Ambulantes et flentes properabunt.... In Sion interrogabunt viam,
huc facies eorum.
1191
While Richard was building, Saladin was pulling down.
Having razed Ascalon, he on September 23 rejoined his
main force at Jafna, thence returned with it next day to
Ramlah, and set his men to raze the citadel of this latter
place and the great fortified church of S. George at the
neighbouring town of Lydda. On the 25th he left his army
at Ramlah under Safadin to complete this work and watch
the enemy, while he went to see with his own eyes the state
of the defences of Jerusalem and take measures for securing
their efficiency. On the 30th he returned to Ramlah.[797] To
Richard this abandonment of all attempt to hold the country
seemed like the conduct of “a man bereft of all counsel,
and of all hope of succour”;[798] but Richard himself was not
without secret misgivings as to the ultimate success of the
Crusade. On the same day on which he wrote—probably
to one of his ministers, for communication to his subjects in
general[799]—the letter declaring his hope that Jerusalem would
be won by the middle of January, he wrote also a letter to
the abbot of Clairvaux which reveals more clearly the
actual condition of affairs and the king’s real expectations
as to their future course. He thought there was good hope
that the whole “heritage of the Lord” would be speedily
1191
recovered; indeed, part of it was recovered already. But
in the recovering of that part he had, as he truly said,
borne the burden and heat of the day and exhausted not
only his money but also his health and strength, so that he
felt he could not stay in Syria beyond Easter; and the
other western leaders, having spent all they had, would
return to their homes unless fresh supplies of men, money,
and other necessaries were sent out from Europe to enable
them to remain. He therefore besought the abbot to stir
up princes and peoples by his preaching, and induce them
to make provision for the safety and defence, after Easter,
of the Lord’s heritage, “which,” he said, “by God’s grace
we shall have fully won by that time.”[800]
A nearer future than Easter had a share in Richard’s
secret anxieties. All these weeks ships had been plying to
and fro between Joppa and Acre, too many of them bringing
from the northern city visitors who were not merely useless
but undesirable, and carrying back thither lukewarm
Crusaders who preferred its pleasures and indulgences to
the hard work of the Holy War; whereby the host was
considerably diminished in numbers.[801] The extent of the
leakage seems to have been made fully apparent to the
princes when at the end of September they removed their
troops from the gardens to a new encampment somewhat
further out, near the Casal of S. Habakkuk.[802] King Guy
was commissioned to go to Acre and bring the truants
back;[803] and while awaiting their return Richard, probably
to keep the enemy inactive, sent on October 3 a messenger
to Safadin to propose a renewal of the suspended negotiations.
A few days earlier, Saladin had received from Conrad
of Montferrat overtures for an alliance; Conrad offered to
make peace with the Moslems, break openly with the Franks,
and recover Acre for the former, if they would give him
Sidon and Beyrout. Saladin was quite willing to agree to
these terms—“for,” says Bohadin, “the marquis was a
1191
most terrible adversary to us”—but not to grant Conrad’s
demand that the Sultan should pledge himself by oath to the
cession of the two sea-ports, till Conrad should first have
proved his sincerity by attacking his fellow-Christians at
Acre and releasing his Moslem prisoners at Tyre.[804]
On October 4 Saladin, finding that at Ramlah he could
not get enough fodder for his horses and camels, owing to
his foragers being too much exposed to attacks from the
enemy, removed his army some eight or nine miles south-eastward
into the hills, close to a place whose character is
expressed in one form of its name, Natroun, “post of
observation.”[805] The Franks called the place Toron of the
Knights; “toron” meaning height or mount, and the
knights being those of the Temple, who had built on its
summit a tower of great strength overlooking two of the
roads to Jerusalem. This tower Saladin at once began to
pull down; like the other strongholds which he had
demolished, it was useless to him for present purposes, and
could be of value only to his enemies, should the site fall
Oct. 8
into their hands. Four days later Safadin, whom he had
left at Ramlah in command of the advanced guard, sent him
word that Richard, having discovered Conrad’s dealings
with the Sultan, had sailed for Acre in order to put a stop
to them by making friends with the marquis.[806] There was,
however, another reason for the king’s visit to Acre. The
loiterers there were so slow to move at the bidding of Guy
that it was clearly necessary to bring a stronger influence to
bear upon them. Richard’s exhortations took such effect
Oct. 13
that within a fortnight[807] he was back at Joppa accompanied
1191
not only by the two queens, whom he established there
with their attendants, but also by so “much people” that
the host seemed to have become more numerous than ever.[808]
It took another fortnight to clear out of Acre and convey
by sea to the new base the remaining stragglers and the
stores needed for a fresh advance.[809] During this enforced
delay the host was once at least very near losing its commander-in-chief.
Richard, having ridden out with a very
small escort partly to exercise his hawks,[810] partly to look
out for an opportunity of surprising the Turks, was himself
surprised by some of them when he had stopped to rest and
fallen asleep. Awaking just in time, he sprang to horse
and drove them off, but they led him into an ambush, and
he was only saved from capture by the devotion of William
des Préaux, who concentrated the attention of the enemies
on himself by shouting, “Saracens, I am Melec”—that is,
the king—and was seized and hurried away accordingly,
while the real king escaped. The whole host was aghast
when the adventure became known, and some of Richard’s
friends upbraided him for his rashness and implored him,
for the sake of the cause to which his safety was so important,
never again to expose himself thus without sufficient
escort; but it was all in vain. “In every conflict he
delighted in being the first to attack and the last to
return.”[811]
Meanwhile Richard had, immediately on his return to
Joppa, renewed his friendly intercourse with Safadin by
sending him a beautiful horse as a present. A few days
later an envoy from Safadin came, by the king’s desire, to
meet him at Yazour, some four miles, from Joppa on the
road to Ramlah, to receive his proposals for a treaty. Of
these proposals the Moslem envoy carried back two sets,
one for direct transmission to the Sultan, the other intended
primarily for Safadin’s personal consideration. To Saladin
1191
the king wrote that, with Franks and Moslems alike perishing
and the country ruined, the war had gone far enough;
the only matters in dispute were the Holy City, the Cross,
and the limits of the two realms, Christian and Mussulman.
Their claim to Jerusalem, as the most sacred seat of their
Faith, the Christians could not renounce so long as there
was one man of them left alive. Of the country they
claimed restitution up to the western bank of the Jordan.
As for the Cross, “seeing that to the Moslems it is but a
piece of wood,” Saladin might well give it back to those
who accounted it a sacred treasure; and thus should there
be for both parties peace and rest from their labours.
