to secure his friendship. John would rather
have been made Regent or Governor of
land; but he was a sly man, and friendly
to the expedition; saying to himself, no
doubt, "The more fighting, the more chance
of my brother being killed; and when he is
killed, then I become King John!"

Before the newly levied army departed from
England, the recruits and the general populace
distinguished themselves by astonishing
cruelties on the unfortunate Jews: whom, in
many large towns, they murdered by
hundreds in the most horrible manner. At York,
a large body of Jews took refuge in the Castle,
in the absence of its Governor, after the wives
and children of many of them had been slain
before their eyes. Presently came the Governor,
and demanded admission. "How can we
give it thee, O Governor!" said the Jews
upon the walls, "when, if we open the gate
by so much as the width of a foot, the roaring
crowd behind thee will press in and
kill us!" Upon this, the unjust Governor
became angry, and told the people that he
approved of their killing those Jews; and a
mischievous maniac of a friar, dressed all in
white, put himself at the head of the assault,
and they assaulted the Castle for three days.
Then said JOCEN, the head-Jew, to the rest
(who was a Rabbi or Priest), "Brethren, there
is no hope for us with the Christians who are
hammering at the gates and walls, and who
must soon break in. As we and our wives and
children must die, either by Christian hands,
or by our own, let it be by our own. Let us
destroy by fire what jewels and other treasure
we have here, then fire the castle, and then
perish!" A few could not resolve to do this,
but the greater part complied. They made a
blazing heap of all their valuables, and, when
those were consumed, set the castle in flames.
While the flames roared and crackled round
them, and, shooting up into the sky, turned it
blood-red, Jocen cut the throat of his beloved
wife, and stabbed himself. All the others
who had wives or children, did the like
dreadful deed. When the populace broke in,
they, found (except the trembling few cowering
in corners, whom they soon killed) only
heaps of greasy cinders, with here and there
something like part of the blackened trunk of
a burnt tree, but which had lately been a
human creature, formed by the beneficent
hand of God, as they were.

After this bad beginning, Richard and his
troops went on, in no very good manner, with
what it was the fashion of the time to call
their Holy Crusade. It was undertaken
jointly by the King of England and his old
friend Philip of France. They commenced
the business by reviewing their forces, to
the number of one hundred thousand men.
Afterwards, they severally embarked their
troops for Messina, in Sicily, which was
appointed as the next place of meeting. King
Richard's sister had married the King of this
place, but he was dead; and his uncle TANCRED
had usurped the crown, cast the Royal Widow
into prison, and possessed himself of her
estates. Richard fiercely demanded his sister's
release, the restoration of her lands, and
(according to the Royal custom of the Island)
that she should have a golden chair, a golden
table, four-and-twenty silver cups, and four-
and-twenty silver dishes. As he was too
powerful to be successfully resisted, Tancred
yielded to his demands, and then the French
King grew jealous, and complained that the
English King wanted to be absolute in the
Island of Messina and everywhere else.
Richard, however, cared little or nothing for
this complaint, and in consideration of a
present of twenty thousand pieces of gold,
promised his pretty little nephew ARTHUR, then
a child of two years old, in marriage to
Tancred's daughter. We shall hear again of
pretty little Arthur by-and-bye.

This Sicilian affair arranged without anybody's
brains being knocked out (which must
have rather disappointed him), King Richard
took his sister away, and also a fair lady
named BERENGARIA, with whom he had fallen
in love in France, and whom his mother,
Queen Eleanor (so long in prison, you
remember, but released by Richard on his
coming to the Throne), had brought out
there to be his wife; and sailed with them
for Cyprus. He soon had the pleasure of
fighting the King of the Island of Cyprus, for
allowing his subjects to pillage some of the
English troops who were shipwrecked on the
shore; and easily conquering this poor
monarch, he seized his only daughter, to be
a companion to the Lady Berengaria, and put
the King himself into silver fetters. This
done, he sailed away again with his mother,
sister, wife, and the captive princess, and soon
arrived before the town of Acre, which the
French King with his fleet was besieging
from the sea. But the French King was in
no triumphant condition, for his army had
been thinned by the swords of the Saracens,
and wasted by the plague; and SALADIN the
brave Sultan of the bold Turks, at the head of
a numerous army, was at that time gallantly
defending the place, from the hills that rise
above it.

Wherever this united army of Crusaders
went, they agreed in nothing except in
gaming, drinking, and quarrelling, in a most
unholy manner; in debauching the people
among whom they tarried, whether they were
friends or foes; and in carrying disturbance
and ruin into quiet places. The French King
was jealous of the English King, and the
English King was jealous of the French King,
and the disorderly and violent soldiers of the
two nations were jealous of one another;
consequently, the two kings could not at first
agree, even upon a joint assault on Acre, but
when they did make up their quarrel for that
purpose, the Saracens promised to yield the
town, to give up to the Christians the wood of
the Holy Cross, to set at liberty all their