At all events, though the assaults which the allies made against the walls and bulwarks of the town were none of them wholly successful, the general progress of the siege was altogether in their favor, and against the poor Saracens shut up within it. The last hope which they indulged was that some supplies would come to them by sea; but Richard's fleet, which remained at anchor off the town, blockaded the port so completely that there was no possibility that any thing could get in. The last lingering hope was, therefore, at length abandoned, and when the besieged found that they could endure their horrible misery no longer, they sent a flag of truce out to the camp of the besiegers, with a proposal to negotiate terms of surrender.
Then followed a long negotiation, with displays of haughty arrogance on one side, and heart-broken and bitter humiliation on the other. The Saracens first proposed what they considered fair and honorable terms, and Philip was disposed to accept them; but Richard rejected them with scorn. After a vain attempt at resistance, Philip was obliged to yield, and to allow his imperious and overbearing ally to have his own way. The Saracens wished to stipulate for the lives of the garrison, but Richard refused. He told them they must submit unconditionally; and, for his part, he did not care, he said, whether they yielded now or continued the contest. He should soon be in possession of the city, at any rate, and if they held out until he took it by storm, then, of course, it would be given up to the unbridled fury of the soldiers, who would mercilessly massacre every living thing they should find in it, and seize every species of property as plunder. This, he declared, was sure to be the end of the siege, and that very soon, unless they chose to submit. The Saracens then asked what terms he required of them. Richard stated his terms, and they asked for a little time to consider them and to confer with Saladin, who, being the sultan, was their sovereign, and without his approval they could not act.
So the negotiation was opened, and, after various difficulties and delays, a convention was finally agreed upon. The terms were these:
I. The city was to be surrendered to the allied armies, and
all the arms, ammunition, military stores, and property of
all kinds which it contained were to be forfeited to the
conquerors.
II. The troops and the people of the town were to be allowed
to go free on the payment of a ransom.
III. The ransom by which the besieged purchased their lives
and liberty was to be made up as follows:
1. The wood of the cross on which Christ was crucified,
which was alleged to be in Saladin's possession, was to
be restored.
2. Saladin was to set at liberty the Christian captives
which he had taken in the course of the war from various
armies of Crusaders, and which he now held as prisoners.
The number of these prisoners was about fifteen hundred.
3. He was to pay two hundred thousand pieces of gold.
IV. Richard was to retain a large body of men-it was said
that there were about five thousand in all-consisting of
soldiers of the garrison or inhabitants of the town, as
hostages for the fulfillment of these conditions. These men
were to be kept forty days, or, if at the end of that time
Saladin had not fulfilled the conditions of the surrender,
they were all to be put to death.
Perhaps Saladin agreed to these terms, under the pressure of dire necessity, compelled as he was to assent to whatever Richard might propose by the dreadful extremity to which the town was reduced, without sufficiently considering whether he would be really able to fulfill his promises. At any rate, these were the promises that he made; and as soon as the treaty was duly executed, the gates of Acre were opened to the conquerors, while Saladin himself broke up his encampment on the mountains, and withdrew his troops farther into the interior of the country.
Although the treaty was made and executed in the name of both the kings, Richard had taken into his hands almost the whole conduct of the negotiation, and now that the army was about to take possession of the town, he considered himself the conqueror of it. He entered with great parade, assigning to Philip altogether a secondary part in the ceremony. He also took possession of the principal palace of the place as his quarters, and there established himself with Berengaria and Joanna, while he left Philip to take up his residence wherever he could. The flags of both monarchs were, however, raised upon the walls, and so far Philip's claim to a joint sovereignty over the place was acknowledged. But none of the other princes or potentates who had been engaged in the siege were allowed to share this honor. One of them-the Archduke of Austria-ventured to raise his banner on one of the towers, but Richard pulled it down, tore it to pieces, and trampled it under his feet.
This, of course, threw the archduke into a dreadful rage, and most of the other smaller princes in the army shared the indignation that he felt at the grasping disposition which Richard manifested, and at his violent and domineering behavior. But they were helpless. Richard was stronger than they, and they were compelled to submit.
As for Philip, he had long since begun to find his situation extremely disagreeable. He was very sensitive to the overbearing and arrogant treatment which he received, but he either had not the force of character or the physical strength to resist it. Now, since Acre had fallen, he found his situation worse than ever. There was no longer any enemy directly before them, and it was only the immediate presence of an enemy that had thus far kept Richard within any sort of bounds. Philip saw now plainly that if he were to remain in the Holy Land, and attempt to continue the war, he could only do it by occupying an altogether secondary and subordinate position, and to this he thought it was wholly inconsistent with his rights and dignities as an independent sovereign to descend; so he began to revolve secretly in his mind how he could honorably withdraw from the expedition and return home.
While things were in this state, a great quarrel, which had for a long time been gradually growing up in the camp of the Crusaders, but had been restrained and kept, in some degree, subdued by the excitement of the siege, broke out in great violence. The question was who should claim the title of King of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was at this time in the hands of the Saracens, so that the title was, for the time being at least, a mere empty name. Still, there was a very fierce contention to decide who should possess it. It seems that it had originally descended to a certain lady named Sibylla. It had come down to her as the descendant and heir of a very celebrated crusader named Godfrey of Bouillon, who was the first king of Jerusalem. He became King of Jerusalem by having headed the army of Crusaders that first conquered it from the Saracens. This was about a hundred years before the time of the taking of Acre. The knights and generals of his army elected him King of Jerusalem a short time after he had taken it, and the title descended from him to Sibylla.
Sibylla was married to a famous knight named Guy of Lusignan, and he claimed the title of King of Jerusalem in right of his wife. This claim was acknowledged by the rest of the Crusaders so long as Sibylla lived, but at length she died, and then many persons maintained that the crown descended to her sister Isabella. Isabella was married to a knight named Humphrey of Huron, who had not strength or resolution enough to assert his claims. Indeed, he had the reputation of being a weak and timid man. Accordingly, another knight, named Conrad of Montferrat, conceived the idea of taking his place. He contrived to seize and bear away the Lady Isabella, and afterward to procure a divorce for her from her husband, and then, finally, he married her himself. He now claimed to be King of Jerusalem in right of Isabella, while Guy of Lusignan maintained that his right to the crown still continued. This was a nice question to be settled by such a rude horde of fighting men as these Crusaders were, and some took one side of it and some the other, according as their various ideas on the subject of rights of succession or their personal partialities inclined them.