was crowned the same day by the bishop of Evreux; the bishop of Bayonne, and the archbishops of Apamea and Aux, assisting at the ceremony. Cyprus is the first island that was ever conquered by an English fleet, and Berengaria the only English queen whose coronation was ever performed in a foreign country. He then moved into the interior, to complete the conquest. Nicosia, the capital, was presently surrendered, and the strong castle of Cezzia afterwards, with which Isaac's daughter yielded herself to the conqueror, who placed her as a companion to the queen. Toward the father he was less courteous; that rash and unhappy man had taken refuge in a monastery; and when he heard that the place of his retreat was discovered, and that Richard was marching thither, every strong-hold in the island having been given up, he threw himself upon his mercy, praying only that his life and limbs might be spared. Mercy was a virtue but little practised in those times. Richard sent him to Tripoli, there to be kept close prisoner in chains. When the wretched man heard this sentence, he said, that, if he were put in irons, it would soon occasion his death upon which Richard, with contemptuous bitterness, replied, "He saith well; and seeing that he is a nobleman, and that our mind is not to shorten his life, but only to keep him safe, that he may not start away again and do more hurt, let his chains be made of silver."

Isaac has not been deemed worthy of any further notice by those who recorded the events of Richard's crusade; most probably he died in confinement; nor is anything more related of his daughter, than that queen Berengaria either had, or thought she had, cause for regretting that her husband had placed so attractive a companion about her person. The Cypriots, as is always the lot of a conquered people, paid heavily for passing from one yoke to another they were immediately taxed to the unmerciful amount of half their moveables; and the stores that were found in the island were so considerable, that it is said the Christian armies in Palestine could hardly have carried on their operations had it not been for this great and casual supply. After these exactions, Richard, considering Cyprus as his own, by the acknowledged

right of conquest, confirmed to the inhabitants the rights and usages which they had formerly enjoyed under the Greek emperors, but which had been suspended during the late usurpation. He appointed Richard de Camuelle and Robert de Turnham governors of the island; and when, in the ensuing year, after a series of exploits which have rendered his name almost as celebrated in Mahommedan history as in European romance, he was about to leave Palestine, having been prevented by the withdrawal of the French king, from restoring Guy de Lusignan to his lost kingdom of Jerusalem, he bestowed upon him the kingdom of Cyprus as some compensation,—a kingdom which his descendants continued to possess for nearly three centuries.

Cœur de Lion was detained in Cyprus only a few weeks by his marriage, the conquest, and the settlement of the island. In his way from thence to Acre he fell in with a vessel of the largest size, sailing under French colours; but requiring more evidence than the colours and the suspicious language of the spokesman, he soon ascertained that it was a Saracen ship, laden with stores of all kinds for the relief of Acre, which the Christians were then closely besieging. The brother of Saladin had despatched it from Baouk; there were seven emirs on board; and the number of troops has been stated by the lowest account at 650, by the highest at 1500. They were brave men, well provided with the most formidable means of defence; and desperate, because they knew how little mercy was to be expected from a fleet of Crusaders. The size, and more especially the height, of their ship, gave them an advantage which for a while counterbalanced that of numbers on Richard's part; for his galleys could make but little impression upon her strong sides. Richard's people, brave as they were, were daunted by the Greek fire, which was poured upon them, which they had never encountered before, but of which what they had heard was enough to impress them with dread. The great dramond, as she is called, might probably have beaten off her assailants and pursued her course, if Richard's men had not dreaded their king's anger more even than the terrible fire of the enemy. "I will crucity all my soldiers if she should escape," was

his tremendous threat. His example availed more than his threat could have done: they boarded the huge hulk like Englishmen ; and the Saracens, when they saw themselves overpowered, ran below, by their commander's order, and endeavoured to sink the ship, that their enemies might perish with them. Part of the cargo, however, was saved before she sank, and some of the crew were taken to mercy, though mercy was not the motive; for it was the chiefs, it is said, who were spared for the sake of their ransom. If the stores and ammunition with which this ship was laden had reached Acre, it was thought that the city could never have been taken.

