Heaven look there and see the Brightness and the Beauty of that Palace it is from thence that I have what you so much Admire in me And further added he seeing him transported with the Admiration of that Beautiful Palace I am to acquaint you that there is one far more Glorious preparing for you Adieu till to Morrow And thereupon he presently disappeared Early the next Morning Anselm having made his Servants send for the Priests he received the Sacraments and very pleasantly said to his Friends that they should not be surprized at what he was to tell them but that though now they saw him in perfect Health yet assuredly he should die that day and thereupon he related to them what he had seen the Night preceding before he went to sleep And the Event verified his Prediction for the Enemy making a furious Sally Anselm who never failed upon such an Occasion ran thither with his Sword in his Hand when a Stone which was discharged from an Engine hitting him upon the Head sent him instantly to that Beautiful Palace which Engelram told him was preparing for him in the Heavens Now in Regard that he who recounts this extraordinary Accident affirms upon his Salvation that he faithfully writ what he saw himself and that besides one cannot reasonably accuse so brave a Man as this famous Earl of Bouchain and Ribemont as guilty of so much Weakness as to make him pass for a Visionary Extravagant I cannot believe there is the least Place for calling in Question the Truth of this Relation And from hence our Brave Men may draw an Excellent Instruction and learn that in making a Christian War whether it be against Infidels or Hereticks or whether it be in Obedience to their own Prince who is only responsible to God for the Justice of his Arms which the Subjects have no Authority to examine there is such an Insinite Glory in Heaven to be acquired by their Courage on Earth that they ought to expose their Lives with all imaginable Frankness to all sorts of Dangers and Death it self After this all the Advantage that was gotten during this Siege before the Arrival of the other Princes was that Raymond Viscount of Turenne having with him the Viscount de Castellane the Lord Albret and ten or twelve other principal Gascons and Bearnois with about one hundred Horse and two hundred Foot took Torlosa in old Time called Antaradus a fair and great Town upon the Coast over against the Isle of Aradus six or seven Leagues from Arcas towards Antioch He thought to have taken it by Surprize but that Design did not thrive by reason he had so small a Number of Men wherefore in the Night at the side of a Wood which was in View of the City he caused such abundance of Fires to be made that the Inhabitants taking his Party to have been the Van of the Army and that all the rest was now come up to assault them the next day they fled away that Night so that the Viscount entred it the next Morning without Resistance and there found so rich a Booty as rejoyced the whole Army This Valiant Viscount was the Chief of that Illustrious House of Turenne which in Conclusion about two hundred years since happily fell into that de la Tour d' Avergne which by taking up the Name hath restored it not only to its first Splendor but hath also advanced it by an other Viscount Turenne to the highest pitch of Honor to which it could aspire This is he who after having done so many fair Actions in commanding the French Armies in Italy in Germany and Flanders as beyond Contradiction have given him the Reputation of a most accomplished Captain came to add to the Heap of his Glories the Execution of his Kings Commands in this last Campagne and who may well be celebrated as the chief Engineer of the Military Art year 1099 and Master of all those great Qualities which are requisite in the Character of the most compleat General of an Army all which are so conspicuous in him as justly render him one of the most admired able brave and eminent Generals even in the Opinion of the Confederates his Enemies And certainly it will be difficult to find any thing more admirable than the War of this Campagne of more than ten Months Continuance wherein he by his sole Presence and the terror of his Name not only stopped the Course of the greatest Army of his Enemies and hindred them from entring into the Provinces whilest in the mean time the King finished his Conquests but also in Conclusion won two Battles one on this the other on the further side of the Rhine constraining them in Disorder to retire as far as the River of Mein and after that terrible Inundation of sixty thousand Germans had thrown themselves over the Bridge of Strasbourg into Alsatia he there gave them the Diversion of weakening themselves by Famine and Sickness after which in the very Heart of Winter he marched against them over the Mountains and the mighty Snows and there either cut in pieces and dispersed or made Prisoners their forwardest Troops in three Combats and in Conclusion obliged the rest which he had reduced to one half of what passed the Bridge to repass it with so much Precipitation and Shame that to save themselves in their own Country they would not give him the Opportunity to Attacque them Thus it was that he sustained the Glory of that illustrious Name and rendred that of Turenne far more glorious than it was in the first Crusade after that Viscount Raymond alone took so great a City In the mean time the Duke Godfrey Earl Eustace and Robert Earl of Flanders who Marched in the month of March with their Armies in very good Condition Besieged Giblet otherwise called Gabala a Town upon the Sea between Tortosa and Laodicea but being requested by the Earl of Tholose to come to his Assistance upon the Rumor which he had cunningly raised that a great Army of Saracens were advancing to Assail him they accepted the Terms which the Governor offered them to obtain a Peace and came instantly before Arcas where they found no other Enemies to Combat with but those who were within the Town who made a very brave Defence But the two Ambassages which the Princes received shortly after determined the Siege which had been maintained so long For during the Siege of Antioch they had sent their Ambassadors to Babylon with those of the Sultan of Egypt to conclude with him that Alliance which he had desired and which was condescended unto upon Condition that he should joyn his Arms with those of the Christians That Jerusalem with all its Dependancies should be put into the Hands of the Christians That he should have such other Places as should be regained from the Turks who had usurped them from him and that the rest should be divided among them But the great Overthrow of Corbagath which that
the Plain whither it was descended to defend the Pass and if the Entry into the River was easie the getting out was difficult the further Bank being not only possessed by the Enemies but very steep and high and that which made the Difficulty greater was that there was not one fordable place to be found all the Country People though several Examined agreeing in the Protestation that they never knew any passing there And besides all this so soon as any of the Soldiers entred the River to search for a Ford the Turks on the other side also entred the River and showred down their Arrows upon them Nevertheless the Desire which the Army had to pass and fight the Infidels was so great that after having tried both above and below to find out a Ford in the River without regarding the Arrows of the Enemies they at the last found one turning a little upon the left hand which those of the Country had never known The King after he had given Orders to the Cavalry of the Avant-Guard to pass the Ford he put himself at the Head of the Rere which faced the Turks who had charged them there and running upon them at a full Cariere before they had the Liberty according to their Custom to retire he cut a great part of them in pieces and repulsed the rest with Sword and Lance at their very Reins even to the Mountains At the same time Thierri Earl of Flanders Henry the Son of Thibald Earl of Champagne and William Earl de Mascon having thrown themselves with the first Squadrons into the River were followed by all the rest and in Despight of the Arrows which like Hail were showred most furiously upon them from the opposite Bank which did but little Execution upon those armed Troops they gained the other Shoar and sustained the Shock of their Enemies till the rest of the Troops got over and drew up in Batalia Immediately thereupon they made a most furious Charge upon the Turks who now no longer able to use their Bows were presently overthrown for these Barbarians having no defensive Arms and not accustomed to fight Foot to Foot against the Franks were constrained to give way to that Terrible Shock and therefore betook themselves to Flight leaving a great Number of their Men extended upon the Earth and a great many of Prisoners the rest were pursued to the Mountains where they saved themselves year 1148 but the Camp which they had pitched in the Plain fell to the Share of the Soldiers thus the whole Army having now no more Enemy neither in Front or Rear which durst appear passed the River with Ease some behind the Horse others upon the Wagons and Planks of Timber There ran a Report in the Army that a Cavalier in white Arms who was never seen before nor after passing before the rest as it were to shew them the Way they were to take gave the first Charge upon the Squadrons of the Enemy But as it was the Humour of those times to feign such Visions to render extraordinary Actions as this was more miraculous one may without scruple dispense with disbelieving this Apparition Eudes a Monk of St. Dennis who was the Successor of Sugerius and who was by that great Abbot recommended to the King as an able Man to serve him both as his Chaplain and his Secretary during that Voyage satisfies himself with saying that there were several who affirmed they saw that white Cavalier but that for his own particular he was resolved neither to be deceived nor to deceive others and that he saw no such thing He adds like a man of Sense that without having Recourse to this Marvel which was not easie to prove there was another Passage not less remarkable or surprising and which ought to be wholly attributed to the Divine Protection and that is that in this Attempt there was not one Person of Quality lost except Milon or Miles the Lord of Nogent who was drowned A strange and marvellous Adventure which we have seen repeated within a few days by that admirable Reflux and if I may venture to express it so Circulation of the same Events which produces the same thing in succeeding Ages which have happened in those past so long ago For in the War with Holland where the King of France by the prodigious Success of his Arms made himself Master in less than one Champagne of above thirty strong places he commanded a Party of his Cavalry to pass the Rhine not far from its Mouth under the Conduct of the Generous Count de Guiche where those Braves in the View of their Enemies who were drawn up on the other side to oppose them passed that great River partly by a Ford till that time unknown and partly by swimming without any other considerable Loss than that of the Count de Nogent who there perished in signallizing by a glorious Death his Zeal and Courage in one of the fairest Occasions that were ever seen But it is in short that one ought to expect that what ever was great or Heroick in their Ancestors is in our time to be performed by their Descendants under a King who hitherto hath carried the Glory of this August Monarchy to a higher Degree than any of his Illustrious Predecessors have done since Charlemain The End of the First Part. THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land TOME II. BOOK I. The CONTENTS of the First Book The Rereguard of the Kings Army Defeated in the Mountains of Laodicea for want of observing the Kings Orders The Description of that Combat A most Heroick Action of the King in an extreme Danger of his Life His March and admirable Conduct to Attalia The new Perfidy of the Greeks in Betraying the Royal Army The Arrival of the King at Antioch and his Difference with Prince Raymond The Conquenty March to Jerusalem where he is met by the Emperor Conrade The Councel at Ptolemaïs where the Siege of Damascus is resolved The Description of the City of Damascus The manner of the March of the Christian Army towards that City The young King Baldwin makes the first Attack his Character and extraordinary Valour in the Attack against the Gardens and Suburbs of Damascus The great Combat upon the Bank of the River A brave Action of the Emperor Conrade An Account of the Siege of Damascus and the Treachery of the Syrians which occasioned the ill Success of that Enterprise The Return of the Emperor and the King The Murmurs against St. Bernard and his Apology The Conquest of Noradin after the raising of the Siege The Death of King Baldwin and his Elogy His Brother Amauri Succeeds him The History of that Princes Life who by his Avarice looseth the Opportunity of Conquering all Egypt The History of Syracon who Seizes upon the Kingdom of Egypt and leaves it to his Nephew Saladin The Elogy and first Conquest of that Prince The
should fail he should be sure of the third and that though he lost two Thirds of his Alms upon two false Religions yet the other falling upon the true he should undoubtedly find Advantage by it for the good of his Soul Poor well meaning Prince He did not know that there is a vast difference between Temporal and Eternal Goods And that though those are submitted to the Empire of Fortune which gives or takes them according as she pleases to turn her sporting Wheel yet in these it is far otherwise and that Eternal Goods are never exposed to Hazard and Adventure but they are certainly lost The Death of Saladin presently made a Change in the Face of Affairs throughout all Asia For having divided his Dominions among his twelve Sons without leaving any thing to his Brother Saphadin who had most faithfully served him in all his Wars This Prince valiant and ambitious resolved to revenge himself upon the first Opportunity nor was it long before it was offered and by him laid hold of For his Nephew to whose Share in the Distribution Egypt fell being slain by a Fall from his Horse as he was hunting Saphadin with Ease made himself Master of that fair Dominion and presently raising a powerful Army all the Soldiers of Saladin who had served under him and esteemed him infinitely running in to him he attempted the Ruin of his other Nephews and in a short time either by Force of Arms or by Treachery of their Subjects he overthrew them all year 1195 except the Sultan of Alepo to whom his Subjects always preserved a most inviolable Fidelity Thus whilst the Infidels armed one against another and thought of nothing but how to destroy themselves it was believed in Europe that a fair Occasion was offered for the Recovery of the Realm of Jerusalem now almost entirely lost which gave occasion to a new Crusade which was also followed by three others as in the ensuing History may be seen The End of the Second Part. THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART III. BOOK I. The CONTENTS of the First Book The little Disposition which was found in Europe to this fourth Crusade The Pope resolves at last to address himself to the Emperor Henry VI. The Diet of Wormes where the Princes of Germany take up the Cross An Heroick Action of Margarite the Sister of Philip the August Queen of Hungary who takes upon her the Cross The Artifice of the Emperor who raiseth three Armies and makes use of one of them to assure himself of the Kingdom of Naples where he extinguishes the whole Race of the Norman Princes The Arrival of the Armies by Sea and Land at Ptolemaïs The