the Gentiles which he could not obtain by the gift of God.

* Henry, son of King Henry II., is frequently styled Henry the Third, in the early Chronicles.

† Jews, so called probably from their usurious practices.

* Stephen de Marzia, otherwise called Stephen de Turonis.

* December 12, 1189.

* He arrives at Messina, Sept. 23.

* The origin of this joke is unknown.

* Literally, men who have not their hearts in their boots.

* Eleanor, queen of Lewis and Henry, mother of Henry and Richard.

* March 4.

* Una salus victis nullam sperare salutem.—VIRGIL.

* Somper ego auditor tactum? Nunquamne reponam?—JUVENAL

* Dec. 26.

* Mocomicolæ.

* Feb. 1.

† Feb. 11.