Heroines of the Crusades

Berengaria needed no second bidding. She was already more interested in the gallant Plantagenet than she dared confess, even to herself, while the conduct of Richard, upon his arrival, intimated plainly the attraction that had drawn him to Navarre, and the flattering attention with which both the elder and younger Sancho treated him, promised fair speed to his wooing. He was exceedingly fond of chess, and this game served to beguile many hours when the weather precluded more active sports. Though a practised, Richard was often a careless player, and his fair antagonist gained many advantages over him, while he pertinaciously declared himself vanquished by her beauty rather than her skill. The ready blush that followed his compliments gave occasion for renewed expressions of admiration, and often in the midst of triumph the victor found herself covered with confusion. Many gages of trifling value were lost and won between the amicable rivals, but it was not till after repeated defeats that Richard began to suspect there was some article in his possession that his beautiful opponent was particularly anxious to win. He playfully proposed to stake his head against one lock of her hair, and when he lost the game, gravely inquired whether she would accept the forfeit, with its natural fixture, or whether like the vindictive daughter of Herodias, she would require it to be brought in a charger, as was the head of John the Baptist. Re-arranging the pieces before she could interpose a remonstrance, he declared the stakes should next be his heart against her hand. The game was terminated in his favor. Gallantly seizing her hand, pressing his lips upon it, he protested that in all his tournaments he had never won so fair a prize; then suddenly exclaiming, “What magic game is this, in which a man may both lose and win?” he laid his broad palm upon his side, and with an appearance of great concern, continued, “By the blessed mother my heart is certainly gone; and I must hold thee accountable for its restoration.”

Making a strong effort at recovering her composure, Berengaria asserted that she had neither lost nor won the game, since he had arranged the pieces unfairly, and proceeded to capture her queen almost without her knowledge, and certainly without her consent.

The sportive colloquy finally ended in a compromise, Richard agreeing that the affair could justly be accommodated by Berengaria’s staking her heart against his hand, and she playfully avowing that a gamester so unprincipled might expect to lose both body and soul, if he did not commit the arrangements to one of greater probity. The keen eye of Plantagenet soon discovered that this game possessed an interest for his fair rival far beyond the preceding ones, and in doubt whether it arose from her anxiety to gain his hand, or from her desire delicately to assure him that he could never win her heart, he suffered himself to be beaten. The result only increased his perplexity; for the princess, though evidently elated by her success, seriously proposed to relinquish her claim upon his hand, in consideration of the ring that glittered upon his finger. Too much interested any longer to regard the game, Richard pushed aside the chess-board, and fixing his eyes upon her, inquired, “Wherefore wouldst thou the ring?”

The princess more than ever embarrassed by the seriousness of his voice and manner, stammered forth, “The jewel is a charm.” “True,” said Richard, with unaffected warmth, “Berengaria’s gifts are all charms.” “Nay, nay!” said she, with uncontrollable trepidation, “I mean – I mean – it is a fatal possession.” – “Of which I am a most undoubted witness,” interrupted he, “since by its influence I have lost my head, my heart and my hand.” “Have done with this idle jesting, and listen to me,” said Berengaria, earnestly. “It will thwart thy dearest wish, and betray thee to thy direst foe.” “None but Berengaria can thwart my dearest wish,” said Richard, steadily regarding her, “and from my direst foe,” he added, with a gesture of defiance, “this good right arm is a sufficient defence.” Tears shone in Berengaria’s eyes, and she added, “Why wilt thou misunderstand me? I tell thee it will break thy troth.” “Our Lady grant it,” responded he, with a shout of exultation. “Since the day I first received it, I have not ceased to importune King Henry to cancel my engagement with Alice of France.” The baffled princess having no further resource burst into tears. “Nay, weep not, my sweetest Berengaria,” said Richard, tenderly, “the gem is indeed a talisman, since by its aid only have I been able to discover the treasure thou hadst so effectually concealed from my anxious search. Fear no evil on my behalf, my poor life has double value since thou hast betrayed an interest in my fate.” He stooped to kiss the tears from her cheek, and passing a chain with a diamond cross about her neck, left her alone to recover her composure.

CHAPTER IV

“Ah me! for aught that I could ever read,Could ever hear by tale or history,The course of true love never did run smooth.”

