because jointly built by the Tyrians Sidonians and Aradites And Berytus since Barutus accompanied her neighbour and both of them were yeelded unto the Christians The King created one Bertram a well-deserving Noble-man Earl of Tripoli who did homage to the King for his place which was accounted a title of great honour as being one of the foure Tetrarchies of the kingdome of Jerusalem Chap. 12. The description of Sidon and Tyre the one taken the other besieged in vain by Baldwine SIdon is the most ancient citie of Phenicia And though the proud Grecians counted all Barbarians besides themselves yet Phenicia was the schoolmistresse of Grecia and first taught her her alphabet For Cadmus a Phenician born first invented and brought letters to Thebes Sidon had her name from the eldest sonne of Canaan and was famous for the finest crystall-glasses which here were made The glassie sand was fetched 40 miles off from the river Belus but it could not be made fusile till it was brought hither whether for want of tools or from some secret sullen humour therein we will not dispute This citie anciently was of great renown but her fortune being as brittle as her glasses she was fain to find neck for every one of the Monarchs yokes and now at last by the assistance of the Danish and Norvegian fleet was subdued by the Christians Fleshed with this conquest they next besieged Tyre Sea and land nature and art consented together to make this city strong for it was seated in an island save that it was tacked to the continent with a small neck of land which was fortified with many walls and towres It is questionable whether the strength or wealth of this city was greater but out of question that the pride was greater then either Here the best purples were died a colour even from the beginning destined to Courts and Magistracie and here the richest clothes were imbroidered and curiously wrought And though generally those who are best with their fingers are worst with their arms yet the Tyrians were also stout men able mariners and the planters of the noblest colonies in the world As their city was the daughter of Zidon so was it mother to Romes rivall Carthage Leptis Utica Cadiz and Nola. The most plentifull proof they gave of their valour was when for three yeares they defended themselves against Nebuchadnezzar and afterwards stopped the full career of Alexanders conquests so that his victorious army which did flie into other countreys was glad to creep into this citie Yet after seven moneths siege such is the omnipotency of industry he forced it and stripped this lady of the sea naked beyond modesty and mercy putting all therein to the sword that resisted and hanged up 2000 of the prime citizens in a rank along the sea-shore Yet afterwards Tyre out-grew these her miseries and attained though not to her first giant-like yet to a competent proportion of greatnesse At this time wherein King Baldwine besieged it it was of great strength and importance insomuch that finding it a weight too heavy for his shoulders he was fain to break off his siege and depart With worse successe he afterwards did rashly give battel to the vast army of the Persian Generall wherein he lost many men all his baggage and escaped himself with great difficulty Chap. 13. The pleasurable voyages of King Baldwine and his death AFter the tempest of a long warre a calm came at last and King Baldwine had a five yeares vacation of peace in his old age In which time he disported himself with many voyages for pleasure as one to the Red-sea not so called from the rednesse of the water or sand as some without any colour have conceited but from the neighbouring Edomites whom the Grecians called Erythreans or red men truly translating the Hebrew name of Edomites they had their name of rednesse from their father Edom. And here Baldwine surveyed the countrey with the nature and strength thereof Another journey he took afterwards into Egypt as conceiving himself ingaged in honour to make one inrode into that countrey in part of paiment of those many excursions the Egyptians had made into his Kingdome He took the city of Pharamia anciently called Rameses and gave the spoil thereof to his souldiers This work being done he began his play and entertained the time with viewing that riddle of Nature the river of Nilus whose stream is the confluence of so many wonders first for its undiscovered fountain though some late Geographers because they would be held more intelligent then others have found the head of Nilus in their own brains and make it to flow from a fountain they fansie in the mountains of the moon in the south of Africa then for the strange creatures bred therein as river-bulls horses and crocodiles But the chiefest wonder is the yearly increasing thereof from the 17. of June to the midst of September overflowing all Egypt and the banks of all humane judgement to give the true reason thereof Much time Baldwine spent in beholding this river wherein he took many fishes and his death in eating them for a new surfet revived the grief of an old wound which he many yeares before received at the siege of Ptolemais His sicknesse put him in mind of his sinnes conscience speaking loudest when men begin to grow speechlesse And especially he grieved that having another wife alive he had married the Countesse of Sicilie the relict of Earl Roger But now heartily sorrowfull for his fault he sent away this his last wife yet we reade not that he received his former again Other faults he would have amended but was prevented by death And no doubt where the deed could not be present the desire was a sufficient proxy He died at Latis a city in the road from Egypt and was brought to Jerusalem and buried on Palm-sunday in the temple of the Sepulchre in the 18. yeare of his reigne A Prince superiour to his brother Godfrey in learning equall in valour inferiour in judgement rash precipitate greedy of honour but swallowing more then he could digest and undertaking what he was not able to perform little-affected to the Clergie or rather to their temporall greatnesse especially when it came in competition with his own much given to women besides the three wives he had first marrying Gutrera an English-woman after her death Tafror an Armenian Lady and whilest she yet survived the Countesse of Sicilie yet he had no child God commonly punishing wantonnesse with barrennesse For the rest we referre the reader to the dull Epitaph written on his tombe which like the verses of that age runneth in a kind of rhythme though it can scarce stand on true feet Rex Baldwinus Iudas alter Maccabaeus Spes patriae vigor Ecclesiae virtus utriusque Quem formidabant cui dona tributa ferebant Cedar Aegypti Dan ac homicida Damascus Proh dolor
willingly But at last he was made to stoop and retired himself to a private life appointing Baldwine his nephew a child of five yeares old his successour and Guy Earl of Joppa and Askelon this childs father in law to be Protectour of the Realm in his minority But soon after he revoked this latter act and designed Reimund Earl of Tripoli for the Protectour He displaced Guy because he found him of no over-weight worth scarce passable without favourable allowance little feared of his foes and as little loved of his friends The more martiall Christians sleighted him as a slug and neglected so lazy a leader that could not keep pace with those that were to follow him Yea they refused whilest he was Protectour at his command to fight with Saladine and out of distast to their Generall suffered their enemie freely to forrage which was never done before For the Christians never met any Turks wandring in the Holy land but on even terms they would examine their passe-port how sufficient it was and bid them battel Guy stormed at his displacing and though little valiant yet very â—ullen left the Court in discontent went home and fortified his cities of Joppa and Askelon What should King Baldwine do in this case Whom should he make Protectour Guy had too little Reimund too much spirit for the place He feared Guy's cowardlinesse lest he should lose the kingdome to the Turks and Reimunds treachery lest he should get it for himself Thus anguish of mind and weaknesse of bodie a doughtie conquest for their united strengths which single might suffice ended this Kings dayes dying young at five and twenty yeares of age But if by the morning we may guesse at the day he would have been no whit inferiour to any of his predecessours especially if his body had been able but alas it spoiled the musick of his soul that the instrument was quite out of tune He reigned twelve yeares and was buried in the Temple of the Sepulchre a King happie in this that he died before the death of his Kingdome Chap. 43. The short life and wofull death of Baldwine the fifth an infant Guy his father in law succeedeth him IT is a rare happinesse of the family of S. Laurence Barons of Hoath in Ireland that the heirs for 400 yeares together alwayes have been of age before the death of their fathers For Minors have not onely baned families but ruined realms It is one of Gods threatnings I will give children to be their Princes and babes shall rule over them With this rod God strook the Kingdome of Jerusalem thrice in 40 yeares Baldwine the third fourth and fifth being all under age and this last but five yeares old He was the posthumus sonne of William Marquesse of Montferrat by Sibyll his wife sister to Baldwine the fourth daughter to King Almerick She afterwards was married to Guy Earl of Joppa and Askelon Now Reimund Earl of Tripoli challenged to be Protectour of this young King by the vertue of an Act of the former King so assigning him But Sibyll mother to this infant to defeat Reimund first murdered all naturall affection in her self and then by poyson murdered her sonne that so the Crown in her right might come to her husband Guy This Baldwine reigned eight moneths eight dayes saith mistaken Munster and some mistake more who make him not to reigne at all cruel to wrong his memorie of his honour whom his mother had robbed both of his life and Kingdome His death was concealed till Guy his father in law had obtained by large bribes to the Templars and Heraclius the Patriarch to be crowned King One more ennobled with his descent from the ancient family of the Lusignans in Poictou then for any eminencie in himself His gifts were better then his endowments Yet had he been more fortunate he would have been accounted more vertuous men commonly censuring that the fault of the King which is the fate of the kingdome And now the Christian affairs here posted to their wofull period being spurred on by the discords of the Princes Chap. 44. Church-affairs Of Haymericus Patriarch of Antioch Of the Grecian Anti-patriarchs and of the learned Theodorus Balsamon WHilest Heraclius did Patriarch it in Jerusalem one Haymericus had the same honour at Antioch He wrote to Henry the second King of England a bemoning letter of the Christians in the East and from him received another fraught with never-performed fair promises This man must needs be different from that Haymericus who began his Patriarchship in Antioch anno 1143 and sat but twelve yeares say the Centuriatours But Baronius as different from them sometimes in Chronologie as Divinitie maketh them the same Then must he be a through-old man enjoying his place above fourtie yeares being probably before he wore the style of Patriarch well worn in yeares himself I must confesse it passeth my Chymistrie to extract any agreement herein out of the contrariety of writers We must also take notice that besides the Latine Patriarchs in Jerusalem and Antioch there were also Grecian Anti-patriarchs appointed by the Emperour of Constantinople who having no temporall power nor profit by Church-lands had onely jurisdiction over those of the Greek Church We find not the chain of their succession but here and there light on a link and at this time in Jerusalem on three successively 1. Athanasius whom though one out of his abundant charitie is pleased to style a Schismatick yet was he both pious and learned as appeareth by his epistles 2. Leontius commended likewise to posteritie for a good Clerk and an honest man 3. Dositheus inferiour to the former in both respects Isaac the Grecian Emperour sent to make him Patriarch of Constantinople and Dositheus catching at both held neither but betwixt two Patriarchs chairs fell to the ground Antioch also had her Greek Patriarchs As one Sotericus displaced for maintaining some unsound tenets about our Saviour After him Theodorus Balsamon the oracle of the learned Law in his age He compiled and commented on the ancient Canons and principally set forth the priviledges of Constantinople listening say the Romanists to the least noise that soundeth to the advancing of the Eastern Churches and knocking down Rome wheresoever it peepeth above Constantinople This maketh Bellarmine except against him as a partiall writer because a true Historian should be neither partie advocate nor judge but a bare witnesse By Isaac the Grecian Emperour this Balsamon was also deceived he pretended to remove him to Constantinople on condition he would prove the translation of the Patriarch to be legall which is forbidden by the Canons Balsamon took upon him to prove it and a Lawyers brains will beat to purpose when his own preferment is the fee. But herein he did but crack the nut for another to eat the kernel For the Emperour mutable in his mind changing his favourites as well
second Alice married to young Boemund Prince of Antioch the third Hodiern wife to Reimund Prince of Tripoli and Mete the youngest Abbesse of Bethanie Chap. 19. Of Fulco the fourth King of Ierusalem FUlco Earl of Tours Mam and Anjou coming some three yeares before on pilgrimage to Jerusalem there took in marriage Millesent the Kings daughter He had assigned to him the city of Tyre and some other princely accommodations for his present maintenance and the Kingdome after the death of his father in law which he received accordingly He was welnigh 60 yeares old And by his first wife he had a sonne Geffrey Plantagenet Earl of Anjou to whom he left his lands in France and from whom our Kings of England are descended This Fulco was a very valiant man able both of body and mind His greatest defect was a weak memory though not so bad as that of Messala Corvinus who forgot his own name insomuch that he knew not his own servants and those whom he even now preferred were presently after strangers unto him Yet though he had a bad memory whilest he lived he hath a good one now he is dead and his vertues are famous to posteritie Chap. 20. The Church-story during this Kings reigne The remarkable ruine of Rodolphus Patriarch of Antioch THe Church of Jerusalem yeelded no alterations in the reigne of Fulco But in Antioch there was much stirre who should succeed Bernard that peaceable long-lived man who sat 36 yeares and survived eight Patriarchs of Jerusalem Now whilest the Clergie were tedious in their choice the Laity was too nimble for them and they thinking it equall to have an hand in making who must have their arms in defending a Patriarch clapped one Rodolphus of noble parentage into the chair He presently took his pall off from the altar of S. Peter thereby sparing both his purse and pains to go to Rome and acknowledging no other superiour then that Apostle for his patrone This man was the darling of the Gentry and no wonder if they loved him who was of their cloth and making but hated of the Clergie Wherefore knowing himself to need strong arms who was to swim against the stream he wrought himself into the favour of the Princesse of Antioch the widow of young Boemund so that he commanded all her command and beat down his enemies with her strength He promised to make a marriage betwixt her and Reimund Earl of Poictou a Frenchman of great fame who was coming into these parts but he deceived her and caused the Earl to marry Constantia the daughter of this Lady by whom he had the principality of Antioch Indeed this Constantia was but a child for age but they never want yeares to marry who have a Kingdome for their portion The Patriarch to make firre work bound Prince Reimund by an oath to be true to him But friends unjustly gotten are seldome comfortably enjoyed Of his sworn friend he proved his sworn enemy and forced him to go up to Rome there to answer many accusations laid to his charge wherein the ground-work