It was at one time quite doubtful whether they would succeed in making good their retreat to Ascalon. The Saracen hors.e.m.e.n hovered in great numbers on the rear of Richard"s army, and made incessant skirmishing attacks upon them. Richard placed a strong body of the Knights of St.
John there to keep them off. These knights were well armed, and they were brave and well-trained warriors. They beat back the Saracens whenever they came near. Still, many of the knights were killed, and straggling parties, from time to time, were cut off, and the whole army was kept in a constant state of suspense and excitement, during the whole march, by the continual danger of an attack. When, at length, they approached the sea-sh.o.r.e, and turned to the south on the way to Ascalon, they were a little more safe, for the sea defended them on one side. Still, the Saracens turned with them, and hovered about their left flank, which was the one that was turned toward the land, and hara.s.sed the march all the way. The progress of the troops was greatly r.e.t.a.r.ded too, as well as made more fatiguing, by the presence of such an enemy; for they were not only obliged to move more slowly when they were advancing, but they could only halt at night in places which were naturally strong and easily to be defended, for fear of an a.s.sault upon their encampment in the night. During the night, too, notwithstanding all the precautions they could take to secure a strong and safe position, the men were continually roused from their slumbers by an alarm that the Saracens were coming upon them, when they would rush from their tents, and seize their arms, and prepare for a combat; and then, after a time, they would learn that the expected attack was only a feint made by a small body of the enemy just to hara.s.s them.
It might seem, at first view, that such a warfare as this would weary and exhaust the pursuers as much as the pursued, but in reality it is not so. In the case of a night alarm, for instance, the whole camp of the Crusaders would be aroused from their sleep by it, and kept in a state of suspense for an hour or more before the truth could be fully ascertained, while to give the alarm would require only a very small party from the army of the Saracens, the main body retiring as usual to sleep, and sleeping all night undisturbed.
At length Richard reached Ascalon in safety, and posted himself within the walls, while Saladin established his camp at a safe distance in the interior of the country. Of course, the first thing which he found was to be done, as has already been remarked, was to repair and strengthen the walls, and it was evident that no time was to be lost in accomplishing this work.
But, unfortunately, the character of the materials of which Richard"s army was composed was not such as to favor any special efficiency in conducting an engineering operation. All the knights, and a large proportion of the common soldiers, deemed themselves gentlemen. They had volunteered to join the crusade from high and romantic notions of chivalry and religion. They were perfectly ready, at any time, to fight the Saracens, and to kill or be killed, whichever fate the fortune of war might a.s.sign them; but to bear burdens, to mix mortar, and to build walls, were occupations far beneath them; and the only way to induce them to take hold of this work seems to have been for the knights and officers to set them the example.
Thus, in repairing the walls of Acre, all the highest officers of the army, with Richard himself at the head of them, took hold of the work with their own hands, and built away on the walls and towers like so many masons. Of course, the body of the soldiery had no excuse for declining the work, when even the king did not consider himself demeaned by it, and the whole army joined in making the reparations with great zeal.
But such kind of zeal as this is not often very enduring. The men had accomplished this work very well at Acre, but now, in undertaking a second operation of the kind, their ardor was found to be somewhat subsided. Besides, they were discouraged and disheartened in some degree by the results of the fruitless campaign they had made into the interior, and worn down by the fatigues they had endured on their march. Still, the knights and n.o.bles generally followed Richard"s example, and worked upon the walls to encourage the soldiery. One, however, absolutely refused; this was Leopold, the Archduke of Austria, whose flag Richard had pulled down from one of the towers in Acre, and trampled upon as it lay on the ground. The archduke had never forgiven this insult.
Indeed, this rudeness on the part of Richard was not a solitary instance of his enmity. It was only a new step taken in an old quarrel. Richard and the duke had been on very ill terms before. The reader will perhaps recollect that when Richard was at Cyprus he made captive a young princess, the daughter of the king, and that he made a present of her, as a handmaid and companion, to Queen Berengaria.
