United States or Palestine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was in Limasol, a pleasant place overlooking the sea and the ships, a square white house set deep in myrtle woods and oleanders. Once more the 'Countess of Poictou' had her seneschal, chaplain, ladies of honour. That done, he fixed Saint Pancras' day for his marriage, had the ships got out, furnished, and appointed for sea. The night before Saint Pancras he sent for Abbot Milo in a hurry.
Richard took Limasol, the capital, by assault; and that blow was soon followed by the complete submission of Isaac and the surrender of the whole island. Isaac was put into confinement, and remained a captive till his death in 1195.
The region around Limasol is barren in the extreme, almost like that of Larnaca, except that the mountains are here much nearer. We stayed in this port the whole of the day; and now I learnt for the first time that the captain had not put in here so much on account of scarcity of provisions, as because he wanted to take in wine and endeavour to take in passengers.
'And then your Grace will have a surer hope than in your Grace's brother. 'Get you to bed, Milo, Richard said, 'and let me be alone. Married he was, so far as the Church could provide, in the Basilica of Limasol, with the Bishop of Salisbury to celebrate. Vassals of his, and allies, great lords of three realms, bishops and noble knights filled the church and saw the rites done.
He despatched several ships with this object in view; they landed at Limasol, and, having burnt the ships in the harbour and plundered the town, they returned home. The favourable result of this expedition much encouraged the sultan, and in the following year he sent out a large fleet from Alexandria which landed in Famagosta.
What have I to do with your kings? Richard showed him that with one king he had plenty to do, by assaulting Limasol and putting armies to flight in the plains about Nikosia. Shall I sing the battle of the fifty against five thousand; tell how King Richard with precisely half a hundred knights came cantering against the sun and a host, as gay and debonair as to a driving of stags?
Having married Berengaria at Limasol, Richard set sail from Cyprus, on June 4th , with a fleet now described as consisting of thirteen large ships called busses, fifty galleys, and a hundred transports; and on the 10th he reached the camp of the crusaders assembled before the fortress of Acre, the siege of which had already occupied them not much less than two years, and had cost the lives, it is said of nearly two hundred thousand of the assailants.
I went in at Limasol, though I did not believe you would make that port in a southerly gale, and the lookout reported the Maud in this bay. That is the reason of my delay in joining you as arranged," said the commander, finishing his narrative. "But I expected to find the Fatimé here also; for she was pressing on after you the last we saw of her."
It was a brilliant scene indeed in the cathedral of Limasol. There were assembled all the principal barons of England, together with a great number of the nobles of Cyprus. Certainly no better matched pair ever stood at the altar together, for as King Richard was one of the strongest and bravest men of his own or any other time, so Berengaria is admitted to have been one of the loveliest maidens.
He sent on a little before him his intended bride, Berengaria, with his sister Joanna, the widowed queen of Sicily. The voyage proved a long and stormy one, and it was not until May 6 that the fleet came together, with some losses, in the harbour of Limasol in Cyprus.
Word Of The Day