Truce broken by the Christians The deplorable Death of Henry Count de Champagne and King of Jerusalem Jassa taken by Saphadin The Battle of Sidon gained against Saphadin by the Princes of the Crusade The greatest part of the Cities of Palestine taken by the Christians Emri Brother of Guy de Lusignan King of Cyprus made King of Jerusalem The Seige of Thoron unhappily raised by the horrible Treason of the Bishop of Wertzbourg and his Punishment Division among the Christians The Combat of Jaffa The Death of the Emperor Henry VI. The Description of that Prince A Schism in the Empire occasions the suddain Return of the Princes of the Crusade who abandon the Holy Land to the Insidels The Death of Pope Celestin III. Innocent III. succeeds him The Elegy and Portraict of that Pope He endeavours to set up a new and general Crusade Fouques de Nevilli preacheth it in France The Elegy and Character of that holy Man The Crusade is preached in England King Richard engages many of his Subjects in it The Death of that Prince and his Penitence The Counts of Champagne Blois and Flanders take upon them the Cross Their Treaty with the Venetians by the Vndertaking of Henry Dandolo Doge of Venice The Description and Elegy of that Prince The Death of the Count of Champagne Boniface Marquis of Montferrat made Chief of the Crusade in his place The Death of Fouques de Nevilli A new Treaty between the Princes of the Crusade and the Venetians for the Seige of Zara A great Division upon that Subject Henry Dandolo takes upon him the Cross The Siege and Taking of Zara. The History of Isaac and the two Alexises Emperors of Constantinople The young Alexis desires the Assistance of the Princes of the Crusade against his Vnkle Alexis Commenius who had usurped the Imperial Throne The Speech of his Ambassadors The Treaty of the French and Venetians with this Prince for his Re-establishment A new Division upon this Subject A new Accord among the Confederate in the Isle of Corfu The Description of their Fleet and their Arrival before Constantinople year 1194 THere was very little probability for the Christian Princes of the East to hope for any Assistance from the Princes of Europe where there was now not the least favourable Inclination towards the Holy War The Kings of England and France upon whose Protection they had always chiefly depended were so far from uniting as they did before year 1195 in such a glorious Design they were engaged in a most cruel War which was only discontinued for some time by little Truces which served to no other purpose but to give them leisure to take Breath a little and thereby to put themselves into a Condition to attack each other with greater Fury than before The Emperor was wholly taken up with putting himself into the Possession of the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily in Right of his Wife Constantia the Empress In pursuit of which after the death of Tancred he extinguished the whole Race of those brave Normans who had so generously conquered and so gloriously possessed those Realms for above one Age. Pope Celestin III. wasted with Age and Fatigues being now advanced to ninety Years was in no Condition to undertake so difficult a Task as the Forming of a new Crusade And besides he was extreamly embroiled with the Emperor whom he had excommunicated for the Violence which he had used to the King of England so that he had little hope to engage him in the Enterprise Nevertheless after he was assured of the death of Saladin and the great Revolutions which that had made in his Empire which he understood by Letters from Henry Dandolo Doge of Venice he applied himself with the same Zeal which his Predecessors had done to form a Holy League among the Christian Princes to make advantage of this fair Opportunity for the re-gaining of Jerusalem For this purpose he sent his Legates throughout all Europe He did all that lay in his power to procure Peace between the two Kings of France and England and conjured them at least to send some Assistance to Palestine if the posture of their Affairs was such as would not permit them to go thither in Person to
BOOK I. THe little disposition which was found in Europe to this fourth Crusade The Pope resolves at last to address himself to the Emperor Henry VI. The Diet of Wormes where the Princes of Germany take up the Cross An Heroick Action of Margarite the Sister of Philip the August Queen of Hungary who takes upon her the Cross The Artifice of the Emperor who raiseth three Armies and makes use of one of them to assure himself of the Kingdom of Naples where he extinguishes the whole race of the Norman Princes The Arrival of the Armies by Sea and Land at Ptolemais The Truce broken by the Christians The deplorable Death of Henry Count de Champagne and King of Jerusalem Jaffa taken by Saphadin The Battle of Sidon gained against Saphadin by the Princes of the Crusade The greatest part of the Cities of Palestine taken by the Christians Emri Brother of Guy de Lusignan King of Cyprus made King of Jerusalem The Siege of Thoron unhappily raised by the horrible Treason of the Bishop of Wertzbourg and his Punishment Division among the Christians The Combat of Jaffa The Death of the Emperor Henry VI. The Description of that Prince A Schism in the Empire occasions the suddain Return of the Princes of the Crusade who abandon the Holy Land to the Infidels The Death of Pope Celestin III. Innocent III. succeeds him The Elogy and Portraict of that Pope He endeavours to set up a new and General Crusade Fouques de Nevilli preacheth it in France The Elogy and character of that holy Man The Crusade is preached in England King Richard engages many of his Subjects in it The Death of that Prince and his Penitence The Counts of Champagne Blois and Flanders take upon them the Cross Their Treaty with the Venetians by the Vndertaking of Henry Dandolo Doge of Venice The Description and Elogy of that Prince The Death of the Count of Champagne Boniface Marquis of Montferrat made chief of the Crusade in his place The Death of Fouques de Nevilli A new Treaty between the Princes of the Crusade and the Venetians for the Siege of Zara. A great division upon that Subject Henry Dandolo takes upon him the Cross The Siege and Taking of Zara. The History of Isaac and the two Alexises Emperor 's of Constantinople The young Alexis desires the Assistance of the Princes of the Crusade against his Vncle Alexis Comnenius who had usurped the Imperial Throne The Speech of his Ambassadours The Treaty of the French and Venetians with this Prince for his Re-establishment A new Division upon this Subject A new Accord among the Confederate in the Isle of Corfu The Description of their Fleet and their Arrival before Constantinople BOOK II. The Condition wherein the City of Constantinople was when it was besieged by the French and Venetian Crusades The Defeat of the Vsurpers Brother-in-Law by a small Party of the French The Passage and the Battle of the Bosphorus The taking of the Castle of Galatha The Venetians force the Entry of the Port. An Assault given both by Sea and Land â—o Constantinople The Venetians take five and twenty Towers A Sally made by the Emperor Alexis with a prodigious Army and his Infamous Cowardice His Flight and the Reduction of Constantinople The Establishment of Isaac and the young Alexis A Prolongation of the Treaty for a Year between that Emperor and the Confederate Princes Their Exploits in Thracia A Dreadful Fire at Constantinople The History of the horrible Treason of Murtzuphle The young Alexis suffers himself to be surprized by the Artifices of that Traytor and breaks with the Confederates The Speech of Conon de Bethune to the Emperors to oblige them to accomplish their Treaty War declared against them upon their refusal The Greeks attempt in Vain to burn the Venetian Fleet. The Description of that wild Fire The consequent Treasons of Murtzuphle The Election of Cannabus The double Treason of Murtzuphle who makes himself be proclaimed Emperor The Death of Isaac and of the young Alexis whom Murtzuphle strangles with his own Hands The Confederates make War against the Tyrant His Defeat by Henry the Brother of Count Baldwin The first Assault given upon the Port side of Constantinople wherein the Confederates are repulsed The Second Assault by which the City is taken by plain Force The Flight of Murtzuphle The Greeks lay down their Arms. The City plundered and the Booty there gained The Relicks from thence transported to several Churches of Europe Baldwin Earl of Flanders chosen Empeperor The Policy of the Venetians in the Election of that Prince His Elogy and Character The Election of a Patriarch The Destribution of the Provinces of the Empire The happy Beginning of the Emperor who reduceth all Thracia Murtzuphle surprized and betrayed by the Old Alexis who puts out his Eyes The Flight of Alexis and the taking of Murtzuphle He is brought back to Constantinople where for the Punishment of his Crimes he is thrown headlong from a high Columne Old Alexis taken His End The Glorious Success of this Crusade BOOK III. The unfortunate Success of those who abandoned the Confederates to pass into Syria The Care of the Pope for Constantinople who sends Doctors from Paris to reduce the Schismaticks The Death of Mary the Empress Wife of Baldwin The Death of Isabella Queen of Jerusalem The Princess Mary her Daughter succeeds in the Realm and Marries Count John de Brienne The Relation how that Prince and Count Gautier his Brother conquered the Kingdom of Naples The Exploits of King John de Brienne The Pope procures him Aid A piteous Adventure of some young Men who by a strange Illusion took upon them the Cross The design of Pope Innocent to procure a general Crusade favoured by the Victory of Philip the August against the Emperor Otho The Battle of Bovines The Relation of the Council of Lateran where the Crusade is Decreed The Pope himself Preacheth it His death in that Holy Exercise A Fable concerning his Purgatory The Election of Pope Honorius III of that Name His Zeal and Industry to promote the Crusade Andrew King of Hungary the Head thereof The Princes that Accompanied him and their Voyage Their Conjunction with King John de Brienne Their Expedition against Coradin The Description of Thabor and the Relation of the Siege of that Fortress which had been built there by Coradin The Return of the King into Hungary The Arrival of the Northern Fleet of the Crusades under the Earl of Holland The Relation of their Adventures and Exploits against the Moors in Portugal The Siege and Battle of Alcazar The Victory of the Crusades Their Voyage to Ptolemais The Reasons of the Resolution which they took to attack Egypt The Description of Damiata The Account of that memorable Siege which lasted eighteen Months The Attack and taking of the Tower of Pharus A Description of certain Engines of a new Invention The Death of Saphadin upon the News of the taking of that Place His
Elogy and Character Meledin succeeds him An Error of the Christians after the taking of Pharus Cardinal Albano arrives with a potent Reinforcemet to the Crusades The Division between the King and the Legate and the Cause of it An heroick Action of certain Souldiers who break the Enemies Bridge The Army passeth the Nile Sultan Meledin flies The City Besieged by Land Two great Armies of Sarasins besiege the Camp They atack the Lines and force them A great Combat within the Lines The Enemy at last repulsed The Arrival of St. Francis before Damiata His Conference with the Sultan The Battle without the Lines lost by the Crusades An Advantageous Peace offered to the Christians by the Sultan The Reasons for and against it It is at last rejected by the Legate Damiata taken by Night PART IV. BOOK I. THE Condition the manners and the Religion of the People of Georgia who resolve to joyn with the Princes of the Crusade but are hindred by an irruption of the Tartars into their Country The Emperor Frederick sends a considerable relief to Damiata The return of King John de Brienne to the Army of the Crusades The Legate Pelagius opposeth his advice and makes them resolve upon a Battle against Meledin who once more offers Peace upon most advantageous Terms The Legate occasions the refusal of them The humour and description of this Legate An account of the miserable adventure of the Christian Army which by the inundation of the Nile is reduced to the Discretion of Meledin The wise Policy of this Sultan who saves the Army by a Treaty which he was willing to make with the Crusades This misfortune is followed by the Rupture of Frederick the Emperor with the Pope The Character of that Emperor The Complaints of Pope Honorius against him His Answers and their Reconciliation A famous Conference for the Holy War King John de Brienne comes to desire assistance throughout Europe The Death of Philip the August His Elogy his Will and his Funerals New endeavours of the Pope and the Emperor for the Holy War The Marriage of Frederick with the Princess Jolante the daughter of King John de Brienne Heiress of the Realm of Jerusalem John de Brienne is dispoiled of his Crown by his new Son-in-Law He puts himself under the Protection of the Pope Honorius The good Offices of the Pope to pacifie the Princes The death of Lewis the eight King of France He is succeeded by his Son Lewis the ninth The Death of Pope Honorius He is succeeded by Gregory the ninth The Portraict of this new Pope The Army of the Crusades much diminished by diseases The Emperor takes shipping He stays at Otranto where the Lantgrave of Thuringia dies A great rupture between the Pope and the Emperor The Pope excommunicates him Their Manifests The Revenge which Frederick takes He passes at last into Syria His differences with the Patriarch and the Templers His Treaty with the Sultan his Coronation at Jerusalem his return and accord with the Pope The Conference of Spolata for the Continuation of the Crusade The History of Theobald the fifth Earl of Champagne and King of Navarr His Voyage to the Holy Land with the other Princes of the Crusade His description and his Elogy A Crusade published for the Succour of Constantinople An Abridgement of the History of the Latin Emperors there The Causes of the little Success of the King of Navarr's Enterprise A new Rupture between the Pope and the Emperor The Occasions thereof The deplorable effects of that breach which ruins the Affairs of the Holy Land The Jealousie among the Princes occasions their loss Their defeat at the Battle of Gaza The unsuccessful Voyage of Richard Earl of Cornwall The death of the Constable Amauri de Montfort His Elogy his Burial and that of his Ancestors and of Simon de Montfort in the Monastery of Hautebruiere A Council called at Rome The Pope's Fleet defeated by the Emperor's and the taking of the Legates and Prelates going to the Council The death of Pope Gregory The election of Celestin the fourth and of Innocent the fourth He breaks with the Emperor and retires into France BOOK II. THE Original of the Tartars and their Empire They drive the Corasmins the Descendants of the Ancient Parthians out of Persia The Irruption of these Barbarians into Palestine The intire Desolation of Jerusalem The Effect which this produced in the West The Relation of the first Council of Lyons where Frederick is excommunicated and deposed The Decree of the Council for the Crusade The Decision of the Pope touching the Deposition of Dom Sanches King of Portugal A marvellous Example of Fidelity in the Governour of Conimbra The Emperor 's Manifest and his Exploits A Crusade published against him which hinders the Effect of the General Crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Land St. Lewis undertakes it singly with the French He takes the Cross and causes many of the Nobility and Gentry of France to follow his Example in the Assembly of Paris The Conference of Clugri for this Crusade The Ambassage of Frederick to St. Lewis and the wise Conduct of the King in reference to the Emperor The Politick Reasons to justifie this Enterprise of St. Lewis with an account of what was done at the beginning of it His Voyage to Aigues-Mortes where he takes shipping His arrival in the Isle of Cyprus He commits a great Error by staying there six Months The Death of divers Lords there That of Archambald de Bourbon The Marriage of his Grand-daughter Beatrix of Burgundy with Robert the fourth the Son of St. Lewis from whom the Princes of the August House of Bourbon are descended The Ambassage of the Tartars to St. Lewis during his stay in Cyprus His arrival in Egypt The Battle of Damiata and the taking of that City from the Sarasins who abandon it and the reason of their doing so The Entry of the King into Damiata The Error which he commits by stopping there The Army grows dissolute and debauched by lying idly there The arrival of the Count de Poitiers The Resolution which is taken of going directly to Caire The Situation of the Places where the two Armies are incamped The unsuccessful attempt of the Crusades to turn the Nile They pass the River The first Battle of Massore where the Count d' Artois is slain The second Battle and the admirable Actions of the King The Plague and Famine in the Camp An unfortunate Retreat wherein the whole Army is defeated and the King with all the Princes and Lords are taken Prisoners An Heroick Action of Gaucher de Chastillon in this Retreat The admirable Constancy of the King in his Imprisonment His Treaty with the Sultan The Original of the Mamalukes The Revolution in the Empire of Egypt by the Murder of the Sultan The Confirmation of the Treaty with the Admirals The King absolutely refuseth to take the Oath which these Barbarians would exact from him The Refutation of the
