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

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