Berengaria and Joanna, when they left Cyprus, brought the young princess with them, and when they were established with the king in the palace at Acre, she remained with them. She was treated kindly, it is true, and was made a member of the family, but still she was a prisoner. Such captives were greatly prized in those days as presents for ladies of high rank, who kept them as pets, just as they would, at the present day, a beautiful Canary bird or a favorite pony. They often made intimate and familiar companions of them, and dressed them with great elegance, and surrounded them with every luxury. Still, notwithstanding this gilding of their chains, the poor captives usually pined away their lives in sorrow, mourning continually to be restored to their father and mother, and to their own proper home.
Now it happened that the Archduke of Austria was a relative, by marriage, of the King of Cyprus, and the princess was his niece; consequently, when she arrived at the camp before Acre as a captive in the hands of the queen, as might naturally have been expected, he took a great interest in her case. He wished to have her released and restored to her father, and he interceded with Richard in her behalf.
But Richard would not release her. He was not willing to take her away from Berengaria. The archduke was angry with the king for this refusal, and a quarrel ensued; and it was partly in consequence of this quarrel, or, rather, of the exasperation of mind that was produced by it, that Richard would not allow the archduke"s banner to float from the towers of Acre when the city fell into their hands.
The archduke felt very keenly the indignity which Richard thus offered him, and though at the time he had no power to revenge it, he remembered it, and remained long in a gloomy and resentful frame of mind. And now, while Richard was endeavoring to encourage and stimulate the soldiers to work on the walls, by inducing the knights and barons to join him in setting the example, Leopold refused. He said that he was neither the son of a carpenter nor of a mason, that he should go to work like a laborer to build walls. Richard was enraged at this answer, and, as the story goes, flew at Leopold in his pa.s.sion, and struck and kicked him. He also immediately turned the archduke and all his va.s.sals out of the town, declaring that they should not share the protection of walls that they would not help to build; so they were obliged to encamp without, in company with that portion of the army that could not be accommodated within the walls.
But, notwithstanding the bad example set thus by the archduke, far the greater portion of the knights, and barons, and high officers of the army joined very heartily in the work of building the walls. Even the bishops, and abbots, and other monks, as well as the military n.o.bles, took hold of the work with great zeal, and the repairs went on much more rapidly than could have been expected. During all this time the army kept their communications open with the other towns along the coast--with Jaffa, and Acre, and other strongholds, so that at length the whole sh.o.r.e was well fortified, and secure in their possession.
Saladin, during all this time, had distributed his troops in various encampments along the line parallel with the coast, and at some distance from it, and for some weeks the two armies remained, in a great degree, quiet in their several positions. The Crusaders were too much diminished in numbers by the privations and the sickness which they had undergone, as well as by the losses they had suffered in battle, and too much weakened by their internal dissensions, to go out of their strongholds to attack Saladin, while, on the other hand, they were too well protected by the walls of the towns to which they had retreated for Saladin to attack them. Both sides were waiting for re-enforcements. Saladin was indeed continually receiving accessions to his army from the interior, and Richard was expecting them from Europe. He sent to a distinguished ecclesiastic, named the Abbot of Clairvaux, who had a high reputation in Europe, and enjoyed great influence at many of the princ.i.p.al courts. In his letter to the abbot, he requested him to visit the different courts, and urge upon the princes and the people of the different countries the necessity that they should come to the rescue of the Christian cause in the Holy Land. Unless they were willing, he said, that all hope of regaining possession of the Holy Land should be abandoned, they must come with large re-enforcements, and that, too, without any delay.
During the period of delay occasioned by these circ.u.mstances, there was a sort of truce established between the two armies, and the knights on each side mingled together frequently on very friendly terms. Indeed, it was the pride and glory of soldiers in this chivalrous age to treat each other, when not in actual conflict, in a very polite and courteous manner, as if they were not animated by any personal resentment against their enemies, but only by a spirit of fidelity to the prince who commanded them, or to the cause in which they were engaged. Accordingly, when, for any reason, the war was for a time suspended, the combatants became immediately the best friends in the world, and actually vied with each other to see which should evince the most generous courtesy toward their opponents.
