Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/127

 RICHARD CCEUR .DE LION 73 to Normandy, united his forces with those of Philip Augustus in the plain of Vezelay on July i, 1190. The two friends proceeded together at the head of an army of more than 100,000 men as far as Lyons, where they separated on the 3ist ; Philip taking the road to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, where he was to meet his fleet. The fleet, however, not arriving so soon as was expected, Rich- ard in his impatience hired thirty small vessels for the conveyance of himself and his suite, and, sailing for Naples, arrived there on August 28th. On September 8th he proceeded by sea to Salerno, where he remained till the 23d, and then sailed for Messina, which port his fleet had reached about a week before, with the army, which it had taken on board at Marseilles. The French king had also arrived at Messina a few days before his brother of England. The two kings remained together at Messina till the end of March, 1191. During their stay Richard compelled Tancred, who had usurped the crown of Sicily, to relinquish the dower of his sister Joan, the widow of William, the late sovereign, and to pay him besides forty thousand ounces of gold. In return he betrothed his nephew, Arthur, the son of his next brother, Geoffrey, to Tancred's infant daughter, and formed a league offensive and defensive with the Sicilian king a connection which afterward cost him dear, for it was the source of the enmity of the Emperor Henry VI., who had married Constantia, the aunt of William, and claimed the throne of Sicily in right of his wife. After the dispute with Tancred had been settled, the latent rivalry of Richard and Philip broke out in a quarrel about the Princess Adelais, whom her brother Philip insisted that Richard should espouse, in conformity with their betrothment, now that his father no longer lived to oppose their union. But if Richard had ever cared anything for the French princess, that attachment had now been obliterated by another, which he had some years before formed for Berengaria, the beautiful daughter of Sancho VI. (styled the Wise), King of Navarre ; in fact he had by this time sent his mother Eleanor to her father's court to solicit that lady in marriage, and, his proposals having been accepted, the two were now actually on their way to join him. In these circumstances Philip found himself obliged to recede from his demand ; and the matter was arranged by an agreement that Richard should pay a sum of ten thousand marks, in five yearly instalments, and restore Adelais, who had previously been conducted into England, and the places of strength that had been given along with her as her marriage portion, when he should have returned from Palestine. Richard, having sent his mother home to England, sailed from Messina on April ;th, at the head of a fleet of about two hundred ships, of which fifty-three were large vessels of the sort styled galleys ; his sister, the queen dowager of Sic- ily, and the Princess Berengaria accompanying him. The King of France had set sail about a week before. Several months, however, elapsed before Richard reached the Holy Land, having been detained by an attack which he made upon the island of Cyprus ; Isaac, the king, or emperor, of which had ill used the crews of some of the English ships that had been driven upon his coasts in a storm. Richard took Limasol, the capital, by assault ; and that blow was soon followed