of what use ships and men if there was no food for them nor money to buy it?  He tried to borrow, he tried to beg, he tried what in a less glorious cause a plain man would call stealing.  King Richard came not of a squeamish race, and would have sold anything to any buyer, pawned his crown or taken another man’s to get the worth of a company’s pay out of it.  Fines, escheats, reliefs, forfeitures, wardships, marriages—­he heaped exaction on exaction, with mighty little result.  When his mind was set he was inexorable, insatiable, without scruple.  What he got only sharpened his appetite for more.  King Tancred of Sicily owed the dowry of Richard’s sister Joan.  He swore he would wring that out of him to the last doit.  He offered the city of London to the highest bidder, and lamented the slaughter of the Jews when the tenders were few.  Here was a position to be in!  His Englishmen lay rotting in Southampton town, his ships in Southampton water.  His Normans and Poictevins were over-ripe; he as dry as an unpinched pear.  He saw, to his infinite vexation, his honour again in pawn, and no means of redeeming it.  Jehane, with tears in her voice, plied the Navarrese marriage with more passion than she would ever have allowed herself to urge her own.  Richard said he would think of it.  ’Now I have him half-way,’ Jehane told the Queen-Mother.  He was driven the other half by his banished brother John.

Prince John, bundled out of the country within a week of the coronation, went to Paris and a pocketful of mischief in which to put his hand.  King Philip, who should have been preparing for the East, was listening to counsels much more to his liking.  Conrad of Montferrat was there, with large white fingers explaining on the table, and a large white face set as lightly as a mouse-trap.  His Italian mind, with that strange capacity for subserving business with passion, had a task of election here.  The Marquess knew that Richard would sooner help the devil than him to Jerusalem; not only on this account, but on every conceivable account did he hate Richard.  If he could embroil the two leaders of the Crusade, there was his affair:  Philip would need him.  In Paris also was Saint-Pol, fizzling with mischief, and behind him, where-ever he went, stalked Gilles de Gurdun, murder in his heart.  The massive Norman was a fine foil to the Count:  they were the two poles of hatred.  The Duke of Burgundy was not there, but Conrad knew that he could be counted.  Richard owed him (so he said) forty pounds; besides, Richard had called him a sponge—­and it was true.  There, lastly, was Des Barres, that fine Frenchman, ready to hate anybody who was not French, and most ready to hate Richard, who had broken up the Gisors wedding and put, single-handed, all the guests to shame.  Now, this was a company after Prince John’s own heart.  Standing next to the English throne, he was an excellent footstool; he felt the delicate position, he was flattered at every turn.  The Marquess found him most useful,