the same prelate bought the earldom of Northumberland for life; many of the champions of the cross, who had repented of their vow, purchased the liberty of violating it; and Richard, who stood less in need of men than of money, dispensed, on these conditions, with their attendance.

Elated with the hopes of fame, which in that age attended no wars but those against the infidels, he was blind to every other consideration; and when some of his wiser ministers objected to this dissipation of the revenue and power of the crown, he replied, that he would sell London itself, could he find a purchaser. Nothing indeed could be a stronger proof how negligent he was of all future interests, in comparison of the crusade, than his selling, for so small a sum as ten thousand marks, the vassalage of Scotland, together with the fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick, the greatest acquisition that had been made by his father during the course of his victorious reign; and his accepting the homage of William in the usual terms, merely for the territories which that prince held in England. The English, of all ranks and stations, were oppressed by numerous exactions; menaces were employed, both against the innocent and the guilty, in order to extort money from them and where a pretence was wanting against the rich, the king obliged them, by the fear of his displeasure, to lend him sums which, he knew, it would never be in his power to repay.

But Richard, though he sacrificed every interest and consideration to the success of this pious enterprise, carried so little the appearance of sanctity in his conduct, that Fulk, curate of Neuilly, a zealous preacher of the crusade, who from that merit had acquired the privilege of speaking the boldest truths, advised him to rid himself of his notorious vices, particularly his pride, avarice, and voluptuousness, which he called the king's three favourite daughters. You counsel well, replied Richard, and I hereby dispose of the first to the Templars, of the second to the Benedictines, and of the third to my prelates.

Richard, jealous of attempts which might be made on England during his absence, laid prince John, as well as his natural brother Geoffrey Archbishop of York, under engagements, confirmed by their oaths, that neither of them should enter the kingdom till his return; though he thought proper, before his departure, to withdraw this prohibition. The administration was left in the hands of Hugh bishop of Durham, and of Longchamp bishop of Ely, whom he appointed justiciaries and guardians of the realm. The latter was a Frenchman of mean birth and of a violent character; who by art and address had insinuated himself into favour, whom Richard had created chancellor, and whom he had engaged the pope also to invest with the legatine authority, that, by centering every kind of power in his person, he might the better ensure the public tranquillity. All the military and turbulent spirits flocked about the person of the king, and were impatient to distinguish themselves against the infidels in Asia; whither his inclinations, his engagements, led him, and whither he was impelled by messages from the king of France, ready to embark in this enterprise.

The emperor Frederic, a prince of great spirit and conduct, had already taken the road to Palestine at the head of 150,000 men, collected from Germany and all the northern states. Having surmounted every obstacle thrown in his way by the artifices of the Greeks and the power of the infidels, he had penetrated to the borders of Syria; when, bathing in the cold river Cydnus during the greatest heat of the summer season, he was seized with a mortal distemper, which put an end to his life, and his rash enterprise. His army, under the command of his son Conrade, reached Palestine; but was so diminished by fatigue, famine, maladies, and the sword, that it scarcely amounted to eight thousand men; and was unable to make any progress against the great power, valour and conduct of Saladin. These

reiterated calamities attending the crusades, had taught the kings of France and England, the necessity of trying another road to the Holy Land; and they determined to conduct their armies thither by sea, to carry their provisions along with them, and by means of their naval power, to maintain an open communication with their own states, and with the western parts of Europe. The place of rendezvous was appointed in the plains of Vezelay on the borders of Burgundy. Philip and Richard on their arrival there, found their combined army amount to one hundred thousand men ; a mighty force, animated with glory and religion, conducted by two warlike monarchs, provided with every thing which their several dominions could supply, and not to be overcome but by their own misconduct, or by the unsurmountable obstacles of nature.

