e no particular haste to come over to England, but,
contenting himself with ordering his mother, Queen Eleanor, to be
liberated from confinement, and to be invested with the regency of that
kingdom, he first proceeded to Rouen, where he was formally acknowledged
as Duke of Normandy on July 20th, and it was August 13th before he
arrived at Portsmouth (or, as others say, at Southampton). His
coronation, from which the commencement of his reign is dated, took
place in Westminster Abbey on September 3d. It was on occasion of that
ceremony that a furious riot broke out among the Jews in London, which
was in the course of the next six months renewed in most of the great
towns throughout the kingdom. At York, in March, 1190, a body of 500
Jews, with their wives and children, having taken refuge in the castle,
found no other way of saving themselves from their assailants than by
first cutting the throats of the women and children and then stabbing
one another.

A short time before his father's death Richard, and his then friend,
Philip Augustus, had, as it was expressed, taken the cross, that is to
say, had publicly vowed to proceed to the Holy Land, to assist in
recovering from the infidels the city and kingdom of Jerusalem, which
had recently (1187) fallen into the hands of the great Saladin. The
mighty expedition, in which all the principal nations of Western
Christendom now joined, for the accomplishment of this object is known
by the name of the Third Crusade. Leaving the government of his kingdom
during his absence in the hands of William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely and
chancellor, and Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham and justiciary, Richard
took his departure from England on December 11th of this same year,
1189, and proceeding to Normandy, united his forces with those of
Philip Augustus in the plain of Vezelay on July 1, 1190. The two friends
proceeded together at the head of an army of more than 100,000 men as
far as Lyons, where they separated on the 31st; Philip taking the road
to Genoa, Richard that to Marseilles, where he was to meet his fleet.
The fleet, however, not arriving so soon as was expected, Richard in his
impatience hired thirty small vessels for the conveyance of himself and
his suite, and, sailing for Naples, arrived there on August 28th. On
September 8th he proceeded by sea to Salerno, where he remained till the
23d, and then sailed for Messina, which port his fleet had reached about
a week before, with the