perchance was true though malice might set the varnish on it The main matter was that he made odious comparisons betwixt Antioch and Rome and counted himself equall to his Holinesse Rodolphus coming to Rome found the Popes doores shut against him but he opened them with a golden key Money he sowed plentifully and reaped it when he came to be tried for he found their hands very soft towards him whom formerly he had greased in the fist He also resigned his old pall and took a new one from the Pope As for his other crimes it was concluded that Albericus Bishop of Ostia should be sent into Syria the Popes Legate to examine matters and to proceed accordingly with the Patriarch as things there should be found alledged and proved Whereat his adversaries much stormed who expected that he should instantly have been deposed Yet afterwards they prevailed mightily with Albericus the Legate and bowed him on their side He coming to Antioch cited the Patriarch to appear who being thrice called came not On his absence all were present with their conjectures what should cause it Some imputing it to his guiltinesse others to his contempt others to his fear of his enemies potencie or judges partiality for indeed the Legate came not with a virgin-judgement but ravished with prejudice being prepossessed with this intent to dispossesse him of his place Some thought he relied on his peace formerly made at Rome where the illegality of his election was rectified by his laying down his first pall and assuming a new one from the Pope Here was it worth the beholding in what severall streams mens affections ran All wished that the tree might be felled who had hopes to gather chips by his fall and especially one Arnulphus and Dean Lambert the promoters against the Patriarch Others pitied him and though perchance content that his roof might be taken down were loth he should be razed to the ground Some reserved their affections till they were counselled by the event which side to favour and would not be engaged by any manifest declaration but so that they might fairly retreat if need required Amongst other Prelates which were present Serlo Archbishop of Apamea was one who formerly had been a great enemy to the Patriarch but had lately taken himself off from that course The Legate demanded of him why he proceeded not to accuse the Patriarch as he was wont To whom he answered What formerly I did was done out of unadvised heat against the health of my soul discovering the nakednesse of my father like to cursed Cham and now God hath recalled me from mine errour so that I will neither accuse nor presumptuously judge him but am ready to die for his safety Hereupon the Legate immediately such was the martiall law in a Church-man deposed him from his Archbishoprick Little hope then had the Patriarch who saw himself condemned in his friend and he himself followed not long after being thrust out by violence cast into prison and there long kept in chains till at last he made an escape to Rome intending there to traverâ—e his cause again had not death occasioned by poison as is thought prevented him Chap. 21. Calo-Iohannes the Grecian Emperour demandeth Antiochia Reimund the Prince thereof doeth homage to him for it CAlo-Johannes the Grecian Emperour came up with a vast army of horse and foot and demanded of Reimund Prince of Antioch to resigne unto him that whole Signorie according to the composition which the Christian Princes made with Alexius his father Hereat Reimund and all the Latines stormed out of measure Had they purchased the inheritance of the land with their own bloud now to turn tenants at will to other Some pleaded That the ill usage of Alexius extorted from Godfrey and the rest of the Pilgrimes that agreement and an oath made by force is
tamed with husbandry But the people scorning that their ground should be better civilized then themselves never manure it and had rather provide their bread with the sword then with the plough Other partiall causes might share in these Turks removall but the cause of causes was the justice of God to suffer this unregarded people to grow into the terrour of the world for the punishment of Christians and we may justly hope that when the correction is done the rod shall be burnt especially finding already their force to abate being at this day stopt with the half-kingdome of Hungarie who formerly could not be stayed by the whole Empire of Greece The first step these Turks took out of their own countrey was into Turcomania a northern part of Armenia conquered and so called by them where they lived like the Scythian Nomades alwayes wandring yet alwayes in their way none claiming a propriety in the land as his all defending the common interest therein as theirs The next step was into Persia whither they were called to assist Mahomet the Saracen Sultan against his enemies where taking notice of their own strength the Saracens cowardize and the pleasure of Persia they under Tangrolipix their first king overcame that large dominion Then did the Turks take upon them the Mahometan religion and having conquered the Saracens by their valour were themselves subdued by the Saracen superstition An accident more memorable because not easily to be paralleled excepting king Amaziah who having taken Edom was took with the idolatry thereof because conquerours commonly bring their religion into the places they subdue and not take it thence Their third large stride was into Babylon the Caliph whereof they overcame And shortly after under Cutlu-muses their second king they wan Mesopotamia the greatest part of Syria and the citie of Jerusalem Mean time whilest these vultures Turks and Saracens pecked out each others eyes the Christians if they had husbanded this occasion might much have advantaged themselves and might have recovered their health by these contrary poysons expelling each other But the Grecian Emperours given over to pleasure and covetousnesse regarded not their own good till at last the Turks devoured them as God willing shall be shewed hereafter As for those Christians who lived in Palestine under the Turks they had no lease of their safetie but were tenants at will for their lives and goods to these tyrants though it rained not down-right yet the storm of persecution hung over their heads their minds were ever in torture being on the rack of continuall fear and suspense and Simon himself was no better then an honourable slave though Patriarch of Jerusalem as appeareth by his letters of complaint Chap. 8. The character of Peter the Hermite his soliciting the Holy warre the Councel at Clermont and the successe thereof IT happened there came a pilgrime to Jerusalem called Peter an Hermite born at Amiens in France one of a contemptible person His silly looks carried in them a despair of any worth and yet as commonly the richest mines lie under the basest and barrenest surface of ground he had a quick apprehension eloquent tongue and what got him the greatest repute was accounted very religious With him Simon the Patriarch of Jerusalem often treated concerning the present miseries of the Christians under the Turks what hope of amendment and how the matter might secretly be contrived that the Princes in Europe might assist and relieve them Peter moved with the Patriarchs perswasions the equitie and honourablenesse of the cause and chiefly with a vision as they say from heaven wherein our Saviour himself appointed him his Legate with a commission to negotiate the Christian cause took the whole businesse upon him and travelled to Rome to consult with Pope Urbane the second about the advancing of so pious a designe Now though many cry up this Hermite to have been so pretious a piece of holinesse yet some suspect him to be little better then a counterfeit and a cloke-father for a plot of the Popes begetting because the Pope alone was the gainer by this great adventure and all other Princes of Europe if they cast up their audit shall find themselves losers This with some is a presumption that this cunning merchant first secretly imployed this Hermite to be his factour and to go to Jerusalem to set on foot so beneficiall a trade for the Romish Church As for the apparition of our Saviour one may wonder that the world should see most visions when it was most blind and that that age most barren in learning should be most fruitfull in revelations And surely had Peter been truly inspired by God and moved by his Spirit to begin this warre he would not have apostated from his purpose so mortified a man would not have feared death in a good cause as he did afterwards and basely ran away at Antioch For when the siege grew hot his devotion grew cold he found a difference betwixt a voluntary fast in his cell and a necessary and undispensable famine in a camp so that being well hunger-pincht this cunning companion who was the trumpet to sound a march to others secretly sounded a retreat to himself ran away from the rest of the Christians and was shamefully brought back again for a fugitive But to return to Pope Urbane who was zealous in the cause to further it and called a Councel at Clermont in France where met many Princes and Prelates to whom he made a long oration Authours differ in the mould but they agree in the metall that it was to this effect First he bemoned the miseries of the Christians in Asia and the vastation of those holy places Jerusalem which was once the joy of the whole earth was now become the grief of all good men the Chapell of Christs conception at Nazareth birth at Bethlehem buriall on mount Calvarie ascension on mount Olivet once the fountains of piety were now become the sinks of all profanenesse Next he encouraged the Princes in the Councel to take arms against those infidels and to break their bonds in sunder and to cast their cords farre from them and as it is written to cast out the handmaid and her children Otherwise if they would not help to quench their neighbours houses they must expect the speedy burning of their own and that these barbarous nations would quickly overrun all Europe Now to set an edge on their courage he promised to all that went this voyage a full remission of their sinnes penance here and the enjoying heaven hereafter Lastly thus concluded Gird your swords to your thighs O ye men of might It is our parts to pray yours to fight ours with Moses to hold up unwearied hands to God yours to stretch forth the sword against these children of Amalek Amen It is above belief with what cheerfulnesse this motion meeting with an active
affrighted into good works for fear of Purgatory no wonder if devout Godfrey were pliable to any demand Pierce Plowman maketh a witty wonder why Friers should covet rather to confesse and bury then to christen children intimating it proceeded from covetousnesse there being gain to be gotten by the one none by the other And this was the age wherein the Covents got their best living by the dying which made them contrary to all other people most to worship the sunne setting Chap. 6. Godfreys death and buriall AUthours differ on the death of this noble King some making him to die of that long-wasting sicknesse others of the plague It may be the plague took him out of the hands of that lingring disease and quickly cut off what that had been long in fretting He died July 18. having reigned one yeare wanting five dayes A Prince valiant pious bountifull to the Church for besides what he gave to the Patriarch he founded Canons in the temple of the Sepulchre and a monasterie in the vale of Jehoshaphat We would say his death was very unseasonable leaving the orphane State not onely in its minority but its infancy but that that fruit which to mans apprehension is blown down green and untimely is gathered full-ripe in Gods providence He was buried in the temple of the Sepulchre where his tombe is unviolated at this day whether out of a religion the Turks bear to the place or out of honour to his memory or out of a valiant scorn to fight against dead bones or perchance the Turks are minded as John King of England was who being wished by a Courtier to untombe the bones of one who whilest he was living had been his great enemy Oh no said King John would all mine enemies were as honourably buried Chap. 7. Baldwine chosen King He keepeth Ierusalem in despite of the Patriarch GOdfrey being dead the Christians with a joint consent dispatched an embassie to Baldwine his brother Count of Edessa a city in Arabia the lord whereof had adopted this Baldwine to be his heir entreated him to accept of the Kingdome which honourable offer he courteously embraced A Prince whose body Nature cut of the largest size being like Saul higher by the head then his subjects And though the Goths had a law alwayes to choose a short thick man for their King yet surely a goodly statuâ—e is most majesticall His hair and beard brown face fair with an eagles nose which in the Persian Kings was anciently observed as a mark of magnanimity Bred he was a scholar entred into Orders and was Prebendary in the churches of Rhems Liege and Cambray but afterwards turned secular Prince as our Athelwulphus who exchanged the mitre of Winchester for the crown of England Yet Baldwine put not off his scholarship with his habit but made good use thereof in his reigne For though bookishnesse may unactive yet learning doth accomplish a Prince and maketh him sway his sceptre the steadier He was properly the first King of Jerusalem his brother Godfrey never accounted more then a Duke and was crowned on Christmasse-day The reason that made him assume the name of a King was thereby to strike the greater terrour into the Pagans Thus our Kings of England from the dayes of King John were styled but Lords of Ireland till Henry the 8. first entitled himself King because Lord was sleighted by the seditious rebells As for that religious scruple which Godfrey made to wear a crown of gold where Christ wore one of thorns Baldwine easily dispensed therewith And surely in these things the mind is all A crown might be refused with pride and worn with humility But before his Coronation there was a tough bickering about the city of Jerusalem Dabert the Patriarch on the death of Godfrey devoured Jerusalem and the towre of David in his hope but coming to take possession found the place too hot for him For Garnier Earl of Gretz in the behalf of King Baldwine who was not as yet returned from Edessa manned it against him But so it happened that this valiant Earl died three dayes after which by Dabert was counted a just judgement of God upon him for his sacriledge Now though it be piety to impute all events to Gods hand yet to say that this mans death was for such a sinne sheweth too much presumption towards God and too little charity towards our neighbour Indeed if sudden death had singled out this Earl alone it had somewhat favoured their censure but there was then a generall mortality in the city which swept away thousands and which is most materiall what this Patriarch interpreted sacriledge others accounted loyalty to his Sovereigne As for that donation of the city of Jerusalem and towre of David which Godfrey gave to the Patriarch some thought that this gift overthrew it self with its own greatnesse being so immoderately large others supposed it was but a personall act of Godfrey and therefore died with the giver as conceiving his successours not obliged to perform it because it was unreasonable that a Prince should in such sort fetter and restrain those which should come after him Sure it is that Baldwine having both the stronger sword and possession of the citie kept it perforce whilest the Patriarch took that leave which is allowed to loosers to talk chafe and complain sending his bemoning letters to Boemund Prince of Antioch inviting him to take arms and by violence to recover the Churches right but from him received the uselesse assistance of his pity and that was all Chap. 8. The Church-story during this Kings reigne A chain of successive Patriarchs Dabert Ebremare Gibelline and Arnulphus Their severall characters AFterwards this breach betwixt the King and Patriarch was made up by the mediation of some friends but the skinne onely was drawn over not dead flesh drawn out of the wound and Arnulphus whom we mentioned before discontented for his losse of the Patriarchs place still kept the sore raw betwixt them At last Dabertus the Patriarch was fain to flee to Antioch where he had plentifull maintenance allowed him by Bernard Patriarch of that See But he was too high in the instep to wear another mans shoes and conceived himself to be but in a charitable prison whilest he lived on anothers benevolence Wherefore hence he hasted to Rome complained to the Pope and received from his Holinesse a command to King Baldwine to be reestablished in the Patriarchs place but returning home died by the way at Messana in Sicily being accounted seven yeares Patriarch foure at home and three in banishment Whilest Dabert was thrust out one Ebremarus was made Patriarch against his will by King Baldwine An holy and devout man but he had more of the dove then the serpent and was none of the deepest reach He hearing that he was complained of to the Pope for his irregular election posted to Rome