It appears that the ships of war at this time were all galleys; that few of them had more than two rows of oars, and many of them only one tier; these, being shorter and moved with more facility, were used in the Levant for throwing wildfire. This composition, which the Greeks called liquid fire, and which by Latin and later historians is commonly denominated Greek fire, is said to have been invented by Callinicus, an architect of Heliopolis (afterwards called Balbec), about the latter part of the seventh century; and it continued in use some six hundred years, till the more destructive powers of gunpowder were applied to the purposes of war. The invention proceeded from the school of Egyptian chemistry; for Callinicus was in the service of the caliphs, from whence he went over to the Greek emperor, expecting, perhaps, a better reward for his discovery from the government to which it would be most useful. Constantinople was, indeed, saved by it in two sieges; Saracen fleets were deterred from attempting to pass the straits of the Hellespont, when they knew that their enemies were prepared with it; and while the Greeks kept the secret of the composition to themselves, as they did most carefully for four centuries, they possessed a more efficient means of defence than any other people. When the Pisans were at the height of their naval power, the emperor Alexius sent out a fleet against them, in which, as it appears, for the first time, lion's-heads of bronze were fixed at the ships' prows, and from their open mouths this liquid fire was discharged in

streams. This he devised as being likely to terrify as well as to astonish them; but the composition was, no doubt, sent with surer effect from moveable tubes. The commander who led the way in this action wasted his fire; another officer, when in great danger, extricated himself by its use, and burnt four of the enemy's ships, and the Pisans, who saw that the fire spread upwards, downwards, or laterally, at the will of those who directed it, and that they could not by any means extinguish it, took to flight.

The Greek fire was forced in its liquid state from hand engines, or thrown in jars; or arrows were discharged, the heads of which were armed, more formidable than with their own barbs, with tow dipt in this dreadful composition. During the Crusades, the Saracens became possessed of the secret: whether they discovered it, or it was betrayed to them, is not known; but they employed it with terrible effect; and the crusaders, who feared nothing else, confessed their fear of this. At this time it was employed on both sides. The only description of a naval action in those ages, which explains the system of naval tactics, relates to the siege of Acre, in which Richard was engaged. The crusaders drew up their fleet in the form of a half-moon, with the intent of closing upon the enemy if he should attempt to break their line. Their best galleys were placed in the two ends of the curve, where they might act with most alacrity, and least impediThe rowers were all upon the lower deck; and on the upper the soldiers were drawn up in a circle, with their bucklers touching each other. The action began with a discharge of missile weapons on both sides; the Christians then rowed forward with all stress of oars, endeavouring, after the ancient manner, to stave in their enemies' sides, or otherwise run them down: when they came to close quarters they grappled; skill was then no longer of avail, and the issue depended upon personal strength and intrepidity. The Greek fire seems to have been used even when the ships were fastened to each other: the likelihood of its communicating from the enemy's vessel to that which had thrown it, was much less when galleys were engaged, than it would be in

ment.

vessels rigged like later men of war; and fire might be employed more freely, because there were no magazines in danger. The crusaders had so greatly the superiority at sea, owing as much to seamanship as numbers, that a sagacious prisoner, whom Philip Augustus interrogated concerning the best means whereby the Holy Land might be recovered and maintained, told him it would be by keeping the seas, and destroying the trade of Egypt. His advice was, that they should take Damietta, and rely upon their fleets more than upon their strength in horse and foot.

The Crusade.

From the "Penny Magazine."

On the 10th of June, 1191, an astounding clangour of trumpets and drums and horns, and every other instrument in the Christian camp, hailed the arrival of Richard and his host in the roadsted of Acre. The welcome was sincere, for the aid was opportune and indispensable. Without the Lion-heart there must have been a capitulation of the Christians to Saladin. The French king had arrived some time before, but had done nothing. Frederic of Suabia, who had taken the command of the remnant of the army of the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, and who had not been able to give a favourable turn to the siege of Acre, had been for some time dead, and the Duke of Austria, who assumed the command of the Imperialists, was a formalist and a sluggard, being at the same time conceited and jealous. The loss of life among the Christians had been fearful. The sword and the plague, with other diseases, had swept away six archbishops, twelve bishops, forty earls, and five hundred barons, whose names are recorded in history, and one hundred and fifty thousand of "the meaner sort." The siege had lasted well nigh two years, and the crusaders were not only still outside the walls, but actually pressed and hemmed in, and almost besieged themselves, by Saladin,