Richard did not go to the Duke of Burgundy, but, taking the letter which Tancred had shown him, he waited until he found a good opportunity, and then showed it to Philip. The two kings often fell into altercations and disputes in their interviews with each other, and it was in one of these that Richard produced the letter, offering it by way of recrimination to some charges or accusations which Philip was making against him. Philip denied having written the letter. It was a forgery, he said, and he believed that Richard himself was the author of it.
"You are trying every way you can," said he, "to find pretexts for quarreling with me, and this is one of your devices. I know what you are aiming at: you wish to quarrel with me so as to find some excuse for breaking off your marriage with my sister, whom you are bound by a most solemn oath to marry. But of this you may be sure, that if you abandon her and take any other wife, you will find me, as long as you live, your most determined and mortal enemy."
This declaration aroused Richard's temper, and brought the affair at once to a crisis. Richard declared to Philip that he never would marry his sister.
"My father," said he, "kept her from me for many years because he loved her himself, and she returned his love, and now I will never have any thing to do with her. I am ready to prove to you the truth of what I say."
So Richard brought forward what he called the proofs of the very intimate relations which had subsisted between Alice and his father. Whether there was any thing genuine or conclusive in these proofs is not known. At all events, they made a very deep and painful impression on Philip. The disclosure was, as one of the writers of those times says, "like a nail driven directly through his heart."
After a while, the two kings concluded to settle the difficulty by a sort of compromise. Philip agreed to give up all claims on the part of Alice to Richard in consideration of a sum of money which Richard was to pay. Richard was to pay two thousand marks[D] a year for five years, and was on that condition to be allowed to marry any one he chose. He was also to restore to Philip the fortresses and estates which had been conveyed to his father as Alice's dowry at the time of her betrothment to Richard in her infancy.
[Footnote D: The mark is about three dollars.]
This agreement, being thus made, was confirmed by a great profusion of oaths, sworn with all solemnity, and the affair was considered as settled.
Still, Richard seems to have been a little disinclined to bring out Berengaria at once from her retreat, and let Philip know suddenly how far his arrangements for marrying another lady had gone; so he concluded to wait, before publicly announcing his intended marriage, until Philip should have sailed for the East. Philip was now, indeed, nearly ready to go; his fleet and his armament, being smaller than Richard's, could be dispatched earlier; so Richard devoted himself very earnestly to the work of facilitating and hastening his ally's departure, determining that immediately afterward he would bring forward his bride and celebrate his marriage.
It is not, however, certain that he kept his intended marriage with Berengaria an absolute secret from Philip. There would be no longer any special necessity for this after the treaty that had been made. But, notwithstanding this agreement, it is not to be supposed that the new marriage would be a very agreeable subject for Philip to contemplate, or that it would be otherwise than very awkward for him to be present on the occasion of the celebration of it; so Richard decided that, on all accounts, it was best to postpone the ceremony until after Philip had gone.
Philip sailed the very last of March. Richard selected from his fleet a few of his most splendid galleys, and with these, filled with a chosen company of knights and barons, he accompanied Philip as he left the harbor, and sailed with him down the Straits of Messina, with trumpets sounding, and flags and banners waving in the air. As soon as Philip's fleet reached the open sea, Richard took leave, and set out with his galleys on his return; but, instead of going back to Messina, he made the best of his way to the port in Italy where Berengaria and Joanna were lodging, and there took the ladies, who were all ready, expecting him, and embarking them on board a very elegantly adorned galley which he had prepared for them, he conducted them to Messina.
Richard would now probably have been immediately married, but it was in the season of Lent, and, according to the ideas of those times, it would be in some sense a desecration of that holy season of fasting to celebrate any such joyous ceremony as a wedding in it; and it would not do very well to postpone the sailing of the fleet until after the season of Lent should have expired, for the time had already fully arrived when it ought to sail, and Philip, with his division of the allied force, had already gone; so he concluded to put off his marriage till they should reach the next place at which the expedition should land.
Berengaria consented to this, and it was arranged that she was to accompany the expedition when it should sail, and that at the next place of landing, which it was expected would be the island of Rhodes, the marriage ceremony should be performed.
As it was not considered quite proper, however, under these circumstances, that the princess should sail in the same ship with Richard, a very strong and excellent ship was provided for her special use, and that of Joanna who was to accompany her, and it was arranged that she should sail from the port just before the main body of the fleet were ready to commence the voyage. The ship in which the ladies and their suite were conveyed was placed under the command of a brave and faithful knight named Stephen of Turnham, and the two princesses were committed to his special charge.
But, although Richard's regard for the sacred season of Lent would not allow of his celebrating the marriage, he made a grand celebration in honor of his betrothment to Berengaria before he sailed. At this celebration he instituted an order of twenty-four knights. These knights bound themselves in a fraternity with the king, and took a solemn oath that they would scale the walls of Acre when they reached the Holy Land. Acre was one of the strongest and most important fortresses in that country, and one which they were intending first to attack.
Also, before he went away, Richard made King Tancred a farewell present of a very valuable antique sword, which had been found, he said, by his father in the tomb of a famous old English knight who had lived some centuries before.
CHAPTER X. THE CAMPAIGN IN CYPRUS.
1190
The expedition is at last ready to sail from Sicily.-The grand spectacle of the embarkation at Messina.-The order of sailing.-Trenc-le-mer.-The storm.-Navigation in the twelfth century.-Limesol in Cyprus.-The wrecked ships.-King Richard's seal.-The wreckers.-Isaac Comnenus.-Law and justice.-Law is not the creator, but the protector of property.-Joanna's inquiries for her brother.-An alarm.-A retreat.-Richard's vessel appears.-Richard's indignation on meeting Joanna's vessel.-Richard's contest with King Isaac Comnenus.-The history of the law of wrecks.-Richard having landed, Isaac asks a truce.-Negotiating.-Richard was a Norman, not an Englishman.-Preparing for war.-King Richard's battle-axe.-The conquest of Limesol.-Signaling for the queen's galley.-The terms of peace which Richard offered to Isaac.-How Richard faithlessly took King Isaac a prisoner.-King Richard subjugates Cyprus.-The miserable death of King Isaac.-Richard's wedding at last.-A coronation.-The king's accoutrement.-Favelle.-The appearance of Berengaria.-