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The remainder of the English stay was to see the Franks inching ever closer to Jerusalem. Jaffa, the southernmost stronghold of the Crusaders, was to mark the high tide of Angevin ambition.
The story of its siege also shows how women and children were in the front lines of action throughout the war.
On July 26, 1192, Saladin attacked Jaffa by surprise. The town had been garrisoned by about 100 of Richard's men, plus a number of their wives and children. A vast Saracen army assailed the walls, to be met with unflinching courage by those within. Beha ed Din described how the Turkish sappers dug beneath the ramparts, propping them up with wood until the signal was given to set the wood burning. The wall collapsed. But as it did, a terrible sight revealed itself to the waiting Turkish troops. The Christians had set another equally large fire inside the wall to protect the breach. Vainly, Saladin attempted to drive his men on.
The Franks fought them toe to toe.
"Oh my God, what men! What courage! What bravery! What strength of soul!"
came the admiring, despairing cry of their adversaries.
Here were the people of Europe at their barbaric, courageous best, resisting when outnumbered, even to death.
The Franks disdained to close the gates of the lower town, standing in front of the walls, disputing each foot of ground. The held out until night ended the conflict. Next day, the fighting began again, once more the walls were attacked, and the thundering drums and trumpets maddened man and beast alike. Then, the walls collapsed, with a roar that sounded as if the end of the world was come. Shouting victory cries, the Moslems rushed to attack. What happened next has the feel of romance about it, if it was not vouched for by eyewitnesses. The single minded courage of the Christian settles of Jaffa in defence of their new home still has the power to send a shiver down the spine.
As the dust and smoke cleared, the Christian warriors were revealed, standing like a forest whose branches were impenetrable spears and pikes.
The Saracens reeled back, appalled, momentarily baffled by the coolness under fire of their enemy.
But it was obvious that the Christians, outnumbered perhaps a thousand to one, could not go on. In the midst of hand to hand fighting, Saladin offered them an honourable surrender, but advised them to retreat to the citadel. His troops were out of his control, bent on looting the now open town.
The Christians and their families made for safety in the last stronghold, while Saladin's men plundered in the town below them.
Meanwhile, Richard had already set sail with a fleet from Acre.
The next day, his sails were visible, as the final details of the surrender were being worked out. Saladin was anxious to avoid insult or injury to the surrendering Franks. He had his emirs whip the looting troops out of the lower town, so the Franks could be evacuated safely. This was entirely in keeping with the solicitude that Saladin always displayed for enemies, especially when women and children were present. He was the one person in the history of Outremer who apparently took his vows of chivalry seriously - he was probably knighted while a captive in his youth - and if there is truly a hero of the whole sorry affair known as the Crusades, it is he.
The sun had well risen by the time the Christians began to issue forth. They came out as beaten men, bringing with them their wives and children: forty nine people in all.
But a handful of men had remained behind, and these spotted Richard's red galley leading 50 ships.
The Christians suddenly took up arms again, and began to attack the Moslems still inside the town. Meanwhile, the fleet had anchored off the port: Moslem flags now floated over the town, and Richard thought he was too late. But one of the besieged risked his neck, leaping from the roof of the castle onto a heap of sand, and then swimming out to the vessels at anchor.
Soon, the Christians were pouring ashore, Richard at their lead, the first to step on the beach: the entire army of the Saracens - led by Saladin - fled in terror.
Five days later Richard was still holding the town, with ten knights and one hundred foot soldiers, when Saladin reappeared again at the head of his regrouped army.
There was to be no battle.
Saladin's troops still smarted from the whip blows that had driven them from their loot, and Richard's reputation as a fierce and terrible king had become magnified into the status of a legend.
Saladin and his son rode up and down the lines of their troops in vain, trying to urge them to join in combat with the troops of Richard.
At last, it was left to Richard to gallop his battle steed the entire length of the Moslem army, his lance in the rest position, ready to strike, and not a single Saracen warrior dared to test his strength.7
Here was the ultimate moment of the Angevin dynasty, symbolic of the greatness, and the failure, of that remarkable family.
For one brief period in 1192, Richard and his mother - she was currently styling herself Queen of England - ruled virtually from the border with Scotland to the gates of Jerusalem, through Normandy, Maine, Poitou, the Aquitaine, via allies in Spain brought with the marriage to Berengaria and through Tancred in Sicily, across the Mediterranean, on the island of Cyprus, and down the coast of Outremer.
It was a tottering empire, however, as false as the emotions in the lovesong of a troubadour, as empty of sustenance as the mirages that the Crusaders had come to know in the Palestinian deserts.
Richard was unable to take Jerusalem, perhaps because he lacked the vital support of the remaining French troops. According to numerous sources, the Duke of Burgundy refused support for an advance on the city because the French king had already returned home, and would therefore be unable to share in the honour of the capture.
It seems that Richard had good intelligence that the city was about to fall, thanks to the spying agency of a Syrian nun within the walls. She was sending him regular information about the lack of spirit of the Saracen defenders, and advised him to attack the only strongly defended tower, that of St Stephen, for which she had the key.8
At home, Eleanor was trying to balance the warring factions that had formed around the camps of the chancellor and her son John. In Palestine,
Richard was trapped, unable to finish off Saladin and take Jerusalem, but forced to be everywhere at once, holding the kingdom together with his personal will and his physical strength.
It became obvious as the months dragged by that a stalemate had been achieved in the
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