A.D. 1195. HENRY CROWNED KING OF SICILY. scourged Ms territories in the following manner. In the first place, all of the cities of his dominions were destroyed by fire, and yet the cause of none of these fires was known. In the second place, the adjoining country was overflowed by an inundation of the river Danube, in which ten thousand persons or more perished. In the third place, whereas all the earth in the middle of summer ought to, and usually does, possess vitality, at that period the whole of his territory, contrary to the usual and ordinary course of things, became parched up. In the fourth place, when the seeds of corn ought to have shot up into blade, they were changed into worms. In the fifth place, the most noble persons in bis dominions were smitten with a mortality. Although the Lord had smitten his territory with plagues so many and so great, he still was unwilling to repent, but bis heart was hardened, so much so, that he took an oath that all the hostages of the king of England whom he had in his hands should undergo capital punishment, unless all the covenants were speedily performed which the king of England had made with him. Consequently, Baldwin de Bethune, who was one of those who had been given as hostages to the duke of Austria for the ransom of the king of England, by the common consent of the hostages, was sent to the king of England to declare to him the duke's purpose; and, on his arrival, the king, taking compassion on them, delivered to him the sister of Arthur, duke of Brittany, and the daughter of the emperor of Cyprus, to escort to the duke of Austria ; the sister of Arthur for the purpose of being married to the son of the duke of Austria, and the daughter of the emperor of Cyprus to be delivered into the hands of the duke. In the year of grace 1195, being the sixth year of the reign of Bichard, king of England, the said king Bichard was at Bouen, in Normandy, on the day of the Nativity of our Lord, which fell on the Lord's Day, being intent on supplying himself with all things necessary, in money and men, against Philip, king of Prance. For the truce which had been agreed upon between them as to last until the feast of All Saints was far from observed, the subjects of both kingdoms making excessive ravages. On the same day of the Nativity of our Lord, Henry, emperor of the Bomans, was crowned at Palermo, in Sicily, with the crown of the kingdom of Sicily. In the same year, before the Nativity of our Lord, on the