On the present occasion they often made visits to each other, and they arranged tournaments and other military celebrations which were attended by the knights and chieftains on both sides. Richard and Saladin often sent each other handsome presents. At one time when Richard was sick, Saladin sent him a quant.i.ty of delicious fruit from Damascus. The Damascus gardens have been renowned in every age for the peaches, pears, figs, and other fruits which they produce, and especially for a peculiar plum, famous through all the East. Saladin sent a supply of this fruit to Richard when he heard that he was sick, and accompanied his present with very earnest and, perhaps, very sincere inquiries in respect to the condition of the patient, and expressions of his wishes for his recovery.
The disposition of the two commanders to live on friendly terms with each other at this time was increased by the hope which Richard entertained that he might, by some possibility, come to an amicable agreement with Saladin in respect to Jerusalem, and thus bring the war to an end. He was beginning to be thoroughly discontented with his situation, and with every thing pertaining to the war. Nothing since the first capture of Acre had really gone well. His army had been repulsed in its attempt to advance into the interior, and was now hemmed in by the enemy on every side, and shut up in a few towns on the sea-coast. The men under his command had been greatly diminished in numbers, and, though sheltered from the enemy, the force that remained was gradually wasting away from the effects of exposure to the climate and from fatigue. There was no prospect of any immediate re-enforcements arriving from Europe, and no hope, without them, of being able to take the field successfully against Saladin.
Besides all this, Richard was very uneasy in respect to the state of affairs in his own dominions, in England and in Normandy. He distrusted the promises that Philip had made, and was very anxious lest he might, when he arrived in France, take advantage of Richard"s absence, and, under some pretext or other, invade some of his provinces. From England he was continually receiving very unfavorable tidings. His mother Eleanora, to whom he had committed some general oversight of his interests during his absence, was beginning to write him alarming letters in respect to certain intrigues which were going on in England, and which threatened to deprive him of his English kingdom altogether. She urged him to return as soon as possible.
Richard was exceedingly anxious to comply with this recommendation, but he could not abandon his army in the condition in which it then was, nor could he honorably withdraw it without having previously come to some agreement with Saladin by which the Holy Sepulchre could be secured to the possession of the Christians.
This being the state of the case, he had every motive for pressing the negotiations, and for cultivating, while they were in progress, the most friendly relations possible with Saladin, and for persevering in pressing them as long as the least possible hope remained.
Accordingly, during all this time Richard treated Saladin with the greatest courtesy. He sent him many presents, and paid him many polite attentions. All this display of urbanity toward each other, on the part of these ferocious and bloodthirsty men, has been actually attributed by mankind to the instinctive n.o.bleness and generosity of the spirit of chivalry; but, in reality, as is indeed too often the case with the pretended n.o.bleness and generosity of rude and violent men, a cunning and far-seeing selfishness lay at the bottom of it.
In the course of these negotiations, Richard declared to Saladin that all which the Christians desired was the possession of Jerusalem and the restoration of the true cross, and he said that surely some terms could be devised on which Saladin could concede those two points. But Saladin replied that Jerusalem was as sacred a place in the eyes of Mussulmans, and as dear to them, as it was to the Christians, and that they could on no account give it up. In respect to the true cross, the Christians, he said, if they could obtain it, would worship it in an idolatrous manner, as they did their other relics; and as the law of the Prophet in the Koran forbade idolatry, they could not conscientiously give it up. "By so doing," said he, "we should be accessories to the sin."