The French prince and the English here reiterated their promises of cordial friendship, pledged their faith not to invade each other's dominions during the crusade, mutually exchanged the oaths of all their barons and prelates to the same effect, and subjected themselves to the penalty of interdicts and excommunications, if they should ever violate this public and solemn engagement. They then separated, Philip took the road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, with a view of meeting their fleets, which were severally appointed to rendezvous in these harbours. They put to sea; and nearly about the same time, were obliged by stress of weather to take shelter in Messina, where they were detained during the whole winter. This incident laid the foundation of animosities which proved fatal to their enterprise.

77. THE FLEET OF COEUR DE LION.

SOUTHEY.

The fleet with which Cœur de Lion sailed from Sicily, consisted of thirteen of those large vessels called dromones; 150 of what were then called busses; fiftythree galleys, and a great number of small craft. The Sicilians said that so fine a fleet had never before been seen in the harbour of Messina, and probably never again would. They were amazed at the magnitude, and number, and beauty of the ships. The French part of the armament had excited no such admiration; and the feeling of envious hostility which the French king afterwards manifested toward Richard, was, in part, no doubt occasioned by the knowledge of his naval superiority. The sailors, also, were what English sailors from that time have never ceased to be; in the storms which they encountered on their way to the Levant, they are said, by one who was in the fleet, to have done every thing that it was possible for human skill to do. More than any other historical character, Richard Cœur de Lion resembles a knight of romance; and the circumstances which occurred in his way to Palestine have the air of an adventure in romance more than of authentic history, though the facts are incontestable. "He was no sooner abroad in the main sea, but a great tempest arose, wherewith his whole navy was sore tossed and turmoiled up and down the seas." The king himself was driven first to Crete, afterwards to Rhodes. Three of his ships foundered off the coast of Cyprus: three others were refused admittance into the harbours there; they were wrecked in consequence, and the men who escaped to shore were cast into prison. The vessel with queen Joan and the lady Berengaria on board was driven in the same direction: they requested permission to land, announcing who they were, and that permission was refused. One of the Comneni family, Isaac by name, had taken possession of Cyprus for himself, in full sovereignty. Like other Greeks, or Griffons as they were called, he thought that the crusaders, if not worse than Saracens, were quite as much to be dreaded: such reports as might reach him of Richard's exploits at

Messina were not likely to induce a more favourable opinion; and he had at this time assembled his forces at Limisso, with the determination of resisting any adventurers who might attempt to land.

Rhodes was not so distant, but that Richard heard how his people had been treated by the Cypriot emperor (as he was styled) in time to demand redress. He made immediately for Limisso, and found his affianced wife and his sister still off the harbour, in which they had been inhospitably, if not inhumanly, forbidden to enter. Perhaps the very strength of his resentment made him feel that it became him on this occasion to restrain his anger. Thrice he demanded the liberation of his people, and the restitution of whatever had been saved from the wrecks: those demands proving ineffectual, he then proceeded to take the justice that was denied him, and to inflict due punishment upon the offender. Isaac had easily captured men exhausted by long struggling with tempestuous weather, and who had hardly saved their lives by swimming to shore; but he must have been the weakest of men to think of opposing a fleet of crusaders with a host of undisciplined and halfarmed Cypriots. Few of them, it is said, had any better weapons than clubs or stones; and they thought to protect themselves with a barricade formed of logs, planks, chests, and benches,-whatever could be hastily brought together. Richard, meantime, proceeded toward the landing-place with his galleys and small boats. His archers led the way, and soon cleared it, for their arrows are said to have fallen on the Cypriots like rain upon the summer grass. The victors," being but footmen, weather beaten, weary, and wet," were in no plight for pursuing the routed enemy; they entered the town, and found it deserted by the inhabitants, but full of wealth and of provisions of every kind. Such of his ships as were collected then entered the port; and Berengaria and his sister were received by Richard as a conqueror in the city where a refuge from the sea had been refused them.

