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THE DE MAULEYS. 113
royal ladies were landed half dead with fatigue and terror, when, says the
chronicler, "there was joy and love enow." Isaac, however, continued
implacable and tiresome, vapouring and boasting from behind his defences,
until Richard, exasperated, expressed himself in the only English he was
ever known to utter, "Ha! de debil! he speak like a fole Briton!" and
immediately attacking Limoussa, made himself master thereof.
Then ensued the long delayed fulfilment of all his hopes, and Richard
and Beringaria were made man and wife. It must have been a brilliant and
beautiful espousal. The bridegroom, a perfect model of military and manly
grace, with his bright complexion and yellow curls, clad in a satin tunic of
rose colour, with a mantle of striped silver tissue, brocaded with silver halfmoons
;
his sword of Damascus steel, with a hilt of gold, and silver-scaled
sheath ;
on his head a scarlet bonnet, brocaded in gold, with figures of
animals. The fair bride, with her hair parted (a la merge] upon her brow, a
transparent veil open on each side covering her rich tresses of hair ; on her
head a regal diadem studded with several bands of gems, and surmounted
by fleurs-de-lys.
"There, in the joyous month of May, 1191," says an ancient writer,
"in the flourishing and spacious island of Cyprus, celebrated as the very
"abode of the goddess of love, did King Richard solemnly take to wife his
"beloved Berengaria."
By the consent of the Cypriots, wearied of Isaac's tyranny, and by
the advice of the allied Crusaders who came to assist at his nuptials,
Richard was also crowned King of Cyprus, and his wife Queen of England
and Cyprus.
Bishop Bernard of Bayonne seems to have been " the officiating
"minister"; and the climax of the ceremonial was the self-surrender to the
King of the daughter of Isaac, who henceforth became the inseparable companion
of the Queen, and also of the vanquished Isaac himself, who, bound
in chains of silver richly gilt, was presented to the Queen as her captive.
Was ever such a wedding seen on earth ! Who would not gladly
have a brief vision of that graceful and dignified pageant but one glance
at a scene where so much power and beauty were assembled ? with the glad
sun from a cloudless sky irradiating the brilliant dresses and glittering
jewels and flashing arms with his brightest beams !
At the conclusion of the nuptials and coronation, the illustrious
party
once more embarked. The bridegroom in his good ship " Tranc-the-mer,"
the bride and Queen Johanna again under the charge of Sir Stephen de
Turnham. Their arrival at Acre on the festival of S. Barnabas was another
triumph, for the whole allied army marched to the beach to welcome their
champion, and " the earth shook with the footsteps of the Christians and
" the sound of their shouts."