Saladin at once decisively refused all three conditions.[812] To
Safadin the king had proposed another scheme: that
Safadin should take Queen Joan of Sicily to wife, and reign
over the land jointly with her, she holding Jerusalem as her
royal seat, Richard endowing her with Acre, Joppa, and
Ascalon (which he accounted his own conquests), the Sultan
c. Oct. 18
giving the Holy Cross to the Christians, and all the places
which he held in the Sahel or Maritime Plain to his brother
and declaring him king of the land. With these terms
Safadin appeared well pleased, and Saladin, when they were
laid before him, answered immediately and emphatically,
“Yes! yes! yes!”—“being,” says Bohadin who was
present and who knew him well enough to read his thoughts,
“persuaded that the king would never really sanction such
a thing, and proposed it only in trickery and play.” His
persuasion was justified; when on October 23 an envoy
from the Sultan and his brother again came to the Christian
camp, he was sent back with a message that when the king
had told his sister of the marriage proposed for her, she had
become “furious with indignation and wrath,” and sworn
by all she held sacred that she would never submit to it;
whereupon her brother had promised to bring, if he could,
Safadin to accept Christianity. All this was of course mere
diplomacy to wile away the time till the host was ready
for a further advance; and on the 27th Saladin received
Oct. 28
tidings that the enemy was preparing to leave Joppa. Next
1191
day the Sultan returned to Ramlah. On the 29th he sent
some troops to surprise the Christian camp, but they were
driven off and put to flight.[813] On the 30th Richard, “wandering
about in the plain towards Ramlah,” espied a reconnoitring
party of Saracens, attacked them without hesitation,
slew several of them and scattered the rest.[814] On the 31st,
having completed his arrangements for the security of Joppa,
he led the host on the first stage of its advance towards
Jerusalem.
Oct. 31
The stage was a very short one—only two miles, to Yazour,
or as the Franks called it, the Casal of the Plains. This
place and Casal Maen, which seems to have been the Frankish
name for Beit Dejan, about two miles further to the south-east,
had been Frankish strongholds, recently dismantled
by the Saracens; it was important that they should be
restored in order to secure the command of the road leading
from Joppa into the hills. Richard undertook the restoration
of Casal Maen, and the Templars that of Casal des
Plains; the host lay encamped between the two places for
Nov. 1-15
a fortnight while the work was in progress. The Turks did
their utmost to hinder it by sending out skirmishing parties.
One of these, having been put to flight, was pursued by
Richard so far that before he turned back he actually saw
Nov. 6
Ramlah and the Sultan’s army there.[815] Another day a
foraging party protected by a small escort of Templars was
suddenly surrounded by a numerous body of Turks at
“Bombrac,” properly Ibn Ibrak or Beni Berak, about two
miles from Casal Maen. On learning their peril Richard,
who was busy superintending the works at Casal Maen, sent
some knights to the rescue and quickly followed in person.
When he reached the spot the position of the little band
looked so hopeless and the enemy’s numbers so overwhelming
that his companions besought him to retire, “for,” said they,
“if mischief should befall you, there would be an end of
Christendom!”[816] “I sent those men here; if they die
1191
without me, may I never again be called king,” was his reply.
Setting spurs to his horse and giving him the rein, he burst
“like lightning” into the enemy’s ranks, and laid about him
so furiously that they all either fled “like beasts,” or were
slain or made prisoners.[817] Such is the Frankish version of
this encounter; Bohadin, however, describes it as a success
for the Saracens,[818] and makes no mention of Richard’s
presence.
That evening Richard sent a messenger to Safadin, complaining
of these attacks as breaches of their friendly relations,
Nov. 3
and again asking him for a personal interview.[819] Three
days before, Reginald of Sidon had come to Saladin from
Tyre with a renewal of Conrad’s proposal of an alliance
against the Crusaders. As before, Saladin gave equal
encouragement to both parties. On the 8th Safadin and
Richard met in a large tent set up for the purpose[820] “between
the Casal of the Temple and that of Josaphat”;[821] each
brought with him “all such gifts as princes are wont to give
to one another,” and the special delicacies in food and drink
most esteemed among his own people, for the delectation of
the other.[822] Safadin crowned the entertainment by introducing
a singing girl, and Richard professed himself greatly
pleased with the Saracen mode of singing.[823] The rest of the
day was spent in talk, and they parted with a mutual promise
of fast friendship and a renewed request from Richard that
Safadin would procure for him an interview with the Sultan.
Saladin refused to meet him, giving the same reason as on
a previous occasion.[824] Meanwhile Reginald was in the
Sultan’s camp, splendidly lodged in a tent filled with every
oriental luxury, treated with marked courtesy, and sometimes
accompanying Safadin when that prince rode out to
reconnoitre the Christian host. Saladin himself inclined to
accept the offers of Conrad. “If we make peace with the
western Franks,” he said privately to Bohadin, “it will never
be a secure one; if I were to die, it would be very difficult to
1191
get our army together again, and before this could be done
all the forces of our foes would have united. It were wiser
to fight on till we have either expelled them from our coasts
or died in the attempt.” Richard, however, anxious to
prevent an alliance between Saladin and Conrad which would
undoubtedly have been fraught with grave peril to the
Christian cause, twice renewed his proposals in a modified
form, each time lowering his demands and offering fresh
concessions; so when on November 11[825] Saladin laid the
propositions of the marquis and those of the king before a
council of his emirs, they declared in favour of the latter.
Saladin yielded to their opinion. But Richard had reserved
for himself a way of escape. “The whole Christian community,”
he said, “is blaming me for proposing to wed my
sister to a Mussulman without leave from the Pope. I will
therefore send an envoy to him, and in six months I shall
have his answer. If he consents, well; if not, I will give you
my brother’s daughter, in which case the Pope’s sanction
will not be needed.” To this Saladin replied: “If the
alliance is to be made, let it be made on the original terms;
I will not go back from my word; but if that marriage fail,
we want no other.”[826] Thus the matter remained in abeyance
for several months. On the day (November 15) on which
he sent this last rejoinder Saladin again retired from Ramlah
to the neighbourhood of Natroun[827]; and shortly afterwards
1191
the Christian host advanced from its encampment between
the two restored Casals into the plain between Ramlah and
Lydda. Here they pitched their tents and waited for
reinforcements and supplies.[828]
Nov. 15-22
The rank and file were naturally puzzled and scandalized
by Richard’s diplomatic dealings with the Infidels, which
seemed to them unlawful, and of which they neither understood
the purpose nor knew the real character. The Frank
chroniclers excuse him as a simple-minded Christian duped
by the cunning of the Saracens. He cleared himself in the
eyes of his accusers in a fashion of his own. “Right and
left the enemies came swarming about the camp; and the
king met them and gave practical proof of his loyalty to God
and Christendom, for several times he shewed in the host the
many Turks’ heads that he had cut off.”[829]
Besides the enemy, the Crusaders had now another obstacle
to contend with—the climate. The “former rains,” or
heavy showers which open the agricultural year in Palestine,
would begin about the time when the host left Joppa, at
the end of October, and continue through November; these
would be followed by a season of constantly increasing rainfall
lasting throughout the next three months. This great
rain “pursued the soldiers of the Cross,” as one of them
says, till it drove them to take what shelter they could find
within the ruins of Ramlah and Lydda.[830] Here they remained
“in great discomfort and difficulties”[831] till the end of
December or beginning of January. Saladin held them in
check by remaining in his camp near Natroun till December
12; then he withdrew to Jerusalem and disbanded his army[832]
for the rest of the winter, trusting for the defence of Judea
to the guerilla troops who still remained among the hills,
to the weather, and above all, to the physical character of
the country. The Christian host was now on the edge of
the Shephelah, or Lowlands of Judea, so called in distinction
1191
from the “Hills” proper, the loftier central range, or ridge,
which forms the backbone of the land, and on whose eastern
side lie Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The low, soft chalk-hills
of the Shephelah are not a range; they lie in groups and
clusters interspersed with level spaces and valleys opening
into the plain on the west, and falling on the east into the
long, deep trench which runs between the “Lowlands” and
the “Highlands” like—as a modern writer says—“a great
fosse planted along the ramparts of Judea.” At the
mouth of the northernmost of these cross-valleys—Joshua’s
Valley of Ajalon—Lydda and Ramlah were frontier towns
of the Shephelah and the maritime plain. Along this vale
or over the low hills on each side of it, and through the
narrow defiles which at its other end penetrate the central
range, ran the most direct lines of communication between
the Holy City and the coast. One of these was the old
“way that goeth to Beth-horon” from Gibeon on the
plateau above Jerusalem. This road led to Joppa through
Lydda; so did another which crossed the fosse some three
miles south of the first. The two were linked together by a
cross-road which ran on south-westward to the ancient
Nicopolis—called Amwas by the Arabs and Emmaus by the
Franks—and then divided into two branches, one going
southward by Natroun, the other to Joppa through Ramlah.