During the course of the day, Isaac rallied the fugitives, about six miles from the town, and as if he supposed that weakness alone had withheld. the crusaders from pursuing their advantage, prepared to attack them on the morrow. But Cœur de Lion allowed him no time for this. Intelligence of his movements and of his designs was easily obtained, for Isaac was a tyrant; guides also offered themselves; food, wine, and success had presently refreshed the English; long before daybreak they were armed, and in motion; and the Cypriots were taken so completely by surprise, that they were "slain like beasts." The emperor Isaac escaped, not only unarmed, but half-naked; so utterly had he been unprepared for such an attack. His horses, his armour, and his standard, were taken. The standard was sent to England; and when Cœur de Lion returned thither, he deposited it himself at King St. Edmund's shrine. Terrified at this second discomfiture, Isaac now sent ambassadors, proposing to restore the prisoners whom he had unjustly captured, with all that had been saved from the wrecks; to pay 20,000 marks in amends for the loss that had been sustained by shipwreck; to accompany Cœur de Lion to the Holy Land, and to serve him there with 1000 knights, 400 light horsemen, and 500 well-armed foot; to acknowledge him for his sovereign lord, and swear fealty to him accordingly; and place his daughter and heiress, as hostage, in his hands. These conditions, more rigorous than Richard would have thought of imposing, were admitted. Isaac then came to the King of England in the field; and there, in presence of the chiefs of the crusaders, swore fealty, and promised, upon his oath thus pledged, not to depart till he should have performed all for which he had engaged. By this time Richard had been too well acquainted with his character to place much reliance either upon his word or oath ; tents were assigned for him and his retinue; and a guard was appointed to keep him in custody. Offended at this, or affrighted by it, and with that inconsistency which proceeds from rashness as

well as fear, he withdrew during the night, while his guards, suspecting no such evasion, were asleep, and then sent messengers to renounce the treaty which he had made.

Richard is said not to have been displeased at the opportunity that this fresh provocation afforded him. Guy of Lusignan, the dethroned King of Jerusalem, and the last Christian who bore that title otherwise than as an empty pretension, having purchased his liberty from Saladin by the surrender of Ascalon, came at this time to Cyprus, with his brother Geoffrey, with Raymond prince of Antioch, and Boemund his son, and other ejected lords of Palestine, to implore Richard's assistance for reestablishing them in their lost estates. Richard intrusted part of his army to Guy and Raymond, that they might pursue Isaac, and prosecute the conquest of the island by land; while he with one part of his galleys, and Robert de Turnham with the other, coasted, it and cut off his flight by sea. Wherever they came the towns, cities, and castles on the coast, were abandoned at their approach, and they took possession of all the shipping. Having thus swept the coast, and precluded the possibility of the emperor's escape from the island, Richard returned to Limisso and there was married to the lady Berengaria by one of his own chaplains; his queen was crowned the same day by the bishop of Evreux; the bishop of Bayonne, and the archbishops of Apamea and Aux, assisting at the ceremony. Cyprus is the first island that was ever conquered by an English fleet, and Berengaria the only English queen whose coronation was ever performed in a foreign country. He then moved into the interior, to complete the conquest. Nicosia, the capital, was presently surrendered, and the strong castle of Cezzia afterwards, with which Isaac's daughter yielded herself to the conqueror, who placed her as a companion to the queen. Toward the father he was less courteous; that rash and unhappy man had taken refuge in a monastery; and when he heard that the place of his retreat was discovered, and that Richard was marching thither, every strong-hold in the island having been given up, he threw himself upon his mercy, praying only that his life and limbs might be spared. Mercy was a virtue but little practised in those times. Richard sent him to Tripoli, there to be kept close prisoner in chains. When the wretched man heard this sentence, he said, that, if he were put in irons, it would soon occasion his death: upon which Richard, with contemptuous bitterness, replied, "He saith well; and seeing that he is a nobleman, and that our mind is not to shorten his life, but only to keep him safe, that he may not start away again and do more hurt, let his chains be made of silver."

