A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (5 page)

1190: Marriage of Conrad and Isabella

Amongst the victims of disease that autumn
was Queen Sibylla. The two little daughters that she had borne to King Guy died
a few days before her own death. The heiress to the kingdom was now the
Princess Isabella; and Guy’s crown was in jeopardy. He had won the crown as the
Queen’s husband. Did his rights survive her death? To the surviving barons of
the kingdom, led by Balian of Ibelin, it seemed an opportunity for ridding
themselves of his weak unlucky rule. Their candidate for the throne was Conrad
of Montferrat. If he could be married to Isabella, his claims would be higher
than Guy’s. There were difficulties in this solution. Conrad was rumoured to
have one wife living at Constantinople and possibly another in Italy, and never
to have troubled about any annulment or divorce. But Constantinople and Italy
were far away, and if there were deserted ladies there, they could be
forgotten. A more pressing problem was the existence of Isabella’s husband,
Humphrey of Toron, who was not only alive but present in the camp. Humphrey was
a charming youth, gallant and cultured; but his beauty was too feminine for him
to be respected by the tough soldiers around him; nor had the barons ever
forgotten his weak desertion of their cause in 1186, when Guy had secured the
crown in defiance of the terms of Baldwin IV’s will. They decided that he must
be divorced. Humphrey himself was easily persuaded to agree. He was not fitted
for married life, and he was terrified of political responsibility. But
Isabella was less amenable. Humphrey had always been kind to her, and she had
no wish to exchange him for a grim middle-aged warrior. Nor had she ambitions
for the throne. The barons left the matter to the capable hands of her mother,
Queen Maria Comnena, Balian’s wife. She used her maternal authority to make the
reluctant princess abandon Humphrey. Then she declared before the assembled
bishops that her daughter had been forced into the marriage by her uncle
Baldwin IV, and had only been eight years old when the engagement was arranged.
In view of her extreme youth and Humphrey’s known effeminacy, the marriage
should be annulled. The Patriarch Heraclius was too ill to attend the meeting
and appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury to represent him; and the
Archbishop, knowing that his master King Richard was devoted to the Lusignans,
refused to pronounce the annulment. He mentioned Conrad’s previous marriage and
declared that a marriage between Conrad and Isabella would be doubly
adulterous. But the Archbishop of Pisa, who was Papal Legate, had been won over
to Conrad’s cause, on the promise, it was said, of trade concessions for his
countrymen; and the Bishop of Beauvais, who was King Philip’s cousin, used the
Legate’s backing to secure a general agreement for Isabella’s divorce, and
himself married her to Conrad on 24 November 1190. The Lusignan supporters were
furious at a marriage that abolished Guy’s right to the throne; and King
Richard’s vassals from England, Normandy and Guienne gave them full sympathy.
But Archbishop Baldwin, their chief spokesman, after hurling excommunications
on everyone connected with the affair, had died suddenly on 19 November. The
English chroniclers did all that they could to blacken Conrad’s memory. Guy
himself went so far as to challenge Conrad to single combat; but Conrad,
knowing that legitimate right was now on his side, refused to admit that the
case could be discussed any more. The Lusignans might call it cowardice. But
all that had the future of the kingdom at heart realized that if the royal line
was to be continued, Isabella must remarry and have a child; and Conrad, the
saviour of Tyre, was the obvious choice for her. The newly wedded pair retired
to Tyre, where, next year, Isabella gave birth to a daughter, called Maria
after her Byzantine grandmother. Conrad, correctly, would not take the title of
king till he and his wife should be crowned, but, as Guy refused to abdicate
any of his rights, he would not return from Tyre to the camp.