imployment never played at chesse or dice never hawked nor hunted beheld no stage-playes arming themselves with faith within with steel without aiming more at strength then state to be feared not admired to strike terrour with their valour not stirre covetousnesse with their wealth in the heart of their enemies Other sweet praises of them let him who pleaseth fetch from the mouth of this mellifluous Doctour Indeed at first they were very poore in token whereof they gave for their Seal Two men riding on one horse And hence it was that if the Turks took any of them prisoners their constant ransome was a Sword and a Belt it being conceived that their poore state could stretch to no higher price But after their order was confirmed by Pope Honorius by the intreatie of Stephen the Patriarch of Jerusalem who appointed them to wear a White garment to which Eugenius the third added a Red crosse on their breast they grew wonderfully rich by the bounty of severall Patrones Yea the King and Patriarch of Jerusalem dandled this infant-order so long in their laps till it brake their knees it grew so heavy at last and these ungratefull Templars did pluck out the feathers of those wings which hatched and brooded them From Alms-men they turned Lords and though very valiant at first for they were sworn rather to die then to flie afterwards lazinesse withered their arms and swelled their bellies They laughed at the rules of their first Institution as at the swaddling-clothes of their infancie neglecting the Patriarch and counting themselves too old to be whipped with the rod of his discipline till partly their vitiousnesse and partly their wealth caused their finall extirpation as God willing shall be shewed hereafter At the same time began the Teutonick order consisting onely of Dutch-men well descended living at Jerusalem in an house which one of that nation bequeathed to his countreymen that came thither on pilgrimage In the yeare 1190 their order was honoured with a great Master whereof the first was Henry a-Walpot and they had an habit assigned them to wear Black crosses on White robes They were to fight in the defense of Christianity against Pagans But we shall meet with them more largely in the following story Chap. 17. The Christians variety of successe Tyre taken by the assistance of the Venetians IT is worth the Readers marking how this Kings reigne was checquered with variety of fortune For first Roger Prince of Antioch or rather guardian in the minoritie of young Boemund went forth with greater courage then discretion whereunto his successe was answerable being conquered and killed by the Turks But Baldwine on the 14 of August following forced the Turks to a restitution of their victorie and with a small army gave them a great overthrow in spite of Gazi their boasting Generall To qualifie the Christians joy for this good successe Joceline unadvisedly fighting with Balak a petty King of the Turks was conquered and taken prisoner and King Baldwine coming to deliver him was also taken himself for which he might thank his own rashnesse For it had been his best work to have done nothing for a while till the Venetian succours which were not farre off had come to him and not presently to adventure all to the hazard of a battel Yet the Christians hands were not bound in the Kings captivity For Eustace Grenier chosen Vice-roy whilest the King was in durance stoutly defended the countrey and Count Joceline which had escaped out of prison fighting again with Balak at Hircapolis routed his army and killed him with his own hands But the main piece of service was the taking of Tyre which was done under the conduct of Guarimund the Patriarch of Jerusalem but chiefly by the help of the Venetian navy which Michael their Duke brought who for their pains were to have a third part of the city to themselves Tyre had in it store of men and munition but famine increasing against whose arrows there is no armour of proof it was yeelded on honourable terms And though perhaps hunger shortly would have made the Turks digest courser conditions yet the Christians were loth to anger their enemies valour into desperatenesse Next yeare the King returned home having been eighteen moneths a prisoner being to pay for his ransome an hundred thousand Michaelets and for security he left his daughter in pawn But he payed the Turks with their own money or which was as good coin with the money of the Saracens vanquishing Barsequen their Captain at Antiochia and not long after he conquered Doldequin another great Commander of them at Damascus To correct the ranknesse of the Christians pride for this good successe Damascus was afterward by them unfortunately besieged Heaven discharged against them thunder-ordinance arrows of lightning small-shot of hail whereby they being miserably wasted were forced to depart And this affliction was increased when Boemund the young Prince of Antioch one of great hope and much lamented was defeated and slain Authours impute these mishaps to the Christians pride and relying on their own strength which never is more untrusty then when most trusted True it was God often gave them great victories when they defended themselves in great straits Hereupon they turned their thankfulnesse into presumption grew at last from defending themselves to dare their enemies on disadvantages to their often overthrow for God will not unmake his miracles by making them common And may not this also be counted some cause of their ill successe That they alwayes imputed their victories to the materiall Crosse which was carried before them So that Christ his glory after his ascension suffered again on the Crosse by their superstition Chap. 18. The death of Baldwine the second KIng Baldwine a little before his death renounced the world and took on him a religious habit This was the fashion of many Princes in that age though they did it for divers ends Some thought to make amends for their disordered lives by entring into some holy order at their deaths Others having surfeted of the worlds vanitie fasted from it when they could eat no more because of the impotency of their bodies Others being crossed by the world by some misfortune sought to crosse the world again in renouncing of it These like furious gamesters threw up their cards not out of dislike of gaming but of their game and they were rather discontented to live then contented to die But we must beleeve that Baldwine did it out of true devotion to ripen himself for heaven because he was piously affected from his youth so that all his life was religiously tuned though it made the sweetest musick in the close He died not long after on the 22 of August in the 13 yeare of his reigne and was buried with his predecessours in the temple of the Sepulchre By Morphe a Grecian Lady his wife he had foure daughters whereof Millesent was the eldest the
of no force but may freely be broken because not freely made Others alledged That when Antiochia was first wonne it was offered to Alexius and he refused it so fair a tender was a paiment Others argued That that generation which made this contract was wholly dead and that the debt descended not on them to make it good But most insisted on this That Alexius kept not his covenants and assisted them not according to the agreement Indeed he called these Princes his sonnes but he disinherited them of their hopes and all their portion was in promises never payed No reason then that the knot of the agreement should hold them fast and let him loose The worst of these answers had been good enough if their swords had been as strong as the Grecian Emperours But he coming with a numerous army in few dayes overcame all Cilicia which for fourty yeares had belonged to the Prince of Antioch and then besieged the city of Antioch it self Force is the body and resolution the soul of an action both these were well tempered together in the Emperours army and the city brought to great distresse Whereupon Fulk King of Jerusalem with some other Princes fearing what wofull conclusion would follow so violent premisses made a composition between them So that Reimund did homage to the Emperour and held his principality as a vassall from him And though foure yeares after the Emperour came again into these parts yet he did not much harm pillaging was all his conquest Some yeares after he died being accidentally poisoned by one of his own arrows which he intended for the wild boar A Prince so much better to the Latines then his father Alexius as an honourable foe is above a treacherous friend His Empire he disposed to Emmanuel his sonne Chap. 22. The succession of the Turkish Kings and the Saracen Caliphs Of the unlimited power of a Souldan Some resemblance thereof anciently in the kingdome of France NO great service of moment was performed in the reigne of King Fulk because he was molested with domesticall discords and intestine warres against Paulinus Count of Tripoli and Hugh Earl of Joppa Onely Beersheba was fortified and some forts built about Askelon as an introduction to besiege it Also skirmishes were now and then fought with variety of successe against Sanguin one of the Turks great Princes And here let the reader take notice that though we have mentioned many Commanders as Auxianus Corboran Ammiravissus Tenduc Gazi Balak Dordequin Borscquin Sanguin some Turkish some Saracen yet none of these were absolute Kings though perchance in courtesie sometimes so styled by writers but were onely Generals Lieutenants accountable to their superiours the Caliphs either of Babylon or Egypt Who what they were we referre the reader to our Chronologie Caliph was the Pope as I may say of the Saracens a mixture of Priest and Prince But we need not now trouble our selves with curiosity in their successions these Caliphs being but obscure men who confined themselves to pleasures making play their work and having their constant diet on the sawce of recreation We are rather to take notice of their Generals and Captains which were the men of action For a Souldan which was but a Vice-roy with his borrowed light shineth brighter in history then the Caliph himself Yet may we justly wonder that these slothfull Caliphs should do nothing themselves and commit such unlimited power to their Souldans especially seeing too much trust is a strong tentation to make ambitious flesh and bloud disloyall Yet something may be said for the Caliph of Egypt besides that the pleasures of that countrey were sufficient to invite him to a voluptuous life First the awfull regard which the Egyptians had of their Princes gave them security to trust their officers with ample commission Secondly herein they followed an ancient custome practised by the Pharaohs anciently who gave unto Joseph so large authority as we may read in Genesis Some example also we have hereof in France about nine hundred yeares ago Childerick Theodorick Clovis Childebert Dagobert c. a chain of idle Kings well linked together gave themselves over to pleasures privately never coming abroad but onely on May-day they shewed themselves to the people riding in a chariot adorned with flowers and drawn with oxen slow cattel but good enough for so lazy luggage whilest Charles Martell and Pipin Maiors of the palace opened packets gave audience to Embassadours made warre or peace enacted and repealed laws at pleasure till afterwards from controllers of the Kings houshold they became controllers of the Kings and at last Kings themselves To return to Egypt Let none be troubled pardon a charitable digression to satisfie some scrupulous in a point of Chronologie if they find anciently more Kings of the Egyptians and longer reigning then the consent of times will allow room for for no doubt that which hath swelled the number is the counting Deputies for Kings Yea we find the holy Spirit in the same breath 1. Reg. 22.47 speak a Vice-roy to be a King and no King There was no King in Edom a Deputy was King Chap. 23. The lamentable death of King Fulk WHen Fulco had now eleven yeares with much industry and care though with little enlarging of his dominions governed the land he was slain in earnest as following his sport in hunting to the great grief of his subjects And we may heare him thus speaking his Epitaph A hare I hunted and death hunted me The more my speed was was the worse my speed For as well-mounted I away did flee Death caught and kill'd me falling from my steed Yet this mishap an happy misse I count That fell from horse that I to heaven might mount A Prince of a sweet nature and though one would have read him to be very furious by his high-coloured countenance yet his face was a good hypocrite and contra leges istius coloris saith Tyrius he was affable courteous and pitifull to all in distresse He was buried with his predecessours in the temple of the Sepulchre leaving two sonnes Baldwine who was 13 and Almerick 7 yeares old Chap. 24. The disposition of Baldwine the third The care of Queen Millesent in her sonnes minority BAldwine succeeded his father who quickly grew up as to age so in all royall accomplishments and became a most complete Prince well learned especially in historie liberall very witty and very pleasant in discourse He would often give a smart jest which would make the place both blush and bleed where it lighted Yet this was the better taken at his hands because he cherished not a cowardly wit in himself to wound men behind their backs but played on them freely to their faces yea and never refused the coin he payed them in but would be contented though a King to be the subject of a good jest and sometimes he was well-favouredly met with as the best fencer in
