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.never been a popular king, and during the siege his wifeSibyl and their two daughters had died, while his rival, Conradmarquis of Montferrat, had persuaded her sister Isabel todivorce her husband and to marry him.The result was aconflict for the crown, which divided the interests and embit-tered the spirits of those whom the crusaders had come toaid.Philip had declared for Conrad.Guy was a man some-what of Richard s own type, and he would have been at-tracted to him apart from the natural effect of Philip s action.One who is disposed to deny to Richard the qualities of thehighest generalship must admit that he handled the difficultand complicated affairs he had to control with great patienceand unusual self-command, and that he probably accom-plished as much in the circumstances as any one couldhave done.The siege was now pressed with more vigour, and beforethe middle of July, Acre surrendered.Then Philip, whoseheart was always in his plans at home, pleaded ill health andreturned to France.After this began the slow advance onJerusalem, Saladin s troops hanging on the line of march andconstantly attacking in small bodies, while the crusaders suf-fered greatly from the climate and from lack of supplies. THE CRUSADESo great the difficulties which Richard had not foreseen CHAP.that at one time he was disposed to give up the attempt andto secure what he could by treaty, but the negotiations failed.The battle of Arsuf gave him an opportunity to exercise hispeculiar talents, and the Saracens were badly defeated; butthe advance was not made any the easier.By the last dayof the year the army had struggled through to within tenmiles of the holy city.There a halt was made; a council ofwar was held on January I and it was decided, muchagainst the will of Richard, to return and occupy Ascalon beforeattempting to take and hold Jerusalem -probably a wise de-cision unless the city were to be held merely as material fornegotiation.Various attempts to bring the war to an end bytreaty had been going on during the whole march; Richardhad even offered his sister, Joanna, in marriage to Saladin sbrother, whether seriously or not it is hardly possible to saythe demands of the two parties remained too far apartfor an agreement to be reached.The winter and spring wereoccupied with the refortification of Ascalon and with thedissensions of the factions, the French finally withdrawingfrom Richard s army and going to Acre.In April the Mar-quis Conrad was assassinated by emissaries of the Old Manof the Mountain had little support for the throneexcept from Richard; and both parties found it easy to agreeon Henry of Champagne, grandson of Queen Eleanor andLouis VII, and so nephew at once of Philip and Richard, andhe was immediately proclaimed king on marrying Conrad swidow, Isabel.Richard provided for Guy by transferring tohim the island of Cyprus as a new kingdom.On June beganthe to Jerusalem, the army this time sufferingfrom the heats of summer as before they had suffered fromthe winter climate of Palestine.They reached the samepoint as in the first advance, and there halted again andthough all were greatly encouraged by Richard s brilliantcapture of a rich Saracen caravan, he himself was now con-vinced that success was impossible.On his arrival Richardhad pushed forward with a scouting party until he could seethe walls of the city in the distance, and obliged to be satis-fied with this, he retreated in July to Acre.One more bril-liant exploit of Richard s own kind remained for him toVOL.II. I CRUSADECHAP.perform, the most brilliant of all perhaps, the relief of Joppawhich was just on the point of taking when Richardwith a small force saved the town and forced the Saracens toretire.On September 2 a truce for three years was made,and the third crusade was at an end.The progress ofhad been checked, a series of towns along the coast had beenrecovered, and the kingdom of Cyprus had been createdthese were the results which had been gained by the expen-diture of an enormous treasure and thousands of lives.Whoshall say whether they were worth the costDuring the summer Richard had been impatient toreturn to England, and his impatience had been due not aloneto his discouragement with the hopeless conditions in Palestine,but partly to the news which had reached him from home.Ever since he left France, in fact, messages had been com-ing to him from one and another, and the story they toldwas not of a happy situation.Exactly those things hadhappened which ought to have been expected.Soon afterthe council in Normandy, William Longchamp had freedhimself from his rival Hugh of Durham by placing him underarrest and forcing him to surrender everything he had boughtof the king.Then for many months the chancellor ruledEngland as he would, going about the country with a greattrain, almost in royal state, so that a chronicler writing pro-bably from personal observation laments the fact that a housethat entertained him for a night hardly recovered from theinfliction in three years.Even more oppressive on the com-munity as a whole were the constant exactions of moneywhich he had to make for the king s expenses.The returnof to England in or early in I made at firstno change, but discontent with the chancellor s conductwould naturally look to him for leadership, and it is likelyJohn was made ready to head an active opposition by the dis-covery of negotiations between Longchamp and the king ofScotland for the recognition of Arthur of Britanny as the heirto the kingdom, negotiations begun so the chancellor saidunder orders from Richard.About the middle of summer,actual hostilities seemed about to begin.Longchamp sattempt to discipline Gerard of Camville, holder of Lincolncastle and sheriff of Lincolnshire, was resisted by John, who BETWEEN JOHN AND 371seized the royal castles of Nottingham and Tickhill.Civil warwas only averted by the intervention of Walter of Coutances,Archbishop of Rouen, who had arrived in England in the springwith authority from the king to interfere with the administra-tion of Longchamp if it seemed to him and the council wise todo so.By his influence peace was made, at an assembly ofthe barons at Winchester, on the whole not to the disadvan-tage of John, and embodied in a document which is almost aformal treaty.One clause of this agreement is of specialinterest as a sign of the trend of thought and as foreshadow-ing a famous clause in a more important document soon tobe drawn up.The parties agreed that henceforth no baronor free tenant should be disseized of land or goods by theking s justices or servants without a trial according to thecustoms and of the land, or by the direct orders ofthe king.The clause points not merely forward but back-ward, and shows what had no doubt frequently occurred sincethe departure of the king.About the middle of September a new element of discordwas brought into the situation by the landing of Geoffrey,who had now been consecrated Archbishop of York, and whoasserted that he, as well as John, had Richard s permissionLongchamp s effort to prevent his coming failed;to return.but on his landing he had him arrested at the altar of thePriory of St.Martin s, Dover, where he had taken sanctuary,and he was carried off a prisoner with many indignities.This was a tactical mistake on Longchamp s part
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