This latter way seems to have been in general use since the
eighth century, when the first Moslem conquerors overthrew
Lydda and founded Ramlah to supersede it.[833] The First
Crusaders had marched by the road from Ramlah to
Emmaus and thence to Beth-horon, Gibeon, and Jerusalem,
without opposition. Richard resolved to try how far he
could follow in their steps; but he knew he could not expect
such good fortune as theirs, for the Shephelah was still full
of what one Frank writer calls “the outside Turkish army,”[834]
that is, the troops whom Saladin had left to keep guard and
to prowl about among the hills, in contradistinction to the
1191
“inner” force which was with him at Jerusalem. In this
district of tumbled hill and dale, moorland, glen, and torrent-bed,
of chalky slopes and limestone boulders covered with
thick scrub and brushwood that sheltered caves and hiding-places
innumerable, these light-armed Saracen horsemen
were at home, and had every advantage for the guerilla
warfare in which they excelled; and the ease and rapidity
with which they could move about through the intricacies
of the hills enabled them to swoop down suddenly from the
most unexpected quarters, with fatal effect, upon foraging
or reconnoitring parties and convoys.[835] One chronicler
says that when the bulk of the host sought shelter in Lydda
and Ramlah, the count of Saint-Pol betook himself to “the
Casal of the Baths”; which seems to represent a place
now called Umm-el-Hummum, about twelve miles north-east
of Lydda.[836] If this statement be correct, the count’s object
may perhaps have been to act as an advanced guard on that
side of the host and keep watch against a possible gathering
of the Saracens in force on the lower slopes of the hills of
Samaria—especially at Mirabel, or as the Saracens called it
Mejdel Yaba, which was close to Umm-el-Hummum and one
of the few castles which Saladin had not caused to be
evacuated—and their descent thence on the Christians at
Lydda. It is at any rate probable that Richard’s purpose
was to render some such service as this in another direction,
towards the south and south-east of Ramlah, when on
December 22 or 23 he removed his own headquarters to the
“Post of Observation,” Natroun, which Saladin had quitted
ten days before.[837] On that day, however, a convoy from
Joppa was intercepted by the enemy; and similar mishaps
occurred several times in the ensuing week.[838] To this unsatisfactory
Dec.
state of affairs the leaders, having now fully ascertained
1191
that Saladin and his main army had really “taken
to the Mountains” properly so called—the mountain-wall
which shelters Jerusalem from the world—“and left the
champaign to us,” boldly decided to put an end by advancing
to the foot of the said mountains, where they told their
followers they would find a resting-place and be able to get
food for themselves.[839]
1192
The advance was ordered for January 3. Some of the
Saracen guerilla bands which were constantly scouring the
country between Joppa and the hills had apparently discovered
that a movement was in contemplation, but
were uncertain as to its object; they spent the night of the
Jan. 3
2nd lying hid near Casal des Plains and at daybreak
dashed forward in the direction which the host was about to
take; probably they hoped to lie hidden while it passed, and
fall at unawares on the rearguard or the slow-moving
baggage-train. Richard, however, knew of their lying in
wait, and had himself, with Geoffrey de Lusignan, been lying
in wait for them all the preceding night at the Casal of the
Baths; a locality where, seeing that it was quite as far (in a
different direction) from Lydda as their own lurking-place
and double that distance from his known headquarters at
Natroun, they were not likely to suspect his presence. While
they were hurrying up from the west, he was spurring to meet
them from the north, the very opposite quarter to that
where they doubtless supposed him to be; and scarcely
had they pounced upon and slain two men-at-arms who
went forth alone in advance of the host, when the unexpected
apparition of a banner which they well knew to be the king’s,
and a figure whose bearing and headlong onset were equally
unmistakeable,[840] threw them into utter confusion. Most of
them fled in the very direction whence Richard had come,
towards Mirabel; probably hoping to escape pursuit among
the hills. Richard, who was mounted on Fauvel, dashed
after them and unhorsed two before any of his own followers
1192
could rejoin him; some twenty others were slain or brought
back prisoners to the Christian camp.[841]
A march of ten miles brought the host to Beit Nuba, on a
level space of high ground close to the northern end of the
natural fosse which lies between the Shephelah and the
mountain range. The hearts of the pilgrims “were glad
with the hope that they were going to the Sepulchre”; but
“their bodies were ill at ease,” for the Syrian winter was
now at its worst, and in their present exposed encampment
there was no shelter from its ravages. Stormy wind and
tempest, torrential rain and hail, beat down or tore up the
tents; armour rusted, clothes rotted, biscuits and bacon
were so soaked that they became putrid; horses died, men
sickened; and in less than a week “the wise Templars, the
brave Hospitaliers, and the men of the land” came to the
conclusion that under the existing circumstances an attempt
to besiege Jerusalem could lead to nothing but disaster.