“A long and secret engagement, replete with hope deferred, was the fate of Richard the Lion-hearted and the fair flower of Navare.” The vexatious wars in which Eleanor of Aquitaine constantly involved her husband and children occupied Richard in combats more dangerous than those of the tourney. The heart of Berengaria was often agitated with fears for his safety. She was also compelled to reject the addresses of numerous suitors, attracted by her beauty and wealth, and she thus subjected herself to the imputation of caprice, and the displeasure of her father, when her thoughts were distracted by rumors that Richard was about to consummate his marriage with Alice. An occasional troubadour who sang the exploits of her gallant lover sometimes imparted new life to her dying hopes, and again when a long period elapsed without tidings of any kind, she bitterly reproached herself for permitting him to retain an amulet which she was so well assured would change the current of his affections; and notwithstanding the general frankness of his character, and the unfeigned earnestness of his manner, which more than his words, had convinced her of his truth; she was often tortured with the suspicion that Richard had only amused himself with the artlessness of a silly girl, and had no intention of demanding her of her father. Her only confidant in the affair was her brother Sancho the Strong, who consoled her by violently upbraiding her for the unjust suspicion, and resolutely vindicating the honor of his absent friend. While the mind of Berengaria was thus cruelly alternating between hope and fear, her sister Blanche was wedded to Thibaut, brother of Count Henry of Champagne. On the festive occasion Richard accompanied the bridegroom: and when Berengaria once more read admiration and love in every glance of his speaking eyes, and listened to his enthusiastic assurances of devotion, and above all, when she heard his wrathful malediction against those who interposed the claims of Alice, she wondered how she could ever have distrusted the sincerity of his professions. But though her heart was thus reassured, the first intelligence that she received from Champagne through the medium of Blanche, overwhelmed her with new apprehensions. It was asserted, that an alliance had been formed between Richard and Philip, the young King of France, to wrest Alice from the custody of Henry, and that the two princes, to prove that they looked upon each other as brothers, exchanged clothing, ate at the same table, and occupied the same apartment. The confident Sancho even, was somewhat shaken by this report; particularly as the Gascon subjects of Richard began to prepare for war. Instigated by his own doubts, but more especially by the mute appeals of Berengaria’s tearful eyes, Sancho made a journey to the north to prove the guilt or innocence of his friend. At Bordeaux he learned that Richard had gone to Poictiers. At Poictiers it was said he might be found at Tours. At Tours the rumor was confirmed, that Richard had transferred his allegiance from Henry to Philip, and that Henry, in consequence of his son’s rebellion, had fallen sick at Chinon, and that Richard had been summoned to that place to attend the monarch’s death-bed. Without delay, therefore, Sancho posted forward to Chinon. As he ascended an eminence commanding a view of the road for some distance, he saw a band of armed horsemen riding in advance of him, and thought he discerned, in the van, the crest of Richard Cœur de Lion. Putting spurs to his horse, he joined the rear of the cavalcade, which proved to be the funeral procession of Henry II., led by his erring son to the abbey of Fontevraud. The mournful tones of the bell mingled with the clanging tread of the mail-clad nobles, as solemn and slow they followed the prince up the long aisle of the church. The air was heavy with the breath of burning incense, and the strong and ruddy glare of the funeral torches, revealed with fearful distinctness the deep furrows made by age, and care, and grief in the noble features of the deceased monarch. The walls draped with the sable habiliments of woe, returned the muffled tones of the organ, while drooping banners, that canopied the bier, shook as with a boding shudder, at the approach of the warrior train. One solitary mourner knelt beside the altar, a fair-haired youth, whose features of classic purity, seemed to have borrowed their aspect of repose from the dread presence before him. It was Geoffrey, the younger son of Rosamond. The solemn chanting of the mass was hushed, and the startled priests suppressed their very breath in awe, as heavy sobs burst from the great heart of Cœur de Lion, and shook the steel corselet that was belted above his breast. Geoffrey silently rose, and moving to the head of the bier, left the place of honor to his repentant brother. “My father!” exclaimed Richard, bending over the dead, and lifting the palsied hand, “My father! oh canst thou not forgive?” He stopped in speechless horror, for blood oozed from the clammy lips that till now had always responded to the call of affection.

The sensitive heart of Sancho, wrung with a kindred agony, could no longer brook the terrible spectacle. He left the abbey, and was followed by one and another of the crowd till the self-accusing parricide was left alone with the body of his sire.