It was in consequence of the insuperable objections which arose against an absolute surrender of Jerusalem to the Christians that the negotiations took the turn which led to the proposal of a marriage between the ex-Queen Joanna and Saphadin; for, when Richard found that no treaty was possible that would give him full possession of Jerusalem, and the letters which he received from England made more and more urgent the necessity that he should return, he conceived the plan of a sort of joint occupancy of the Holy City by Mussulmans and Christians together. This was to be effected by means of the proposed marriage. The marriage was to be the token and pledge of a surrendering, on both sides, of the bitter fanaticism which had hitherto animated them, and of their determination henceforth to live in peace, notwithstanding their religious differences. If this state of feeling could be once established, there would be no difficulty, it was thought, in arranging some sort of mixed government for Jerusalem that would secure access to the holy places by both Mussulmans and Christians, and accomplish the ends of the war to the satisfaction of all.
It was said that Richard proposed this plan, and that both Saladin and Saphadin evinced a willingness to accede to it, but that it was defeated by the influence of the priests on both sides. The imams among the Mussulmans, and the bishops and monks in Richard"s army, were equally shocked at this plan of making a "compromise of principle," as they considered it, and forming a compact between evil and good. The men of each party devoutly believed that the cause which their side espoused was the cause of G.o.d, and that that of the other was the cause of Satan, and neither could tolerate for a moment any proposal for a union, or an alliance of any kind, between elements so utterly antagonistical. And it was in vain, as both commanders knew full well, to attempt to carry such an arrangement into effect against the conviction of the priests; for they had, on both sides, so great an influence over the ma.s.ses of the people that, without their approval, or at least their acquiescence, nothing could be done.
So the plan of an alliance and union between the Christians and the Mohammedans, with a view to a joint occupancy and guardianship of the holy places in Jerusalem was finally abandoned, and Joanna gave up the hope, or was released from the fear, as the case may have been, of having a Saracen for a husband.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS.
1191
The conquest of Jerusalem by G.o.dfrey of Bouillon.--History of the contest for the t.i.tle of King of Jerusalem.--A delicate question.--The Crusaders" motives.--How Richard and Philip took sides in the quarrel.--The reason of the importance of the quarrel.--The French maintain Conrad"s cause.--Richard"s bargain with Guy.--Richard"s reasons for acceding to Conrad"s cause.--The coronation of Conrad.--His a.s.sa.s.sination.--The Ha.s.sa.s.sins.--The Old Man of the Mountains and his followers.--The reckless spirit of the Ha.s.sa.s.sins.--Seizure of the murderers.--The torture as a means of eliciting evidence.--Conflicting accounts.--Uncertainty respecting the motive of Conrad"s murder.--False and spurious honor.--General opinion of Richard"s conduct.--Suspicions of Philip.--The events consequent on Conrad"s death.--Appearance of Count Henry.--He becomes king of Jerusalem.--The question at rest.--Dissatisfaction.--The king"s proclamation.
One of the greatest sources of trouble and difficulty which Richard experienced in managing his heterogeneous ma.s.s of followers was the quarrel which has been already alluded to between the two knights who claimed the right to be the King of Jerusalem, whenever possession of that city should by any means be obtained. The reader will recollect, perhaps, that it has already been stated that a very renowned Crusader, named G.o.dfrey of Bouillon, had penetrated, about a hundred years before this time, into the interior of the Holy Land, at the head of a large army, and there had taken possession of Jerusalem; that the earls, and barons, and other prominent knights in his army had chosen him king of the city, and fixed the crown and the royal t.i.tle upon him and his descendants forever; that when Jerusalem was itself, after a time, lost, the t.i.tle still remained in G.o.dfrey"s family, and that it descended to a princess named Sibylla; that a knight named Guy of Lusignan married Sibylla, and then claimed the t.i.tle of King of Jerusalem in the right of his wife; that, in process of time, Sibylla died, and then one party claimed that the rights of her husband, Guy of Lusignan, ceased, since he held them only through his wife, and that thenceforward the t.i.tle and the crown vested in Isabella, her sister, who was the next heir; that Isabella, however, was married to a man who was too feeble and timid to a.s.sert his claims; that, consequently, a more bold and unscrupulous knight, named Conrad of Montferrat, seized her and carried her off, and afterward procured a divorce for her from her former husband, and married her himself; and that then a great quarrel arose between Guy of Lusignan, the husband of Sibylla, and Conrad of Montferrat, the husband of Isabella. This quarrel had now been raging a long time, and all attempts to settle it or to compromise it had proved wholly unavailing.