They told Richard that if the city were invested its besiegers
would be between two fires, Saladin breaking forth upon
them from within and the “outside” Turkish army cutting
them off from communication with the coast and depriving
them of supplies.[842] The men who spoke thus knew well
that it was vain to dream of existing by foraging on the
barren, rocky tableland which forms the summit of the
Judean mountain-range, and that the host, if it got there
at all, would probably starve long before the defenders of
the city, which Saladin was sure to have victualled for a
siege, and which it would hardly be possible to blockade
so completely as to cut it off from all means of obtaining
further provisions. Nor was this all. Supposing—these
counsellors urged—that the city were taken, its capture
would be useless unless it could be at once filled with troops
capable of holding it permanently; and this would be no
easy matter, for the western pilgrims, who formed the bulk
of the host, would return to their home-lands as soon as their
pilgrimage was accomplished, and thus when they were gone
1192
all that had been won would be lost again.[843] Hereupon the
western leaders called a council of war at Natroun;[844] they
may have retired there on purpose to be well away from the
rest of the army while discussing the matter. However
this may be, they asked “the wise folk who were born in
the land” what course they would recommend under
existing circumstances. The Templars and Hospitaliers
Jan. 6-13
at once answered that what they would advise was not to
proceed towards Jerusalem at present, but to re-fortify and
occupy Ascalon, so as to obtain some control over the transit
of provisions from the great Saracen storehouse, Cairo, to
the Holy City.[845] An Arab historian gives, very likely from
the report of some spy who overheard the proceedings of
the council, a curious account of the way in which the final
decision was reached. Richard, he says, asked to see a
plan of Jerusalem, that he might judge for himself of the
force of the arguments put forward by the Knights. They
drew a plan for him; and when he thoroughly understood
the character of the site and surroundings of the city, he
pronounced them such as to make the city, in his opinion,
virtually impregnable “so long”—thus the Arab reports the
words of the western king—“as Saladin lives and the Moslems
are united.”[846] Before the middle of January the host was
back at Ramlah.[847]
1192
Whether Richard’s verdict on the prospects of the Crusade
was really quite so pessimistic as Ibn Alathyr represents may
be doubted. The scheme now proposed by the Military
Orders and accepted by the king was simply a reversion to
the original plan of campaign with which they had all set
out from Acre, and from which Saladin’s seeming panic
after Arsuf had tempted them to diverge; and there can be
little doubt that the divergence was unwise. The Frank
pilgrim-chroniclers, sharing and voicing the disappointment
of the rank and file, declare indeed that the retirement from
Beit Nuba was a blunder, and that if their leaders had but
known the evil plight—due, like their own, to the weather—of
Saladin and his men at Jerusalem, the city might, “without
doubt,” have been taken easily.[848] But those who spoke
thus could have no real knowledge as to the state of affairs
in Jerusalem, and their version of it finds no countenance
in the pages of Bohadin, who was there, and who may fairly
be trusted on the subject, since he makes no mystery about
the Sultan’s perils and alarms on other occasions. The
picture drawn by the very same Frankish chroniclers of the
condition in which the host, “doleful and down-hearted,”
marched back to Ramlah shows that it was quite unfit to
attempt an invasion of the hill-country. Men and beasts
were alike worn out with weakness and fever, caused by the
wet and cold, and many of the “lesser folk,” sick and helpless,
would have been left behind but for King Richard, who
caused them to be sought out and brought away in safety.[849]
Among the French Crusaders discontent took the form of
wholesale desertion. Some went to Joppa; of these, some
stayed there, and others sailed back to Acre, “where living
was not dear,” sarcastically observes the Norman poet;
some joined the marquis at Tyre, whither he had long been
trying to entice them; the duke of Burgundy himself went
off in dudgeon with his followers to Casal of the Plains.
Extremely angry, but nothing daunted, Richard and the
faithful remnant of the host set out on January 19 by a road
which, crossing the plain from Ramlah, brought them back
1192
at Ibelin[850] to the main road along the coast. The ten miles’
march through mud and mire to Ibelin was a sufficiently
Jan. 20
hard day’s work; but “that day was nothing compared to
the next,” when nearly double that distance had to be
covered, on a road where men and horses were constantly
sinking into swamps, and beneath a ceaseless downpour of
rain, hail and snow; and when at length they arrived before
Ascalon, they could only make their way into the place by
clambering over heaps of broken wall, and find a partial
shelter among the ruins within.[851]
Ascalon stood amid what the poet-pilgrim Ambrose
emphatically calls “a very good country”; but the stormy
season, and the uncertainty as to how many armed enemies
might be still lurking around, made this practically useless
for foraging purposes; and the harbour was a dangerous
one, the sea being often so rough that no ship could ride
in it. This was the case for a week after the arrival of the
Crusaders, who were thus limited to what little food they
had brought with them—much of the stores with which
they started from Ramlah having been lost in the swamps
on the way—till by a change in the weather the transports
coming from Joppa to meet them were enabled to land their
supplies. Scarcely was this done, however, when the storms
rose again, and barges and galleys and “all our beautiful
smacks” were dashed to pieces and some of the sailors
drowned. Richard caused all the wood that drifted ashore
to be collected and employed for the construction of some
galleys, which he destined for his own use; “but,” adds
1192
Ambrose, “it was not to be.” Towards Candlemas he
sent a message to the French, exhorting them to restore the
unity of the host by coming to rejoin their brethren and take
counsel with them as to what should be done next. They
answered that they would come, and would continue with
him till Easter (April 5), on condition that if they then
wished to depart, he would give them safe-conduct by land
to Acre or Tyre. To this he agreed; whereupon they came,
and—the worst of the winter’s rages having now subsided—the
reunited host by common consent set to work to rebuild
Ascalon. The task was no light one; it was said that the
fortifications had originally included no less than fifty-three
great towers, all now almost levelled with the ground.
Most of the nobles were by this time too short of money to
be able to hire workmen; so knights, men-at-arms, squires,
clerks, and laymen of all ranks set themselves to make a
clearance of the ruins, with such a will that soon they were
astonished at their own success. As the rebuilding, however,
required more skilled labour than theirs, Richard took the
direction of it upon himself, and not only caused the greater
part of it to be performed at his expense, but also made good
whatever was lacking of labour and of the money to pay for
it in the parts assigned to the charge of others.[852] The English
chronicler of the Crusade says the king wrought at the building
with his own hands,[853] and we can well believe the story.
Saladin was about this time doing the same thing at
Jerusalem.[854]
Another small point of resemblance between the two
sovereigns was a preference for doing their own scouting.
One morning Richard, with a handful of picked knights,
rode out from Ascalon to reconnoitre Darum. This castle,
built by the late King Amalric on the site of an earlier
fortification, had been the extreme south-western outpost
of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem; it lay three or four
1192
miles south of the point where the coast-road crosses a
watercourse which the historians of the Crusade called the
Torrent or River of Egypt, because above that point it was
in fact, in Amalric’s and Richard’s days and long afterwards,
the boundary between Syria and Egypt.[855] Now
that both these countries were under Moslem rule, Darum
was the first halting-place in Syria for the caravans which
brought supplies from “Babylon”—that is, Cairo—to
Jerusalem. It chanced that when Richard drew near the
place, a thousand Christian prisoners whom the Sultan was
sending to Cairo under the charge of some of his household
guards had just arrived there. At the sight of the king’s
banner the escort, doubtless thinking the whole host from
Ascalon was upon them, left the prisoners and sought shelter
for themselves in the castle; but before they could reach it
some were slain and twenty captured by Richard and his
men. Thus, says Ambrose, “God delivered His people who
were appointed to death, by sending King Richard to take
the place of Saint Leonard, the liberator of captives.”[856]
Some of the Christians, Frank and Syrian, thus rescued
made, no doubt, a welcome addition to the diminished
numbers of the host. Richard had several times already
sent letters or messages to the marquis, calling on him to
come and rejoin the Crusade and render the military service
due to the Crown of Jerusalem for the fiefs which he held
of it. Conrad at first took no notice of these appeals; to
another and more urgent summons he finally answered that
he would not set foot in the camp till he had had a personal
interview elsewhere with the king of England.[857] Richard
seemingly felt it necessary to overlook his insolence and
consent to a meeting at Casal Imbert, half way between
Acre and Tyre. But meanwhile a new trouble arose.
