390

TRUCE BETWEEN RICHARD AND SALADIN.

proposals and the terms offered by the sultan, Richard determined to concede that point.

Malek-Adel, always generous and chivalrous, undertook, at the request of Richard, to conduct the negotiation with his brother, and the terms were soon agreed upon. A treaty was drawn up by Bohaeddin, in which a truce of three years was granted, and the principal stipulations were, that the territories and towns of Jaffa, Cæsarea, Azotus, Cayphas, Acre, and Tyre,* should remain in the hands of the Christians, while the rest of Palestine was occupied by the Mahommedans; Ascalon was to be dismantled by equal detachments from the two armies, and the Lordships of Lidda and Ramla were to be divided. Richard demanded that Antioch and Tripoli should be included in the truce, and Saladin required that all the Mussulman territories should enjoy the same advantage. Such was the substance of the treaty, according to the account of Bohaeddin; but Vinesauf adds several minor stipulations, which were either expressed in the document or promised by parole. Amongst these were, unrestricted commercial intercourse between the Christians and Mahommedans, and free access for the former to Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre.

The treaty, after having been put into proper form by the sultan's scribes, was carried to Richard for his approbation; but the English monarch was too ill even to hear it read. "You see the state I am in," he said to Saladin's deputies; "carry the treaty to my nephew and the other crusading princes. I agree to all that they determine." Henry of Champagne and the barons of Palestine, with the chiefs of the Temple and Hospital on one part, and Malek-Adel with the two sons of Saladin, and his principal emirs on the other, swore to the due observance of the truce. Richard and Saladin took no oath, but gave the hand to the deputies appointed to receive their pledge; and each contented himself with the promise of the other. Peace was immediately

*It is stated in a late history of Richard, that "the castles and fortresses taken by the Christians since the siege of Acre, especially Ascalon, were to be demolished." It is necessary to remark, that Bohaeddin makes no mention of such a stipulation, except in the case of Ascalon.

+ According to the Arabian historians, one-half of the territories of Lidda and Ramla were granted to Richard as compensation for the expenses which he had incurred in fortifying Ascalon.

DEATH OF SALADIN.

391

proclaimed; and from that moment the Christians and Mussulmans mingled together, to use the expression of the Arabian writers, as if they had always been brethren. Large bands of crusaders hastened to Jerusalem; Saladin and Richard sent presents to each other; but the English king, with sorrow and disappointment, refused to visit the Holy City, which he had been unable to enter as a conqueror.*

The pilgrims to Jerusalem were courteously received and kindly treated by the sultan and his emirs, and the Bishop of Salisbury especially was entertained with marked distinc tion; but Saladin remained ill at ease till Richard had quitted Palestine. Though he executed faithfully his part of the treaty, it would appear that he was not well contented with his own act in making peace at all. He even wrote an apologetic letter to the khalif. But Saladin's health was now giving way under the incessant fatigues he had endured. "I know not what may be God's will with me," he said one day to Bohaeddin; and the historian proceeds to remark, that in truth this truce, so distasteful to Saladin, was the salvation of Islamism; for he who had been the chief pillar of the Mussulman power in Syria, only survived the signature of the treaty six months, and civil war and intestine strife spread through his vast dominions.‡

Richard recovered but slowly from the sickness by which he had been attacked; and even when so far convalescent as to bear a removal to the better air of Cayphas, he was still in a weak and insecure state of health; but every fresh arrival from England showed him more and more the necessity of his presence in his hereditary dominions, and he eagerly hastened his preparations.

If difficulties and dangers had attended his course in Palestine, still greater perils awaited him on his way back, and menaced him on his arrival in England; but speed was of all things most necessary to the English king; and the

Richard of Devizes.

Abou Schameh.

Christian writers have embellished their account of the death of Saladin with a variety of particulars which are not mentioned by the Arabian writers who surrounded the monarch at the time. Among the rest, the story of his having sent his shroud through the streets of Damascus, is apparently a figment. Saladin died of bilious fever, after an illness of thirteen days, during the greater part of which time he was delirious.

392

PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.

situation of affairs in Normandy, as well as Great Britain, induced him to take a step which, however imprudent, was quite consonant with his bold and chivalrous character. He determined, then, to send his wife, his sister, and his army by sea, and to proceed himself by land, in order to reach more rapidly his native shores, and appear amongst his enemies when they least expected him. He was detained some time in paying his debts, and making the best arrangements he could to secure the power of his nephew in that part of Palestine which had been regained; and, consequently, his fleet set sail before him, quitting Acre on the 29th September, 1192, Richard now remained with very few attendants in the midst of many powerful enemies; but none of them, it would seem, was so dead to honour as to take advantage of his confidence. Robert de Sablé, Grand Master of the Temple, with whom Richard had had some serious disputes in the course of the war, now showed a noble and generous spirit towards the great monarch, and agreed to put at his disposal one of the galleys of the order, to convey him to that port in Europe where he intended to land. The king was permitted, also, to assume the habit of a Templar; and four faithful brethren of the order were appointed to accompany him. In addition to these knights, Richard's companions consisted of Baldwin de Bethune, William de l'Estang, a chaplain, and a secretary, together with a few menial servants, amongst whom was a page who could speak German, which accomplishment was probably the cause of his selection.

