It was a gala-day in Navarre. Sancho the Strong, the gallant brother of Berengaria, had proclaimed a tournament in compliment to his friend Richard Plantagenet, Count of Poitou. In the domestic wars which had vexed the south of France since the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry of Anjou, these valiant youths had fought side by side, and from a friendship cemented by intimacy as well as similarity of tastes and pursuits, had become _fratres jurati_, or sworn brothers, according to the customs of the age. Both were celebrated for their knightly accomplishments and their skill in judging of Provençal poetry, and each had proved the prowess of the other in chivalric encounter, and provoked the genius of his friend in the refined and elegant contests of minstrelsy and song. The brave Sancho had arranged the lists, giving to his friend the first place as knight challenger, reserving the second for himself, and bestowing the third upon their brother in arms, the young Count of Champagne. The gay pavilions were set, a splendid concourse assembled, and Berengaria, proclaimed Queen of Beauty and Love, had assumed her regal state attended by all the beauties of Navarre, when to the infinite disappointment and mortification of the prince, Count Raimond of Toulouse arrived to say, that Richard, having received letters from his mother, had found it necessary to depart suddenly for England; but that the festivities of the day might not be marred by his absence, he entreated that the bearer of the message, Count Raimond, might occupy his pavilion, bestride his war-steed, and do his devoir in the lists. With a courtesy that ill-concealed his chagrin the noble Sancho accepted the substitute, and conducting him to the tent glittering with green and gold, consigned him to the care of the esquires; while himself went to acquaint his sister with the mortifying fact that the spectacle, for which they had prepared with such enthusiastic anticipations, was yet to want the crowning grace expected from the presence of that flower of knighthood, Richard Plantagenet.