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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 12 View PDF version of this page BENEDICT OK PETERBOROUGH.
7
themselves upon the Emperor and his Griffons. Ilio arrows fell like rain upon the grass. After a prolonged conflict the Emperor, having lost a multitude of his men, fled, and all his host with him. The king of England, exulting in his great victory, pursued, and made a very great slaughter of all who resisted, aud, had not night fallen soon, he would have taken the Emperor himself that day, either alive or dead. The king aud his men however knew not the roads and mountain paths by which the Emperor and his followers made their escape, and would not pursue them further, but returned with a groat prey both of men and animals to tho town of Liineznn, whence the Griffons and Herminiaus (Greeks and Armenians) bad fled, leaving it empty.
On the saute day (May 6) the king of Navarre's daughter and the Queen of Sicily, who was sister to the king of England, entered the port of Limezuu, attended by the ktug's fleet. The Emperor, having rallied round him his men, who were scattered amid the thickets in the ι uo untai η valleys, pitched his camp the same night on the banks of a river about Ave miles distant from the town of Limezim, declaring" with an oath that he wonld fight the king of England on the morrow. The report whereof was brought by scouts to the king, who long before daylight armed himself and his men for battle, and advancing silently came upon the Emperor's men, whom he found asleep. Then, with a loud and terrifying shout, he charged into their tents, and they, suddenly awakened from sleep, were as dead men, knowing not what to "do, nor whither to fly. The Emperor himself escaped with a few men, naked, and leaving behind him his treasure, bis horses, his armour, his magnificent tents, and his imperial standard wrought all over with gold, which the king of England at once dedicated to the blessed Edmund, King and Martyr of glorious memory.
On the morrow many connts and barons of the kingdom came to the king of England, and became his men, swearing fealty to him against the Emperor and all men, and gare him hostages. Three days later Guy, king of Jerusalem, Gaufrid of Lésinant Iiis brother, Aufrid of Tnrun, Raimund [Boheinund IIL] Prince of Antioch, Booimmd [Raymond IIL] his son, count of Tripoli, and Leo, brother [cousin] of Rnpiu of the mountain, caino to meet the king of England in Cyprus and there they became Iiis men, and swore him fealty against all men.
On the same day the Emperor of Cyprus, seeing that all his people were deserting him, sent ambassadors to the king of England, to sue for mercy, and offered to uiako peace on these conditions, namely, that he should give the king of England 20,000 marks of gold, by way of compensation for the money taken from the bodies of those who had perished in the shipwreck, and surrender the persons and goods of the survivors; also, that he should himself accompany the king to Syria, and remain there in the service of God, together with a hundred men-at-arms, and four hundred Turcople horsemen, as long as the king stayed there; also, that he should deliver his only daughter and heiress into the king's hand to be married by him to whomsoever he wonld, and with her his Empire; furthermore, that he should surrender tho castles of his realm to the king, as a pledge for the steadfast observance of the treaty.
These conditions having been proposed and accepted, the Emperor came to the king of England, and, in the presence of tho king of Jerusalem, the Prince of Antioch, and the rest of the Lords and of the Princes of all his Empire, swore fealty to the king of England and his heirs, as his liege lords, against all men, binding himself also by his oath to keep and perform the aforesaid treaty, steadfastly and unshakeably, in good faith and without guile.
On the same day after the mid-day meal the Emperor was in his tent: whilst the king's men-at-arms, into whoso charge he had been given, took their mid-day sleep, the Emperor, repenting of having made the alwvementioned treaty with the king of England, secretly
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