1191: Famine in the Frankish Camp

The tribulations of the Crusaders
continued throughout the winter months. Saladin’s reinforcements had arrived
from the north, and the Frankish camp was now closely invested. No food could
come by land, nor, during the winter months, could much be landed on the
inhospitable coast, whereas Saracen ships could sometimes fight their way into
the shelter of Acre harbour. Amongst the lords that died of sickness in the
camp were Tibald of Blois and his brother, Stephen of Sancerre. On 20 January
1191, Frederick of Swabia died, and the German soldiers found themselves
leaderless, though his cousin, Leopold of Austria, who arrived from Venice
early in the spring, tried to rally them under his banner. Henry of Champagne
was for many weeks so ill that his life was despaired of. Many of the soldiers,
especially the English, blamed Conrad for their misery, because he was dallying
at Tyre and refused to come to their aid. But, whatever his motive may have
been, it is hard to see what else he could have done; the camp was sufficiently
crowded without him. Now and then an attempt was made to scale the walls,
notably on 31 December, when the wreck of a Saracen relief-ship at the harbour
entrance was distracting the garrison. It failed; nor were the Crusaders able
to profit by a collapse of part of the land-wall six days later. There were
many deserters to the Moslems. Thanks to their help and to his excellent
spy-system, Saladin was able to send a force to break through the Crusader lines
on 13 February, with a fresh commander and garrison to relieve the weary
defenders of the city. But he hesitated himself to make a final attack on the
Christian camp. Many of his troops were weary, and when reinforcements arrived
he sent detachments away to rest. The misery amongst the Christians seemed to
be doing his work for him.

He was once again unwise in his
forbearance. As Lent approached it seemed that the Franks could not long
survive. In their camp a silver penny bought only thirteen beans or a single
egg, and a sack of corn cost a hundred pieces of gold. Many of the best horses
were slaughtered to provide their owners with food. The common soldiers ate
grass and chewed bare bones. The prelates in the camp tried to organize some
kind of relief but were hampered by the avarice of the Pisan merchants who
controlled most of the food supplies. But in March, when everything seemed
desperate, a fully laden corn-ship arrived off the coast and was able to land
its cargo; and, as the weather improved, others followed. They were doubly
welcome, for they brought not only foodstuffs but the news that the Kings of
France and England were at last in Eastern waters.

CHAPTER
III

COEUR-DE-LION

‘I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction. The
lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his
way.’
JEREMIAH
IV, 6, 7

King Philip Augustus landed at the camp
before Acre on 20 April 1191, the Saturday after Easter, and King Richard seven
weeks later, on the Saturday after Whitsun. Nearly four years had passed since
the battle of Hattin and the desperate appeal to the West for help. The weary
soldiers fighting on the Palestinian coast were so glad to welcome the Kings
that they forgave or forgot the long delay. But to the modern historian there
is something frivolous in Richard’s leisurely and quarrelsome journey to the
battlefield where he was so urgently needed.

That King Philip should not have hurried
is easy to understand. He was no idealist, and he went crusading merely from political
necessity. It would have lost him the
good-will not only of the Church but also of most of his subjects
had he abstained from the holy adventure. But his kingdom was vulnerable, and
he was rightly suspicious of Angevin ambitions. He could not afford to leave
France until he knew that his rival of England was also on his way. Prudence
demanded that they should set out together. Nor could either King be blamed for
the ultimate delay caused by the death of the Queen of France. Richard, too,
had certain excuses. The death of his father obliged him to reorganize his
kingdom. Moreover, he, like Philip, intended to travel by sea; and sea travel
was impracticable during the winter months. But that so genuinely eager a
Crusader should have made so little haste shows a lack of purpose and
responsibility.

King Richard and King Philip

There were grave flaws in Richard’s
character. Physically he was superb, tall, long-limbed and strong, with
red-gold hair and handsome features, and he had inherited from his mother not
only the good looks of the House of Poitou, but its charm of manner, its
courage and its taste for poetry and romance. His friends and servants followed
him with devotion and with awe. From both his parents he derived a hot temper
and a passionate self-will. But he had neither the political astuteness and
administrative competence of his father, nor Queen Eleanor’s sound sense. He
had been brought up in an atmosphere of family quarrels and family treachery.
As his mother’s favourite he hated his father, and he distrusted his brothers,
though he loved his youngest sister, Joanna. He had learned to be a violent but
not a loyal partisan. He was avaricious, though capable of generous gestures,
and he liked a lavish display. His energy was unbounded; but in his fervent
interest in the task of the moment he would forget other responsibilities. He
loved to organize but was bored by administration. It was only the art of
warfare that could hold his attention. As a soldier he had real gifts, a sense
of strategy and of tactics and the power to command men. He was now aged
thirty-three, in the prime of life, a figure of glamour whose reputation had
travelled East before him.