The ground which Guy and his friends and adherents took was, that while they admitted that Guy held the t.i.tle of King of Jerusalem in the right of his wife, and that his wife was now dead, still, being once invested with the crown, it was his for life, and he could not justly be deprived of it. After his death it might descend very properly to the next heir, but during his lifetime it vested in him.
Conrad, on the other hand, and the friends and adherents who espoused his cause, argued that, since Guy had no claim whatever except what came in and through his wife, of course, when his wife died, his possession ought to terminate. If Sibylla had had children, the crown would have descended to one of them; but she being without direct heirs, it pa.s.sed, of right, to Isabella, her sister, and that Isabella"s husband was ent.i.tled to claim and take possession of it in her name.
It is obvious that this was a very nice and delicate question, and it would have been a very difficult one for a company of gay and reckless soldiers like the Crusaders to settle if they had attempted to look at it simply as a question of law and right; but the Crusaders seldom troubled themselves with examining legal arguments, and still less with seeking for and applying principles of justice and right in taking sides in the contests that arose among them. The question for each man to consider in such cases was simply, "Which side is it most for my interests and those of my party that we should espouse? We will take that;" or, "Which side are my rivals and enemies, or those of their party, going to take? We will take the other."
It was by such considerations as these that the different princes, and n.o.bles, and orders of knights in the army decided how they would range themselves on this great question. As has already been explained, Richard took up the cause of Guy, who claimed through the deceased Sibylla. He had been induced to do so, not by any convictions which he had formed in respect to the merits of the case, but because Guy had come to him while he was in Cyprus, and had made such proposals there in respect to a conjunction with him that Richard deemed it for his interest to accept them. In a similar way, Conrad had waited upon Philip as soon as he arrived before Acre, and had induced him to espouse his, Conrad"s, side. If there were two orders of knights in the army, or two bodies of soldiery, that were at ill-will with each other through rivalry, or jealousy, or former quarrels, they would always separate on this question of the King of Jerusalem; and just as certainly as one of them showed a disposition to take the side of Guy, the other would immediately go over to that of Conrad, and then these old and half-smothered contentions would break out anew.
Thus this difficulty was not only a serious quarrel itself, but it was the means of reviving and giving new force and intensity to a vast number of other quarrels.
It may seem strange that a question like this, which related, as it would appear, to only an empty t.i.tle, should have been deemed so important; but, in reality, there was something more than the mere t.i.tle at issue. Although, for the time being, the Christians were excluded from Jerusalem, they were all continually hoping to be very soon restored to the possession of it, and then the king of the city would become a very important personage, not only in his own estimation and in that of the army of Crusaders, but in that of all Christendom. No one knew but that in a few months Jerusalem might come into their hands, either by being retaken through force of arms, or by being ceded in some way through Richard"s negotiations with Saladin; and, of course, the greater the probability was that this event would happen, the more important the issue of the quarrel became, and the more angry with each other, and excited, were the parties to it. Thus Richard found that all his plans for getting possession of Jerusalem were grievously impeded by these dissensions; for the nearer he came, at any time, to the realization of his hopes, the more completely were his efforts to secure the end paralyzed by the increased violence and bitterness of the quarrel that reigned among his followers.
The princ.i.p.al supporters of the cause of Conrad were the French, and they formed so numerous and powerful a portion of the army, and they had, withal, so great an influence over other bodies of troops from different parts of Europe, that Richard could not successfully resist them and maintain Guy"s claims, and he finally concluded to give up, or to pretend to give up, the contest.
So he made an arrangement with Guy to relinquish his claims on condition of his receiving the kingdom of Cyprus instead, the unhappy Isaac, the true king of that island, shut up in the Syrian dungeon to which Richard had consigned him, being in no condition to resist this disposition of his dominions. Richard then agreed that Conrad should be acknowledged as King of Jerusalem, and, to seal and settle the question, it was determined that he should be crowned forthwith.
