A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 by Steven Runciman Read Free Book Online

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