Page:The Queens of England.djvu/80

 66 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. two years which followed his accession to the throne, he evi- dently maintained his desire to be wedded to her. Never- theless, long after this passion commenced, that is, in 1189, he would have married Alice of France, for the sake of the advantages which that alliance would then have brought to him. When, however, he became king, and needed no longer the support of Philip, he prepared himself to take for his bride, coeteris paribus, her whom personally he preferred ; and for this purpose he- dispatched his mother to Navarre, to obtain for him the hand of the Princess Berengaria. To the proposition of Queen Eleanor, Sancho the Sixth gladly acceded, and into her custody surrendered his willing daughter. They then bade farewell to his court, and commenced their journey to Naples, not to England; for by this time Richard, insatiate of military renown, had completed his preparations for his crusade against the infidels. On the plains of Vezelay, on the borders of Burgundy, Philip and Richard had assembled their mighty forces ; and there, after swearing mutually good faith, and to hold each other's dominions sacred during their absence, they arranged the plans of their expedition. Philip then took the road to Genoa, and Richard departed for Mar- seilles ; from which ports they embarked, environed by their respective and formidable armaments. Probably Richard's intention was to have touched at Naples to receive his bride ; but if this intention ever existed, it was defeated by a tempest, which compelled him to take shelter with his whole navy in the harbor of Messina, whither Philip, by the same ill wind, was also necessitated to fly for refuge. Through this disastrous influence of the elements occurred events which not only threatened for a time to prevent his union with the fair Navarese, but matured, if not sowed, those seeds of dissension between the two haughty monarchs which ultimately induced the failure of their expedition against the Saracens. In the inactivity which this unlucky incident occasioned, alone existed sufficient elements of mischief ; but many other adverse causes combined to strengthen irritation and animosity between the jealous and fiery chiefs of France and England. An artful Italian prince, Tancred, King of Naples and Sicily, was the great promoter of these divisions ; in order that their minds might be so engrossed by their mutual antipathy, that neither of them should have thought or leisure to be inimical