When the Prince of Navarre returned to Pampeluna, he forbore to pain his sister’s heart by a recital of the melancholy circumstances that had so affected his own, but he carried to her an assurance that Richard would wed only Berengaria, sealed with the mysterious jewel now reset as the signet ring of the King of England. He described the splendid coronation of his friend, the wealth of his new realm, and the enthusiastic rapture with which his new subjects hailed his accession to the throne. He also informed her that Richard, previous to his father’s death, had taken the cross for the Holy Land, and that all his time and thoughts were now occupied in settling the affairs of the realm for this object; and that the alliance with Philip, which had caused her so much anxiety, was an engagement, not to marry Alice, but to enter with the French monarch upon the Third Crusade.

The prospects of her mistress awakened all the enthusiasm of Elsiebede. She dreamed by night and prophesied by day of long journeys on horseback and by sea, and she interspersed her prognostications with agreeable tales of distressed damsels carried off by unbelieving Afrites, and miraculous escapes from shipwreck by the interposition of good Genii. But though her tongue was thus busy, her hands were not idle. She set in motion all the domestic springs to furnish forth the wardrobe of her mistress and herself with suitable splendor, and amused the needle-women with such accounts of eastern magnificence that they began to regard the rich fabrics upon which they were employed as scarcely worthy of attention.

In the beginning of the autumn of 1190, Queen Eleanor arrived at the court of Navarre to demand of her friend Sancho the Wise the hand of his daughter for her son Richard. The king readily accepted the proposal, for beside being Berengaria’s lover, the gallant Plantagenet was the most accomplished, if not the most powerful sovereign of Europe. Under the escort of the queen dowager the royal fiancée journeyed to Naples, where she learned to her mortification and dismay that her intended lord was not yet released from the claims of Alice, and that the potentates assembled for the crusade were in hourly expectation of seeing the armed forces of Christendom embroiled in a bloody war to decide her title to the crown matrimonial of England.

The forebodings of Elsiebede did not increase her equanimity. “It is all the work of the fatal ring,” said the superstitious maiden. “Did I not tell thee it would thwart his dearest wish?” Berengaria could reply only by her tears. Other circumstances made her apprehensive concerning the fate of the expedition. The Emperor Frederic Barbarossa was among the first of those whose grief arose to indignation at the fall of Jerusalem. He wrote letters to Saladin demanding restitution of the city, and threatening vengeance in the event of non-compliance. The courteous Infidel replied, that if the Christians would give up to him Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch, he would restore to them the piece of wood taken at the battle of Tiberias, and permit the people of the west to visit Jerusalem as pilgrims. The chivalry of Germany were exasperated at this haughty reply, and the emperor, though advanced in age, with his son the Duke of Suabia, the Dukes of Austria and Moravia, sixty-eight temporal and spiritual lords, and innumerable hosts of crusaders, drawn out of every class, from honorable knighthood down to meanest vassalage, set out from Ratisbon for the East. The virtuous Barbarossa conducted the march with prudence and humanity. Avoiding as much as possible the territories of the timid and treacherous Greek Emperor, Isaac Angelus, he crossed the Hellespont, passed through Asia Minor, defeated the Turks in a general engagement at Iconium, and reached the Taurus Ridge, having accomplished the difficult journey with more honor and dignity and success than had fallen to the lot of any previous crusaders.

When the army approached the river Cydnus, the gallant Frederic, emulating the example of Alexander, desired to bathe in its waters. His attendants sought to dissuade him, declaring that the place had been marked by a fatality from ancient times; and to give weight to their arguments, pointed to this inscription upon an adjacent rock, “Here the greatest of men shall perish.” But the humility of the monarch prevented his listening to their counsels. The icy coldness of the stream chilled the feeble current in his aged veins, and the strong arms that had for so many years buffeted the adverse waves of fortune, were now powerless to redeem him from the eddying tide. He was drawn out by the attendants, but the spark of life had become extinct.

