acquiescence.--The time for sailing appointed.--Richard crosses
the Channel.--Fears of treachery.--The treaty of alliance between
Richard and Philip.--Completion of the preparations.

At the time of his accession to the throne, Richard, as has already
been remarked, was about thirty-two years of age. On the following
page you have a portrait of him, with the crown upon his head.

This portrait is taken from a sculpture on his tomb, and is
undoubtedly a good representation of him as he appeared when he was
alive.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF RICHARD I.]

The first thing that Richard turned his attention to, when he found
himself securely seated on his throne, was the preparation for a
crusade. It had been the height of his ambition for a long time to
lead a crusade. It was undoubtedly through the influence of his
mother, and of her early conversations with him, that he imbibed his
extraordinary eagerness to seek adventures in the Holy Land. She had
been a crusader herself during her first marriage, as has already been
related in this volume, and she had undoubtedly, in Richard's early
life, entertained him with a thousand stories of what she had seen,
and of the romantic adventures which she had met with there. These
stories, and the various conversations which arose out of them,
kindled Richard's youthful imagination with ardent desires to go and
distinguish himself on the same field. These desires had been greatly
increased as Richard grew up to manhood by observing the exalted
military glory to which successful crusaders attained. And then,
besides this, Richard was endued with a sort of reckless and lion-like
courage, which led him to look upon danger as a sport, and made him
long for a field where there were plenty of enemies to fight, and
enemies so abhorred by the whole Christian world that he could indulge
in the excitement of hatred and rage against them without any
restraint whatever. He could there satiate himself, too, with the
luxury of killing men without any misgiving of conscience, or, at
least, without any condemnation on the part of his fellow-men, for it
was understood throughout Christendom that the crimes committed
against the Saracens in the Holy Land were committed in the name of
Christ. What a strange delusion! To think of honoring the memory of
the meek and lowly Jesus by utterly disregarding his peaceful precepts
and his loving and gentle example, and going forth in thousands to the
work