army, which it had taken on board at Marseilles.
The French king had also arrived at Messina a few days before his
brother of England.

The two kings remained together at Messina till the end of March, 1191.
During their stay Richard compelled Tancred, who had usurped the crown
of Sicily, to relinquish the dower of his sister Joan, the widow of
William, the late sovereign, and to pay him besides forty thousand
ounces of gold. In return he betrothed his nephew, Arthur, the son of
his next brother, Geoffrey, to Tancred's infant daughter, and formed a
league offensive and defensive with the Sicilian king--a connection
which afterward cost him dear, for it was the source of the enmity of
the Emperor Henry VI., who had married Constantia, the aunt of William,
and claimed the throne of Sicily in right of his wife. After the dispute
with Tancred had been settled, the latent rivalry of Richard and Philip
broke out in a quarrel about the Princess Adelais, whom her brother
Philip insisted that Richard should espouse, in conformity with their
betrothment, now that his father no longer lived to oppose their union.
But if Richard had ever cared anything for the French princess, that
attachment had now been obliterated by another, which he had some years
before formed for Berengaria, the beautiful daughter of Sancho VI.
(styled the Wise), King of Navarre; in fact he had by this time sent his
mother Eleanor to her father's court to solicit that lady in marriage,
and, his proposals having been accepted, the two were now actually on
their way to join him. In these circumstances Philip found himself
obliged to recede from his demand; and the matter was arranged by an
agreement that Richard should pay a sum of ten thousand marks, in five
yearly instalments, and restore Adelais, who had previously been
conducted into England, and the places of strength that had been given
along with her as her marriage portion, when he should have returned
from Palestine.

Richard, having sent his mother home to England, sailed from Messina on
April 7th, at the head of a fleet of about two hundred ships, of which
fifty-three were large vessels of the sort styled galleys; his sister,
the queen dowager of Sicily, and the Princess Berengaria accompanying
him. The King of France had set sail about a week before. Several
months, however, elapsed before Richard reached the Holy Land, having
been detained by an attack which he made upon the island of Cyprus;
I