The tidings of this melancholy event came to Berengaria, when her heart was agitated by the perplexity of her own situation not only, but by the intelligence that Richard’s fleet had been wrecked off the port of Lisbon, and that he was himself engaged in hostilities with Tancred. Cœur de Lion was indeed justly incensed with the usurper of his sister’s dominions. Upon the first news of the fall of Jerusalem, William the Good had prepared to join the crusade with one hundred galleys equipped and provisioned for two years, sixty thousand measures of wine, sixty thousand of wheat, the same number of barley, together with a table of solid gold and a tent of silk, sufficiently capacious to accommodate two hundred persons. Being seized with a fatal disease, he left these articles by will to Henry II, and settling upon his beloved Joanna a princely dower, intrusted to her the government of the island. No sooner was he deceased, than Tancred, an illegitimate son of Roger of Apulia, seized upon the inheritance and threw the fair widow into prison. The roar of the advancing lion startled Tancred from his guilty security, and he lost no time in unbarring the prison doors of his royal captive. But Richard required complete restitution, and enforced his demands by the sword. He seized upon Messina, but finally through the intervention of the French king, accommodated the matter by accepting forty thousand ounces of gold, as his father’s legacy and his sister’s dower. He also affianced his nephew Arthur of Brittany, to the daughter of Tancred, the Sicilian prince agreeing on his part to equip ten galleys and six horse transports for the crusade. Completely reconciled to the English king, Tancred, in a moment of confidence, showed him letters in which Philip had volunteered to assist in hostilities against Richard. This treachery on the part of Philip brought matters to a crisis. Seizing the evidences of perfidy, Richard strode his way to the French camp, and with eyes sparkling with rage, and a voice of terrible power, upbraided him with his baseness. Philip strongly asserted his innocence, and declared the letters a forgery, a mere trick of Richard to gain a pretext for breaking off the affair with his sister. The other leaders interposed and shamed Philip into acquiescence with Richard’s desire to be released from his engagement with Alice. Some days after the French king sailed for Acre.

But though the hand of the royal Plantagenet was thus free, the long anticipated nuptials were still postponed. It was the period of the lenten fast, when no devout Catholic is permitted to marry. Eleanor finding it impossible longer to leave her regency in England, conducted Berengaria to Messina, and consigned her to the care of Queen Joanna, who was also preparing for the voyage. The English fleet, supposed lost, arrived in the harbor of Messina about the same time, and arrangements were speedily made for departure. As etiquette forbade the lovers sailing together, Richard embarked his sister with her precious charge on board one of his finest ships, in the care of the noble Stephen de Turnham, while himself led the convoy in his favorite galley Trenc-the-mere, accompanied by twenty-four knights, whom he had organized in honor of his betrothment, under a pledge that they would with him scale the walls of Acre. From their badge, a fillet of blue leather, they were called knights of the Blue Thong.

Thus with one hundred and fifty ships and fifty galleys, did the lion-hearted Richard and his bride hoist sail for the Land of Promise, that El Dorado of the middle ages, the Utopia of every enthusiast whether of conquest, romance or religion.

CHAPTER V

“The strife of fiends is on the battling clouds,The glare of hell is in these sulphurous lightnings;This is no earthly storm.”

Trustfully and gaily as Infancy embarks upon the untried ocean of existence, the lovers left the harbor of Messina, and moved forth with their splendid convoy, upon the open sea. By day the galley of Berengaria chased the flying shadows of the gallant Trenc-the-mere along the coast of Greece, or followed in its rippling wake among the green isles of the clustering Cyclades; by night, like sea-fowl folding their shining wings, the vessels furled their snowy canvass, and with silver feet keeping time to the waves, danced forward over the glassy floor of the blue Mediterranean, like a charmed bride listening to the sound of pipe and chalumeaux that accompanied the spontaneous verse with which the royal troubadour wooed her willing ear.

The treacherous calm that had smiled upon the commencement of their voyage, at length began to yield to the changeful moods of the stormy equinox, which like a cruel sportsman, toyed with the hopes and fears of its helpless prey. Clouds and sunshine hurried alternately across the face of the sky. Fitful gusts of wind tossed the waves in air or plucked the shrouds of the ships and darted away, wailing and moaning among the waters. Then fell a calm – and then – with maddening roar the congregated floods summoned their embattled strength to meet the mustering winds, that, loosened from their caves, burst upon the sea with terrific power.

The females crept trembling to their couches, dizzy with pain and faint with fear. The sickness of Berengaria increased to that state of insensibility in which the body, palsied with agony, has only power to assist the mind in shaping all outward circumstances into visions of horror. She was again in the cell of the alchemist; saw lurid flames, heard deafening explosions, with unearthly shrieks and groans proceeding from myriads of fiends that thronged round her with ominous words and gibing leer. She felt herself irresistibly borne on, on, with a speed ever accelerated, and that defied all rescue, and with all there was an appalling sense of falling, down, down, down, into interminable depths.

