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While the two kings, who met in the open fields, were engaged in discourse on this subject, a body of the Sicilians seemed to be drawing towards them. Richard, always ardent and impatient, pushed forward, in order to learn the cause of that extraordinary movement; and the English adventurers, insolent from their power, and inflamed by former animosities, wanting only a pretence to attack the Messinese, chased them from the field, drove them into the town, and entered with them at the gates. The king employed his authority to restrain them from pillage or massacring the defenceless inhabitants; but he gave order that the standard of England, in token of the victory, should be erected on the walls. Philip, who considered the city of Messina as his quarters, exclaimed against the arrogance of the English monarch, and ordered some of his troops to pull down the standard. But Richard informed him by a messenger, that although he would willingly himself remove that ground of offence, he would not permit it to be done by others: and if the French king attempted such an insult on his dignity, he should not succeed but by the utmost effusion of blood. Philip, satisfied with this species of haughty condescen-sion, recalled his orders, and the difference was seemingly accommodated; but the seeds of rancour and jealousy still remained in the breasts of the two monarchs3.

After leaving Sicily, the English fleet was assailed by a furious tempest. It was driven on the coast A.D. 1191. of Cyprus, and some of the vessels were .wrecked near Lemisso in that island. Isaac Comnenus, despot of Cyprus, who had assumed the magnificent title of emperor, pillaged the ships that were stranded, and threw the seamen and passengers into prison. But Richard, who arrived soon after, took ample vengeance on him for the injury. He disembarked his troops; defeated the tyrant who opposed his landing; entered Lemisso by storm; gained next day a second victory; obliged Isaac

3. Bened. Abbas. M. Paris. G. Vinisauf, ubi sup.

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to surrender at discretion; established governors over the island; and afterwards conferred it as a sovereignty upon Guy of Lusignan, the expelled king of Jerusalem. Thrown into prison, and loaded with irons, the Greek prince complained of the little respect with which he was treated. Richard ordered silver fetters to be made for him; and this phantom of an emperor, pleased with the distinction, expressed a sense of the generosity of his conqueror1 !

Richard, by reason of these transactions at Cyprus, was later of arriving in Asia than Philip. But the English monarch came opportunely to partake in the glory of the siege of Ptolemais; a sea-port town," which had been invested above two years by the united forces of all the Christians in Palestine, and defended by the utmost efforts of Saladin and the Saracens. Before this place, Frederic, duke of Suabia, son of the emperor Barbarossa, and who succeeded him in the command, together with the remains of the German army, had perished. The arrival of the armies of France and England, however, with Philip and Richard at their head, inspired new life into the besiegers: and the emulation between these rival kings, and rival nations, produced extraordinary acts of valour. Richard especially, animated by a more precipitate courage than Philip, and more agreeable to the romantic spirit of that age, drew to himself the attention of all the religious and military world, and acquired a great and splendid reputation. Ptolemais was taken. The Saracen garrison, reduced to the last extremity, surrendered themselves prisoners of war; and the governor engaged that Saladin, besides paying a large sum for their ransom, should release two thousand five hundred Christian prisoners of distinction, and restore the wood of the true cross3.

4. Ibid.

5. Benedict Abbas. G. Vinisauf. lib. iii. Saladin refused to ratify the treaty; and the Saracen prisoners, to the number of five thousand, were inhumanly butchered. Id. ibid.

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Thus, my dear Philip, was this famous siege, which had so long engaged the attention of all Europe and Asia, brought to the desired close, after the loss of three hundred thousand men, exclusive of persons of superior rank; six archbishops, twelve bishops, forty earls, and five hundred barons. But the French monarch, instead of pursuing the hopes of farther conquest, and redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the ascendant assumed and acquired by the king of England, and having views of many advantages, which he might reap by his presence in Europe, declared his resolution of returning to France; and he pleaded his ill state of health as an excuse for his desertion of the common cause. He left, however, to Richard ten thousand of his troops, under the command of the duke of Burgundy, and he renewed his oath never to commit hostilities against that prince's territories during his absence. But no sooner did he reach Italy than he applied to pope Celestine III. for a dispensation from his vow; and though denied that request he still proceeded, but after a more concealed manner, in his unjust projects. He seduced Prince John, king Richard's brother, from his allegiance, and did every thing possible to blacken the character of that monarch himself; representing him as privy to the murder of the marquis de Montserrat, who had been taken off, as was well known, by an Asiatic chief, called The old Man of the Mountain, the prince of the Assassins: a word which has found its way into most European languages, from the practice of these bold and determined ruffians, against whom no precaution was sufficient to guard any man, how powerful soever, and whose resentment the marquis had provoked.