Fable touching the pawning of the Holy Eucharist to the Sarasins by the King Lewis His deliverance and admirable Fidelity to his Promise and the perfidiousness of the Egyptians BOOK III. The General Consternation all over France upon the News of the King's Imprisonment the Tumult the Shepherds their Original their Disorders and Defeat St. Lewis after his deliverance performs his Articles with great Justice The Admirals fail on their part The Original of the Hospital of the Fifteen Score The Councel debates the matter of the King's return The Reasons on the one side and the other It is at last concluded for his stay in Palestine Four Famous embassages to St. Lewis from Pope Innocent from the Sultan of Damascus from the Ancient of the Mountain and from the Emperor Frederick The Death of that Emperor and the different Opinions thereupon An Error of St. Lewis who loseth a fair opportunity of making use of one Party of the Sarasins to ruin the other The Election of a Mamaluke Sultan The gallant Actions of St. Lewis in Palestine The Death of Queen Blanch and the return of the King into France The Rupture and War between the Venetians and Genoese occasions the loss of the Holy Land The Conquests of Haulon Brother to the great Cham stops the Progress of the Sarasins The Relation of the Mamaluke Sultans They vanquish the Tartars which ravage Palestine The Character of Sultan Bendocdar the great Enemy of the Christians His Conquests upon them His Cruelty and the Glorious Martyrdom of the Souldiers of the Garrison of Sephet and of two Cordeliers and a Commander of the Temple The taking and Destruction of Antioch by this Sultan The quarrels between the Popes and the Princes of the House of Suabia obstruct the Succours of the West The Histories of Pope Innocent and the Emperor Conrade of Pope Alexander and Mainfrey against whom he vainly publishes Crusades The History of Charles d' Anjou to whom Pope Urban the Successor of Alexander and Pope Clement the Fourth give the Realms of Naples and Sicily as Fieffs escheated to the Church by Felony His Exploits his Battles and his Victories over Mainfrey and Conradin The deplorable Death of that young Prince The Victories of Charles cause the Pope and St. Lewis to entertain a Design for a new Crusade An Assembly at Paris about that Affair where the King the Princes and Lords take upon them the Cross All other Nations decline the Crusade The Collusion of the Emperor Michael Paleologus The Condition of the King's Army The Resolution taken to Attack Tunis and the Reasons wherefore The Description of Tunis and Carthage The taking of the Port the Tower and the Castle of Carthage The Malady makes great Destruction in the King's Army His Death Elogy and Character The Arrival of Charles King of Sicily The Exploits of the Army The Treaty of Peace with the King of Tunis who becomes Tributary to Charles The return of the two Kings their Fleet is horribly beaten by a Tempest Prince Edward of England saved his Vow to go to the Holy Land His Voyage his Exploits and his return The vain indeavours of Pope Gregory the Tenth for a new Crusade The second Council of Lyons The last causes of the loss of the Holy Land The quarrel among the Christian Princes for the Succession to the Kingdom of Jerusalem The Death of Bendocdar The defeat of his Successor by the Tartars The hopes of the recovery of all Palestine by the Arms of King Charles of Anjon ruined by the sad accident of the Sicilian Vespers The new division among the Princes and the Progress of the Mamaluke Sultans The Relation of the lamentable Siege and the taking of Acre by these Barbarians All the other places are lost and the Christians of the West wholly driven out of Palestine and Syria The vain and fruitless attempts which have since been made to renew the Crusades THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land BOOK I. The CONTENTS of the First Book The greatness of the Subject of the ensuing History The newness and advantage of it The Original of the Turks and their Conquest in Asia from the Sarasens The Conference of Peter the Hermite with the Patriarch of Jerusalem The Description of the Hermite His Negotiation with Pope Urban the Second and his Preaching the Crusade The Relation of the Council of Placentia that of the Council of Clermond The horrible Disorders occasioned by the little Wars between private Persons which were tolerated in those times and which were regulated by the Canon of the Peace and the Truce Aymar de Monteil Bishop of Pavia Legate of the Pope for the Crusade The prodigious number of those who took upon them the Cross and the Disorders that insued The Names of the Princes of the Crusade An account of Duke Godfrey and his Character He sends Peter the Hermite before him A Description of the Conduct and manner of living of this Solitary He divides his Army into two Bodies The Disorder and Ruin of the first under Gautier Monyless The greater Disorder and ill Fortune of the second commanded by Peter himself The Defeat of two other Armies of Crusades conducted by a Priest Godescalc and Count Emico their overthrow by the Hungarians The Conference of Peter the Hermite with the Emperor Alexis The Character Conduct and secret designs of that Prince and the reasons of his perfidiousness The passage of the Hermites Army into Asia and the continuance of their disorders The Italians and Germans separate from the French The first overthrown by young Soliman Sultan of Nice The first Battle of Nice where the other part are overthrown also by Soliman The Voyage of Godfrey of Bullen and the Princes that accompanied him The Voyage of Hugh the Great and the Princes that followed him his Character Conduct and Imprisonment by the Greek Emperor The War of Godfrey against Alexis The Extremity to which the Emperor is reduced and the Treaty concluded between him and the Princes The Relation of the Conquests and Settlement of the Normans in Italy The Voyage of Bohemond Prince of Tarentum and the Princes that went along with him The Voyage of Raymond de Tholose of Aymar de Monteil Bishop of Pavia and the other Princes and Lords which accompanied them The Character of that Earl his Conference with the Emperor and the Treachery of that Prince The Voyage of Robert Duke of Normandy his Character and Treaty with the Emperor IF ever any Undertaking were capable of possessing the Historian with a just fear of defeating the mighty Expectation of his Reader most assuredly it may be apprehended in attempting the Design of relating the ensuing History of the Crusade And indeed amidst all the most extraordinary Revolutions which may be found either in the Establishment of New or the Ruine of the Ancient Monarchies one shall difficultly meet with any thing more memorable and whether we
thinking it very lawful to revenge Persidiousness by Treachery no sooner saw them disarmed but they fell upon them and put them all to the Sword except a very few who escaped the Massacre to carry the woful News into their own Country to the other Crusades who yet by their Misfortune grew never the Wiser or more Considerate For in the beginning of the Summer of this same Year a prodigious Multitude of People gathered from divers parts of France England the low Countries Lorrain and that part of Germany which lyes upon the Rhine drawing along with them an infinite of Women and People of the lewdest Condition in the World assembled themselves near Collen where they passed the Rhine in order to joyn with Count Emico who attended them with a great number of Crusades of the higher Germany of the same dissolute Complexion with themselves These People to Signalize their false Zeal by covering a most barbarous Action with the specious pretence of Piety most inhumanly Massacred all the Jews whom they found at Collen and Mayence where they forced the Arch-Bishops Palace where Rothard the Archbishop had secured a hundred of these poor Creatures as in a Sanctuary But it proved no Protection against the Fury of those Barbarians who Butchered them in a most savage manner cutting their Throats like Sheep sparing neither the Women for their Sex nor the Children for their innocent Age nor indeed was there any Sanctuary to be found against this horrible Barbarism which was inspired by Avarice and promoted by an insatiable Covetousness of the Riches of the Jews Insomuch that the remainders of them being reduced to the utmost Dispair chose rather to repeat the doleful Example of Saguntum Capua and with their own Hand to commit the bloody Execution so that barricadoing themselves within their Houses the pityless Mothers like Furies cut the Throats of their sucking Babes the Husbands their Wives and Daughters and the Fathers their Sons and the Servants chose rather to dispatch each other than to fall into the Hands of those incompassionate Monsters who profaned the Character and rendered the Name of Christian of which they were unworthy most Infamous and Detestable But it was not long before God Almighty by the remarkable Vengeance which he executed upon these wicked People manifested the Abhorrence which he had of their Crimes and that he had no Intention to make use of their Service in reconquering the Inheritance of his Son by the profane Hands of those who had declared themselves his Enemies by such Impieties as even the Infidels themselves would have blushed to commit For this huge Army of Bedlams which consisted of above two hundred thousand Men of whom there were not above three thousand Horse laying Siege to Mesbourg a strong place upon the Danubius in Hungary where they were denyed Passage and when they were just upon the point of gaining it was in an instant struck with such a Pannick Fear that they fled with so much Precipitation Blindness and Disorder and all perished there except a very few of the Horse who being well mounted saved themselves by Flight For the greatest part of them were Smothered whilest they indeavoured to pass the Morass with which the Town is Invironed others were slain by the Garrison who upon this occasion sallying out followed them with Death closely at the Heels many were cut off by the Peasants who ran from all parts to take Vengeance of these Robbers and a multitude of them were drowned whilest indeavouring to pass the Danube they tumbled headlong one upon another so that the Shoar of that great River was for some time covered with their dead Bodies insomuch that this prodigious multitude of distracted People who pretended with impunity to commit the most execrable Crimes in the World causing a Shee-Goat to be worshipped which was carried at the Head of the Army as their conducting Divinity vanished in a moment by a terrible Blow of the Divine Justice which would not indure to be affronted by their pretended Piety and making Religion only a Cover for those abominable Wickednesses wherewith they daily dishonored God year 1096 But to proceed the Army of Peter the Hermite did not meet with a Fortune much more advantageous It was now become very numerous by the Conjunction of an infinite number of Lombards Genoese Piemontanes and other People of Italy who having taken upon them the Cross with the earliest even presently after the Council of Clermont came in several Troops by themselves without any Leaders and being joyned with those Forces of Gautier near Constantinople they were commanded there to attend the Arrival of the Hermite by the Emperors Order who now began to entertain some suspicious Jealousies of this great Army of Franks who were to be followed by others as numerous as they So soon as Peter was arrived the Emperor who had an extream desire to see him sent for him to the Palace where the Hermite who by the Voyage he had made into the Levant was well skilled in the Language and as Eloquent an Orator as a great Captain made him a Discourse in publick upon the Subject of this Expedition and the Holy War of the Forces and Qualities of the Princes which were expected with which the Emperor appeared so well satisfied that he made the Hermite very fair Presents and bestowed upon him a round Sum of Money to buy Provisions for his Troops After which he sent him back to the Camp Exhorting him by no means to precipitate this great Affair and especially not to attempt the passing of the Straits till the Arrival of the Princes nor to expose his harrassed Troops against those of the Turks which were far stronger than his and against which his tired and feeble Men would be able to make no tolerable Resistance The truth is the greatest part of our Historians represent this Prince as the most perfidious and disloyal of Mankind one who under the fine appearance of a feigned Friendship covered that horrible Treason which he had contrived against the Latins which was by a thousand unworthy Artifices to bring them to Destruction as well as by the Arms of the Turkish Infidels on the other side the Greek Writers when they mention this Emperor and this War speak nothing like it and the Princess Anna his Daughter who hath written the History of her Father in a Stile Florid and Beautiful after the Genius of her Sex in her Alexiada paints him directly contrary and hath dressed him up like a Hero a Wise and Politick Prince who upon this Occurrence performed the most admirable things in the World But to deal sincerely and without Prejudice the best way in my Opinion is to avoid both these Extreams to the end thereby if possible to find out Truth in the middle Way But this is most certain that this Alexis Comnenius was no other than an Usurper of the Empire of his Master and his Benefactor who had given him the Command