The fantasy sometimes changed from herself, but always to her dearer self. Richard contending with mighty but ineffectual struggles against inexorable Genii, was hurried through the unfathomable waters before her, the fatal ring gleaming through all their hideous forms upon her aching sight; and the confused din of strange sounds that whirled through her giddy brain could never drown the endless vibrations of the whispered words,

“’Twill thwart his wish and break his troth,Betray him to his direst foe,And drown him in the sea.”

The capricious winds at length sounded a truce between the contending elements. The baffled clouds, like a retiring enemy, discharging occasional arrows from their exhausted quivers, hurried away in wild confusion, while the triumphant sea, its vexed surface still agitated by the tremendous conflict, murmured a sullen roar of proud defiance.

The Princess of Navarre, relieved from the thraldom of imaginary horrors, became aware of the actual peril which the fleet had encountered. It was in vain that the anxious attendants interposed, she persisted in being conducted to the deck, whence with longing eyes she gazed in every direction for the bark of her lover. Not a vessel was in sight. A wild waste of waters mocked her anxious scrutiny. Her own galley was so far disabled, that it was with much toiling and rowing, the mariners brought it into Limousa, the capital of Cyprus, and no sooner had they cast anchor, than Isaac Comnenus, the lord of the island, assailed the stranger bark with so much violence, that they were forced to row again with all speed into the offing. While the ship lay thus tossing at the mercy of the waves, dismantled fragments of shattered wrecks floated by, the broken masts and spars contending with the waters, like lost mariners struggling for life.

While Berengaria gave way to the harrowing conviction that the Trenc-the-mere, with its precious freight, had foundered in the storm, Richard, whose ship had been driven into Rhodes, was collecting his scattered fleet and scouring the sea for his lost treasure. Arrived off Cyprus, he beheld the royal galley, and learning that it had been driven from the harbor by the pitiless despot, he landed in great wrath, and sent a message to Isaac, suggesting the propriety of calling his subjects from the work of plundering the wrecks to the exercise of the rites of hospitality.

The arrogant Cypriot answered that, “whatever goods the sea threw upon his island, he should take without leave asked of any one.” “By Jesu, Heaven’s king, they shall be bought full dear,” retorted Richard, and seizing his battle-axe, he led his crusaders to the rescue, and soon drove the self-styled emperor, with his myrmidons, to the mountains. Without loss of time, Richard pursued him thither, and guided by the heron of burnished gold that gleamed from the imperial pavilion, penetrated the camp in the darkness, made a great slaughter of the enemy, and brought away all the treasure; Isaac again escaping with much difficulty. Two beautiful Arab steeds, Fanuelle and Layard, fell to the lot of the conqueror.

“In the world was not their peer,Dromedary nor destrère.”

With this magnificent booty King Richard returned, and taking possession of his enemies’ capital, made signals for the entrance of the galley that had so long kept unwilling quarantine without the port. Berengaria, almost overcome with fatigue and fear, and fluttered with joy, was lifted on shore by the strong arms of the conquering Cœur de Lion. As he assisted her trembling steps towards the palace, a Cypriot of beggarly appearance threw himself on his knees before them, and presented to their astonished eyes the talismanic ring! Richard felt his gentle burden lean more heavily upon his arm, and saw in her colorless face, that all her apprehensions were reawakened. Gently whispering her words of encouragement, he turned to the stranger, and bursting into a hearty laugh, exclaimed, “Ha! knave, where got’st thou the bauble? Hast news of my chancellor?” The mendicant replied, that a number of bodies had floated upon the beach, and that from the hand of one he had drawn this ring, which he brought to the English monarch in the hope of ransoming his wife and family, who had been taken prisoners. Richard, rejoiced at the recovery of the valued jewel, readily granted the request of the petitioner, adding as a bounty, a broad piece of gold. Slipping the signet upon his finger, he turned to his fair charge, saying, “Cheer thee, sweet-heart, thy ring has accomplished its destiny. The poor chancellor is ‘drowned in the sea,’ and thou mayest henceforth look upon it with favor, for to-day it shall consummate my ‘dearest wish,’ since the good bishop now waits to crown thee Richard’s queen.”