But Richard's heroic actions in Palestine, were the best apology for his conduct. The Christian adventurers, under his command, determined, on opening the campaign, to attempt the siege of Ascalon, in order to prepare the way for that of Jerusalem: and

A. D. 1192.

6. W. Heming. J. Bromptom. G. Vinisauf. lib. iii. Rymer, vol. i.

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they marched along the sea-coast with that intention. Saladin proposed to intercept their passage, and placed himself on the road with an army of three hundred thousand combatants. On this occasion was fought one of the greatest battles of that age, and the most celebrated for. the military genius of the commanders; for the number and valour of the troops, and for the great variety of events which attended it. The right wing of the Christian army, commanded by d'Avesness, and the left, conducted by the duke of Burgundy, were both broken in the beginning of the day, and in danger of being utterly defeated; when Richard, who commanded in the centre, and led on the main body, restored the battle. He attacked the enemy with admirable intrepidity, and presence of mind; performed the part of a consummate general and gallant soldier; and not only gave his two wings leisure to recover from their confusion, but obtained a complete victory over the Saracens, forty thousand of whom are said to have been slain in the field'. Ascalon soon after fell into the hands of the Christians: other sieges were carried on with success; and Richard was even able to advance within sight of Jerusalem, the great object of his hopes and fears, when he had the mortification to find, that he must abandon all thoughts of immediate success, and put a stop to the career of victory.

Animated with an enthusiastic ardour for these holy wars, the champions of the cross, at first, laid aside all regard to safety or interest in the prosecution of their pious purpose; and, trusting to the immediate assistance of Heaven, set nothing before their eyes but fame and victory in this world, and a crown of glory in the next. But long absence from home, fatigue, disease, famine, and the varieties of fortune which naturally attend war, had gradually abated that fury which nothing was able instantly to allay or withstand. Every leader, except the king of England, expressed a desire of speedily returning

7. G. Vinisauf. lib. iv.

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to Europe; so that there appeared an absolute necessity of abandoning, for the present, all hopes of farther conquest, and of securing the acquisitions of the adventurers by an accommodation with Saladin. Richard, therefore, concluded a truce with that monarch; stipulating that Ptolemais, Joppa, and other sea-port towns of Palestine, should remain in the hands of the Christians, and that every one of that religion should have liberty to perform his pilgrimage to Jerusalem unmolested. This truce was con cluded for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours; a magical number, suggested by a superstition well suited to the object of the war.

Saladin died at Damascus, soon after concluding the truce with the leaders of the crusade. He was a prince of great generosity and valour; and it is truly memorable, that, during his fatal illness, he ordered his winding sheet to be carried as a standard through every street of the city, while a crier went before the person who bore that ensign of mortality, and proclaim ed with a loud voice," This is all that remains to "the mighty Saladin, the conqueror of the East!" His last will is also remarkable. He ordered charities to be distributed to the poor, without distinction of Jew Christian, or Mahometan; intending by this legacy to inculcate, that all men are brethren, and that, when we would assist them, we ought not to inquire what they believe, but what they feel: an admirable lesson to Christians, though from an Infidel! But the advantage of science, of moderation, and humanity were at that time, indeed, entirely on the side of the Saracens.

After the truce Richard had no further business in Palestine, and the intelligence which he received of the intrigues of his brother John and the king of France, made him sensible that his presence was necessary in Europe. Not thinking it safe, however, to pass through France, he sailed to the Adriatic; and being shipwreck

8. W. Heming. lib. i. G. Vinisauf. lib. vi. 9. Id. ibid.

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