At last Tancred intervened. “He was,” says Ambrose the poet-Crusader, “very wise; he had heard tell of many happenings; he was a good scholar; he knew his business.”[550] Through all these months he had played a waiting game till he could feel sure which of the two kings would be most useful to him as an ally. At first he had inclined to Philip, and “would have given him untold gold” for the marriage of one of his daughters to either the French king himself or to his infant son Louis; but Philip declined this proposal because he did not wish to quarrel with Tancred’s rival, Constance’s husband, who was now king of the Germans and Emperor elect,[551] and whose friendship he doubtless foresaw might be useful to him in future struggles with Richard. By the end of October, however, Tancred not only knew that the townsfolk of Messina had gone too far; he also perceived that he had himself gone too far in his haughtiness towards the English Lion. He therefore despatched two messengers to Richard with an offer of alliance. He proposed to give twenty thousand ounces of gold to Joan instead of her dower-lands, and to Richard, in place of King William’s legacy, the same amount as the dowry of one of his (Tancred’s) daughters on condition of her marriage with Richard’s nephew, Arthur of Britanny.[552] Richard saw at once that this offer must be accepted. The necessity of coming to a settlement of some kind with Tancred, and the outrageous conduct of Tancred’s subjects, had already detained him in Sicily much longer than he had originally contemplated. Now it was quite clear that he would be obliged to remain there for several more months, as the season of the year had begun when the “inclemency of winds and waves and weather”[553] made navigation so difficult and dangerous that no fleet could attempt a voyage to Palestine till the return of spring. The same cause must of course detain Philip also; and to reject Tancred’s offer would have been to throw Tancred and Philip into each other’s arms. Nor was the offer itself a bad one. Whatever might be the intrinsic value of Joan’s dower-lands and of William’s legacy, there was obviously very little chance of ever gaining either the one or the other; while forty thousand ounces of gold would be a very convenient addition to the treasury of the Crusade. A treaty on these terms was therefore drawn up and executed forthwith. Richard promised that all questions about his sister’s dowry and his own claims should be henceforth at rest; that he and his men would faithfully keep peace by sea and by land with Tancred and all his subjects, and if the Sicilian realm should be invaded or attacked while they were in it, they would help the king against his assailants; that Arthur—“our dear nephew, and our heir if we should die without issue”—should be contracted to Tancred’s daughter; and that the bride should have a dower of lands within her husband’s duchy “befitting a lady so illustrious and the