The conduct of European princes at this time towards the unfortunate remnant of Richard's army, was a disgrace to the men and to the age. Had the English and Norman soldiers been a band of pirates, returning from an expedition disapproved by all Christian nations, instead of a body of pilgrim warriors, coming back from an enterprise suggested by the highest authority of the Church, and carried on with zeal, devotion, and sincerity, however mistaken, they could not have been treated with more brutal severity. In sailing towards England, one of those severe storms which frequently occur in the Mediterranean, dispersed the king's fleet, and drove many of the ships on shore. The crews and the passengers, knights, nobles, and pilgrims, were seized, cast into dungeons, and treated as prisoners of war; nor did they

obtain their liberty till enormous ransoms had been extorted from them.

It is probable that intelligence of these events had not reached Richard before he set sail himself; but if it had, he might obtain some consolation in finding, that now, when he was about to depart, his character and his glorious deeds were justly estimated by many of those whose eyes had been long blinded by party spirit and virulent jealousy. An immense number of the crusaders, of every nation and every class, accompanied him to the port of Acre when the time of his departure arrived. They recollected then, his valour, his conduct, his bounty, his generosity: they remembered that he had spent his treasures, shed his blood, perilled his life, endangered his crown, in the same cause to which they all were devoted, and the tears, prayers, and blessings of those he was leaving behind, followed him as he sailed away from Syria, on the 9th October, 1192.*

N. B.-Henceforward, to the conclusion of this work, the author must content himself with giving a mere sketch of the history of Richard Coeur-de-Lion from the ordinary and established authorities, as he cannot hope to cast any new light upon the subject. In the subsequent parts of Richard's life and reign, there are several very dark and difficult points, respecting which the writer of these pages is by no means satisfied. He has, however, spared no pains to arrive at more correct information, especially regarding that very obscure part of the English monarch's history-his imprisonment by the Duke of Austria, and long detention by the emperor. After having engaged one gentleman to search for further information at Vienna, without any satisfactory result, he intended to proceed to that capital himself, in the hopes of obtaining permission, by the influence of powerful friends, to search the archives of the House of Austria, and was already within a few hundred miles of the imperial city, when all his plans and purposes were disarranged by a severe domestic affliction, which fixed him for many months to one spot. By the time that the cause of his sojourn in the place where he had remained was at an end, it became necessary for him to return to England, so that he was deprived of the hope that his own researches might throw light upon these obscure transactions. Not giving up all expectation, however, he requested two friends of great erudition and perseverance to undertake the task, which they readily did, but unfortunately without the desired result; and the author is consequently obliged to leave the narrative as he finds it in the ordinary histories of the time, although he is obliged to acknowledge that he has no confidence in a great deal of that which is stated in the following pages. Indeed, he would have gladly avoided writing so much that is doubtful; but it was necessary to conclude the work in some manner-and he had already been censured severely and unjustly for delay. He read in the pages of perhaps the very best periodical paper of the day a letter, addressed to the editor on this subject, at a time when the author, in the midst of deeper domestic affliction than he trusts the writer of that letter may ever know, was corresponding daily with several gentlemen in Germany, who were labouring kindly, though fruit

394

RICHARD'S ARRIVAL IN CARNIOLA IN DISGUISE.

BOOK XIX.

WHAT was the exact course towards England which Richard Coeur-de-Lion proposed to pursue when he sailed from Acre is not known. He is supposed to have been driven up the Adriatic by storms; but the fact of his having a boy with him who spoke German-a rare accomplishment amongst the English and Normans-would afford a presumption, that from the first he proposed to pass through Germany.

In the Mediterranean he encountered a severe tempest, which compelled his galley to take refuge in a harbour on the shores of Corfu; and thence he sailed up the Adriatic, intending, it is believed, to land at Ragusa. All accounts agree, that he was driven by stress of weather to the head of the gulf, where his vessel ran aground, somewhere between Venice and Trieste.

There is much reason to suppose either, as some have asserted, that an emissary of his enemies accompanied him in the very vessel that bore him, and gave immediate intimation to the people on shore that the King of England was in the galley, disguised as a Templar, or that a swifter sailing ship had been despatched with intelligence of his movements. Certain it is, that a general order had been given, before his arrival in Carniola, to stop all pilgrims coming from the Holy Land, and that the nobles of the country had been taught to expect that the King of England would attempt to pass that way.

On what account we know not, Richard, immediately after

lessly, to obtain for him the accurate information he desired. It could hardly be expected that he should notice such a letter, or answer questions put in the tone assumed: and it is only necessary here to state that, long before that letter was written, this work was completed up to the point, where he had to choose between delaying the conclusion while he searched for truth, or to follow statements which he believed to be more than doubtful. He chose to pursue his search as long as there was a probability of obtaining truth; but all his efforts having been ineffectual, he is now driven to adopt the latter course. He thinks it but fair, however, to the public to state, that a great part of that which follows has been written under a strong feeling of uncertainty, for he would fain not mislead where he cannot enlighten.