wits school hath now and then an unhappy blow dealt him Some thought he descended beneath himself in too much familiarity to his subjects for he would commonly call and salute mean persons by their names But the vulgar sort in whose judgements the lowest starres are ever the greatest conceived him to surpasse all his predecessours because he was so fellow-like with them But whilest yet he was in minority his mother Millesent made up his want of age with her abundant care being governour of all A woman in sex but of a masculine spirit She continued a widow and as for childrens sake she married once so for her childrens sake she married no more S. Bernard and she spake often together by letters He extolled her single life How it was more honour to live a widow then to be a Queen This she had by birth that by Gods bounty This she was happily begotten that she had manfully gotten of her self Yet we find not that she made a vow never to marry again wherein she did the wiser For the chastest minds cannot conclude from the present calm that there will never after arise any lustfull storm in their souls Besides a Resolution is a free custody but a Vow is a kind of prison which restrained nature hath the more desire to break Chap. 25. Of Fulcher Patriarch of Ierusalem and the insolencie of the Hospitallers against him WIlliam who was last possessed of the Patriarchs chair in Jerusalem was none of the greatest clerks But whatsoever he was for edifying of the Church he was excellent at building of Castles one at Askelon another at Ramula a third called Blank-guard for the securing of Pilgrimes till at last having sat in his place fifteen yeares he was translated to heaven and on earth Fulcher Archbishop of Tyre succeeded him An honest old man whose weak age was much molested with the pride and rebellion of the Hospitallers who lately had procured from the Pope a plenary exemption from the Patriarch This his Holinesse did the more willingly grant because hereby he made himself absolute master of all orders pinning them on himself by an immediate dependance and so bringing water to his mill by a straighter and nearer stream But hereby the entirenesse of Episcopall jurisdiction was much maimed and mangled and every Covent was a castle of rebells armed with priviledges to fight against their lawfull Diocesan Now as these Hospitallers wronged the power of the Bishops so did they rob the profit of poore Priests refusing to pay any tithes of their Mannours which contained many parishes so that the Pastours who fed the flocks were starved themselves and having laboured all day in the vineyard were at night sent supperlesse to bed the Hospitallers pleading that the Pope had freed them from these duties as if an acquittance under the hand of his Holinesse was sufficient to discharge them from paying of tithes a debt due to God Other foul crimes they also were guilty of as outbraving the temple of the Sepulchre with their stately buildings giving the Sacraments to and receiving of excommunicate persons ringing their bells when their Patriarch preached that his voice might not be heard shooting arrows into the church to disturb him and the people in Divine service A bundle whereof were hung up as a monument of their impiety Fulcher the Patriarch crawled to Rome being 100 yeares old to complain of these misdemeanours carrying with him the Archbishop of Tyre and five other Bishops But he had sped better if in stead of every one of them he had carried a bag of gold For the Hospitallers prevented him and had formerly been effectually present with their large bribes so that the Patriarchs suit was very cold And no wonder seeing he did afford no feuel to heat it The Cardinals eyes in the court of Rome were old and dimme and therefore the glasse wherein they see any thing must be well-silvered Indeed two of them Octavian and John of S. Martin favoured Christs cause and his Ministers but all the rest followed gifts and the way of Balaam the sonne of Bosor But here Baronius who hitherto had leaned on Tyrius his authority now starteth from it And no wonder for his penne will seldome cast ink when he meeteth with the corruption of the Romish court But sure it was that the good Patriarch wearied with delayes returned back with his grievances unredressed Whereupon the Hospitallers grew more insolent and under pretense of being freed from fetters would wear no girdle denying not onely subjection but any filiall obedience to a superiour Chap. 26. Of Almericus Patriarch of Antioch his instituting of Carmelites Their differing from the pattern of Elias AFter the tragicall life and death of Rodolphus Patriarch of Antioch who was twelve yeares Patriarch counting his banishment Haymericus by the contrary faction and power of Prince Reimund succeeded him with little quiet and comfort of his place And here to our grief must we take our finall farewell of the distinct succession of the Patriarchs of Antioch with the yeares that they sat such is the obscurity and confusion in it Yet no doubt this Haymericus was the same with Almericus who about the yeare 1160 first instituted the order of Carmelites Indeed formerly they lived dispersed about the mountain of Carmel but he gathered them together into one house because solitarinesse is a trespasse against the nature of man and God when he had made all things good saw it was not good for man to be alone Surely from great antiquity in the Primitive Church many retired themselves to solitary places where they were alwayes alone and alwayes in the company of good thoughts chiefly to shade themselves from the heat of persecution Whose example was in after-ages imitated by others when there was no such necessity As here by these Carmelites whose order was afterwards perfected in the yeare 1216 by Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem with certain Canonicall observations imposed upon them And in this next age these bees which first bâ—â—d in the ground and hollow trees got them hives in gardens and leaving the deserts gained them princely houses in pleasant places They pretended indeed that they followed the pattern of Elias though farre enough from his example First for their habit they wore white coats guarded with red streaks but they have no colour in the Bible that Elias ever wore such a livery it suits rather with Joseph then with him Secondly by their order they were to ride on he-asses whereas we reade that Elias went on foot and rode but once in a chariot of fire Thirdly they by the constitution of Pope Nicolas the 5. had sisters of their company living neare unto them we find Elias to have no such feminine consorts Fourthly they lived in all lust and lazinesse as Nicolas Gallus their own Generall did complain that they were Sodomites and compareth them to the tail of the Dragon
Bernards bow Wherefore this miscarriage came very seasonably to abate their over-towring conceits of him and perchance his own of himself And no doubt he made a good use of this bad accident The lesse his fame blazed the more his devotion burned and the cutting off of his top made him take deep root and to be made more truly humbled and sanctified In his book of Consideration he maketh a modest defense of himself whither we referre the reader To conclude The devotion of this man was out of question so neglecting this world that he even did spit out that preferment which was dropped into his mouth But as for his judgement it was not alwayes the best which gave occasion to the proverb Bernardus non vidit omnia Chap. 31. Vnseasonable discords betwixt King Baldwine and his mother Her strength in yeelding to her sonne UPon the departure of Emperour Conrade and King Lewis Noradine the Turk much prevailed in Palestine Nor was he little advantaged by the discords betwixt Millesent Queen-mother and the Nobility thus occasioned There was a Noble-man called Manasses whom the Queen governing all in her sonnes minority made Constable of the kingdome This man unable to manage his own happinesse grew so insolent that he could not go but either spurning his equals or trampling on his inferiours No wonder then if envy the shadow of greatnesse waited upon him The Nobility highly distasted him but in all oppositions the Queens favour was his sanctuary who to shew her own absolutenesse and that her affection should not be controlled nor that thrown down which she set up still preserved the creature she had made His enemies perceiving him so fast rooted in her favour and seeing they could not remove him from his foundation sought to remove him with his foundation instigating young King Baldwine against his mother and especially against her favourite They complained how the State groned under his insolency He was the bridge by which all offices must passe and there pay toll He alone sifted all matters and then no wonder if much bran passed He under pretense of opening the Queens eyes did lead her by the nose captivating her judgement in stead of directing it He like a by-gulf devoured her affection which should flow to her children They perswaded the King he was ripe for government and needed none to hold his hand to hold the sceptre Let him therefore either untie or cut himself loose from this slavery and not be in subjection to a subject Liberty needeth no hard pressing on youth a touch on that stamp maketh an impression on that waxen age Young Baldwine is apprehensive of this motion and prosecuteth the matter so eagerly that at length he coopeth up this Manasses in a castle and forceth him to abjure the kingdome Much stirre afterwards was betwixt him and his mother till at last to end divisions the kingdome was divided betwixt them She had the city of Jerusalem and the land-locked part he the maritime half of the land But the widest throne is too narrow for two to sit on together He not content with this partition marcheth furiously to Jerusalem there to besiege his mother and to take all from her Out of the citie cometh Fulcher the good Patriarch his age was a patent for his boldnesse and freely reproveth the King Why should he go on in such an action wherein every step he stirred his legs must needs grate and crash both against nature and religion Did he thus requite his mothers care in stewarding the State thus to affright her age to take arms against her Was it not her goodnesse to be content with a moyety when the whole kingdome in right belonged unto her But ambition had so inchanted Baldwine that he was penetrable with no reasons which crossed his designes so that by the advice of her friends she was content to resigne up all lest the Christian cause should suffer in these dissensions She retired her self to Sebaste and abridged her train from State to necessity And now the lesse room she had to build upon the higher she raised her soul with heavenly meditations and lived as more private so more pious till the day of her death Chap. 32. Reimund Prince of Antioch overcome and killed Askelon taken by the Christians The death of King Baldwine THese discords betwixt mother and sonne were harmonie in the eares of Noradine the Turk Who coming with a great army wasted all about Antioch and Prince Reimund going out to bid him battel was slain himself and his army overthrown nor long after Joceline Count of Edessa was intercepted by the Turks and taken prisoner As for Constantia the relict of Reimund Prince of Antioch she lived a good while a widow refusing the affections which many princely suiters proffered unto her till at last she descended beneath her self to marry a plain man Reinold of Castile Yet why should we say so when as a Castilian Gentleman if that not a needlesse tautologie as he maketh the inventory of his own worth prizeth himself any Princes fellow And the proverb is Each lay-man of Castile may make a King each clergie-man a Pope Yea we had best take heed how we speak against this match for Almericus Patriarch of Antioch for inveighing against it was by this Prince Reinold set in the heat of the sunne with his bare head besmeared with hony a sweet-bitter torment that so bees might sting him to death But King Baldwine mediated for him and obtained his liberty that he might come to Jerusalem where he lived many yeares in good esteem And Gods judgements are said to have overtaken the Prince of Antioch for besides the famine which followed in his countrey he himself afterwards fighting unfortunately with the Turks was taken prisoner But let us step over to Jerusalem where we shall find King Baldwine making preparation for the siege of Askelon Which citie after it had long been blocked up had at last an assaultable breach made in the walls thereof The Templars to whom the King promised the spoil if they took it entred through this breach into the citie and conceiving they had enow to wield the work and master the place set a guard at the breach that no more of their fellow-Christians should come in to be sharers with them in the booty But their covetousnesse cost them their lives for the Turks contemning their few number put them every one to the sword Yet at last the citie was taken though with much difficulty Other considerable victories Baldwine got of the Turks especially one at the river Jordan where he vanquished Noradine And twice he relieved Cesarea-Philippi which the Turks had straitly besieged But death at last put a period to his earthly happinesse being poisoned as it was supposed by a Jewish physician for the rest of the potion killed a dog to whom it was given This Kings youth was stained with unnaturall discords with his
the Christians the honour of the victorie Following his blow he pinned up the Turks afterward in the city of Alexandria and forced them to receive of him conditions of peace and then returned himself with honour to Askelon Chap. 37. Almerick against his promise invadeth Egypt His perjury punished with the future ruine of the kingdome of Ierusalem His death WHen a Crown is the prize of the game we must never expect fair play of the gamesters King Almerick having looked on the beauty of the kingdome of Egypt he longed for it and now no longer to drive out the relicks of the Turks but to get Egypt to himself And the next yeare against the solemn league with the Caliph invaded it with a great army He falsely pretended that the Caliph would make a private peace with Noradine King of the Turks and hence created his quarrel For he hath a barren brain who cannot fit himself with an occasion if he hath a desire to fall out But Gilbert master of the Hospitallers chiefly stirred up the King to this warre upon promise that the city and countrey of Pelusium if conquered should be given to his order The Templars were much against the designe one of their order was Embassadour at the ratifying of the peace and with much zeal protested against it as undertaken against oath and fidelity An oath being the highest appeal perjury must needs be an hainous sinne whereby God is solemnly invited to be witnesse of his own dishonour And as bad is a God-mocking equivocation For he that surpriseth truth with an ambush is as bad an enemy as he that fighteth against her with a flat lie in open field I know what is pleaded for King Almerick namely That Christians are not bound to keep faith with idolaters the worshippers of a false god as the Egyptian Caliph was on the matter But open so wide a window and it will be in vain to shut any doores All contracts with Pagans may easily be voided if this evasion be allowed But what saith S. Hierome It matters not to whom but by whom we swear And God to acquit himself knowing the Christians prosperity could not stand with his justice after their perjury frowned upon them And from hence authours date the constant ill successe of the Holy warre For though this expedition sped well at the first and Almerick wonne the citie of Belbis or Pelusium yet see what a cloud of miseries ensued First Noradine in his absence wasted and wonne places neare Antiochia at pleasure Secondly Meller Prince of Armenia a Christian made a covenant with Noradine and kept it most constantly to the inestimable disadvantage of the King of Jerusalem This act of Meller must be condemned but withall Gods justice admired Christians break their covenant with Saracens in Egypt whilest other Christians to punish them make and keep covenant with Turks in Asia Thirdly the Saracens grew good souldiers on a sudden who were naked at first and onely had bows but now learned from the Christians to use all offensive and defensive weapons Thus rude nations alwayes better themselves in fighting with a skilfull enemy How good mark-men are the Irish now-a-dayes which some seventy yeares ago at the beginning of their rebellions had three men to discharge a hand-gunne Fourthly Almericks hopes of conquering Egypt were frustrated for after some victories he was driven out and that whole kingdome conquered by Saladine nephew to Syracon who killed the Caliph with his horse-mace as he came to do him reverence and made himself the absolutest Turkish King of Egypt And presently after the death of Noradine the kingdome of the Turks at Damascus was by their consent bestowed upon him Indeed Noradine left a sonne Melexala who commanded in part of his fathers dominions but Saladine after his death got all for himself Thus rising men shall still meet with more stairs to raise them as those of falling with stumbling-blocks to ruine them Mean time Jerusalem was a poore weather-beaten kingdome bleak and open to the storm of enemies on all sides having no covert or shelter of any good friend neare it lying in the lions mouth betwixt his upper and nether jaw Damascus on the North and Egypt on the South two potent Turkish kingdomes united under a puissant Prince Saladine This made Almerick send for succours into Europe for now few voluntaries came to this service souldiers must be pressed with importunity Our Western Princes were prodigall of their pity but niggardly of their help The heat of the warre in Palestine had cooled their desires to go thither which made these Embassadours to return without supplies having gone farre to fetch home nothing but discomfort and despair Lastly King Almerick himself wearied with whole volleys of miseries ended his life of a bloudy flux having reigned eleven full yeares and was buried with his predecessours Leaving two children Baldwine and Sibyll by Agnes his first wife and by Mary his second wife daughter to John Proto-Sebastus a Grecian Prince one daughter Isabell married afterwards to Hemphred the third Prince of Thorone Chap. 38. Baldwine the fourth succeedeth His education under William the reverend Archbishop of Tyre BAldwine his sonne the fourth of that name succeeded his father so like unto him that we report the reader to the character of King Almerick and will spare the repeating his description Onely he differed in the temper of his bodie being enclined to the leprosie called Elephantiasis noysome to the patient but not infectious to the company not like King Uzziahs but Naamans leprosie which had it been contagious no doubt the King of Assyria when he went into the house of Rimmon would have chosen another supporter Mean time the kingdome was as sick as the King he of a leprosie that of an incurable consumption This Baldwine had the benefit of excellent education under William Archbishop of Tyre a pious man and excellent scholar skilled in all the learned Orientall tongues besides the Dutch and French his native language a moderate and faithfull writer For in the latter part of his history of the Holy warre his eye guided his hand till at last the taking of the city of Jerusalem so shook his hand that his penne fell out and he wrote no more Treasurer he was of all the money contributed to the Holy warre Chancellour of this kingdome imployed in severall Embassies in the West present at the Lateran Councel the acts whereof he did record Cardinall he might have been but refused it In a word unhappy onely that he lived in that age though that age was happy he lived in it Chap. 39. The vitiousnesse of Heraclius the Patriarch of Ierusalem His Embassie to Henry the second King of England with the successe The Maronites reconciled to the Romane Church AFter the death of Almerick Patriarch of Jerusalem Heraclius was by the Queen-mother Mary second wife to King Almerick for his