Isaac has not been deemed worthy of any further notice by those who recorded the events of Richard's crusade; most probably he died in confinement; nor is anything more related of his daughter, than that queen Berengaria either had, or thought she had, cause for regretting that her husband had placed so attractive a companion about her person. The Cypriots, as is always the lot of a conquered people, paid heavily for passing from one yoke to another: they were immediately taxed to the unmerciful amount of half their moveables; and the stores that were found in the island were so considerable, that it is said the Christian armies in Palestine could hardly have carried on their operations had it not been for this great and casual supply. After these exactions, Richard, considering Cyprus as his own, by the acknowledged right of conquest, confirmed to the inhabitants the rights and usages which they had formerly enjoyed under the Greek emperors, but which had been suspended during the late usurpation. He appointed Richard de Camuelle and Robert de Turnham governors of the island; and when, in the ensuing year, after a series of exploits which have rendered his name almost as celebrated in Mahommedan history as in European romance, he was about to leave Palestine, having been prevented by the withdrawal of the French king, from

restoring Guy de Lusignan to his lost kingdom of Jerusalem, he bestowed upon him the kingdom of Cyprus as some compensation,—a kingdom which his descendants continued to possess for nearly three centuries.

Cœur de Lion was detained in Cyprus only a few weeks by his marriage, the conquest, and the settlement of the island. In his way from thence to Acre he fell in with a vessel of the largest size, sailing under French colours; but requiring more evidence than the colours and the suspicious language of the spokesman, he soon ascertained that it was a Saracen ship, laden with stores of all kinds for the relief of Acre, which the Christians were then closely besieging. The brother of Saladin had despatched it from Baouk; there were seven emirs on board; and the number of troops has been stated by the lowest account at 650, by the highest at 1500. They were brave men, well provided with the most formidable means of defence; and desperate, because they knew how little mercy was to be expected from a fleet of Crusaders. The size, and more especially the height, of their ship, gave them an advantage which for a while counterbalanced that of numbers on Richard's part; for his galleys could make but little impression upon her strong sides. Richard's people, brave as they were, were daunted by the Greek fire, which was poured upon them, which they had never encountered before, but of which what they had heard was enough to impress them with dread. The great dramond, as she is called, might probably have beaten off her assailants and pursued her course, if Richard's men had not dreaded their king's anger more even than the terrible fire of the enemy. "I will crucify all my soldiers if she should escape," was his tremendous threat. His example availed more than his threat could have done they boarded the huge hulk like Englishmen ; and the Saracens, when they saw themselves overpowered, ran below, by their commander's order, and endeavoured to sink the ship, that their enemies might perish with them. Part of the cargo, however, was saved before she sank, and some of the crew were taken to mercy, though mercy was not the motive; for it was the chiefs, it is said, who were spared for the sake of their ransom. If the stores and ammunition with which this ship was laden had reached Acre, it was thought that the city could never have been taken.

It appears that the ships of war at this time were all galleys; that few of them. had more than two rows of oars, and many of them only one tier; these, being shorter and moved with more facility, were used in the Levant for throwing wildfire. This composition, which the Greeks called liquid fire, and which by Latin and later historians is commonly denominated Greek fire, is said to have been invented by Callinicus, an architect of Heliopolis (afterwards called Balbec), about the latter part of the seventh century; and it continued in use some six hundred years, till the more destructive powers of gunpowder were applied to the purposes of war. The invention proceeded from the school of Egyptian chemistry; for Callinicus was in the service of the caliphs, from whence he went over to the Greek emperor, expecting, perhaps, a better reward for his discovery from the government to which it would be most useful. Constantinople was, indeed, saved by it in two sieges; Saracen fleets were deterred from attempting to pass the straits of the Hellespont, when they knew that their enemies were prepared with it; and while the Greeks kept the secret of the composition to themselves, as they did most carefully for four centuries, they possessed a more efficient means of defence than any other people. When the Pisans were at the height of their naval power, the emperor Alexius sent out a fleet against them, in which, as it appears, for the first time, lion's-heads of bronze were fixed at the ships' prows, and from their open mouths this liquid fire was discharged in streams. This he devised as being likely to terrify as well as to astonish them; but the composition was, no doubt, seut