the Knights which are the prime Nobility possess great Estates under the Authority of the Great Master of the Teutonick Order But whilest these Military Orders began thus much about the same time to Establish themselves by little and little in Jerusalem that of the Hospitallers both Ancient and Modern which one may say were the Model of the others made a great Progress in Palestine and became of great Consideration by the great Services which it Performed both in Peace and War and upon this Account both the number of Pilgrims as also of Soldiers and Gentlemen who entred into that Order increasing daily St. Gerard the Provincial of the Isle of Martigues who was Master of the Hospitallers when Jerusalem was taken from the Sarasens built about the Year 1112. a third Hospital giving it the Name of St. John Baptist and there placed his new Knights who a little time after began to form the Design of following a Conduct and Manner of Living more Austere and more Perfect than that of the old Fraternity And indeed when after the Death of Gerard Fryer Bryan Roger was chosen by plurality of Voices to be the Great Master of the Hospitallers these new Knights of the third Erection of St. John Baptist persisting in their first Resolution of Living in greater Perfection would needs Imitate the Knights-Templers and add to their other Vows that of Chastity they separated from the Ancient Hospitallers and chose for their Master Fryer Raymond of Pavia a Gentleman of Dauphiny who drew up for them new Constitutions full of solid Christian Piety which may be seen in the Book of the Statutes of that Order with the Approbation of Pope Calixtus the Second in the Year 1123. as also the Priviledges which have been granted to them by forty eight Soveraign Popes After which time to distinguish themselves from the other they called themselves the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and wore a white Cross of eight Angles upon a black Habit. This is that famous Order which contrary to what usually happens to other Establishments hath daily Increased for above this five hundred Years Advancing to the supreme Elevation of Splendor and Glory wherein it appears at this very Day That Order I say which in all times hath had the Honor to have its Commanders and Knights of all that is Brave and Generous among the Nobility of all Europe and above all those Princes who have been most Remarkable and more distinguished by the Greatness of their Merit than by their Illustrious Names or Birth that Order in short which under the Celebrated Names of Rhodes and Maltha hath filled the Earth the Sea and all the Corners of our World with the glorious Trophics of an infinite number of Victories which they have Obtained against the Turks As for the ancient Hospitallers who were thus separated from these New ones with whom they formerly made up one Order under one great Master they still retained their ancient Name of St. Lazarus they added to the Habits of their Knights a green Cross to distinguish them from the others and maintained themselves within the Limits of their first Institution which allowing of Marriage consisted of three principal Vows of Charity to withdraw themselves from the World to the Service of the Infirm and Leprous of Chastity either in a single or conjugal State and of Obedience to their great Master and above all to be continually ready to Fight against the Infidels and the Enemies of the Church They also performed after this very signal Services in Palestine year 1119 which obliged the Kings Fulk Amaurus Baldwin the Third and Fourth and the Queens Melisantha and Theodora to take them into their particular Protection and to honor them with many Marks of their Royal Bounty the precious Testimonies whereof they do to this day preserve in their Treasury It was for this Cause that the young King Lewis at his Return from the Holy Land brought with him some of them into France there to Exercise their charitable Functions and to this purpose gave them the Supervising of all the Operations of the Infirmaries within his Realm as also the Castle of Boni near Orleans to be the principal House and chief Residence of their Order on this side the Sea as appears by his Letters Patents of the Year 1154. Signed by the Chancellor Huges in the Presence of the Constable Matthew de Montmorency which was Confirmed to them by Philip Augustus in the Year 1208 who also granted them great Priviledges and Immunities which have since been Augmented and solemnly Confirmed by twelve of our Kings of France In process of time the Order extended it self by Degrees through all Europe but principally in France England Scotland Germany Hungary Savoy Sicily Pavia Calabria Campania in Italy where the Emperor Frederick the Second gave them great Possessions in the Year 1225 which was also confirmed to them afterwards by the Bulla's of many Popes It was in that flourishing Estate wherein this Order was in Europe under this Emperor and under the King St. Lewis that the Pope Honorius the Third Approved it and Confirmed it anew giving it the Rule of St. Augustin with many great Priviledges which were also afterwards Augmented by the Bulla's of Pope Gregory the Ninth Alexander the Fourth Clement the Fourth Nicholas the Third Gregory the Tenth and John the Twenty second and many other Soveraign Popes who granted to them the same Favours which were Enjoyed by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem by which they were impowred to hold Estates given either by particular Persons or Bodies Politick and Corporate and all the Hospitals and Infirmaries with their Goods and Possessions which at any time belonged to this Order In the time that the Affairs of the Christians were almost become Desperate in the East after the Return of St. Lewis from his Voyage to the Holy Land the great Master of St. Lazarus with the greatest part of the Knights came to settle themselves in France where this devout King who took this Order into his Royal Protection and gave them of his Bounty a thousand Marks besides other Favours which he conferred on them became in a manner a new Founder and in effect it is most certain as appears by most authentick Acts that after this time the principal Seat of the Order of St. Lazarus as well on this as the other side of the Sea hath always been kept at their Castle of Boni where the general Chapter of the Order ought to be kept once every three Years and that the Kings of France have always been the Conservators and Patrons of the Order and have nominated and appointed the great Master That these great Masters have Exercised their Jurisdictions upon all the Knights of the Order in all the States of Christendom as the Generals of the Cistertians Premonstratenses and other Orders which at present are in France Exercise theirs over all the Religious of other Realms It
is true that this Order began to Relax and Decay extremely by the iniquity of the Times during the Wars between the English and French either by the Malice or Negligence of the Knights who either themselves did or permitted others to encroach upon the Estates of the Order appropriating them to their own private Families For this Cause it was that Pope Innocent the Eight at the Request of the Knights of Malta suppressed this Order to Re-unite it with all its Estates to that of St. John of Jerusalem which was obtained by Emery D' Amboise Great Master of the Rhodes by another Bulla from Pope Julius the Second But in regard that the Parliament of France Declared these Bulla's to be Injurious and contrary to the Rights of the Kings of France the Patrons of the Order the Popes Pius Fourth and Pius Fifth caused them to be Revoked upon Remonstrance thereof made to them by Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second who thought themselves too nearly Interessed in the Commanderies or Places of Trust which were within their Dominions so that the Order was again Established with many new Priviledges by Pope Pius the Fourth year 1119 who Created Jannot de Chastillon his Nephew Great Master of the Order after his Death Gregory the Thirteenth Transferred the Great Mastership to Emanuel Philibert the Duke of Savoy and to his Successors granting him also the Union of this Order with all their Estate to that of the Knights of St. Maurice the Erecting of which the Duke had obtained about a Month before It ought nevertheless to be taken for Indubitable that these new Creations to the Dignity of Great Master of St. Lazarus were not made but with Respect to certain Countries and it is no less certain that it was extremely in the Prejudice of the Kings of France who could by no means lose that Right which they had so lawfully acquired and for more than five hundred Years injoyed to have the sole Nomination of the Great Master who ought to be Elected at Boni the principal Conventical General House of the whole Order and who ought to have Jurisdiction over all the Knights of what Nation soever they be Insomuch that all those who are called Great Masters in other Countries are no more to speak properly but Deputies and Substitutes to him who is Established and Acknowledged in France as the King of Spain alledges in his Right Affirming that the Duke of Savoy is only his Vicegerent in Italy which also a very learned Civilian hath remarked according to the Bulla of Gregory the Thirteenth However after all these Bulla's reckoning from that of Innocent the Eight our Kings whose Rights are Sacred and Inviolable have not failed always to name as they did formerly without Interruption the Great Masters of all the Order of St. Lazarus both on this and the other side of the Sea And those of the Fraternity following that is Aignan Claude de Marveil John de Conty John de Leui Michael de Seurre Francis Salviati Aymar de Chartres Hugh Castelan de Castelmore and Charles de Gayan who were provided and nominated by the Kings Lewis Twelfth Francis First Henry Second Francis Second Charles Ninth Henry Third and Henry the Great never failed to take this Quality upon them altho the deplorable Condition to which the Order was Reduced in France the small Number of Knights and the Loss and Alienation of their Estates took from them the Opportunity of maintaining the Dignity of their Place and Order It was for this Reason that Henry the Forth after he had Gloriously Setled the three Estates of his Realm and that after the cruel Disorders of the Civil Wars he had put the Kingdom into a flourishing Condition was resolved also to restore to its primitive Splendor this Military Order of the Hospitallers from which he perswaded himself he should be able to draw very considerable Services He therefore Chose for Great Master one of the Fraternity whose Name was Philibert de Newstang a Gentleman whose Birth and Merit were equally Illustrious He went upon the King's Account to Rome there to treat about this Affair with Pope Paul the Fifth and did so well Negotiate what he had in Commission that the Quality of Restorer Protector and Patron of the Order was reserved to the King and the Dignity of Chief and General of the whole Order of St. Lazarus was Absolutely and without Restrinction to be in him whom the King should name to be Great Master Moreover the Pope having Created a New Order of Knights under the Title of our Lady of Mount Carmel at the Instance of the King he United them to that of St. Lazarus after which time the Knights have with this double Title born for their Armes a Cross or which is doubled consisting of eight Points Pometty between four Flowers-de-Lys with the Image of our Lady in the middle But as the Death of Henry the Great made the greatest of all his Noble Designs to Vanish the Order of St. Lazarus which began to Recover after having received these new Marks of Honor did for the main stand at a Stay continuing in the Condition wherein he lest it till now of late it begins to Flourish in such a manner which would make one believe that we shall one day see it produce those Fruits which it was accustomed to do in the times of its early Force and Vigor For the King who undertakes nothing which he doth not most happily Accomplish having taken up the same generous Design of his August Grandfather whose Sir Name the Acclamation of all Europe hath bestowed upon him will not fail to take all the most Just and Essicacious Ways to restore this ancient Order to that Condition which may render it Serviceable to those necessary Ends for the Good of the Church and State year 1119 which he hath proposed to himself But it is time methinks after this Digression which I hope will neither be Disagreeable nor Unprofitable to the Reader that I should now again follow the Thred of my History year 1123 The new King Baldwin de Bourg who had abundance of Courage and of Virtue obtained many great Victories against the Turks who after having Defeated and Slain in Battle the Prince of Antioch began to menace that great City But as he went to Succour the Earl of Edessa against Balac the most Potent of the Turkish Princes who had taken Earl Josselin with his Cousin Galeran in an Ambuscade he himself happened to be Surprized in the Night by that Emir who sent him Loaden with Irons to the same Castle where the two Earls his Kinsmen were detained Captives His Imprisonment however had not those dismal Consequences as were expected for Eustace Garnier Lord of Sidon or Saietta and Cesarea who was made Regent of the Realm Defeated the Army of the Egyptian Sarasens who Besieged Jaffa After which their Navy which consisted in eighty Sail of Ships was intirely Ruined by the Venetians who
of Death causing his Litter to be set down in the middle of the Army he lifted up his Hands and Eyes all Bathed in Tears of Joy to Heaven and with great Devotion he returned his hearty Thanks unto Almighty God for all the Benefits which he had received from him but above all for the Favor which he had now done him to let him die like a Prince of the Crusade in making War against the Infidels and that he permitted him to Vanquish with the bare Report of his Approach and the Terror of his Name these Enemies of Christ Jesus and of his Holy Faith And thus did this Christian Hero Transported more with the Excess of his Joy than of his Pains render unto God his generous Soul going to the Eternal Triumphs of a Glorious Immortality in Heaven whilest his Army Victorious by him only without Fighting Re-conducted his Body in the Litter as in a Triumphant Chariot to Edessa there to receive the Honors due to one of the bravest Actions that ever were Performed year 1142 Thus it was that this Illustrious Lord finished his Glorious Life and thus it was that with the Disgrace of refusing to hold the Place of so generous a Father the young Josselin his Son began his Reign which he dishonored by a Vicious and Dissolute Life spent in all manner of Debauches and above all by the Loss of Edessa which was the cause of the Decay and in Conclusion of the Ruine of the Affairs of the Western Christians in the East But is no new thing to observe that what the Wisdom Courage and Vigilance of many great Men have not been able without great Difficulty to Establish should be Ruined in a moment by the Brutality Pusillanimity and Cowardice of one Dissolute and Voluptuous Man This new Earl Josselin quitted the City of Edessa which his Father and the two Baldwins his Predecessors who constantly kept their Court there had taken great Care to Fortifie and Retired to Turbessel a delightful House Situate upon the Banks of Euphrates where like a true Epicure he drowned himself in those Vices and continual Debauches which the mistaken World calls Pleasures without ever regarding the weighty and troublesom Affairs of State But to Ease him of those Toils which attend a Crown Sanguin the most Potent and Able of all the Turkish Princes Sultan of Alepo and Nineveh now called Mosula or Mussula laid hold of this Occasion of the Stupidity of this careless Prince and knowing that there was neither a good Garrison nor any kind of Provisions fit to sustain a Siege in Edessa he presently sate down before it and by a furious Assault Carried the Place before the Unfortunate Josselin who was of himself