Berengaria's Alarm for the Safety of her Husband, Richard Coeur de Lion, Awakened by the Sight
Artist: Charles Allston Collins (British, 1828-1873)
Collection: Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, England
Collins exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1850, no. 535, accompanied by these words in the catalogue:
Berengaria's alarm for the safety of her husband, Richard Coeur de Lion, awakened by the sight of his girdle offered for sale at Rome. "The Provencal traditions, declare that here Berengaria first took the alarm that some disaster had happened to her lord, from seeing a belt of jewels offered for sale which she knew had been in his possession when she parted from him." The Queen was accompanied by Joanna (sister of Richard I) and the Princess of Cyprus.
Queen Berengaria had sailed separately from her husband when she departed from Acre on her own return from the Holy Land. She spent the winter of 1192-93 in Rome because of her fear of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Following Richard's participation in the Third Crusade he left to sail for home on 9 October 1192. His ship was wrecked near Aquileia in northern Italy, which forced Richard, disguised as a Templar, to take a perilous overland route through central Europe in order to get back to England. He was captured near Vienna by Leopold of Austria, whom Richard had made an enemy of during the crusade. Richard was kept a prisoner at Dürnstein Castle. His captivity eventually became known in England but not his exact whereabouts. Pope Celestine III subsequently excommunicated King Leopold because detention of a crusader was contrary to public law. On 28 March 1193 Richard was handed over to Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, who imprisoned him in Trifels Castle in the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany. The Emperor demanded 150,000 marks for Richard's release and finally on 4 February 1194, following payment of the ransom, Richard was freed. Berengaria was not reunited with her husband, however, until the end of 1195.
Collins's treatment of this subject is based on the passage that was included in the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue that was taken from Volume One, page 308, of Agnes Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, published in three volumes from 1840-48. Strickland makes no mention, however, of a pedlar showing the girdle to Berengaria as shown in Collin's painting so this was obviously his own invention.
Commentary by Dennis T. Lanigan