It was supposed at the time that one reason which induced Richard to give up Guy and adopt Conrad as the future sovereign of the Holy City was, that Conrad was a far more able warrior, and a more influential and powerful man than Guy, and altogether a more suitable person to be left in command of the army in case of Richard"s return to England, provided, in the mean time, Jerusalem should be taken; and, moreover, he was much more likely to succeed as a leader of the troops in a march against the city in case Richard were to leave before the conquest should be effected. It turned out, however, in the end, as will be seen in the sequel, that the views with which Richard adopted this plan were of a very different character.
Conrad was already the King of Tyre. The position which he thus held was, in fact, one of the elements of his power and influence among the Crusaders. It was determined that his coronation as King of Jerusalem should take place at Tyre, and, accordingly, as soon as the arrangement of the question had been fully and finally agreed upon, all parties proceeded to Tyre, and there commenced at once the preparations for a magnificent coronation. All the princ.i.p.al chieftains and dignitaries of the army that could be spared from the other posts along the coast went to Tyre to be present at the coronation, the whole army, with the exception of a few malcontents, being filled with joy and satisfaction that the question which had so long distracted their councils and paralyzed their efforts was now at length finally disposed of.
These bright prospects were all, however, suddenly blighted and destroyed by an unexpected event, which struck every one with consternation, and put all things back into a worse condition than before. As Conrad was pa.s.sing along the streets of Tyre one day, two men rushed upon him, and with small daggers, which they plunged into his side, slew him. They were so sudden in their movement that all was over before any one could come to Conrad"s rescue, but the men who committed the deed were seized and put to the torture. They belonged to a tribe of Arabs called Ha.s.sa.s.sins.[F] This appellation was taken from the Arabic name of the dagger, which was the only armor that they wore. Of course, with such a weapon as this, they could do nothing effectual in a regular battle with their enemies. Nor was this their plan. They never came out and met their enemies in battle. They lived among the mountains in a place by themselves, under the command of a famous chieftain, whom they called the _Ancient_, and sometimes the _Lord of the Mountains_. The Christians called him the _Old Man of the Mountains_, and under this name he and his band of followers acquired great fame.
[Footnote F: The English word _a.s.sa.s.sins_ comes from the name of these men.]
They were, in fact, not much more than a regularly-organized band of robbers and murderers. The men were extremely wily and adroit; they could adopt any disguise, and penetrate without suspicion wherever they chose to go. They were trained, too, to obey, in the most unhesitating and implicit manner, any orders whatever that the chieftain gave them. Sometimes they were sent out to rob; sometimes to murder an individual enemy, who had, in some way or other, excited the anger of the chief. Thus, if any leader of an armed force attempted to attack them, or if any officer of government adopted any measures to bring them to justice, they would not openly resist, but would fly to their dens and fastnesses, and conceal themselves there, and then soon afterward the chieftain would send out his emissaries, dressed in a suitable disguise, and with their little _ha.s.sa.s.sins_ under their robes, to watch an opportunity and kill the offender. It is true they were usually, in such cases, at once seized, and were often put to death with horrible tortures; but so great was their enthusiasm in the cause of their chief, and so high the exaltation of spirit to which the point of honor carried them, that they feared nothing, and were never known to shrink from the discharge of what they deemed their duty.
The stabs which the two Ha.s.sa.s.sins gave to Conrad were so effectual that he fell dead upon the spot. The people that were near rushed to his a.s.sistance, and while some gathered round the bleeding body, and endeavored to stanch the wounds, others seized the murderers and bore them off to the castle. They would have pulled them to pieces by the way if they had not desired to reserve them for the torture.
The torture is, of course, in every respect, a wretched way of eliciting evidence. So far as it is efficacious at all in eliciting declarations, it tends to lead the sufferer, in thinking what he shall say, to consider, not what is the truth, but what is most likely to satisfy his tormentors and make them release him. Accordingly, men under torture say any thing which they suppose their questioners wish to hear. At one moment it is one thing, and the next it is another, and the men who conduct the examination can usually report from it any result they please.