destitute of any Power to prevent it could procure any Assistance from his Neighbours for he had too much Disobliged Raymond Prince of Antioch with whom he lived in continual Broils to afford him any and Queen Melesintha was at too great a Distance to Assemble so suddenly such an Army as was necessary to relieve the Place So that the Conqueror had Opportunity enough to make a great Progress with his Arms had not his ill Destiny rather than the Christian Arms prevented him for as he was Besieging Cologembar a Town upon the Euphrates he was Slain by one of his Eunuchs who having thus revenged himself of some Affront done him by his Master saved himself by Flight His two Sons divided his Dominions between them Cotebin the Eldest had for his Share Nineveh and Assyria and Noradin the Younger Brother was Sultan of Alepo This young Prince who soon after made himself one of the most Potent Princes of all Asia had nothing about him that was either Turk or Barbarian except the Name and without retaining any thing of the Vices of his Nation he made himself most Conspicuous in his Conduct by all the Virtues and accomplishing Qualities of a great Captain He was equally Wise Provident Moderate Bold and Enterprising Couragious Valiant and Fortunate and what was most rare among Infidels he was a Man of Honor Probity and wondrous Devout in his own Religion which was Mahometan above all he was the most Vigilant of Mankind the Stoutest and most prompt to lay hold upon all Opportunities which presented themselves with the prospect of any noble Action as appeared particularly in the Rencounter I am going to relate Having understood at Nineveh that Earl Josselin being underhand Sollicited by the Inhabitants had Seized upon Edessa with a considerable number of Troops he ran thither immediately with such Forces as he could on the suddain get together to Invest it this he performed so readily that the Earl despairing to resist the Enemies within who yet held the Fortresses and those without who went about to cut off all Provisions from coming to him resolved before all the Passages were obstructed to save himself with his Soldiers by quitting the City which being accordingly put in Execution the greatest part of the Inhabitants who were afraid to fall into the Hands of Noradin would also Accompany him in this dishonorable Flight But that Prince falling upon the infortunate Inhabitants at the same time that those within the Fortresses Sallying out had broken in among them at the Gate which they had set open they were all cut in pieces and then immediately pursuing the flying Army of the Earl which were Retreated some two Leagues to gain a Pass upon the Euphrates he Charged them so briskly that in the End he put them to a total Rout so that the miserable Earl did not without great Difficulty Escape to Samosatia year 1143 where he Arrived almost alone Thus Noradin having no more Enemies able to keep the Field and having so easily Re-gained Edessa quickly made himself Master of the greatest Part of that Principality from whence he Menaced the other three and all that part of Christendom which was in the East with utter Ruin and Desolation In the mean time immediately after the first taking of Edessa by Sanguin there being great reason to fear that that powerful Turk who had the Courage and Ambition of a Conqueror would also indeavour the Conquest of Antioch a Dispatch was immediately sent to request the Succours of all the Princes of the West But the principal Application was made to Lewis seventh King of France to whom the Christian Princes of the East who were all of that Nation had Recourse as to their natural Lord and whom the cross Accident which happened a little after put into the most favourable Disposition in the World to undertake such an Enterprise This Prince was in the very Bloom of his Youth being about twenty four Years of Age he was of a most exact Shape and of a marvellous and in his Sex an uncommon Beauty of a sweet Temper Civil and Obliging extream Pious Tender and Sensible of the least Sufferings of his meanest Subjects whom he most passionately Loved and was no less Beloved by them but above all he
searing a Pursuit from the half-dismounted Cavalry Within a Moment they would return again to make another Discharge upon these poor People at whom they shot from the higher Ground to the lower as at a Butt they in the mean time being neither able to defend themselves nor revenge their death So that without the Expence of one Man to the Turk the poor Conrade who himself was wounded though but slightly with two Arrows was compelled to abandon all his Baggage the Dead and Dying the Sick and the greatest part of his Infantry to the Mercy of the Turks who killed a great number and carried the rest into miserable Slavery the Emperor himself with great difficulty escaping not with above the tenth part of his Army retired to the French Camp which was now advanced as far as Nice For while the Emperor Conrade marched before and was making this unfortunate Voyage the King after having taken a Review of his Army at Metz passed the Rhine at Wormes the 29th of June where he was most magnificently entertained and the Danube at Ratisbonne from whence he marched to Newburgh and so through Austria and Hungary without any molestation But being once entred upon the Territories of the Greek Emperor he found oftner than once the perfidiousness of that unworthy Prince who had given underhand Orders to all his Officers to do him all the mischief which possibly they could do in his Passage He did the same also himself to the Ambassadors which the King had sent accompanied with a considerable number of the French Nobility who received a thousand Affronts and Displeasures at the same time that this dis-loyal Man made them a thousand Protestations of Amity and Friendship The King however who was resolute to pursue his first Design and who with case defeated the Troops which endeavoured to oppose his Passage dissembling these Injuries though some there were who counselled him to Revenge he being much stronger than the Emperor In Conclusion the beginning of October he arrived at Constantinople where Manuel who knew his own Guilt and was in mighty fear of such a formidable Power as he was in no possibility of resisting received him with all the Respects and Honours imaginable All the Great Persons of the Empire the Patriarch with the whole Clergy and all the several Companies of the City went out to meet him and the Emperor himself cloathed in his Imperial Robes received him at the Gate of the great Palace year 1147 The meeting of these two Princes was certainly a very great and extraordinary Appearance they were both about the same Years being near twenty eight both of them of a Majestick Composure admirably well shaped and of noble Presence and both of them most magnificently habited though after a different manner and as they both knew admirably well how to dissemble the one by Nature and Malice the other by Art and Prudence there was not the least Punctilio of Respect Tenderness and Affection which they did not upon this occasion reciprocally bestow one upon the other They embraced they kissed and entertained each other by their Interpreters for a long time in the Emperor's Chamber environed with the principal Lords of the one and the other Nation And the Emperor after he had given the King a thousand Praises upon the Subject of his glorious Enterprize and had wished him all manner of prosperous Success offering to serve him with all that ever he had his Forces and Estate he made him be conducted by all the great Lords of the Empire to the Palace which was most magnificently prepared for him The next Day he accompanied him to the Church of St. Sophia and the other most celebrated Churches which the King had a mind to visit after which he treated him at an Entertainment where the magnificent Preparations the sumptuous rich and admirable Variety accompanied with all the usual Attendants of Rejoycing surpassed all that ever had been done by his Predecessors in their most splendid Receptions of other Princes and Kings He himself also ordered that so he might satisfie the King's Devotion that the Festival of St. Dennis the Areopagite the Apostle of France whom the Greek Church acknowledged as well as the Latin should be celebrated with a most extraordinary Pomp causing the Divine Offices to be performed with all the most Ceremonious Solemnity and most admirable Musick which to the French who are naturally Lovers of Novelties was most pleasing and delightful In short he did all that possibly he could to please the King saying to him such smooth and obliging things and framing his Countenance his Eyes his Gestures and all his Actions into so perfect a Harmony and Composure of extream Joy and Satisfaction that the greatest part of the Lords who judged the depth of his heart by these deluding Appearances which lay uppermost upon his Actions were persuaded that he acted most sincerely and loved the King with all his heart But the Bishop of Langress who was a Man of wonderful Prudence and who observed every thing with a curious eye easily perceived that all this was Artifice and that under all these affected Testimonies of a feigned Amity there lay hid some dangerous Treason which ought by some generous Resolution to be prevented by putting the Greeks the mortal Enemies of the French out of the capacity of doing them any mischief Upon the Debate therefore of the Council which was holden to deliberate concerning the March of the Army which the Emperor pressed with a great deal of Heat and Earnestness when it came to the Bishop's share to speak he gave advice which if it had been followed as warmly as it was slighted imprudently had in a few days put a period to the War to the immortal Glory of the French as well as to the universal Good of Christendom For he said that In his Opinion it was neither convenient for the King to stay there any long time to attend the coming up of the Troops which were expected from Italy nor yet according to the sense of others to be so hasty to pass the Strait to joyn with the Germans but that in his Judgment the King ought to lay hold on that fair Occasion which God Almighty seemed to present him and to strike the last and the great Blow to that Holy War by making himself Master of Constantinople This Sir added he is the only absolute and necessary way for Your Majesty happily to finish this War to assure the Conquests in the East and to make new ones by repulsing to the remotest Confines of Persia those Infidels who now dispute with us the Possession of Palestine and of Syria For most certainly so long as we leave Constantinople behind us in the hands of the perfidious Manuel we are assured there of a most potent and treacherous Enemy who will not fail to cut off from us all Re-inforcements of men and all Supplies of Provision without which it is impossible for Armies to subsist and
Loss One lamented his Father another his Son this his Brother that his Kinsman or his Friend some ran to Embrace those of their Acquaintance who were got off half Naked and without their Arms whilest others who conceived a like Hope for theirs in vain expected those who were never to Return However all of them Comforted themselves in this extream Grief by the Joy which they had at the Kings Escape after he had run such a fearful Danger of being Lost and had defended himself from it in that Heroick manner which hath been related and in short all of them in the midst of this Grief and Joy tumultuously and loudly demanded the Death of Geoffry who had most apparently been the only Cause of this horrible Loss by disobeying those Orders which had been prescribed him by the King and so furiously were they Incensed against him that nothing would satisfy them but to have him Hanged immediately And certainly it is impossible to deny but that he well deserved to have suffered Death but such was the Bounty and natural Goodness of the King and the Count de Morienne having also in a great Measure been Guilty of that Miscarriage for whom the King had a great Value he scaped with his Life The next Day when they were to Decamp the Army was reduced to very great Extremities For they discovered the Enemies upon the Tops of the Mountains ready to follow the remainder of the Army and to take all Advantages to Surprise them again upon their March The Provisions began to fail they had twelve days March to the Place whither they designed to go they wanted good Guides and must of necessity pass through Countries possessed by the Turks and the Greeks who were equally their Enemies All these Dangers and Difficulties how great soever did not yet abate the Courage of the French who are usually Reproached with loosing a great part of their Fire and their natural Confidence when they are under adverse Fortune however it did not happen so upon this Occasion which only made them more Wise and not less Valiant or Resolved The King to model this new Army divided it also into two Bodies one of which was the Rereguard He gave the Command of this to the Great Master of the Temple Everard de Barres a most valiant Gentleman who some days before was come to joyn the Army with a good Troop of the Knights of that Order The Conduct of the other he intrusted with an old Captain one Gilbert to whom all the others though in Quality much Superior to him yet made no Difficulty to submit themselves since the King himself protested that he would obey his Orders But he most humbly intreated the King to put himself between these two Bodies with a good Body of Horse and Foot that so he might be able from thence to send Assistance to either of them if they should happen to be much Pressed by the Enemy The Baggage marched in the Middle and a great part of the Horse were Ranged upon the Wings to the Right and Left to cover the Flanks of the Army In this manner it was that they Advanced and in this Order marched daily towards Pamphilia with so much Conduct that the Enemies who Coasted along with them and Attacked them four several times year 1148 were continually Repulsed and particularly one time the King seeing them Ingaged between two little Rivers Charged them so smartly that he took a sufficient Revenge upon them for the Defeat of his Rereguard cutting in pieces the greatest part of those Barbarians and putting the rest to a shameful Flight The most troublesom Enemy which he had to Combat was Want for all the Country was either Desert or ruined by the Enemies who laid all wast where-ever the Army was to pass so that they were reduced to that Extremity to Eat their Horses which they were also constrained to kill for want of Forrage for so great a Number But that which supported them still was the Example of the King who indured all these Inconveniences as if he had been one of the meanest Soldiers Some he commended others he incouraged and liberally bestowed what he had among them to Comfort the poor Creatures his Care was every where and he took his Share in all the Troubles of the War having his Curiass on almost Night and Day and performing all the Functions of a Great Captain and a Soldier with all the Vigor imaginable And to all this he added a Piety towards God so constant and regular that in all the time of this laborious Voyage he never failed to attend the Divine Offices of publick Prayers In Conclusion the Enemies after their last Defeat not daring to appear or to molest the Army they performed this long March with the greater Ease and about the twentieth of January Arrived near the City of Attalia Situate upon a Bay on the Coast of Pamphylia near the Mouth of the River Cestrius The Governor of that City which was under the Dominion of the Greek Emperor fearing that he was not able to Resist so great an Army if he declared himself their Enemy offered the King Provisions and Ships to Transport his Army into Syria which was the Thing he most ardently Desired thinking himself in no Condition to accomplish so long a March by Land for the King who had no Engines for a Siege and was willing to satisfy his Army by shortning the Voyage was very ready to accept of his Offer But there was no manner of Mischief which this Perfidious and true Greek who held Intelligence with the Turks did not do to Incommode and Ruine as far as he was able this whole Army during five Weeks which they lay there in Expectation of a Wind. And then he would find such a small number of Ships and those at such excessive Rates that the King was at last constrained to Imbarque himself without his Infantry He then treated with the Greeks who obliged themselves for a large sum of Mony which was paid in Hand to receive the Sick into the Town till they should be able to indure the Sea and to Convoy the rest who chose to go by Land through the midst of the Turks than to trust to these Treacherous Greeks who notwithstanding failed not to Sell and Betray them For so soon as the King was gone the Infidels who received Advertisement from these Traitors came pouring down from all Parts upon these who were to venture by Land and for those who were received into the Town the Greeks either Starved them or inhumanly Delivered them into the Hands of the Turks insomuch that of all those brave Men there was but a very few who Escaped by Land with the Earl of Flanders and Archambald de Bourbon who generously offered themselves to be their Conductors And now it was that it appeared too late to be a vain Scruple which was to so ill Purpose opposed against the wise Council of the Bishop of Langres
