The next of kin to the late king of Sicily and the person whom he had designated as his successor was his father’s sister Constance; but she was far away in Germany—being married to the Emperor’s son—and a cousin, Tancred, had without much difficulty become master of the kingdom, or at least of its insular half. Tancred had, as has been seen, provided lodgings for his two royal guests at Messina; he himself was at Palermo, and so was the widowed Queen Joan, Richard’s sister. Richard knew that a very liberal dowry in land had been settled upon Joan by King William at their marriage,[509] and also that William had made a will containing a bequest to his father-in-law, Henry II, of “a golden table twelve feet long and a foot and a half wide, three golden tripods for sitting at the table, a silken tent large enough for two hundred knights to eat in it together, a hundred first-rate galleys with all necessary gear and food for the crews, sixty thousand seams of wheat, the same number of barley and of wine, and twenty-four cups and twenty-four dishes” of either silver or gold.[510] This bequest was evidently intended by William, who seems to have been long in ill-health and expecting an early death, as his contribution to the Crusade. Richard, as Henry’s heir, now claimed it from Tancred, and he also demanded that Joan should be sent to him immediately with her dowry and a golden chair[511] for her use “according to the custom of the queens of that land.”[512] Tancred sent Joan off at once by sea “with just her bedroom furniture” and a million _terrini_ for her expenses.[513] [Sidenote: _Sept. 28_] She reached Messina on Michaelmas Eve, and was conducted by her brother to a lodging prepared for her in the Hospital;[514] but he speedily took steps for removing her to a safer place; for trouble, possibly with Philip, certainly with the townsfolk of Messina and with their king, was now evidently close at hand.