and following the advice of Charatux his counseller counted one of the wisest men in the world though his person was most contemptible so true it is none can guesse the jewel by the casket dismantled all his cities in the Holy land save some frontier-places rasing their walls and forts that they were not tenable with an army For he feared if the Dutch wonne these places they would not easily be driven out whereas now being naked from shelter he would weary them with set battels having men numberlesse and those neare at hand and so he would tame the Romane Eagle by watching him giving him no rest nor respite from continuall fighting It is therefore no Paradox to say That in some case the strength of a kingdome doth consist in the weaknesse of it And hence it is that our English Kings have suffered Time without disturbing her meals to feed her belly full on their in-land castles and citie-walls which whilest they were standing in their strength were but the nurseries of rebellion And now as one observeth because we have no strong cities warre in England waxeth not old being quickly stabbed with set battels which in the Low-countreys hath already outlived the grand climactericall of threescore and ten yeares But Frederick the Emperour being now entring into the Holy land was to the great grief of all Christians suddenly taken away being drowned in the river of Saleph a river such is the envie of Barbarisme obscuring all places which cannot accurately be known at this day because this new name is a stranger to all ancient maps If he went in to wash himself as some write he neither consulted with his health nor honour Some say his horse foundred under him as he passed the water others that he fell from him But these severall relations as varietie of instruments make a dolefull consort in this that there he lost his life and no wonder if the cold water quickly quenched those few sparks of naturall heat left in him at seventie yeares of age Neubrigensis conceiveth that this his sudden death was therefore inflicted on him because in his youth he fought against the Popes and Church of Rome But I wonder that he seeing an Emperour drowned in a ditch durst adventure into the bottomlesse depths of Gods counsels Let it content us to know that oftentimes heaven blasteth those hopes which bud first and fairest and the feet of mightie Monarchs do slip when they want but one step to their enemies throne After his death Frederick Duke of Suevia his second sonne undertook the conduct of the armie Now the Turks conceiving grief had steeped and moistened these Pilgrimes hearts gave them a sudden charge in hope to have overthrown them But the valiant Dutch who though they had scarce wiped their eyes had scoured their swords quickly forced them to retire Then Frederick took the citie of Antioch which was easily delivered unto him and his hungrie souldiers well refreshed by the citizens being as yet for the most part Christians Marching from hence in set battel he overthrew Dodequin Generall of Saladines forces slew foure thousand and took a thousand prisoners with little losse of his own men and so came to the citie of Tyre where he buried the corpse of his worthy father in the Cathedrall Church next the tombe of learned Origen and Gulielmus Tyrius the worthy Archbishop preached his funerall sermon We may heare his sorrowfull army speaking this his Epitaph unto him Earth scarce did yeeld ground enough for thy sword To conquer how then could a brook afford Water to drown thee brook which since doth fear O guiltie conscience in a map t' appear Yet blame we not the brook but rather think The weight of our own sinnes did make thee sink Now sith 't is so wee 'l fetch a brackish main Out of our eyes and drown thee once again From hence by sea they were conveyed to the Christian army before Ptolemais where young Frederick died of the plague and his great army which at first consisted of an hundred and fiftie thousand at their setting forth out of Germanie had now no more left then eighteen hundred armed men Chap. 5. The continuation of the famous siege of Ptolemais The Dutch Knights honoured with a grand Master WE have now at our leisure overtaken the snail-like siege of Ptolemais still slowly creeping on Before it the Christians had not onely a Nationall but an Oecumenicall army the abridgement of the Christian world Scarce a state or populous citie in Europe but had here some competent number to represent it How many bloudie blows were here lent on both sides and repayed with interest what sallies what assaults what encounters whilest the Christians lay betwixt Saladine with his great army behind them and the citie before them One memorable battel we must not omit It was agreed betwixt Saladine and the Christians to trie their fortunes in a pitched field and now the Christians were in fair hope of a conquest when an imaginarie causelesse fear put them to a reall flight so ticklish are the scales of victory a very mote will turn them Thus confusedly they ran away and boot would have been given to change a strong arm for a swift leg But behold Geoffrey Lusignan King Guy's brother left for the guarding of the camp marching out with his men confuted the Christians in this their groundlesse mistake and reinforced them to fight whereby they wonne the day though with the losse of two thousand men and Gerard Master of the Templars It was vainly hoped that after this victorie the citie would be surrendred but the Turks still bravely defended it though most of their houses were burnt and beaten down and the citie reduced to a bare sceleton of walls and towres They fought as well with their wits as weapons and both sides devised strange defensive and offensive engines so that Mars himself had he been here present might have learned to fight and have taken notes from their practice Mean time famine raged amongst the Christians and though some provision was now and then brought in from Italy for so farre they fetched it yet these small showres after great droughts parched the more and rather raised then abated their hunger Once more we will take our farewell of this siege for a twelve-moneth But we must not forget that at this time before the walls of Ptolemais the Teutonick order or Dutch Knights which since the dayes of Baldwine the second lived like private pilgrimes had now their order honoured with Henry of Walpot their first grand Master and they were enriched by the bountie of many Germane benefactours These though slow were sure they did hoc agere ply their work more cordiall to the Christian cause then the Templars who sometimes to save their own stakes would play bootie with the Turks Much good service did the Dutch Knights in the Holy warre till at last no wise Doctour will
knew he did it onely to gain time to fetch new breath and if he yeelded to him his bounty had not been thanked but his fear upbraided as if he durst not denie him Yea in anger King Richard commanded all the Turkish captives which were in his hands seven thousand in number to be put to death except some choice persons on that day whereon the articles should have been but were not performed For which fact he suffered much in his repute branded with rashnesse and crueltie as the murderer of many Christians For Saladine in revenge put as many of our captives to death On the other side the moderation of the French King was much commended who reserving his prisoners alive exchanged them to ransome so many Christians Chap. 9. The unseasonable return of the King of France MEan time the Christians were rent a sunder with faction Philip the French King Odo Duke of Burgundie Leopold Duke of Austria most of the Dutch all the Genoans and Templars siding with King Conrade King Richard Henry Count of Champaigne the Hospitallers Venetians and Pisans taking part with King Guy But King Conrades side was much weakened with the sudden departure of the French King who eighteen dayes after the taking of Ptolemais returned home pretending want of necessaries indisposition of body distemper of the climate though the greatest distemper was in his own passions The true cause of his departure was partly envie because the sound of King Richards fame was of so deep a note that it drowned his partly covetousnesse to seise on the dominions of the Earl of Flanders lately dead Flanders lying fitly to make a stable for the fair palace of France If it be true what some report that Saladine bribed him to return let him for ever forfeit the surname of Augustus and the style of The most Christian Prince His own souldiers disswaded him from returning beseeching him not to stop in so glorious a race wherein he was newly started Saladine was already on his knees and would probably be brought on his face if pursued If he played the unthrift with this golden occasion let him not hope for another to play the good husband with If povertie forced his departure King Richard profered him the half of all his provisions All would not do Philip persisted in his old plea How the life of him absent would be more advantageous to the cause then the death of him present and by importunitie got leave to depart solemnly swearing not to molest the King of Englands dominions Thus the King of France returned in person but remained still behind in his instructions which he left with his armie to the Duke of Burgundie to whom he prescribed both his path and his pace where and how he should go And that Duke moved slowly having no desire to advance the work where King Richard would carrie all the honour For in those actions wherein severall undertakers are compounded together commonly the first figure for matter of credit maketh ciphres of all the rest As for King Philip being returned home such was the itch of his ambition he must be fingering of the King of Englands territories though his hands were bound by oath to the contrary Chap. 10. Conrade King of Ierusalem slain Guy exchangeth his Kingdome for the Island of Cyprus ABout the time of the King of France his departure Conrade King of Jerusalem was murdered in the market-place of Tyre and his death is variously reported Some charged our King Richard for procuring it And though the beams of his innocencie cleared his own heart yet could they not dispell the clouds of suspicions from other mens eyes Some say Humphred Prince of Thoron killed him for taking Isabella his wife away from him But the generall voice giveth it out that two Assasines stabbed him whose quarrel to him was onely this That he was a Christian. These murderers being instantly put to death gloried in the meritoriousnesse of their suffering and surely were it the punishment not the cause made martyrdome we should be best stored with Confessours from gaols and Martyrs from the gallows Conrade reigned five yeares and left one daughter Maria Iole on whom the Knight-Templars bestowed princely education And this may serve for his Epitaph The Crown I never did enjoy alone Of half a Kingdome I was half a King Scarce was I on when I was off the throne Slain by two slaves me basely murdering And thus the best mans life at mercie lies Of vilest varlets that their own despise His faction survived after his death affronting Guy the anti-King and striving to depose him They pleaded that the Crown was tied on Guy's head with a womans fillet which being broken by the death of his wife Queen Sibyll who deceased of the plague with her children at the siege of Ptolemais he had no longer right to the Kingdome they objected he was a worthlesse man and unfortunate On the other side it was alledged for him that to measure a mans worth by his successe is a square often false alwayes uncertain Besides the courtesie of the world would allow him this favour That a King should be semel semper once and ever Whilest Guy stood on these ticklish terms King Richard made a seasonable motion which well rellished to the palate of this hungrie Prince To exchange his Kingdome of Jerusalem for the Island of Cyprus which he had redeemed from the Templars to whom he had pawned it And this was done accordingly to the content of both sides And King Richard with some of his succeeding English Kings wore the title of Jerusalem in their style for many yeares after We then dismisse King Guy hearing him thus taking his farewell I steer'd a state warre-tost against my will Blame then the storm not th' Pilots want of skill That I the Kingdome lost whose emptie style I sold to Englands King for Cyprus Isle I pass'd away the land I could not hold Good ground I bought but onely aire I sold. Then as a happy Merchant may I sing Though I must sigh as an unhappy King Soon after Guy made a second change of this world for another But the family of the Lusignans have enjoyed Cyprus some hundred yeares and since by some transactions it fell to the state of Venice and lately by conquest to the Turks Chap. 11. Henry of Champaigne chosen King The noble atchievements and victories of King Richard COnrade being killed and Guy gone away Henry Earl of Champaigne was chosen King of Jerusalem by the especiall procuring of King Richard his uncle To corroborate his election by some right of succession he married Isabella the widow of King Conrade and daughter to Almerick King of Jerusalem A Prince as writers report having a sufficient stock of valour in himself but little happie in expressing it whether for want of opportunitie or shortnesse of his reigne being most spent in a truce He more