once most gloriously vanquished him But at length the Wise Conduct and the good Fortune of this Turkish Prince overcame all the Attempts that were made to stop the Course of his Victorious Arms. He pushed on his great Designs afterwards with more Ease by the Taking of Paneas after the deplorable Death of this unfortunate King who was poysoned by his Physician and died in the two and thirtieth Year of his Life year 1163 and the one and twentieth of his Reign year 1163 He was a Prince who by his admirable Qualities had gained so great an Esteem and the Hearts not only of his Subjects but of Noradin himself Insomuch that the generous Sultan openly protested that he would never draw any Advantage from the Grief and Consternation into which his unexpected Death had put the Kingdom saying with as much magnanimity of Soul as Modesty That he thought it decent to have a Share himself in the Grief and Respect which was due to that Prince who ought by all Men to be Lamented as having not left another like himself in the whole Earth Baldwin dying without Issue his Brother Amauri Succeeded him a young Prince of about twenty seven Years of Age who with a great many admirable Qualities had also a great number of no less Vices and above all his Avarice was the most Predominant and which after he had with Success enough made War against Egypt in the Beginning in the Conclusion occasioned the Loss of Jerusalem and the intire Ruine of the Christians in the East Egypt had for a long time been under the Dominion of the Sarasins of the Sect of Ali and the Soveraign Monarch was called the Caliph who led an easy and voluptuous Life in his magnificent Palace of Grand Cairo leaving the Administration of his Affairs to one who under his Authority Commanded all his Subjects and was called the Sultan of Egypt He who had been Sultan was one Sanar and he being thrown out by his Rival Dorgan went to implore the Assistance of Noradin then the most Powerful among the Turks who besides that he Possessed all Syria and Mesopotamia had also extended his Conquests even into Cilicia as far as Iconium having vanquished that Sultan in Battle Now this Conquering Prince who believed that Fortune pleased with his Ambition presented him a fair Offer to Seise also upon Egypt failed not to send a great Army under his General Syracon a little Man but a great Captain whose Merit and the Justice of his Master notwithstanding the lowness of his Birth had from a Slave advanced to the greatest Charge in his Kingdom Dorgan who perceived the Tempest coming that he might get Shelter had Recourse to the young King who dazled with the Promise of a great Tribute Marched into Egypt with all the Troops he could raise but something with the latest for Dorgan who after he had had the better of his Enemies was unfortunately slain by a Traitor leaving his Place to his Rival Sanar who instantly went to take Possession of it at Grand Cairo In the mean time the dextrous Syracon who was resolved to make his Advantage of this Alteration Seised upon Pelusium now called Belbeis fully Resolving if it were possible to make himself Master of all Egypt But Sanar inlarging the Promises which Dorgan had made to King Amauri was so Iucky as to gain him to his Party and joyning their Forces against Syracon who had not had time sufficiently to Fortify Pelusium year 1164 they constrained him to Deliver up the Town upon honorable Terms and Liberty to Retire to Damascus year 1165 Nevertheless the next Year he returned with a more powerful Army and the King also re-entred Egypt and for a Sum of Mony undertook the War against Syracon The Success was much to his Advantage at that time also for Syracon was Defeated in a great Battle and despairing to Defend Alexandria which he had taken year 1167 against the Arms of two Kings he was constrained a second time to come to an Accommodation and to quit the Realm of Egypt This did not however hinder but that at length he made himself Master of it by the Avarice and Infidelity of that same King whose Arms had twice with so much Glory chased him out of it For Amauri blinded with the ardent Desire which he had to possess the Treasures of Egypt after he had treated upon this Design with the Emperor Manuel whose Niece he had married contrary to his solemn Faith given broke the Peace which he had made with the Sultan year 1168 and upon the sudden taking Pelusium by Storm and giving the Plunder of it to his Soldiers he went and presented his Victorious Army before Grand Cairo which doubtless in the Consternation and Confusion wherein the Surprise had put the Egyptians must have fallen into his Hands if the same Avarice which made him undertake this unjust War had not also together with his Honor made him lose all the Profit of it For fearing if he took the Town by Force the Soldiers would have all the Booty as they had at Pelusium he thought it his wisest Course to treat of a Composition with the Sultan and he knowing the Covetous Disposition of the King year 1168 amused him so long with the pretence of gathering up for him two millions of Gold which he had promised him that the Army of Noradin which he expected had time to Arrive to his Succour conducted by the same Syracon who before had been his Enemy Amauri Surprized at this unexpected News marched imediately to give him Battle before he should joyn with the Egyptians But he found that this Captain as Politick as himself had wheeled off and taken another Way than he expected and was joyned with the Egyptians who now assembled from all Quarters against him And therefore finding that he had nothing to say to two such potent Enemies he was forced to return without the Money into his own Kingdom having lost his Labour his Honour and the yearly Tribute which the Egyptians paid him But it was quite otherwise with Syracon who by his Retreat finding himself in a Condition to Execute his first Design made Sanar be Assassinated as he came to do him the Honour of a Visit after which forcing the Caliph to Establish him in that Place he easily possessed himself of all Egypt where Noradin whose Creature he was willingly permitted him to Reign But it was not long that he rejoyced in his Crimes for he died the very same Year leaving for his Successor his Nephew the mighty Saladin who besides his Age which was pretty well advanced and the great Experience which under his Uncle he had gained in War possessed all the great Qualities and all the Accomplishments of Body and Mind which could be wished in a Captain to render him as they did the greatest and the most glorious Conqueror of his Age. But Ambition which especially among Infidels does think nothing Criminal that may advance their
this Reason therefore passing from one Extreme to another he Disrobed himself of all his Authority and made the little Baldwin the Fifth his Nephew year 1182 be crowned King an Infant of about five Years of Age the Son of his Sister Sybilla by the Marquis of Montferrat her first Husband leaving the Government of the Kingdom to the Earl of Tripolis the Man whom he had before most disgraced and who was the declared Enemy of Earl Guy against whom he was so incensed year 1182 that he had recourse to Arms to be Revenged on him But these Matters were composed by the Prudence of William Archbishop of Tyre great Chancellor of the Realm year 1183 who found out Expedients to patch up a kind of Accord between these two quarrelling Lords Then it was Resolved to send with all speed a great Ambassage into the West to desire a quick and powerful Assistance against Saladin who now began to push his Conquests even into Palestine For this Purpose Choice was made of Heraclius the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the two great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who were then the two most considerable Men of the Holy Land both in regard of the Number and the Valor of the Knights of these two Orders who were now become most Powerful and most Famous throughout all Christendom These Ambassadors Arrived happily at the Port of Brindes but their Negotiation was not answerably happy to that of their Voyage For the different Interests of the Christian Princes at that time were such as would not permit them to ingage in an Enterprise of such Difficulty as was the Leading of an Army of Crusades into Palestine as the Ambassadors desired William King of Sicily was ingaged in a War against the Cruel Andronicus to take Vengeance upon that Tyrant who had horribly Massacred all the Latins that were at Constantinople that so he might with greater Facility usurp the Imperial Throne by putting to Death the young Alexis the Son of Manuel Having therefore been able to procure nothing more from this Prince besides great Promises for the future they crossed through Italy to Verona where Pope Lucius and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held a great Assembly of Princes and Prelates to determine the Differences between them and to settle the Affairs of Italy The Emperor who was absolutely resolved to re-settle his Authority which the Wars during the Schism which had been made with the Papal See had so much weakned gave them nothing but fair Words and great Hopes and for the Pope as he ever distrusted the Romans who not long before had Revolted from him he was able to do no more than to give the Ambassadors his Letters to the Kings of England and France wherein he exhorted them to this Enterprise as Alexander the Third his Predecessor had before to little Purpose done The Patriarch therefore and the great Masters of the Hospitallers after having performed their last Duty to the Master of the Temple who Died at Verona passed into France There they were most magnificently Received and Treated by the Order of the King Philip Augustus at Paris to whom they presented the Keys of the Holy City of the Tower of David and the Holy Sepulchre with the Royal Standard in token that they put themselves under his Protection and to oblige him to Succor the Holy Land as if it were his own Kingdom now that it was reduced to such extreme Danger by the Infidels Whereupon a general Assembly of all the Prelates and great Men of the Realm was called at Paris to Debate this great Affair and they considering that the King was not above eight and twenty Years of Age and had no Issue were of Opinion That he ought not in Person to undertake such a dangerous Voyage only Philip promised the Ambassadors that he would move his Subjects throughout the whole Realm to inrowl themselves for this War and that he would at his own Cost furnish all those liberally for their Maintenance who would take up Arms for so Just and Holy a War This Answer was not at all to the Satisfaction of the Patriarch however he contented himself as well as he could upon the Hopes which he had that the King of England upon whom they did particularly rely in Syria would make himself the Head of the Enterprise That King was Henry the Second the Son of Geoffry Earl of Anjou who had married Maud the Empress the Widow of the Emperor Henry the Fourth she was Daughter to Henry the First King of England so that this Henry the Second was Grand-child both to Henry the First and to Fowk d' Anjou King of Jerusalem who was the Father to Geoffry Earl of Anjou and to Amauri King of Jerusalem and by reason thereof he was Cousin German to Baldwin the Fourth who was the late King of Palestine so that doubtless he was more particularly Obliged than any other Prince to Defend that Realm which might one Day descend to him by Inheritance He was also more especially Obliged to it for the Expitation of the Crime which he had Committed year 1183 in permitting the Assassins of St Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury to Murder him in his own Church and he had accepted it as a Penance from the Pope within three Years to lead an Army in Person to the Holy Land More than ten Years were already slip'd away since the Term prefixed and he had not done any thing towards the Accomplishment of his Promise of which he was by a Letter from Pope Lucius reminded in Terms sharp enough who told him plainly that it was impessible for him to escape the severe Judgments of God who would not permit himself to be mocked and whose Vengeance he would have cause to Fear if he persisted willfully in the breach of his Promise All these Considerations made the Patriarch hope for more happy Success to his Negotiation in England in regard that in this pressing Necessity it was probable either that the King would go in Person into Palestine for the satisfaction of his Promise or at least that he would send one of his three Sons to command the Army and bigg with these Expectations he crossed the Sea with his Colleague and in the beginning of the Year following came to London year 1185 Henry who was beforehand resolved not to grant what the Ambassadours came to desire would nevertheless save his Reputation and therefore he did them all the Honour imaginable and took the most plausible Courses to justify his Conduct He therefore sent for them to Reading where the Court then was and gave them a most favourable Audience He very graciously and with great marks of Goodness and Compassion heard the Patriarch Heraclius who in a most passionate Discourse after he had presented him with the Keys of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre represented the piteous Condition to which the Affairs of the Christians in the East were reduced who he said stretched out their beseeching Hands