1192
Philip of France had gone home in August 1191 without
leaving his lieutenant in Palestine, the duke of Burgundy,
any money for the pay of the French soldiers, counting
for that purpose on the share due to him of the bezants
which the two kings then expected to receive in a few weeks
from Saladin. When this expectation had become hopeless,
Hugh asked Richard for a loan, and Richard, to avoid losing
the French troops altogether, lent him five thousand marks.[858]
This sum was exhausted long before February 1192; the
French troops clamoured for their dues; Hugh asked Richard
for another loan. This Richard refused. High words
passed, and the duke, with the greater part of the Frenchmen,
straightway departed to Acre.[859] There they found the
Pisans and Genoese at strife. Pending the recovery of
Jerusalem, Acre served as temporary capital of the kingdom,
and there accordingly King Guy seems to have remained
since his return thither in September. His authority was
upheld by the Pisans, who from the outset of the Crusade had
attached themselves to Richard; the Genoese, having done
homage to Philip Augustus, favoured the marquis, and were
intriguing to put him in possession of the city. A skirmish
between these two parties seems to have been going on
when the French arrived; they took to their arms, whereupon
the Pisans set themselves to bar their way; the duke’s
horse was killed under him; then the Pisans rushed back
into the city and shut the gates against him and his men.
At this juncture Conrad, in response to the invitation of
the Genoese, arrived by sea with his forces. The Pisans
“took to the mangonels and stone-casters” and thus kept
him off for three days while they sent to call Richard to
the rescue. Their messenger found the king at Caesarea,
on his way to the projected meeting with Conrad. A hasty
ride brought him to Acre at dead of night, and “when the
marquis knew that the king had come, nothing could hold
him there, but he went with all speed back to Tyre,”
whither Burgundy and the French were gone already.[860]
1192
On the morrow Richard called together the people of
Feb. 20
the city and made peace among them.[861] Soon afterwards
the meeting with Conrad at Casal Imbert took place, but
without any practical result.[862] Next, Richard demanded
repayment of the loan which he had made to the duke of
Burgundy six months before. Hugh acquitted himself
of the debt by assigning to the king the most valuable of
Philip’s Saracen prisoners, who were still in Conrad’s custody
at Tyre; but he made no sign of rejoining the Crusade.
Such a state of affairs threatened ruin to the whole enterprise,
and after long and anxious deliberation in his own
mind Richard took private counsel with the “elders and
wise men of the land” as to what had best be done. They
gave their judgement that the marquis had forfeited
his rights under the settlement of July 1191, and should
be deprived of the revenues then assigned to him in the
kingdom.[863]
It was doubtless to keep some sort of watch upon Conrad
that Richard remained at Acre till the end of March.[864]
During the latter part of his stay there he was again engaged
in negotiations with Saladin. When a messenger arrived
at Jerusalem with a request that Safadin might be sent
to confer with the king, nothing was known there of the
Crusaders’ advance to Ascalon; Richard was believed by
the Sultan to have placed his troops in winter quarters at
Joppa and gone back thence straight to Acre.[865] Saladin
Feb.-Mar.
bade his brother go by way of the Jordan valley and Mount
Tabor, collect the troops of those parts in readiness for a
renewal of hostilities, and then—as usual—go and hear
Richard’s proposals, and if they were not acceptable, drag
out negotiations till the whole Saracen army had had time
1192
to re-assemble. A note was given him containing the utmost
concessions that Saladin was willing to make. They were
these: an equal division of the land; the Cross to be given
back; the Christians to have priests in the church of the
Holy Sepulchre, and pilgrims to have access to it, provided
they went unarmed. “He was,” says Bohadin, “driven
to offer these terms, by the general weariness of long-continued
warfare, by a load of debt, and by the long absence
of his followers from their homes; for there were many who
never left him, and who dared not ask for leave.”[866]
March 20
Safadin set out on March 20. At Keisan he was met by
Humphry of Toron with a message to this effect: “The
division of the land is agreed upon already; but we must
have the whole of the Holy City except the Temple of the
Rock,” otherwise called the Mosque of Omar. This message
Safadin transmitted to his brother, and the Sultan’s council—so
Bohadin says—actually thought its terms near enough
to their own to be “quite acceptable.” Safadin’s first
messenger, however, was followed by another who
March 27
reached Jerusalem on the 27th with tidings that Richard
had gone back to Joppa.[867] If it be true that Richard
knighted Safadin’s son on Palm Sunday, March 29, at Acre,[868]
the announcement must have been slightly premature;
but by the time that Safadin himself returned to Jerusalem,
on April 1,[869] Richard was certainly back at
Ascalon.[870]
The king was “much chafed and troubled in mind”;
for Holy Week was begun, and he knew that Conrad and
Hugh had been urging the French who were still at Ascalon
to join them at Tyre, and that his promise of a safe-conduct
to those who wished to depart at Easter for home would
in all likelihood be immediately claimed by every one of
them; and so it was, on Wednesday, April 1.[871] He gave
them an escort,[872] and when they set out next day himself
1192
rode a little way with them, “weeping, and beseeching them
to stay with him at his expense, and so keep together;
but they would not.” Finding his efforts useless, he returned
to Ascalon and sent off a messenger in haste to Acre bidding
his officers in charge of that city not to admit the French
within its walls.[873] This desertion of more than seven hundred
of the finest chivalry of Christendom was a grievous loss
to the host. Richard did what he could to comfort and
encourage the faithful remnant by holding on Easter Day
(April 5) a great court outside Ascalon; his tents were thrown
open to all comers, and furnished with abundance of meat
and drink and everything that could be procured to enhance
April 6
the magnificence of the feast. Next day he set everybody
to work again on the fortifications, taking upon himself
the responsibility and the expense of completing the portions
which the French had left unfinished.[874]
The season of the “latter rains” was now almost over,
and both Christians and Saracens had to lay their plans
for a new campaign. The former had already, while Richard
was at Acre, profited by the improvement in the weather
to make two brilliant raids, one on March 27 from Joppa
across the plain to Mirabel, where they seem to have intercepted
a rich caravan, for they slew thirty Turks and brought
back fifty prisoners besides a number of cattle and booty
said to have been worth two thousand eight hundred
bezants; the other from Ascalon next day, when “all men
who had horses” rode out by the southern road to capture
a “prey” of which the scouts had told them; “and they
did well this time, for those who were there reported that they
went right into Egypt, four leagues beyond Darum, and they
brought back great troops of horses, asses, camels, oxen, and
sheep, besides near two hundred prisoners, men, women, and
children.”[875] Saladin heard of it, and promptly despatched
some troops to intercept the raiders on their way back,
but they were too quick for him.[876] Saladin’s wisest policy
1192
clearly was to collect his forces and remain with them in
his present position till he saw what his enemies would do.
