In modern times walls are always attacked with mortars and cannon. The ordnance of the present day will throw shot and shells of prodigious weight two or three miles, and these tremendous missiles strike against the walls of a fortress with such force as in a short time to batter them down, no matter how strong and thick they may be. But in those days gunpowder was not in use, and the principal means of breaking down a wall was by the battering-ram, which consisted of a heavy beam of wood, hung by a rope or chain from a massive frame, and then swung against the gate or wall which it was intended to break through. In the engraving you see such a ram suspended from the frame, with men at work below, impelling it against a gateway.
[Illustration: THE BATTERING-RAM.]
Sometimes these battering-rams were very large and heavy, and the men drew them back and forth, in striking the wall with them, by means of ropes. There are accounts of some battering-rams which weighed forty or fifty tons, and required fifteen hundred men to work them.
The men, of course, were very much exposed while engaged in this operation, for the people whom they were besieging would gather on the walls above, and shoot spears, darts, and arrows at them, and throw down stones and other missiles, as you see in the engraving.
[Illustration: THE BALLISTA.]
Then, besides the battering-ram, which, though very efficient against walls, was of no service against men, there were other engines made in those days which were designed to throw stones or monstrous darts. These last were, of course, designed to operate against bodies of men. They were made in various forms, and were called catapultas, ballistas, maginalls, and by other such names. The force with which they operated consisted of springs made by elastic bars of wood, twisted ropes, and other such contrivances.
[Illustration: THE CATAPULTA.]
Some were for throwing stones, others for monstrous darts. Of course, these engines required for their construction heavy frames of sound timber. Richard did not expect to find such timber in the Holy Land, nor did he wish to consume the time after he should arrive in making them; so he employed the winter in constructing a great number of these engines, and in packing them, in parts, on board his galleys.
Richard performed a great religious ceremony, too, while he was at Sicily this winter, as a part of the preparation which he deemed it necessary to make for the campaign. It is a remarkable fact that every great military freebooter that has organized an armed gang of men to go forth, and rob and murder his fellow-men, in any age of the world, has considered some great religious performance necessary at the outset of the work, to prepare the minds of his soldiers for it, and to give them the necessary resolution and confidence in it. It was so with Alexander. It was so with Xerxes and with Darius. It was so with Pyrrhus. It is so substantially at the present day, when, in all wars, each side makes itself the champion of heaven in the contest, and causes Te Deums to be chanted in their respective churches, now on this side and now on that, in pretended gratitude to God for their alternate victories.
Richard called a grand convention of all the prelates and monks that were with his army, and performed a solemn act of worship. A part of the performance consisted of his kneeling personally before the priests, confessing his sins and the wicked life that he had led, and making very fervent promises to sin no more, and then, after submitting to the penances which they enjoined upon him, receiving from them pardon and absolution. After the enactment of this solemnity, the soldiers felt far more safe and strong in going forth to the work which lay before them in the Holy Land than before.
Nor is it certain that in this act Richard was wholly hypocritical and insincere. The human heart is a mansion of many chambers, and a religious sentiment, in no small degree conscientious and honest, though hollow and mistaken, may have strong possession of some of them, while others are filled to overflowing with the dear and besetting sins, whatever they are, by which the general conduct of the man is controlled.
CHAPTER IX. BERENGARIA.
1190
Richard's betrothal to Berengaria-The obstacles which prevented the marriage of Richard and Alice.-The first acquaintance of Richard and the Princess Berengaria.-The fame of Berengaria.-Her accomplishments.-Eleanora sent to King Sancho to ask his daughter in marriage.-Berengaria's acceptance.-The expedition to meet Richard.-Berengaria at Brindisi with Joanna.-The friendship between Joanna and Berengaria.-Tancred receives a letter from Philip.-Treachery.-Philip's letter to Tancred.-Richard's opinion of it.-The etiquette of dueling.-Richard charges the letter upon Philip.-Philip's reply.-Richard's declaration.-Richard and Philip compromise their quarrel.-Re-embarkation.-Preparations for the marriage.-Richard escorting Philip.-Why the wedding was postponed.-Richard puts Joanna and Berengaria in charge of Stephen.-The vow to conquer Acre.-Richard's present to Tancred.
While Richard was in the kingdom of Sicily during this memorable winter, he made a new contract of marriage. The lady was a Spanish princess named Berengaria. The circumstances of this betrothment were somewhat extraordinary.
The reader will recollect that he had been betrothed in his earliest youth to Alice, an infant princess of France. His father had thrown him in, as it were, as a sort of makeweight, in arranging some compromise with the King of France for the settlement of a quarrel, and also to obtain the dower of the young princess for his own use. This dower consisted of various castles and estates, which were immediately put into the hands of Henry, Richard's father, and which he continued to hold as long as he lived, using and enjoying the rents and revenues from them as his own property. When Richard grew old enough to claim his bride, Henry, under whose custody and charge she had been placed, would not give her up to him; and long and serious quarrels arose between the father and the son on this account, as has already been related in this volume. The most obvious reason for which Henry might be supposed unwilling to give up Alice to her affianced husband, when he became old enough to be married to her, was, that he wished to retain longer the use of the castles and estates that constituted her dowry. But, in addition to this, it was surmised by many that he had actually fallen in love with her himself, and that he was determined that Richard should not have her at all. Richard himself believed, or pretended to believe, that this was the case. He was consequently very angry, and he justified himself in the wars and rebellions that he raised against his father during the lifetime of the king by this great wrong which he alleged that his father had done him. On the other hand, many persons supposed that Richard did not really wish to marry Alice, and that he only made the fact of his father's withholding her from him a pretext for his unnatural hostility, the real ends and aims of which were objects altogether different.
However this may be, when Henry died, and there was no longer any thing in the way of his marriage, he showed no desire to consummate it. Alice's father, too, had died, and Philip, the present King of France, and Richard's ally, was her brother. Philip called upon Richard from time to time to complete the marriage, but Richard found various pretexts for postponing it, and thus the matter stood when the expedition for the Holy Land set sail from Marseilles.
The next reason why Richard did not now wish to carry his marriage with Alice into effect was that, in the mean time, while his father had been withholding Alice from him, he had seen and fallen in love with another lady, the Princess Berengaria. Richard first saw Berengaria several years before, at a time when he was with his mother in Aquitaine, during the life of his father. The first time that he saw her was at a grand tournament which was celebrated in her native city in Spain, and which Richard went to attend. The families had been well acquainted with each other before, though, until the tournament, Richard had never seen Berengaria. Richard had, however, known one of her brothers from his boyhood, and they had always been very great friends. The father of Berengaria, too, Sancho the Wise, King of Navarre, had always been a warm friend of Eleanora, Richard's mother, and in the course of the difficulties and quarrels that took place between her and her husband, as related in the early chapters of this volume, he had rendered her very valuable services. Still, Richard never saw Berengaria until she had grown up to womanhood.