advantage from his Absence as also that they were not without Jealousies and Suspicious that his own Sons of whom they were not too well assured might occasion some disturbance in the Realm but that for his own particular he would with all his heart give fifty thousand Marks in Silver for the maintaining of the War year 1185 and that he would further oblige himself to maintain all such of his Subjects as would undertake that Enterprise This certainly was very obligingly and advantageously offered by the King but the Cholerick Patriarch fiercely rejecting the Proposition told him very insolently That they had no occasion for his Money but for his Person that they had more Gold and Silver than they desired and that they were not come so far but to search for a Man who wanted Money as he did and who therefore might to his advantage make a profitable War against the Infidels and that they did not seek for Money which stood in need of a Man who was skilled in Military Affairs and knew how to employ it in that War And for you Sir added he speaking to him with an Air as offensive and disobliging as was imaginable You have hitherto reigned with abundance of Glory But know that God whose Cause you have now abandoned is about also to abandon you and he will let you see what will be the Consequence of repaying him with Ingratitude for all those Riches and Kingdoms which you have not obtained but by your Enormous Crimes You have violated your Faith to the King of France who is your Soveraign and you make that your Excuse to refuse this War that you are afraid he should make War upon you You have barbarously caused the holy Arch-bishop of Canterbury to be murdered and yet in Expiation of your Guilt you refuse to undertake this Holy War for the Defence of the Holy Land to which you had engaged your self most solemnly upon the blessed Sacrament And then seeing the King change Colour and blush with Madness and Anger Never believe pursued he thrusting out his Neck Never believe that I have the least Apprehension of the Effects of that Fury which glows about your Cheeks and Eyes and which the truth of what I have spoken which you cannot endure hath kindled in your Soul there taking Head Treat me as you have done St. Thomas I had rather die by your Hand in England than by that of the Sarasins in Syria since I esteem you little less than a barbarous Sarasin In truth this extravagant raving Language in a Patriarch and a Patriarch-Ambassadour was both inexcusable and insupportable but the King whose Age and Experience and the dangerous Consequences which had followed upon the death of Becket the Arch-bishop of Canterbury had rendred more moderate made a great Attempt upon himself and generously surmounted his Passion though the Patriarch went on still vomiting out of indecent Reproaches worse than before which I am ashamed to relate And when the Transport into which the old Prelate had put himself was over and that he began again to be in a tolerable Humour the King did not for all this fail to treat him with abundance of Sweetness and Civility till such time as he carried him over in his own Ship to Roan where after the Celebration of Easter he went with him to the Frontier that so he might be a Witness of the Conference which was held for three days with King Philip upon the Subject of this Holy War But for all that the Patriarch was no more satisfied than he had been before for the two Kings remained fixed in their Resolution and both together informed him that their Affairs would not permit to be so far and long absent from their Dominions but that they were both willing to assist him with such Stores of Men and Money as might defend them against all the Power of Saladin And thus it happened at the last that Heraclius who had made no scruple while he was in Palestine but he should bring along with him either the King of England or one of his Sons was forced to return not only without them but without the Succours also which were offered him which out of madness he foolishly despised contrary to all the Rules of Prudence and Reason and to the mighty prejudice of the declining Affairs of his Master So much doth it import Princes not to abandon their Affairs and Interests to the Discretion of those who have so little themselves as to suffer their unruly Passions to govern them so absolutely as to lose even that little which they have It is true indeed that after all this the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and Roan and the greatest part of the Lords of England Normandy and Guienne and the other Provinces which the English possessed in France took up the Cross as soon as the Soldiers which Philip Augustus had levied in order to the sending them to the Succour of the Holy Land But this beginning of a Crusade turned to no great account not only because the two Kings did not at all engage in it year 1185 but also because the Peace which was made between them was shortly after broken the occasion of which and the renewing of the War happened to be by the Refusal of Richard the Son of the King of England to do the Homage which he ought to have rendred to King Philip for the Earldom of Poitou which he held of the Crown of France by that ancient Tenure as also by reason that King Henry refused to restore the Earldom of Gisors after the death of the young Henry his eldest Son to whom it was given in Dowry with Margaret of France his Lady the Sister of Philip Augustus upon Condition that it should revert to that Crown if Henry should dye without Issue as he did three Years after his Marriage Thus the Holy Land which was so furiously attacked by an Enemy so formidable as Saladin remained destitute of all Assistance and that which was still more deplorable was that this sad Relation being reported throughout Palestine by the Indiscretion of the Patriarch struck the whole Country with such an universal Consternation as produced a most dangerous Effect for an Enggish Knight of the Temple one Robert de St. Alban a good Captain but an ill Man who had neither Religion Honour nor Conscience believing upon this Report that all was lost as to the Christians and that he could no longer hope to establish his Fortune amongst a ruined People he began to think of making it among the Sarasins and to make himself considerable in meriting well of Saladin though by the blackest of all Crimes This infamous Man therefore rendred himself to that Prince offering him his Service against the Christians and promised him that in a little time he would destroy them and also take the City of Jerusalem with the Weakness whereof he was perfectly acquainted And that he might give him such Assurance of his Truth as was
unquestionable he also added That he was ready to renounce his Religion and turn Mahometan Saladin who very well knew him by the Reputation which he had acquired and which had given him the Fame of one of the ablest and most valiant Knights of his Order accepted his Offers and to engage him the more strongly to his Party gave him his Niece in Marriage and in consequence a very good Army with which this infamous Apostate committed most horrid Discorders in Palestine but as he approached to Jorusalem which he believed he should be able to surprize with the third part of his Troops whilst the other desolated all the Country as far as Samaria or Sebastia even to Jericho the small number of Soldiers which were in the City with the Inhabitants sallied out at the Postern-Gates so luckily that the Traytor who expected no such matter was himself surprized and most of his Companions being cut in pieces he was constrained to sly with all the haste his Spurs could help him to thereby to escape the just Punishments which he knew he deserved for his detestable Perfidy This was some little Consolation to poor King Baldwin who had tasted little in his Life but went out of the World some few Days after with this small Satisfaction dying in the twenty fifth Year of his Age and the twelfth of his Reign not less with the Violence of his Disease than with the Grief which he had to see his poor Kingdom destitute of all hopes of Succour and left in the hands of a feeble Infant betwixt eight and nine Years of Age and which was in extream danger to be miserably torn in pieces by the Factions and Ambition of the Great Men. And indeed presently after the death of this Prince year 1186 those dangerous Contests for the Regency began to break out between the Earl of Tripolis and Guy de Lusignan But this Fire became a mighty Blaze by the death of the little King which happened about seven Months after that of his Unkle by a slow Poyson which it is said was given him either by Count Raymond his Governor who had some Pretensions to the Throne or as others believed by his own Mother Sybilla an ambitious and unnatural Woman who was not able to suffer this little Infant to take from her the Hope of being a Queen But let it be as it will that the Malignity of Men's Natures and the Liberty which they give themselves to publish their own Suspicions and the idle Reports of the People for undoubted Truths which hath often given Rise to the Belief of such supposed Crimes This is certain that the death of this Infant King gave the fatal Blow to this unhappy Kingdom year 1186 and to the Liberty of the unfortunate City of Jerusalem King Baldwin the Fourth had two Sisters Sybilla the Mother of this little Baldwin the Fifth which she had by her first Husband William Marquis of Montferrat his second Sister was Isabella the Daughter of Mary the second Wife of Amauri and Niece to Manuel the Emperor of Constaminople who was married to Alfred de Thoron Son to the late Constable of Jerusalem Now Raymond who was the nearest Relation to the deceased Kings pretended that in the present Condition of their Affairs he ought to succeed to the Kingdom to the Exclusion of the Females and he was supported in his Pretensions by the Militia the People and the Judgment of King Baldwin the Fourth who had intrusted him with the Minority of the young King his Nephew excluding from it Guy de Lusignan the second Husband of his Sister Sybilla On the other side all the great Lords of the Realm who were for maintaining the Succession to the lawful Heirs of the Sisters of Baldwin the Fourth were resolute to recognize the Princess Sybilla for their Queen but with this Condition that some Expedient should be found out to break her Marriage with Count Guy of Lusignan with whom they would have nothing to do both in regard that he was not reputed either brave or able as also that they could not endure that a Stranger newly come among them should possess the Throne to the prejudice of so many Lords of the Realm who might sill it more advantageously Nevertheless Sybilla who was altogether as dexterous as she was ambitious having for some time concealed the death of her Son knew so well how to gain the Patriarch and the great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who made the most powerful Interest that she procured her self and Husband to be crowned almost at the same time that the death of the little King was divulged before the other Pretenders could have the leisure to enterprize any thing against her It is true indeed that they were so transported with Madness at this surprizing Artifice that they offered to declare Alfred de Thoron King but whether it were that he had little Ambition or little Courage he rejected the Tender and went himself immediately to recognize the new King by doing him Homage the others thereupon being astonished with his Action yet followed his Example though they detested in their hearts this Cowardly Submission of his as they termed it and reserved themselves for the future by some Opportunity or other to overthrow that Throne to which they now submitted only in Appearance and Compliance to the present Necessity But it was far otherwise with the Earl of Tripolis for he neither able to suffer nor to dissemble the Injury which he thought he received by preferring his Rival was so transported with Rage and Fury that he immediately retired into his own Estates and presently after to accomplish his Revenge committed a Fact the most black dishonourable and detestable that ever was recorded in any Story This Count Raymond the Third was descended in the Right Line from the famous Raymond Earl of Tholouse who was his third Grandfather and who after he had done so many fair Actions in the first Crusade died in the Year 1105. in the Fortress of Mount Pilgrims about two Miles from Tripolis which he then besieged Bertrand his Son who took that City succeeded his Father in the Earldom which he held of the Realm of Jerusalem and he left for his Successor Pontius de Tholouse his Son who married Cecilia the Widow of the valiant Tancred the Daughter of Philip the King of France which he had by Bertrada de Monfort who had also had by Fowk d' Anjou her former Husband the young Count Fowk who was afterwards King of Jerusalem From this Earl Pontius and Cecilia descended Raymond the Second Nephew to King Fowk and who was also his Brother in Law by the Marriage of the younger Sister of Queen Melesintha the Daughter of King Baldwin the Second and Wife of King Fowk So that Raymond the Third of whom I now speak who was the Son of Raymond the Second was by his Father second Cousin and by his Mother Cousin-german to King Amauri the Father
Emperor betrayed the Latins The History of the false Dositheus who seduced him and of Theodore Balsamon The Victories of Frederick in Thracia The stupid Folly of Isaac and his dishonourable Treaty with the Emperor The Passage and March of Frederick into Asia The Treachery of the Sultan of Iconium and the Defeat of his Troops by a pretty Stranagem of the Emperor's An Heroick Action of a certain Cavalier The first Battel of Iconium The Description Assaulting and Taking of that City The second Battel of Iconium The Triumph of the Emperor The March of the Army towards Syria The Description and the Passage of Mount Taurus The Death of the Emperor and his Elogy Frederick his Son leads the Army to Antioch after that to Tyre and from thence to the Camp at Ptolemais or Acon The Description of that City and the adjacent Country The Relation of the famous Siege against it begun by King Guy de Lusignan The Succours of two fair Naval Armies The Description of the famous Battel of Ptolemais The manner of the Christians Encampment The Reason of the Length of the Siege The Death of Queen Sybilla and the Division between Guy de Lusignan and the Marquis Conrade who marries the Princess Isabella the Wife of Humphrey de Thoron A general Assault given to Ptolemais upon the Arrival of Frederick Duke of Suabia A brave Action of Leopold Duke of Austria The Death of Frederick and his admirable Vertue year 1188 THe sad news of the loss of Jerusalem and the deplorable estate into which the fortune of the Christians was reduced in the East made a mighty Change upon the Spirits and a strange Revolution of all the Affairs of the West Pope Vrban III. who was then at Ferrara was so strangely surprized with it that in a Moment he found himself seized and pierced with such an excessive and as it proved a mortal Grief which in a little time after he had heard it carried him to his Tomb. Gregory VIII who succeeded him and was chosen the very next Day after his Decease at the same time writ most pressing and passionate Letters to all faithful Christians exhorting to take up the Cross for the Recovery of the Holy Land promising to them the same Graces which his Predecessors the Popes Vrban II. and Eugenius III. had granted to those who were enrolled upon the two first Crusades And to appease the Wrath of God by Humiliations and by the Sufferings of voluntary Penitences he ordained That throughout all Christendom for the space of five Years the Fast of Friday should be observed with the same Austerity that it was in the time of Lent And besides the Abstinence upon Wednesdays and Saturdays he obliged himself and all his Brethren the Cardinals and Bishops exactly to observe the like Abstinence upon every Monday By which Method he made upon the suddain such a wonderful Reformation in the Court of Rome that the Cardinals did not only voluntarily submit themselves to the Rigour of this Penitence but did of themselves without any Command from him which certainly must strangely surprize my Readers oblige themselves to very strict Rules for their way of Living and the