Richard as usual began by reconnoitring in person. His
first attempt to ascertain the defences of Darum had been
cut short by the necessity of bringing to the camp, or
despatching in safety to their homes, the Christians towards
whom he had acted the part of S. Leonard. On Easter
Tuesday (April 7) he set out again in the same direction;
that day he viewed Gaza, where also there seems to have
been a Moslem garrison, and on the Wednesday went on
April 8
and perambulated Darum to see on which side it could be
most easily assaulted. Its garrison vainly hurled at him
missiles which failed to reach their aim and insults in a
tongue which he did not understand.[877]
A few days later[878] there came to Ascalon a messenger
from England with tidings which filled the whole host with
dismay. He brought letters from the justiciars beseeching
the king to return at once, as John was trying, with a considerable
prospect of success, to make himself master of
the realm. Richard called the barons together and set
forth the matter fully to them. He added that if he should
be, as he feared, obliged to depart from Syria, he would
leave three hundred knights and two thousand men-at-arms
to continue serving there at his expense; and he asked his
own followers to let him know who among them wished to
go with him, and who wished to stay, for he would put no
constraint upon any man. The barons, after holding a
consultation among themselves, came back and told him
frankly that unless he appointed as lord over the land someone
who had a knowledge of war, and to whom all, no matter
whence they came, could adhere, every one of them would
leave the country and set out for home. Richard at once
asked them which they would have of the only two possible
kings—Guy or Conrad. “And all of them, great and small,
knelt down before him and prayed that he would make the
marquis their lord, for this was the most helpful and useful
thing for the realm.” Some of them had hitherto been
1192
bitter against the marquis, and these Richard upbraided
for their sudden change of front; but when fully assured
all were now unanimous in their choice he gave it his assent,
and ordered that an honourable escort should go to fetch
the king-elect and the French, and thus all should be reunited.[879]
As head of the royal house of Jerusalem, guardian of the
realm, and commander-in-chief of the crusading host,
Richard would not have been justified in withholding his
assent from the course of action thus unanimously recommended
by both the native and the western Crusaders.
Their decision was probably the wisest possible under the
circumstances. Although Conrad had done more than any
other man (except possibly Philip Augustus) to sow dissension
among the Christian forces, he was nevertheless the leader
who, when Richard was gone, would divide them the least;
for when once he was acknowledged as their chief, it would be
his own interest to keep them together and to further the
object of their enterprise to the utmost of his power; he
was, unquestionably, by far the most capable and energetic,
next to Richard, of all the princes of the Crusade; and his
so-called wife and their infant daughter were the sole surviving
representatives of the royal house of Jerusalem.
The crowned king, Guy, had no following of his own, and it
seems quite clear that he had, tacitly at least, resigned all
claim to authority in the realm as well as in the host; so
that no disloyalty to him was involved in Richard’s assent
to the election of a new sovereign. Count Henry of Champagne
and three other envoys of rank carried the great news
to Tyre; Conrad and all the folk there were delighted, and
began to prepare for immediate return to the host at Ascalon.[880]
But before any of them had set out, the situation was suddenly
changed again; on April 28 the marquis was assassinated.[881]
The murderers were caught red-handed, and,
of course, promptly put to death. At Saladin’s court they
1192
were reported to have declared that they had been hired
by Richard to commit the crime.[882] Saladin, with whom
Conrad had been in negotiation for several weeks past,
had at the time an agent in Tyre from whom this report
was derived;[883] and if it did not actually originate with
Conrad’s friends and allies at Tyre, its circulation among
Richard’s enemies and rivals and its transmission to Europe
were certainly encouraged by them.[884] A few years later,
however, one Moslem historian gave a very different account
of the matter: Ibn Alathyr says the men were hired by
Saladin to kill Richard if they could, or, failing him, Conrad,
and that they chose the latter alternative as the easier
of the two.[885] This story is probably worthless except as an
illustration of the importance of both king and marquis
in Saracen eyes. The best confutation of the other tale
lies in the simple fact that Conrad’s death could not be of
the slightest profit to Richard, but, on the contrary, upset all
his plans for his own return to Europe. The Norman
pilgrim-poet of the Crusade tells us that the men who
stabbed Conrad were “Assassins” not only in the modern
conventional sense of the word, but also in its original and
etymological sense; by their own confession, they were
Hashashîn, that is, followers of the “Old Man of the Mountain,”
and acted under his orders.[886] This is confirmed by
two of our best English authorities,[887] and by the French
historians who lived and wrote in the Holy Land; one of
the earliest of these latter says that “some people” reported
the murderers to have been hired by Richard, “but,” he
adds, “this was not a bit true”;[888] while another states that
the deed was done to avenge certain other Ismaïlites whom
the marquis had caused to be first robbed and then drowned.[889]
1192
This story is at any rate more intrinsically probable than
either Ibn Alathyr’s or that which was accepted at Saladin’s
court and sent to Europe by Conrad’s friends; indeed, the
relations between these latter and Richard during the rest
of their stay in the Holy Land seem hardly compatible
with a real belief on their part in Richard’s guilt.
There were now some ten thousand Frenchmen, under
Hugh of Burgundy and other barons, lodging in tents outside
Tyre. As soon as Conrad was buried these barons
called upon Isabel to surrender the city to them to hold in
trust for the king of France. She boldly answered that
“when the king returned, she would willingly surrender it
to him, unless before that time it had another lord.”[890] The
1192
closing words of this answer were a scarcely veiled announcement
of her resolve to assert her independence as queen by
right of inheritance and bring in a new claimant to the
lordship of the land by taking another consort; and it is
scarcely possible to avoid a suspicion that she had already
made her choice. Count Henry had gone back from Tyre
as far as Acre;[891] there he received the news of Conrad’s
death. He at once returned to Tyre; “and when the
people saw him, they straightway elected him as sent by
God to be their ruler and lord, and prayed him to accept the
crown and wed its heiress, the widow of the marquis.” He
answered that he must first ascertain how his uncle King
Richard would regard the project. When Richard heard
the whole of the strange story, he brooded over it for a
long while; at last he said to Henry’s messengers: “Sirs,
I should greatly wish that my nephew might be king, if it
please God, when the land shall be conquered; but not
that he wed the marchioness, whom the marquis took from
her rightful lord and lived with in such wise that if Count
Henry trusts my counsel he will not take her in marriage.
But let him accept the kingship, and I will give him in
demesne Acre and its port-dues, Tyre, Joppa, and jurisdiction
over all the conquered land. And then tell him to come
back to the host and bring the Frenchmen with him, as
quickly as he can, for I want to go and take Darum—if the
Turks dare wait there for me!”[892]
It is strange that Richard did not see how impracticable
was his advice. The first half of the scheme proposed by
the barons at Tyre was futile without the other half. The
kingdom of Jerusalem was sold, beyond redemption, into
the hand of a woman. Isabel’s hour had come; she was
now, beyond all question, the “right heir” of all the land.
