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support, is eloquent. On the other hand, some chroniclers claimed that Richard found comfort in the company of the Cypriot princess during his stay in the East.
Life in the camp would have been dramatic enough. There were mighty clashes between besieged and besiegers, interspersed with a lull while Richard convalesced, reaching a crescendo of fervour as he recovered a litle, and then personally stormed the battlements, planting his standards on the walls of Acre.
Unfortunately, there were other banners already in place before he found leisure to display his own symbols before the eyes of the besiegers and their captives.
Berengaria and Joanna were too far from the walls to see that critical moment on July 12 when Richard had the flags of the representative of the emperor, Duke Leopold of Austria, torn from the battlements and replaced by the leopards of England. But they would have known what was common knowledge to everyone: the leaders were fighting amongst themselves, and Philip was about to return home.
After the capture of the city, the kings and their retinues entered in triumphal procession, with dances and joy and loud acclamations, all in the name of God. The city was equally divided: Richard took as his prize the royal palace, and to it he sent the queens, together with their damsels and handmaids.3
They would therefore have known of that awful moment when Richard's teeth were bared, like the beast after which he was named.
It is easy to be shocked from our remote position, hedged by international courts and all the paraphernalia that safeguard individual freedoms and rights, and to try to judge the behaviour of our forebears according to our own standards.
This was a different age, with its own rules. And they were savage. Richard rarely returned from battle without a dozen heads slung from his saddlebow as proof of his prowess.
An agreement was reached to free the brave men, women and children of Acre on payment of a ransom by Saladin. The goods were not forthcoming, so on August 20, Richard had his captives brought out of the city, in full sight of Saladin, and he butchered them.
The desperate Saracens hurled their forces against the Christian positions in a frenzied effort to rescue their fellows. To no avail. The sands of Acre were stained with the blood of nearly three thousand people. It was unquestionably the most bestial mass slaughter since the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusaders.
If nothing else, this was a reminder to Saladin and his troops that they were faced with a new kind of foe - one who did not play at war, but who would use every advantage at his disposal to win.
Rumour has it that Berengaria miscarried at the news.
If this indeed happened, it seems not to have diverted her three months husband from his aim, the capture of the City. Not even the sudden departure of Philip for home, torn as he was by jealousy of his English brother in arms, could divert Richard. Immediately on slaying his prisoners, Richard had it proclaimed that the great march to the south would begin. That day he had his tents pitched in the plain outside the city.
It was to prove a difficult task to go further. But Richard was determined to drag the men from their comfortable billets.
Some he lured with soft words, some by begging, many by money. Some he forced out violently. All came reluctantly - peevishly, in the words of an eyewitness.
It was noticeable that the army outside the walls did not increase, and the city stayed crowded with an immense multitude.
These people, says Richard de Templo, were too much given up to sloth and luxury, for the city was filled with pleasures, notably choicest wine and fairest damsels, and the men had become dissolute in indulging the, Richard proclaimed that no woman should quit the city or go with the army except the serving women and the washerwomen, who alone would not be a burden or an occasion for sin, and who were "worth their weight in monkeys when it comes to delousing."4
The genius of Richard was that he formed an invincible army from the reluctant rabble of the many nations of crusaders: his glory was that he maintained his army's momentum in the face of the irresistible force of the Saracens. He and his men inched their way south, fighting the Saracens almost every step of the way, in a series of remarkable encounters.
The Queens were brought in the king's triumphant wake. First, they came to Arsuf, on September 1, 1191, and then to Jaffa. Richard took a break from fighting at Christmas and visited his queens in a more pleasant setting than the siege camps of Acre. In Arsuf, the climate was less oppressive than at Acre, and the women were freer to indulge in aristocratic pleasures, such as falconry.5
QUEENS IN PAWN
Why did Richard bring the women with him, given that he might only visit them once a year?
The answer seems to be that they were pawns in his strategy, just as he himself was a pawn in his mother's greater game. Ever since her release from gaol, and for some time before, she had been playing for domination of the whole of Europe, through carefully arranged marriages and alliances. Richard was narrower in his vision, fighting tooth and nail for immediate objectives, whether they be to kill an individual, to take a castle, to overrun a country. Together, they were to bestride the little world of their time.
In October 1191, Richard had played the pawn who was his sister Joanna, with breathtaking coldness of spirit. He offered her as the prize that would secure his holdings in Outremer.
The plan was that Joanna should marry Saladin's brother, Melik al-Adhel, and that they should rule Jerusalem.
Richard had, however, reckoned without his sister's Plantagenet temperament. She was truly his sibling, as she demonstrated by flying into an ungovernable rage at the news that she would be forced to marry a Moslem. Richard admitted his bafflement by his sister's will in a letter he sent to Saladin.6
Al Adhel proved equally obdurate, despite tempting offers to convert from his religion for the sake of the title of king of Jerusalem, and nothing came of the proposal.
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