A story gained great credit in the army, and especially among the French portion of it, immediately after the examination of these men, that they said that they had been hired by Richard himself to kill Conrad, and this story produced every where the greatest excitement and indignation. On the other hand, the friends of Richard declared that the Ha.s.sa.s.sins had stated that they were sent by their chieftain, the Old Man of the Mountain, and that the cause was a quarrel that had long been standing between Conrad and him. It is true that there had been such a quarrel, and, consequently, that the Old Man would be, doubtless, very willing that Conrad should be killed. Indeed, it is probable that, if Richard was really the original instigator of the murder, he would have made the arrangement for it with the Old Man, and not directly with the subordinates. It was, in fact, a part of the regular and settled business of this tribe to commit murders for pay.
The chieftain might have the more readily undertaken this case from having already a quarrel of his own with Conrad on hand. It was never fully ascertained what the true state of the case was. The Arab historians maintain that it was Richard"s work. The English writers, on the contrary, throw the blame on the Old Man. The English writers maintain, moreover, that the deed was one which such a man as Richard was very little likely to perform. He was, it is true, they say, a very rude and violent man--daring, reckless, and often unjust, and even cruel--but he was not treacherous. What he did, he did in the open day; and he was wholly incapable of such a deed as pretending deceitfully that he would accede to Conrad"s claims with a view of throwing him off his guard, and then putting him to death by means of hired murderers.
This reasoning will seem satisfactory to us or otherwise, according to the views we like to entertain in respect to the genuineness of the sense of generosity and honor which is so much boasted of as a characteristic of the spirit of chivalry. Some persons place great reliance upon it, and think that so gallant and courageous a knight as Richard must have been incapable of any such deed as a secret a.s.sa.s.sination. Others place very little reliance upon it. They think that the generosity and n.o.bleness of mind to which this cla.s.s of men make such great pretension is chiefly a matter of outside show and parade, and that, when it serves their purpose, they are generally ready to resort to any covert and dishonest means which will help them to accomplish their ends, however truly dishonorable such means may be, provided they can conceal their agency in them. For my part, I am strongly inclined to the latter opinion, and to believe that there is nothing in the human heart that we can really rely upon in respect to human conduct and character but sound and consistent moral principle.
At any rate, it is unfortunate for Richard"s cause that among those who were around him at the time, and who knew his character best, the prevailing opinion was against him. It was generally believed in the army that he was really the secret author of Conrad"s death. The event produced a prodigious excitement throughout the camp. When the news reached Europe, it awakened a very general indignation there, especially among those who were inclined to be hostile to Richard.
Philip, the King of France, professed to be alarmed for his own safety. "He has employed murderers to kill Conrad, my friend and ally," said he, "and the next thing will be that he will send some of the Old Man of the Mountain"s emissaries to thrust their daggers into me."
So he organized an extra guard to watch at the gates of his palace, and to attend him whenever he went out, and gave them special instructions to watch against the approach of any suspicious strangers. The Emperor of Germany too, and the Archduke of Austria, whom Richard had before made his enemies, were filled with rage and resentment against him, the effects of which he subsequently felt very severely.
In the mean time, the excitement in the camp immediately on the death of Conrad became very strong, and it led to serious disturbances. The French troops rose in arms and attempted to seize Tyre. Isabella, Conrad"s wife, in whose name Conrad had held the t.i.tle to the crown of Jerusalem, fled to the citadel, and fortified herself there with such troops as adhered to her. The camp was in confusion, and there was imminent danger that the two parties into which the army was divided would come to open war. At this juncture, a certain nephew of Richard"s, Count Henry of Champagne, made his appearance. He persuaded the people of Tyre to put him in command of the town; and supported as he was by Richard"s influence, and by the acquiescence of Isabella, he succeeded in restoring something like order. Immediately afterward he proposed to Isabella that she should marry him. She accepted his proposal, and so he became King of Jerusalem in her name.