truth thereof If any object That the head of the same Saint is shewed at severall places the whole answer is by a Synecdoche That a part is put for the whole As for the common exception against the Crosse That so many severall pieces thereof are shown which put together would break the back of Simon of Cyrene to bear them it is answered Distrahitur non diminuitur and like the loaves in the Gospel it is miraculously multiplied in the dividing If all these fail Baronius hath a rasour shaveth all scruple clear away For saith he Quicquid sit fides purgat facinus So that he worshippeth the false Reliques of a true Saint God taketh his good intention in good worth though he adore the hand of Esau for the hand of Jacob. But enough of these fooleries Chap. 13. King Richard taken prisoner in Austria sold and sent to the Emperour dearly ransomed returneth home KIng Richard setting sail from Syria the sea and wind favoured him till he came into the Adriatick and on the coasts of Istria he suffered shipwrack Wherefore he intended to pierce through Germanie by land the next way home But the nearnesse of the way is to be measured not by the shortnesse but the safenesse of it He disguised himself to be one Hugo a merchant whose onely commodity was himself whereof he made but a bad bargain For he was discovered in an inne in Austria because he disguised his person not his expenses so that the very policie of an hostesse finding his purse so farre above his clothes did detect him Yea saith mine Authour Facies orbi terrarum nota ignorari non potuit The rude people flocking together used him with insolencies unworthy him worthy themselves and they who would shake at the tail of this loose Lion durst laugh at his face now they saw him in a grate Yet all the weight of their cruelty did not bow him beneath a Princely carriage Leopoldus Duke of Austria hearing hereof as being Lord of the soil seised on this Royall stray meaning now to get his peny-worths out of him for the affront done unto him in Palestine Not long after the Duke sold him to Henry the Emperour for his harsh nature surnamed Asper and it might have been Savus being but one degree from a tyrant He kept King Richard in bands charging him with a thousand faults committed by him in Sicilie Cyprus and Palestine The proofs were as slender as the crimes grosse and Richard having an eloquent tongue innocent heart and bold spirit acquitted himself in the judgement of all the hearers At last he was ransomed for an hundred and fourty thousand marks Collen weight A summe so vast in that age before the Indies had overflowed all Europe with their gold and silver that to raise it in England they were forced to sell their Church-plate to their very chalices Whereupon out of most deep Divinity it was concluded That they should not celebrate the Sacrament in glasse for the brittlenesse of it nor in wood for the sponginesse of it which would suck up the bloud nor in alchymie because it was subject to rusting nor in copper because that would provoke vomiting but in chalices of latten which belike was a metall without exception And such were used in England for some hundred yeares after untill at last John Stafford Archbishop of Canterbury when the land was more replenished with silver in knotteth that Priest in the greater excommunication that should consecrate Poculum stanneum After this money Peter of Bloys who had drunk as deep of Helicon as any of that age sendeth this good prayer making an apostrophe to the Emperour or to the Duke of Austria or to both together Bibe nunc avaritia Dum puteos argenteos Larga diffundit Anglia Tua tecum pecunia Sit in perditionem And now thou basest avarice Drink till thy belly burst Whil'st England poures large silver showres To satiate thy thirst And this we pray Thy money may And thou be like accurst The ransome partly payed the rest secured by hostages King Richard much befriended by the Dutch Prelacie after eighteen moneths imprisonment returned into England The Archbishop of Cullen in the presence of King Richard as he passed by brought in these words in saying masse Now I know that God hath sent his angel and hath delivered thee out of the hand of Herod and from the expectation of the people c. But his soul was more healthfull for this bitter physick and he amended his manners better loving his Queen Beringaria whom he slighted before As souldiers too often love women better then wives Leave we him now in England where his presence fixed the loyaltie of many of his unsettled subjects whilest in Austria the Duke with his money built the walls of Vienna So that the best stones and morter of that bulwark of Christendome are beholden to the English coin We must not forget how Gods judgements overtook this Duke punishing his dominions with fire and water which two elements cannot be Kings but they must be tyrants by famine the eares of wheat turned into worms by a gangrene seising on the Dukes body who cut off his leg with his own hand and died thereof Who by his testament if not by his will caused some thousand crowns to be restored again to King Richard Chap. 14. The death of Saladine His commendation even with truth but almost above belief SOon after Saladine the terrour of the East ended his life having reigned sixteen yeares Consider him as a man or a Prince he was both wayes admirable Many Historians like some painters which rather shew their skill in drawing a curious face then in making it like to him whom it should resemble describe Princes rather what they should be then what they were not shewing so much their goodnesse as their own wits But finding this Saladine so generally commended of all writers we have no cause to distrust this his true character His wisdome was great in that he was able to advise and greater in that he was willing to be advised Never so wedded to his own resolves but on good ground he would be divorced from them His valour was not over-free but would well answer the spurre when need required In his victories he was much beholden to the advantage of season place and number and seldome wrested the garland of honour from an arm as strong as his own He ever marched in person into the field remembring that his predecessours the Caliphs of Egypt brake themselves by using Factours and imploying of Souldans His temperance was great diet sparing sleep moderate not to pamper nature but keep it in repair His greatest recreation was variety and exchange of work Pleasures he rather sipped then drank off sometimes more to content others then please himself Wives he might have kept sans number but stinted himself to one or two using them rather for posterity then
yeelded up this citie for nothing which cost so many lives they should betray themselves to the derision of the whole world That if these perished more men might be had but no more Damiata's being a place of such importance it would alwayes be a snaffle in the mouth of the Egyptian King On the other side the friends of the distressed Christians confessed That indeed their voyage was unadvised and justly to be blamed yet worse and more inconsiderate projects have armies oft undertaken which if crowned with successe have been above censure yea have passed not onely without questioning but with commendations But this is the misery of misery that those who are most afflicted of God shall be most condemned of men Wherefore they requested them to pity their brethren and not to leave them in this forlorn estate How clamourous would their innocent bloud be in the court of Heaven to sue for revenge on those who forsook them in this distresse And grant Damiata a citie of great consequence yet cities in themselves were but dead things and men were the souls to enliven them so that those souldiers which wonne Damiata if preserved alive might haply recover as strong a citie afterwards But finding their arguments not to prevail they betook themselves to arms by force to compell the adverse party to resigne the citie King John also threatned in case they denied to surrender it to give up to Meladine Ptolemais in Syria in exchange for Damiata At last according to the agreement Damiata was restored to the Turks and the Christian armie let out of the trap wherein it was taken Meladine out of his princely goodnesse furnished them with victuals and with horses to carry their feeble persons upon And thus the Christians had the greatest blow given them without a blow given them the Egyptians obtaining their victory not by bloud but by water Chap. 28. Iohn Bren resigneth the Kingdome of Ierusalem to Frederick the second Germane Emperour THere was also concluded a peace with the Turks for eight yeares And now matters being settled as well as they might be in Syria King John took a journey to Rome where he was bountifully feasted and honourably entertained by the Pope Here it was agreed whether at the first by his voluntary offer or working of others it appeareth not that he should resigne the Kingdome of Jerusalem to Frederick the second Germane Emperour who was to marry Iole the sole daughter of King John by his first wife though by a second he had another Martha married to Robert Emperour of Constantinople so that he was father in law both to Emperour of East and West Some condemned his resignation as an unadvised act as if he had first parted from his wits who would willingly part from a Kingdome whilest others commend his discretion For first his wife was dead in whose right he held his Kingdome and thereby a doore was opened for other litigious pretenders to the Crown Secondly it was policie fugere nè fugaretur yea this was no flight but an honourable departure Well he knew the Turks power to invade and his own weaknesse to defend what was left in Syria So that finding the weight too heavy for himself he did well to lay it on stronger shoulders Thirdly before his resignation he had little more then a title and after it he had nothing lesse men having so tuned their tongues to salute him King of Jerusalem that he was so called to the day of his death Lastly what he wanted in the statelinesse of his bed he had in the soundnesse of his sleep and though his commons perchance were shorter yet he battled better on them He got now more in a twelve-moneth then in seven yeares before going from countrey to countrey And yet the farther this stone rolled the more mosse he gathered In France besides rich gifts left to himself he had the managing of sixty thousand crowns the legacie which Philip Augustus the King on his death-bed bequeathed to the Templars and the Holy warre In England he received from Henry the third many great presents though afterwards he proved but unthankfull for them In Spain he got a rich wife Beringaria the daughter of the King of Castile In Italie he tasted very largely of the Popes liberalitie and lived there in good esteem But he went off the stage without an applause because he lost himself in his last act perfidiously raising rebellions against Frederick his sonne in law at the instigation of his Holinesse Nor recovered he his credit though after he went to his sonne Robert to Constantinople and there did many good offices He died anno 1237. Chap. 29. The true character of Frederick How the history of his life is prejudiced by the partialitie of Authours on both sides THe nuptiall solemnities of Frederick with the Lady Iole were performed at Rome in the presence of the Pope with all ceremonies of majesty and Frederick promised to prosecute in person his title in Palestine within two yeares Little hope have I to content the reader in this Kings life who cannot satisfie my self writers of that age are so possessed with partiality The faction of the Guelfes and Gibellines discovereth not it self more plainly in the Camp then in the Chronicles Yea Historians turn Schoolmen in matters of fact arguing them pro con And as it is in the Fable of the man that had two wives whilest his old wife plucked out his black hairs the evidence of his youth his young one ungray-haired him that no standards of antiquity might remain they made him bald betwixt them So amongst our late writers whilest Protestants cut off the authority from all Papized writers of that age and Romanists cast away the witnesse of all Imperialized authours then living such as Urspergensis is and generally all Germanes counting them testes domesticos and therefore of no validitie betwixt them they draw all historie of that time very slender and make it almost quite nothing We will not engage our selves in their quarrels but may safely beleeve that Frederick was neither saint nor devil but man Many vertues in him his foes must commend and some vices his friends must confesse He was very learned according to the rate of that age especially for a Prince who onely baiteth at learning and maketh it not his profession to lodge in Wise he was in projecting nor were his thoughts ever so scattered with any sudden accident but he could instantly recollect himself Valiant he was and very fortunate though this tendeth more to Gods praise then his Wondrous bountifull to scholars and souldiers whose good will he enjoyed for he payed for it But this Gold had its allay of Cruelty though this was not so much bred in him as he brought to it Treasons against him were so frequent he could not be safe but must be severe nor severe without incurring the aspersion of crueltie His Pride was excessive and so was
onely exchange their slavery by becoming vassals to their own passions Yet many of them in their kinds were worthy Princes for government no whit inferiour to those which are advantaged with royall birth and breeding Secondly it is a wonder they should be so neglective of their own children How many make an idol of their posterity and sacrifice themselves unto it stripping themselves out of necessaries to provide their heirs a wardrobe yea it is a principle in most moderate minds to advance their posterity thinking hereby in a manner they overcome death and immortalize their memories in leaving their names and honours to their children Whereas the contrary appeared in these Mammalukes Thirdly it is admirable that they fell not out in the election of their Prince being in a manner all equall amongst themselves We see elective States in Christendome though bound with the straitest laws often sagge aside into schismes and factions whereas this strange Empire in their choice had no dangerous discords but such as were quenched in the kindling Lastly who ever knew a wall that had no better cement to stand so sure and so long Two hundred sixty and seven yeares this State endured and yet had it to do with strong and puissant enemies Some Kingdomes ow their greatnesse not so much to their own valour and wisdome as to the weaknesse of their neighbours but it fared not thus with the Mammalukes To omit Prester John who neighboured them on the south on all other sides they were encompassed with potent opposers From whom right valiantly they defended themselves till in the yeare 1517 they were overcome by Selimus the great Turkish Emperour To conclude As for the Amazons and their brave atchievements with much valour and no manhood they and their State had onely being in the brains of fabulous writers As for the Assasines or regiment of rogues it never spread to the breadth of any great countrey nor grew to the height of a Kingdome but being the jakes of the world was cast out in a place betwixt barren hills But this Empire of vassals was every way wonderfull stretching so farre over all Egypt and most of Syria and lasting so long A strange State wherein slavery was the first step to their throne and apostasie the first article in their religion Chap. 20. The manner of the death of Frederick King of Ierusalem His Will and posterity after him An interregnum both in Germanie and the Kingdome of Ierusalem IN this same yeare Frederick King of Jerusalem and Emperour of Germany ended his troublesome dayes A Prince who in the race of his life met with many rubs some stumbles no dangerous falls Besides the Turk he had to do with the Pope the Pope immortall in his succession And though his Holinesse was unfit for warre as being alwayes old and never ripe for that place till almost rotten yet he used his own head and commanded the hands of others whereby he kept Frederick in a continuall warre Yet never could he have beaten him with fair play had he not used a weapon if not against the law of Arms against the law of God and against which no guard Arming his subjects against him and Dispensing with the oath of allegeance But he gave Frederick the mortall wound in setting himself against himself I mean Henry his eldest sonne And though Frederick easily conquered that rebellious youth and made him fast enough keeping him in prison in Apulia where he died yet he carried the grief hereof to his grave For now he knew not where or in whom to place any confidence as suspecting the single cord of Loyaltie would not hold in others which brake in his own sonne though twisted with Naturall affection The greatnesse of his spirit was a great hastening of his death and being of a keen eager and active nature the sharpnesse of the sword cut the scabbard the sooner asunder Bowe he could not break he must What-ever is reported he died of no other poison then sorrow which ushered him into a wasting ague grief being a burden whereof the strongest shoulders can bear the least As for the fame that Maufred his base sonne should stifle him with a pillow though I must confesse he might be taken on suspicion as likely enough to play such a devilish prank yet it is unreasonable that he who is acquitted by the Authours of the same time should be condemned on the evidence of the writers of after-ages He died at Florence in an obscure castle on S. Lucies day having reigned King of Jerusalem three and twenty yeares By his Will he bequeathed many ounces of gold to the Knights Templars and Hospitallers in recompense of the wrongs they had received by him He left a great summe of money for the recovery of the Holy land to be disposed at the discretion of the foresaid Knights He forbad any stately funerall for himself though in his life immoderately excessive in pomp as if he would do penance for his pride after death A Prince who had he not been hindred with domesticall discords would have equalized Cesar himself For if thus bravely he laid about him his hands being tied at home with continuall dissensions what would he have done if at liberty A scandal is raised since his death That he was but a millers sonne but he would have ground them to powder who in his life-time durst have averred it Indeed he was very happy in mechanicall matters such as we may term Liberall handy-crafts as casting founding carving in iron and brasse Neither did this argue a low soul to dabble in such mean imployments but rather proved the amplitude and largenesse thereof of so generall acquaintance that no Art was a stranger to him But the suspicion of his birth rose from the almost miraculous manner of it Constantia his mother bearing him when welâ—igh sixty yeares of age But both in Scripture and other writers we may see the sonnes of long-barren mothers to have been fruitfull in famous atchievements Pity it was that he had some faults yea pity it had been if he had not had some But his vices indeed were notorious and unexcusable Many wives and concubines he had and by them many children His wives His legitimate children Their preferment 1. Constantia Queen of Aragon Henry who rebelled against him King of the Romanes 2. Iole daughter to John Bren. Conrade Duke of Suevia 3. Agnes daughter to the Marquesse of Moravia childlesse divorced   4. Rutina   5. Isabella of Bavaria Agnes Married to Conrade Landtgrave of Hessen 6. Mawd daughter to John King of England Constance His â—â—se sonnes Wife to Lewis Landâ—grave of Hessen His concubine   Blanch. 