Henry of Champagne, nephew to both Richard and Philip,
constant companion and faithful follower of the one, yet
1192
loyal homager of the other, was exceptionally qualified to
become a sovereign round whom all parties could rally, and
a healer of their divisions; but these qualifications must
prove useless if Isabel should give him a rival by choosing
another consort. His election would be of no avail for himself
or for the realm unless he took the queen with the
crown. The barons at Tyre were urgent that he should
do so; he hesitated from fear of Richard’s displeasure, but
his personal inclination seconded their arguments. Finally
Isabel herself brought him the keys of the city; a priest was
hurriedly fetched, and there and then, on May 5, the couple
were wedded. The king-elect sent representatives to Acre,
Joppa, and elsewhere, to take seisin of the royal rights,
and summoned his men to join him for an expedition against
Darum.[893]
During Henry’s absence from the host Richard had been
scorning the country round Ascalon in a series of bold
excursions, made sometimes almost alone, and from which he
always returned “bringing ten or a dozen, or a score, or
may be thirty, Saracens’ heads, and some live Saracens
besides.”[894] Another object of these expeditions probably
was to reconnoitre the inner border of the plain, and
endeavour to find out what were the possibilities of penetrating
by some way, other than the vale of Ajalon and its
ramifications, through the Shephelah and across the trench
and the mountain-rampart of Judea. The most direct way
up from the plain to Jerusalem was by the next valley south
of Ajalon, the Wady es Surar (Valley of Sorek); but if this
were to be attempted, the base for the attempt must be
some place further north than Ascalon. The entrance to
the third main inlet into the Shephelah, the Vale of Elah
or Wady es Sunt, was guarded by a great castle set on a
height called by the Arabs Tell es Safiyeh, “the Bright
Hill,” and by the Franks (who in earlier days had built
the castle) Blanchegarde; both names being derived from
the nature of the site, a solitary chalk-hill whose gleaming
1192
sides were plainly visible from Ascalon, seventeen miles
away, while the tower on its summit commanded a wide
view over the surrounding plain, as well as of Ascalon itself,
and also of the roads leading northward to Natroun and
southward to Ibelin of the Hospital and Hebron. Once
already—in December, from Ramlah—Richard had set out
to explore the neighbourhood of Blanchegarde,[895] but had
turned back again without reaching the place. When on
April 22 he led his troops to attack it, he found it deserted;
the Turkish garrison had fled at his approach. He seems
to have left there in their stead the whole force that he had
taken with him, and returned to Ascalon quite alone, for on
the way back he nearly lost his life in an encounter with a
wild boar in which he was evidently single-handed.[896] Six
Apr. 28
days later—the day of Conrad’s death—Roger de Glanville,
whom Richard had left in command of the newly won
fortress, made a daring reconnaissance through the Vale of
Elah, up the steep mountain-pass which meets it on the
other side of the central valley, across the plateau, and past
the very gates of Jerusalem, and returned in triumph with
Apr. 29
a few stray Saracens whom he had captured. On the following
day the king, riding somewhere “between Blanchegarde
and Gaza,” came upon eight Saracens of whom he slew three
and captured the other five. On the night of May 1 he
was at Furbia, near the coast, between Ascalon and Gaza;
here some Turks tried to surprise him asleep at early morn,
but he was the first of his little band to awake and went
forth straight from bed, stopping for nothing but his sword
and shield, to meet the assailants; four were slain, seven
made prisoners; “the rest fled before his face.”[897] It must
have been either between these two exploits or directly
after the latter of them that Count Henry’s messengers met
the king “in the plains of Ramlah, spurring across the open
country in pursuit of a band of Turks who were fleeing before
him.”[898] His restlessness was probably increased by the
disturbed state of his mind. Envoys from his own dominions
were arriving one after another with contradictory letters
1192
and messages, some giving alarming accounts of the state of
affairs there, some assuring him that all was well; some
beseeching him to come home, some exhorting him to continue
the sacred task in which he was engaged; all deepening
his perplexities till he knew not which to believe or how
to act.[899] One point alone stood out clear before him. Now
that Ascalon was lost to the Moslems, its place as the key
of Egypt, the base and storehouse which sheltered troops
and supplies from the Nile valley for transmission to
Jerusalem and the other fortresses still held by the Moslems
in Syria, had been taken by Darum. Before Richard could
bring himself to quit the country, and also before Saladin’s
army reassembled, Darum must be won for Christendom.
There was no time to lose. The rains were quite over;
summer was beginning; and Saladin’s host would have been
at its full strength again ere now but for some troubles in
the northern part of his dominions. His nephew Taki-ed-Din,
the lord of Hamath and Edessa, had died in October
1191 leaving a son, El Mansour, who was inclined to rebel
against Saladin’s supremacy. On May 14 or 15 the Sultan
despatched his own son El Afdal to seize El Mansour’s lands;
but the diplomatist of the family, Safadin, fearing that this
quarrel would imperil the “Holy” War, was pleading hard
for a pacific settlement.[900] Knowing all this, Richard determined
not to wait for Henry. He had his stone-casters
packed on shipboard and sent them down towards Darum
by sea; he hired men-at-arms to increase the forces at
Ascalon; some he distributed in the strong places round
about to guard the roads; then he set out with only the
troops of his own domains,[901] and on Sunday, May 17,[902] this
little band pitched their tents before Darum, a fortress with
seventeen “fine strong towers and turrets,” besides a keep
of great height and strength built against a solid rock which
1192
formed one side of it, while the other sides were of squared
stone and surrounded by a deep fosse. Being too few to
encircle such a place, the adventurers encamped all together
a little way off to wait for their machines and consider
on which side they could use them to the best advantage.
The Turkish garrison thought scorn of such an insignificant
looking force, and rode forth and made a feint of provoking
them to fight, but failing to move them, withdrew into the
castle and shut the gates. That night or next day the ships
arrived with the engines of war; “and,” says an eye-witness,
“we saw the valiant king of England himself, and
the nobles who were his companions, all sweating under the
burden of the various parts of the stone-casters, which they,
like packhorses, carried on their shoulders near a mile
across the sand.” The pieces were soon put together and
the machines at work, one manned by the Normans of the
party, another by the Poitevins, a third probably by the
Englishmen; this last the king took under his own special
command, and he directed its discharge solely against the
keep; a mangonel set up there by the Turks was speedily
destroyed by it. All three machines were kept in ceaseless
action day and night. Meanwhile the walls were being
undermined;[903] and wherever they began to fall they were
set on fire by some men of Aleppo skilled in wall-breaking,
whom Richard had hired during the siege of Acre and now
brought with him to Darum.[904] On the fourth day of the
siege (Friday, May 22), when the castle gate had been shattered
by Richard’s stone-caster and set on fire, the garrison
offered to surrender on condition that their lives and those
of their families should be spared.[905] Richard refused the condition
and bade them defend themselves as best they could.
The stone-casters worked more vigorously than ever;
presently one of the undermined towers fell with a crash.