King Philip Augustus was very different.
He was eight years younger than Richard; but he had been king for over ten
years already, and his bitter experience had taught him wisdom. Physically he
was no match for Richard. He was well-built, with a shock of untidy hair, but
had lost the sight of one eye. He was not personally courageous. Though choleric
and self-indulgent, he could cloak his passions. Neither emotionally nor
materially did he like ostentation. His court was dull and austere. He did not
care for the arts, nor was he well educated, though he knew the value of men of
learning and sought their friendship from policy, and kept it by his wit and
his pithy conversation. As a politician he was patient and observant, cunning,
disloyal and unscrupulous. But he had an overriding sense of his duties and
responsibilities. For all his meanness to himself and his friends, he was
generous to the poor and protected them from their oppressors. He was an
unattractive, unlovable man, but a good king. Amongst the Franks of the East he
enjoyed a special prestige, for he was overlord of the families from which
almost all of them had sprung; and most of the visiting Crusaders were directly
or indirectly his vassals. But they were better able to appreciate Richard,
with his courage, his knightly prowess and his charm; and to the Saracens
Richard seemed the nobler, the richer and the greater of the two.

The Kings had set out together from
Vezelay on 4 July 1190. Richard had already sent the English fleet ahead to
sail round the coast of Spain and meet him at Marseilles, but almost all the
land-forces of his dominions were with him. Philip’s army was smaller, as many
of his vassals had already left for the East. The French army, followed closely
by the English, marched from Vezelay to Lyons. There, after the French had
crossed, the bridge over the Rhone broke under the weight of the English
crowds. Many lives were lost, and there was some delay before transport could
be arranged. Soon after leaving Lyons the Kings parted company. Philip went
south-east across the Alpine foot-hills to strike the coast near Nice and then
along the coast to Genoa, where ships awaited him. Richard made for Marseilles,
where his fleet joined him on 22 August. Its voyage had been uneventful apart
from a short delay in Portugal in June, where the sailors had helped King
Sancho to repel an invasion by the Emperor of Morocco. From Marseilles some of
Richard’s followers, under Baldwin of Canterbury, set sail directly for
Palestine; but the main army embarked in various convoys for Messina in Sicily,
where it was proposed to join up again with the French.

1190: King Tancred of Sicily

It had been at the suggestion of King
William II of Sicily that the Kings of France and England, when their joint
Crusade was first planned, decided to assemble their forces in Sicily. But King
William had died in November 1189. He had married Richard’s sister, Joanna of
England; but the marriage was childless, and his heir was his aunt Constance,
the wife of Henry of Hohenstaufen, Frederick Barbarossa’s eldest son. To many
of the Sicilians the idea of a German ruler was repugnant. A short intrigue,
backed by Pope Clement III, who was alarmed by the prospect of the Hohenstaufen
controlling southern Italy, brought to the throne in place of Constance and
Henry a bastard cousin of the late King, Tancred, Count of Lecce. Tancred was
an ugly unimpressive little man, who almost at once found himself in
difficulties. There was a Moslem revolt in Sicily and a German invasion of his
lands on the mainland; and the vassals that had elected him began to change
their minds. Tancred was obliged to recall his men and ships from Palestine,
and, thanks to them, he defeated his enemies. But, though he was ready to
receive the Crusading kings with honour and to assist them with provisions, he
was in no position to accompany them on the Crusade.

King Philip left Genoa at the end of
August and after an easy voyage down the Italian coast arrived at Messina on 14
September. Hating pomp, he made his way into the town as unobtrusively as
possible, but on Tancred’s orders he was received with honour and lodged in the
royal palace there. King Richard decided to travel by land from Marseilles. He
seems to have disliked sea voyages, doubtless because he suffered from
sea-sickness. His fleet conveyed his army to Messina and anchored off the harbour
to await him, while he with a small escort took the road along the coast
through Genoa, Pisa and Ostia to Salerno. He waited until he heard that his
fleet had arrived at Messina and then, it seems, sent most of his escort by
ship to Messina to prepare for his arrival. He himself continued on horseback,
with only one attendant. When he passed near the little Calabrian town of
Mileto he tried to steal a hawk from a peasant’s house and was very nearly done
to death by the furious villagers. He was therefore in a bad temper when he
reached the Straits of Messina a day or two later. His men met him on the
Italian shore and conveyed him in pomp to Messina, where he landed on 3
September. The lavish grandeur of his entry was in sharp contrast with Philip’s
modest arrival.