1. Henzius King of Sardinia 2. Maufred Usurper of Sicily 3. Frederick Prince of Antioch It is much that succession adventured in so many severall bottoms should miscarry Yet these foure sonnes dying left no lasting issue and in the third generation
Fredericks stock and that whole race of Suevian Princes was extinct Which in the judgement of some men was a judgement of God on him for his lasciviousnesse We must not forget a memorable passage which happened more then twenty yeares after Fredericks death One Tylo Colupp a notable juggler sometime brought up at the Court cunningly sowing together all the old shreds of his Courtship and stretching them out with impudency pretended to be Frederick the Emperour long detained in captivity in Palestine The difference betwixt their aspects was easily reconciled for few Physiognomy-marks are so deeply fixed in any face but that age and misery will alter them The credulity of the vulgar sort presently betrayed them to be couzened by him yea some Princes took this brasse for gold without touching it But the best engine which gave this puppet his motion was a bruit constantly buzzed That Frederick was not dead For Princes the manner of whose deaths hath been private and obscure fame commonly conjureth again out of their graves and they walk abroad in the tongues and brains of many who affirm and beleeve them to be still alive But the world soon surfeted of this cheaters forgerie and this glow-worm when brought into the light shined no more but at Nanse was burnt to ashes by Rodulphus the Emperour After Fredericks death there was an interregnum for three and twenty yeares in the Empire of Germany True it is that of some William Earl of Holland one without a beard not valour was nominated Emperour The Spirituall electours chose Richard brother to our King Henry the third And as in Cornwall he got much coin so Germany gave him a bottomlesse bag to put it in A third party named Alphonse King of Castile an admirable Mathematician But the ointment of his name is marred with the dead flie of his Atheisticall speech That if he had been in Gods stead he could have framed the world better then now it is Notwithstanding the best Dutch writers make an interregnum as counting the Empire still a widow and all these rather her suiters then any her husband In like manner also in Palestine there was not any King for fourteen yeares after Fredericks death The right indeed lay in Conrade Duke of Sueviâ— Fredericks sonne by Iole daughter to John Bren King of Jerusalem But he was so imployed in defending himself in Sicily against Maufred his base brother who soon after dispatched him out of the way that he had no leisure to prosecute his title to the fragments of the Kingdome of Jerusalem Chap. 21. The Pastorells killed in France King Lewis returned home GO we back to King Lewis who all this while stayed in Palestine busying himself partly in building and fensing of Sidon and Cesarea partly in composing discords betwixt the Pisans and Genoans even proceeding to threaten them into agreement But these armed men little cared for his naked menacing He being also an excellent religious Antiquary and Critick on holy monuments much employed himself in redeeming of old sacred places from the tyranny of time and oblivion Mean time in his Kingdome of France happened this strange accident An Hungarian pesant who is said to have been an apostate to Mahomet and well learned gathered together many thousands of people pretending they had intelligence from heaven to march to the Holy land These took on them the name and habit of Pastorelli poore shepherds in imitation belike as the Devil is Gods ape of those in the Gospel who were warned by Angels in a vision to go to Bethlehem Being to shape their course into Palestine they went into France shewing they had a vertigo in their heads mistaking the West for the East or else that like vagabonds they were never out of their way The Holy Lambe was their ensigne but their actions neither holy nor lambe-like They pillaged and killed the poore Jews as they went an unhappy nation whose heads lie pat for every ones hands to hit and their legges so stand in mens way that few can go by them without spurning at them Where they wanted Jews they made Jews of Christians especially if they were rich using them with all cruelty But at last neare Burdeaux threescore thousand of them were slain and the rest dispersed A rhymer of that age or in courtesie call him a Poet made this Epitaph on them M semel bis C L I conjungere disce Duxit Pastorum saeva Megaera chorum Learn to put together well What M C C L I do spell When some devilish fiend in France Did teach the Shepherds how to dance By this time Lewis in Syria had stayed out the death and buriall of all his hopes to receive succour from his own countrey Long expecting in vain that France should come to him he at last returned to it The greatnesse of the burden he bore made him go the faster and being loaden with debts to his Italian creditours he secretly hasted home Where safely arriving besides loyaltie to their Prince love to a stranger was enough to make him welcome Chap. 22. The conversion of the Tartarians Haalon conquereth Persia and extinguisheth the Caliphs of Babylon LEwis is gone and left the Christians in Syria in a wofull condition without hope of amendment Now can any good come out of Tartary Can the Northern wind blow a comfortable warmth Yea see a strange vicissitude of things Haito the Christian King of Armenia had travelled to Mango the Cham of Tartary to communicate to him the present danger of the Turks and to consult of a remedy He shewed how if order were not taken with them in time they would over-runne all Asia Let him not count that he lay out of their rode because of his remote situation For what is the way wanderers will not trace He might expect onely this courtesie to be last devoured In conclusion Haito prevailed so farre with this Pagan that he not onely promised his assistance but also was baptized and took the Christian religion on him So also did his whole countrey by his example and Christianity being the Court-fashion none would be out of it Never since the time of Constantine the Great did the devil at once lose a greater morsel or was there made a more hopefull accession to the Faith Understand we this conversion of Tartary though Authours predicate it universally of that whole countrey onely of Cathaia the Eastern and most refined part of that Empire For Cannibals were still in the North who needed first to be converted to reason and to be made men before they could become Christians Also at this same time we find a swarm of Western Tartarian heathens forraging Poland So it seemeth so vast was the Empire that it was still night in the West though it was day in the Eastern part thereof Now whether the conversion of these Tartarians was solemnly deliberately and methodically wrought by preaching first those things wherein the
his Barons power to suffer parties to trie their intricate titles to land by duells He severely punished blasphemers searing their lips with an hot iron And because by his command it was executed upon a great rich citizen of Paris some said he was a tyrant He hearing it said before many I would to God that with searing my own lips I could banish out of my realm all abuse of oathes He loved more to heare Sermons then to be present at Masse whereas on the contrary our Henry the third said he had rather see his God then heare another speak of him though never so well His body was carried into France there to be buried and was most miserably tossed it being observed that the sea cannot digest the crudity of a dead corpse being a due debt to be interred where it dieth and a ship cannot abide to be made a bier of He was Sainted after his death by Boniface the eighth and the five and twentieth day of August on which day in his first voyage to Palestine he went on shipboard is consecrated to his memory Herein he had better luck then as good a man I mean our Henry the sixth who could not be canonized without a mighty summe of money belike Angels making Saints at Rome Chap. 28. Tunis taken The French return home whilest our Edward valiantly setteth forward for Palestine BY this time Tunis was brought to great distresse and at last on these conditions surrendred That it should pay yearly to Charles King of Sicily and Jerusalem fourty thousand crowns That it should receive Christian Ministers freely to exercise their religion If any Saracen would be baptized he should be suffered That all Christian captives should be set free That they should pay back so much money as should defray the Christians charges in this voyage Our Edward would needs have had the town beaten down and all put to the sword thinking the foulest quarter too fair for them Their goods because got by robbery he would have sacrificed as an anathema to God and burnt to ashes His own share he execrated and caused it to be burnt forbidding the English to save any thing of it because that coals stolen out of that fire would sooner burn their houses then warm their hands It troubled not the consciences of other Princes to enrich themselves herewith but they glutted themselves with the stolen hony which they found in this hive of drones And which was worse now their bellies were full they would go to bed return home and go no further Yea the young King of France called Philip the Bold was fearfull to prosecute his journey to Palestine whereas Prince Edward struck his breast and swore That though all his friends forsook him yet he would enter Ptolemais though but onely with Fowin his horse-keeper By which speech he incensed the English to go on with him The rest pleading the distemperature of the weather went to Sicily in hope with change of aire to recover their health Where many of them found what they sought to avoid death amongst other Theobald King of Navarre and Isabell his wife and William Earl of Flandres who ended their dayes at Drepanum Besides their navie was pursuivanted after with a horrible tempest and a curse entailed either on their ill-gotten goods or deserting Gods cause or both arrested them in their return so that of this great wealth little was landed in Europe their ships being wracked the goods therein cast into the sea with which the waves played a little and then chopped them up at a morsel Whilest the weather frowning on them smiled on the English Prince Edward no whit damnified either in his men or ships with Elenor his tender consort then young with child safely arrived at Ptolemais to the great solace and comfort of the Christians there being in great distresse Chap. 29. Prince Edwards performance in Palestine He is dangerously wounded yet recovereth and returneth home safe AT his arrivall the last stake of the Christians was on losing For Bendocdar the Mammaluke Prince of Egypt and Syria had brought Ptolemais to so low an ebbe that they therein resolved if some unexpected succour reversed not their intentions within three dayes to resigne the city unto him Edward landing stayed this precipitation who arrived with his armie there in the very interim in opportunity it self which is the very quintessence of time so that all concluded his coming thus hitting the mark was guided by the hand of an especiall providence And now those who before in despair would have thrown up their cards hope at least to make a saving game and the Christians taking comfort and courage both defie their enemies and their own thoughts of surrendring the citie Prince Edward having sufficiently manned and victualled Ptolemais taking six or seven thousand souldiers marched to Nazareth which he took and slew those he found there After this about midsummer understanding the Turks were gathered together at Cakhow fourty miles off very early in the morning he set upon them slew a thousand and put the rest to flight In these skirmishes he gave evident testimonies of his personall valour Yea in cold bloud he would boldly challenge any Infidel to a duell To speak truth this his conceived perfection was his greatest imperfection For the world was abundantly satisfied in the point of his valour yet such was his confidence of his strength and eagernesse of honour that having merited the esteem of a most stout man he would still supererogate yea he would profer to fight with any mean person if cried up by the volge for a tall man this daring being a generall fault in great spirits and a great fault in a Generall who staketh a pearl against a piece of glasse The best was in that age a man fighting with sword and buckler had in a manner many lives to lose and duells were not dangerous Whilest he stayed at Ptolemais Elenor his Lady was delivered of a fair daughter called from her birth-place Joan of Acres But fear of her husbands death abated her joy at her daughters birth The Turks not matching him in valour thought to master him with treachery which was thus contrived The Admirall of Joppa a Turk pretended he would turn Christian and imployed one Anzazim an Assasine in the businesse betwixt him and Prince Edward who carried himself so cunningly that by often repairing to our Prince he got much credit and esteem with him Some write this Anzazim was before alwayes bred under ground as men keep hawks and warre-horses in the dark to make them more fierce that so coming abroad he should fear to venture on no man But sure so cunning a companion had long conversed with light and been acquainted with men yea Christians and Princes as appeareth by his complying carriage else if he had not been well read in their company he could not have been so perfect in his lesson But let him be bred any where