The assailants rushed through the breach; some sixty
Turks were slain; the rest fled into the keep, and when
1192
they saw the Christian banners waving all over the outer
May 22
bailey and the Frank knights and men-at-arms beginning
to scale the keep itself, they “gave themselves up to King
Richard as his captives and slaves.” He kept them securely
guarded in the tower for the night; next morning they were
brought out, “and their hands tied behind their backs so
tightly that they roared with pain.” There were three
hundred men; and there were also some women and children
in the place, and, moreover, forty Christian prisoners.[906]
The conquest of the seaboard was complete; the last
fortress on the coast[907] was in Christian hands; and Richard
and his men were the more delighted with their success
because they had won it unaided, before their French comrades
rejoined them. Count Henry and his followers had
ridden at full speed, but they came spurring up just too
late. Uncle and nephew met with joyful greetings and
mutual congratulations, and Richard publicly made over
his prize to Henry as a kind of first-fruits of the realm. It
was Whitsun Eve; so all rested where they were on the
festival day.[908] On the Monday the castle was given in charge
to constables appointed by Henry,[909] and the rest of the party
set out northward. Henry and his men went straight on
May 25
to Ascalon; Richard and his company stopped at Furbia,[910]
where it seems the king expected to receive the report of
a scout whom he had sent to reconnoitre the approach to
the southernmost of the cross-valleys leading from the plain
to the mountains—the Wady el Hesy, “valley of the wells,”
which opens from the Shephelah about twelve miles east
of Furbia and meets the central trench about eight miles
1192
west of Hebron. The scout came and reported that Caysac,
the emir whom Saladin had placed in charge of that district,
was at the “Castle of Figtrees” with more than a thousand
men, making the castle ready for defence against the
Christians. Richard at once called out the host from
Ascalon to follow him; they set out from Furbia on May 27
and advanced up the Wady el Hesy to a place which they
called the Canebrake of Starlings; its Arabic name was
May 28
Cassaba, meaning “the Reeds.”[911] On the morrow they set
out at sunrise and proceeded to the Castle of Figtrees, but
found in it only two Turks; the rest had fled in haste at
tidings of their approach. The Christians therefore returned
to Cassaba.[912] They were less fortunate in an expedition which
they seem to have made next day, against another fortress
in the same neighbourhood; one Moslem historian says
the garrison came out and worsted them in fight; another,
that they were surprised within the castle; and both assert
that one of their chief captains or nobles was slain.[913]
1192
While the host lay thus at the Canebrake of Starlings
there came to the king another messenger from England,
May 29-31
his vice-chancellor, John of Alençon, with such an alarming
account of the state of affairs in both England and
Normandy that after much anxious thought he told the other
princes and barons that he really must and would go home.
They hereupon held a council among themselves, and
promptly answered this announcement by another: whatever
he might do or say, wherever he might go, they all
would proceed forthwith to Jerusalem. Someone who was
present at their council carried a report of its outcome to the
pilgrims of lower rank, “and they danced for joy till past
midnight”; “there was no man high or low, young or
old, who was not wild with delight, except the king himself;
but he went to bed in a feverish state of perturbation
and perplexity”;[914] for he knew that unless he went home he
was like to lose his lands,[915] yet it was virtually impossible
for him to withdraw from the Crusade in the face of this
unanimous resolve. How the resolve should be carried into
effect, was the next question. The Christians had now
secured the entrances to three of the five natural openings
from the plain into the hill-country. There was clearly
nothing to be gained by proceeding further up the Wady el
Hesy. From their present encampment they could easily
reach one of the two openings which they had not yet
approached, the Wady el Afranj. At the western end of this
valley, on the border-line of the Shephelah and the plain—“at
the foot of the hills, where the fields begin,” as William of
Tyre[916] describes it—stood a fortress with a town or village
clustering round it, called by the Arabs Beit Djibrin and
1192
by the Franks Ibelin of the Hospital; the latter title, derived
from its owners the Knights of Saint John, being added to
distinguish it from the other Ibelin, on the coast further north.
Its site was probably that of the ancient Eleutheropolis, and
it was a central point whence roads radiated in all directions,
to Gaza, to Hebron, to Blanchegarde and Toron of the
Knights (Natroun), to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. When—probably
on June 1—the host left the Canebrake of Starlings,
its destination was apparently understood to be
Ibelin. The pilgrims seem to have proceeded along the
border of the plain to a point—probably Galatia—whence
a road ran eastward to Ibelin and westward to Ascalon.[917]
June
Here they halted and spent two or three days, “suffering a
fierce persecution and strange martyrdom” from swarms of
minute flies which stung them in every exposed part with
such poisonous effect that “they all looked like lepers,” but
buoyed up above all troubles by their confident hope of
reaching Jerusalem at last. One alone sat gloomily in his
tent apart, absorbed in ceaseless thought; and that one
was the king.[918]
June 3
As Richard sat thus one day he saw a chaplain from his
own land, William of Poitiers, walking up and down before
the open door of the tent, and weeping bitterly. This man
longed to remonstrate with his sovereign for proposing to
desert the Holy Land in its present perilous condition; but
he lacked a fitting opportunity, and was afraid to use one
when it came. Richard called him in and said: “For what
are you weeping? By the fealty that you owe me, tell me
1192
the truth at once.” “Sire,” answered the priest through his
tears, “I will not tell you till you have promised not to be
wroth with me.” Richard gave his word on oath that he
would bear him no grudge. Then William spoke with the
impassioned and abundant eloquence of the south. He
bade the king call to mind how all his past career had been a
series of exploits and successes so remarkable as to be
manifestly due to the special grace and protection of Heaven;
his early triumphs, when only count of Poitou, over hostile
neighbours and Brabantine hordes far outnumbering his
little forces; his peaceful and undisputed succession to the
throne; his almost instantaneous victory over the Griffons
at Messina; his rapid conquest of Cyprus; his providential
encounter with the Saracen ship whose freight, had it reached
Acre, might have saved that city for Islam; his timely
arrival at Acre, and the prominent share which he had had
in effecting its surrender; his recovery from the sickness
of which so many other Crusaders had died; the deliverance
of the prisoners at Darum, and the speedy capture of that
fortress, whereof he had been the chosen instrument; and
his own deliverance from the Turks who had nearly captured
him in his sleep. “Remember how God has given thee such
great honour that no king of thy age ever had so few mishaps—how
often He has helped thee, and how He helps thee still.
He has done such great things for thee that thou needest fear
neither king nor baron. Remember all this, O king, and
guard this land whereof He has made thee protector! for
He placed it wholly in thy keeping when the other king
turned back; and all men, great and small, to whom thy
honour is dear, say that if thou, who wert wont to be a
father and brother to the Christian cause, shouldst forsake
it now, thou wilt have betrayed it to death.”[919]
To all this Richard listened without speaking a word,
1192
and when the priest’s discourse was ended he made no
comment or reply. But he pondered over it; “and his
thoughts were enlightened.” Next day (June 4) the host
was led westward, and by the hour of nones found itself
once more in the fields around Ascalon.[920] Everybody took
this to mean that the king intended to set out for Europe
at once. Instead, he told his nephew and the other nobles
that “for no other concern or need, no messenger and no
tidings, nor for any earthly quarrel, would he depart from
them or quit the land before next Easter.” Then he called
for his herald Philip, and bade him proclaim throughout
Ascalon, in God’s Name, that the king had with his own
lips promised to stay in the land till Easter, and that all men
were to make themselves ready with whatsoever means
God had given them, for they were going to Jerusalem to
besiege it straightway.[921]