maintain that a confession extorted on the rack is of no validitie If they be weak men and unable to endure torment they will speak any thing and in this case their words are endited not from their heart but outward limbes that are in pain and a poore conquest it is to make either the hand of a child to beat or the tongue of the tortured man to accuse himself If they be sturdie and stubborn whose backs are paved against torments such as bring brasen sides against steely whips they will confesse nothing And though these Templars were stout valiant men yet it is to be commended to ones consideration whether slavish and servile souls will not better bear torment then generous spirits who are for the enduring of honourable danger and speedie death but not provided for torment which they are not acquainted with neither is it the proper object of valour Again it is produced in their behalf that being burned at the stake they denied it at their death though formerly they had confessed it and whose charitie if not stark-blind will not be so tender-eyed as to beleeve that they would not breathe out their soul with a lie and wilfully contract a new guilt in that very instant wherein they were to be arraigned before the Judge of heaven A Templar being to be burned at Burdeaux and seeing the Pope and King Philip looking out at a window cried unto them Clement thou cruel tyrant seeing there is no higher amongst mortall men to whom I should appeal for my unjust death I cite thee together with King Philip to the tribunal of Christ the just Judge who redeemed me there both to appear within one yeare and a day where I will lay open my cause and justice shall be done without any by-respect In like manner James grand Master of the Templars though by piecemeal he was tortured to death craved pardon of God and those of his Order That forced by extremitie of pain on the rack and allured with hope of life he had accused them of such damnable sinnes whereof they were innocent Moreover the people with their suffrage acquitted them happie was he that could get an handfull of their ashes into his bosome as the Relique of pious martyrs to preserve Indeed little heed is to be given to peoples humours whose judgement is nothing but prejudice and passion and commonly envie all in prosperitie pitie all in adversitie though often both undeservedly And we may beleeve that the beholding of the Templars torments when they were burned wrought in the people first a commiserating of their persons and so by degrees a justifying of their cause However vulgus non semper errat aliquando eligit and though it matters little for the gales of a private mans fansie yet it is something when the wind bloweth from all corners And true it is they were generally cried up for innocents Lastly Pope Clement and King Philip were within the time prefixed summoned by death to answer to God for what they had done And though it is bad to be busie with Gods secrets yet an argument drawn from the event especially when it goeth in company with others as it is not much to be depended on so it is not wholly to be neglected Besides King Philip missed of his expectation and the morsel fell besides his mouth for the lands of the Templars which were first granted to him as a portion for his youngest sonne were afterwards by the Councel of Vienne bestowed on the Knights-Hospitallers Chap. 3. A moderate way what is to be conceived of the suppression of the Templars BEtwixt the two extremities of those that count these Templars either Malefactours or Martyrs some find a middle way whose verdict we will parcel into these severall particulars 1. No doubt there were many novices and punies amongst them newly admitted into their Order which if at all were little guiltie for none can be fledge in wickednesse at their first hatching To these much mercie belonged The punishing of others might have been an admonition to them and crueltie it was where there were degrees of offenses to inflict the same punishment and to put all of them to death 2. Surely many of them were most hainous offenders Not to speak what they deserved from God who needeth not pick a quarrel with man but alwayes hath a just controversie with him they are accounted notorious transgressours of humane laws yet perchance if the same candle had been lighted to search as much dust and dirt might have been found in other Orders 3. They are conceived in generall to be guiltlesse and innocent from those damnable sinnes wherewith they were charged Which hainous offenses were laid against them either because men out of modestie and holy horrour should be ashamed and afraid to dive deep in searching the ground-work and bottome of these accusations but rather take them to be true on the credit of the accusers or that the world might the more easily be induced to beleeve the crimes objected to be true as conceiving otherwise none would be so devilish as to lay such devilish offenses to their charge or lastly if the crimes were not beleeved in the totall summe yet if credited in some competent portion the least particular should be enough to do the deed and to make them odious in the world 4. The chief cause of their ruine was their extraordinary wealth They were feared of many envied of more loved of none As Naboths vineyard was the chiefest ground for his blasphemie and as in England Cornwall Lord Fanhop said merrily That not he but his stately house at Ampthill in Bedfordshire was guiltie of high treason so certainly their wealth was the principall evidence against them and cause of their overthrow It is quarrel and cause enough to bring a sheep that is fat to the shambles We may beleeve King Philip would never have took away their lives if he might have took their lands without putting them to death but the mischief was he could not get the hony unlesse he burnt the bees Some will say The Hospitallers had great yea greater revenues nineteen thousand Mannors to the Templars nine thousand yet none envied their wealth It is true but then they busied themselves in defending of Christendome maintaining the Island of Rhodes against the Turks as the Teutonick order defended Spruce-land against the Tartarian the world therefore never grudged them great wages who did good work These were accounted necessarie members of Christendome the Templars esteemed but a superfluous wenne they lay at rack and manger and did nothing who had they betook themselves to any honourable employment to take the Turks to task either in Europe or Asia their happinesse had been lesse repined at and their overthrow more lamented And certain it is that this their idlenesse disposed them for other vices as standing waters are most subject to putrifie I heare one bird sing a different note
was King of France the Duke of Burbant sailed over into Africa with a great armie there to fight against the Saracens The Saracen Prince sent an herald to know of him the cause of his coming The Duke answered it was to revenge the death of Christ the Sonne of God and true Prophet whom they had unjustly crucified The Saracens sent back their messenger again to demonstrate their innocencie how they were not Saracens but Jews which put Christ to death and therefore that the Christians if posteritie should be punished for their predecessours fault should rather revenge themselves on the Jews which lived amongst them Another relateth that in the yeare of our Lord 1453 the great Turk sent a letter to the Pope advertising him how he and his Turkish nation were not descended from the Jews but from the Trojans from whom also the Italians derive their pedegree and so would prove himself a-kinne to his Holinesse Moreover he added that it was both his and their dutie to repair the ruines of Troy and to revenge the death of their great grand-father Hector upon the Grecians to which end the Turk said he had already conquered a great part of Greece As for Christ he acknowledged him to have been a noble Prophet and to have been crucified of the Jews against whom the Christians might seek their remedie These two stories I thought good to insert because though of later date and since the Holy warre in Palestine was ended yet they have some reference thereunto because some make that our quarrel to the Turks But grant the Christians right to the Turks lands to be lawfull and the cause in it self enough deserving to ground a warre upon yet in the prosecuting and managing thereof many not onely veniall errours but unexcusable faults were committed no doubt the cause of the ill successe To omit the book called the Office of our Lady made at the beginning of this warre to procure her favourable assistance in it a little manual but full of blasphemies in folio thrusting her with importunate superstitions into Gods throne and forcing on her the glory of her Maker superstition not onely tainted the rind but rotted the core of this whole action Indeed most of the pottage of that age tasted of that wild gourd Yet farre be it from us to condemn all their works to be drosse because debased and allayed with superstitious intents No doubt there was a mixture of much good metall in them which God the good refiner knoweth how to sever and then will crown and reward But here we must distinguish betwixt those deeds which have some superstition in them and those which in their nature are wholly superstitious such as this Voyage of people to Palestine was For what opinion had they of themselves herein who thought that by dying in this warre they did make Christ amends for his death as one saith Which if but a rhetoricall flourish yet doth hyperbolize into blasphemie Yea it was their very judgement that hereby they did both merit and supererogate and by dying for the Crosse crosse the score of their own sinnes and score up God for their debtour But this flieth high and therefore we leave it for others to follow Let us look upon Pilgrimages in generall and we shall find Pilgrimes wandring not so farre from their own countrey as from the judgement of the ancient Fathers We will leave our armie at home and onely bring forth our champion Heare what Gregorie Nyssene saith who lived in the fourth Centurie in which time voluntary Pilgrimages first began though before there were necessarie Pilgrimes forced to wander from their countrey by persecution Where saith he our Lord pronounceth men blessed he reckoneth not going to Jerusalem to be amongst those good deeds which direct to happinesse And afterwards speaking of the going of single-women in those long travels A woman saith he cannot go such long journeys without a man to conduct her and then whatsoever we may suppose whether she hireth a stranger or hath a friend to wait on her on neither side can she escape reproof and keep the law of continencie Moreover If there were more Divine grace in the places of Jerusalem sinne would not be so frequent and customarie amongst those that live there Now there is no kind of uncleannesse which there they dare not commit malice adultery thefts idolatrie poysonings envies and slaughters But you will say unto me If it be not worth the pains why then did you go to Jerusalem Let them heare therefore how I defend my self I was appointed to go into Arabia to an holy Councel held for the reforming of that Church and Arabia being neare to Jerusalem I promised those that went with me that I would go to Jerusalem to discourse with them which were presidents of the churches there where matters were in a very troubled state and they wanted one to be a mediatour in their discords We knew that Christ was a man born of a Virgin before we saw Bethlehem we beleeved his resurrection from death before we saw his sepulchre we confessed his ascension into heaven before we saw mount Olivet But we got so much profit by our journey that by comparing them we found our own more holy then those outward things Wherefore you that fear God praise him in what place you are Change of place maketh not God nearer unto us wheresoever thou art God will come to thee if the Inne of thy soul be found such as the Lord may dwell and walk in thee c. A patrone of Pilgrimages not able to void the blow yet willing to break the stroke of so pregnant and plain a testimonie thus seeketh to ward it That indeed Pilgrimages are unfitting for women yet fitting for men But sure God never appointed such means to heighten devotion necessary thereunto whereof the half of mankind all women are by their very creation made uncapable Secondly he pleadeth That it is lawfull for secular and lay-men to go on Pilgrimages but not for Friars who lived recluse in their cells out of which they were not to come and against such saith he is Nyssens speech directed But then I pray what was Peter the leader of this long dance but an Hermite and if I mistake not his profession was the very dungeon of the Monasticall prison the strictest and severest of all other Orders And though there were not so many cowls as helmets in this warre yet alwayes was the Holy armie well stocked with such cattel So that on all sides it is confessed that the Pilgrimages of such persons were utterly unlawfull Chap. 10. Of superstition in miracles in the Holy warre ranked into foure sorts BEsides superstition inherent in this Holy warre there was also superstition appendant or annexed thereunto in that it was the fruitfull mother of many feigned miracles Hitherto we have refrained to scatter over our storie with them it will not be amisse now to shovel up some of
hist. pag. 313. 1095 Tyrius lib. 9. cap. 12. 1099 Vrsperg in Chron. pag. 239. * P. Aemyl in Phil. Aug. pag. 175. * Knolls Turk hist. pag. 106. * Magdeburg Cent. 13. col 606. * Fox in Martyrol in Hen. 3. pag. 337. * Vide M. Selden on Polyolbion pag. 150. * Sandys Travels pag. 229 Tyrius lib. 10. cap. 28. lib. 12. cap. 25. 1147 * Munst. Cosmog in Polon * 1. Sam. 30.24 1145 * Vide Calvisium in anno 1145. Io. Magnum Hist Goth. lib. 19. cap. 10. * Baronius in anno 1189. * Lib. 1. cap. 13. * Buchan in Guilielmo Seniore * Hect. Boeth Third book of Majest cap. 18. Lambert Peramb Kent * W. Malms lib. 4. pag. 133. * Camden in Pembr * Pantal. De illust Germ. part 2. pag. 201. * Hospin De orig Mon. cap. 17. fol. 190. * Camden in his descript of Cludisdale * Zueriâ—s Boxborn his Apologie for the Holland shipping * Gwill in his Heraldrie * Burton in Leicestershire * Hospin De orig Mon. in Ioan. * Dr Ridley View of the Civil law §. 6. pag. 100. * Lord Verulam in his Henry vii pag. 87. * Luke 2.26 * L. Verulam in Henry vii * Buchanan in the life of Iames iiii * Camdens Remains * Centâ—riatores pag. totius operis penult 1298 * Psal. 1â—â— 3 * Bydulph pag. 117. * Sandys Travels pag. 158. * Carew in his survey of Cornwall pag. 118. * Bydulph pag. 119. * Camdens Elisabeth in anno 1596. * De terra Sancta part 2. cap. 1. * Acts 16.9 * Matth. 1.16 * Sâ—belliâ—â—s Ennead 9. lib. 5. pag. 378. * In his Proeâ—e fol. 5. * Institut lib. 1. tit 8. §. 1. * Knolls Hist. Turk pag. 123. * Sr Edwin Sandys View of the West world pag. 137. * Centuriatores Cent. 13. cap. 16. col 692. * Heylin Microcos in Palestine * Knolls in his descript of the greatnesse of the Turkish Empire * Knolls * Anno 1131. Helvicus giveth Baldwine the second sixteen yeares but herein he is deceived as also in allowing King Fulk but eight We according to the consent of the best Authours have given the former thirteen the latter ten * 1156. This catalogue of the Masters of the Hospitallers I find in Hospinian De origine Monachatús It seemeth strange this Nestor Rodulphus should govern his Order 54 yeares yet it appeareth to be so if we compare Tyriâ—s lib. 14. cap. 6. * 1188. That Antioch was betrayed by a Patriarch is plain by Sabellicus but whether Almericus was this traytouâ—-Patriarch or whether it was done by the Grecian Antipatriarch is uncertain Here we cease that columne as despairing to coâ—â—â—â—ne their succession any longer ** 1192. Here is a subject for industry to deserve well in filling up the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Masters of the Templars from the death of Gerard till the yeare 1215 whose names we cannot find *** 1193. Hitherto the succession of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem is accurately collected out of Tyrius The Order of those which follow is not so authentick being catcht as we might out of severall Authours * 1230. Severall Authours assigne severall dates wherein the Dutch Knights came into Prussia Perchance they came in severall parcels Their succession I had out of Pantaleon Munster and the Cenâ—â—rists Quare whether these Masters of the Dutch Knights in Prussia had also command over those of their Order in Syria * 1245 Here we are at another losse for the names of the Templars and will be thankfull to those which will help us to them * For in the ninth yeare of his reigne he winneth the city of Jerusalem restoreth it to the Eastern Christians who soon after lose it to the Sultan of Egypt