Reformation of their Manners such as certainly could not proceed but from Hearts perfectly contrite and humbled before God thereby to satisfie his Justice and to implore his Mercy and his Pity For being with the Pope's Consent assembled to deliberate among themselves upon what ought to be done for the Service of the Church in this pressing Necessity they resolved and most religiously promised one to another to observe these following Articles year 1188 That they would retrench in their Families what soever was superfluous and whatever had too much of the Pomp and Vanity of the present World That they themselves would for Example be the first who would take up the Cross and not only preach it by their Words but by their Actions That for this purpose they would neither make use of Horses Mules or Litters but that they would constantly go on soot so long as the Feet of the Turks and Sarasins defiled that Holy Land which Jesus Christ had sanctified by his Presence and sacred Steps That they would go in Person themselves before the rest into Palestine without any other Equipage except the Cross and the Poverty of Jesus Christ living upon Alms. And lastly at their Return that they would no more receive any Presents from those who had Affairs in the Court of Rome but content themselves with what was strictly necessary for their living in that modest Way which was conformable to their Condition These were their great Resolves And truly I am of Opinion that without doing any Injury to the Memory of these good Cardinals one may lawfully say that their Devotion in the Transports of its first Heats carried them something further than the Limits of a holy Discretion would have prescribed to them Nor is it to be found in History that these brave Resolutions produced those Effects which they seemed to promise and which might have been expected from them possibly because whilst they would do too much they did too little by that Weakness which is so commonly incident to Mankind to fall very much below when they come to repent themselves of having gone too high above those just Measures which a wise Man after he hath once taken will be sure in all things to observe most exactly After this Gregory seeing that it was impossibly that the Design of Succouring the Holy Land should prosper so long as the Christian Princes of Europe were engaged in Wars among themselves he resolved to send his Legates to bring them to an Accord at least to conclude a Truce for certain Years And that he might do something on his part towards such an excellent Work he went in Person with the Deputies of Genoua to accord the Differences which had occasioned a War between them and Pisa But as he laboured very happily in re-uniting these two potent Republicks who in conclusion embraced that Spirit of Peace wherewith he endeavoured to inspire them he was seized with a Tertian Ague and Fever which in a few days carried him off in the second Month of his Pontificate Clement III. who in twenty days after succeeded him confirmed all that he had done and pursued the same holy Enterprise with the very same Zeal He was admirably seconded by the Negotiation of William Archbishop of Tyre who was come to implore the Assistance of the Christian Princes This is that great Man who with so much strength of Judgment writ the History of the Holy War which he continued till a little before the death of Baldwin IV. and who after he had so often managed the greatest Affairs of that Realm whereof he was the Chancellor was at last sent Ambassador into the West upon the hope that he would negotiate in a different manner than the Patriarch Heraclius had done whom he much surpassed in all manner of Abilities
an expert Soldier shewing more Tenderness and Goodness towards his Soldiers when he understood they were slain and in lamenting their Deaths than he used to shew to them whilst they were living He was wonderful kind to the Church-men and above all to the Bishops whom he always loved to have about him but yet not concerning himself much with their Franchises and Privileges to which he had but very little regard He was a passionate Lover of his Children but he was ever raising Differences among them one with another to prevent their falling into Quarrels with himself but this proved an unlucky Project to him and at last was the occasion that they all joyned together against him He was magnanimous and generous in his Enterprises but withal so haughtily ambitious that he was used to say that the whole Earth was not sufficient to satiate the Desires of a King like him He was equally constant in his Love and Hate which he did not easily change a great Patron of Widows Orphans of poor distressed People who were without Support of whom he took great care above all he was kind to such as had the Misfortune to be Shipwrack'd upon the English Coasts year 1189 abolishing that barbarous Custom which had long prevailed of despoiling such miscrable Persons of all that which they had saved from the Sea except their Lives which the Country People were used to call God's Goods He was a great Lover of the publick Peace and Tranquility which he maintained in his Dominion by the rigorous Justice which he caused to be dispensed to such notorious Malefactors as were found Disturbers of them so that he cleared his Estates of Thieves Robbers and Murderers He was pious and fearing God but very shy and reserved to the Church-men after the publick Penance which he did for the Death of Becket But all these Vertues which cannot without Injustice be suppressed were dishonoured by his great Vices and principally by his Impudicity and Avarice which prevailed so upon him that besides the Exactions which were very great which he imposed upon his People he ever protected the Jews dissembling his Knowledge of their Insolencies against the Christians because of the great Gain which these faithless Usurers made whereof he had a Share He would also suffer long Vacancies in the Bishopricks to the end he might enjoy their Revenues giving a very slender Reason in Excuse That it was much better for him to employ that Money for the Service of the Realm than that it should be spent in the Prodigalities of proud and pompous Trains Pleasures and Delicacies as the Bishops wasted it after the manner of the wicked World and in a way far different from the Temperance and Vertue of their Predecessors of the ancient Church But in talking at this rate he condemned himself excusing one fault by committing another far greater than that which he reproached for he usually bestowed the Revenues upon such a sort of People as by the notorious scandalous way of their living even in his own Judgment rendred themselves unworthy of them Whereas he ought rather to have taken care that those great Revenues should have been expended according to the Rules of the Church by the Nomination of good Subjects and worthy Men to those high and great Preferments And indeed he did in a great measure towards the end of his Life and Reign make a Reparation for this Errour which occasioned him much Trouble and raised many uneasie Scruples in his Soul for he nominated to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury Baldwin a Cistertian Monk a most excellent Man and to the See of Lincoln he preferred St. Hugh the Chartreux the Person of all the Prelates of his time who took the holy Liberty to represent their Failings to the Kings his Contemporaries by that marvellous Authority which by the Sanctity of his Life he had so deservedly acquired In short The great Medly of Vertues and of Vices in this King were also accompanied with that of his good and evil Fortune but with this remarkable difference that his happy State lasted thirty Years wherein he flourished in all Earthly Glory and Felicity whereas he was persecuted by his ill Destiny but for the last five Years of his Life and that too was occasioned by his invincible Wilfulness in refusing Peace upon such just and honourable Conditions as were tendred Whereby he brought upon himself that War which for two Years retarded the Effect of the Crusade in France and England so that it was begun by the Germans alone with abundance of Zeal and Courage For presently after the Conference in the Field of Gisors where the two Kings took upon them the Cross Henry Cardinal d' Albano the Pope's Legate and William Archbishop of Tyre passed into Germany to persuade the Emperor to undertake the Holy War The Emperor then reigning was the famous Frederick the first of that Name formerly Duke of Suabia who after having so gloriously assisted his Uncle Conrade in the second Crusade succeeded him in the Imperial Throne which he possessed for six and thirty Years with much Glory and Prosperity leaving throughout all Germany Poland and Italy the illustrious Marks of the greatness of his Courage his Mind his Vertues and his admirable Actions And were it possible to obliterate the deadly Remembrance of the Schism which by an unhappy Engagement he made in the Church and which he so long supported with his Arms year 1189 it might with great Justice be affirmed that his Reign ought to be esteemed as the greatest of any Prince that ever the Empire had since the Death of the celebrated Charlemain He was then about sixty and eight Years of Age of a Port extremely Majestick a Stature somewhat surpassing the middle but of a Proportion in all the Parts of his Body regular and Exact and from which his Age which did him no other Injury but to render him Venerable had not taken much of that natural Force which he had in so great a Measure and which was accompanied with an admirable Agility in all manner of Exercises The turn of his Face was very fine and the Lines delicate considering his Age his Cheeks were plump his Eye-brows large his Eyes very sweet and yet lively and piercing his Speech agreeable his Mouth smiling and his Air so engaging that to whomsoever he did the Honour but once to speak they found it impossible to defend themselves from his Charmes and he always left the Image of Majesty so deeply imprinted and graven in their Memories that it was impossible to efface it from the Mind or to prevent its being continually present to their Remembrance his Hair by reason of the Change which so many Years had brought upon it was perfect white which still seemed to add something more Venerable to his Majesty though the Natural Colour of it had been red from whence he came to acquire the Name of Barbarousse or Red beard a Name which his fair and glorious
charged him with more Resolution than was customary to them upon the hopes which they had that they should easily surround such a little Army which could not possibly resist two hundred thousand Men who assailed him on all sides at the same time And in truth they assailed him in such good Order and with so much Vigour drawing down upon him on every side all together with fearful Cries and an infinite number of Darts Arrows and Stones which they discharged from their Bows and Slings Insomuch that the Christians who were so small a number in Comparison and so harrassed with the Fatigues of their March and the Combats of the foregoing Days and almost spoiled with the horrible Rain which had fallen all the Night before began to despair not only of the Victory but of their Lives The Bishops themselves and the Priests habited in their Rochets Surplices and Stoles who expected nothing the Stroak of Death and to offer to God their Lives as a Sacrifice however exhorted the Soldiers with great Cries to do the same and expose theirs freely after their Example But the Emperor ready as he was to die for the Love of Jesus Christ was yet resolved if it were possible to live and live a Conqueror for the Love of Glory and therefore galloping amongst the Ranks he animated them by his Voice and Gesture and posted to put himself at the Head of the foremost Squadrons where regarding his People with Eyes which shot Fire into the very Bottom of the most frozen Courage he communicated to them the same Ardour with which his noble Heart was animated What do you stand for said he my generous Fellow-Soldiers Let us go Let us go under the conquering Ensign of the Death of Christ Jesus who calls us to the Victory It is not in expecting Death from them but in carrying it among our Enemies that we must be Victors And thereupon setting Spurs to his Horse he threw himself into the thickest Squadrons of the Turks all covered with Sweat and Blood as he was and his Courage furnishing him with new Forces he laid about him cutting overturning and killing with mighty Blows of his Sword on both sides of him all those that durst oppose his Fury All his Soldiers animated by his Example and by seeing the danger to which their Prince exposed himself for their sakes became as it were new Men and as if they had but just freshly begun the Combat they followed him with so much Heat Impetuosity and Fury that those Squadrons unable to sustain the terrible Shock being overthrown upon those who followed them the Terrour spread it self so among the rest of the Army that they presently fell into Disorder and in a Moment after year 1190 into a downright Flight and according to the custom of these Barbarians saved themselves in the Mountains leaving ten thousand slain upon the place After this Execution the Emperor who was not willing to amuse himself by pursuing the Fugitives lead his victorious Soldiers to the City of the Taking whereof he was by this time advertised where he was received as it were in Triumph by his Son He gave the Plunder of it to his Army which there found Riches even surpassing Imagination and a prodigious quantity of all kind of Provisions to refresh them after so many Travels Toyls and Hazards The Emperor had among other things for his share more than one hundred thousand Marks in Gold and Silver which was found in the Palace of Melich and which was the Money which Saladin had given him as a Portion with his Daughter The next Day the Emperor caused Prayers to be publickly sung in Iconium and Thanks to be given for a Victory so great and memorable The Sultan then seeing himself besieged in the Castle from whence he could not escape humbly demanded Peace of the Emperor upon such Conditions as he should please And Frederick whose great design was to advance as fast as possible towards Syria to combat with Saladin after having publickly reproached this miserable Sultan with his base Perfidiousness did him the favour to promise him that he would restore the City to him in the Condition wherein it was provided only that he should furnish him with Provisions for all the time he marched through his Dominions and that for a Warranty of the Performance of his Word he should put into his hands as Hostages twenty of the greatest Persons of his Court whom the Emperor should chuse and that after the Repose of seven days wherein his Army was to be Quartered partly in the Town and partly in the Sultan's Park he would take his March and quit the City as he also did on the 30th Day of May arriving at Laranda upon the Frontier of Cilicia at the Foot of Mount Taurus from whence nevertheless he did not release the Hostages in regard that his Subjects had again molested the Army upon their March The Mountain Taurus is the greatest and the highest of all those of Asia and which taking different Names in the several Provinces through which it passeth or which it divides from one another as well on this as the further side of Euphrates retains particularly the Name of Taurus in Cilicia which it separates from Isauria Lycaonia Cappadocia and the lesser Armenia by a long Chain of Mountains and Rocks extream broken and frightful where it lifts up it self upon the Sea-Coast towards the Consines of Isauria in which place it bends it self in the form of a Crescent and after having formed this great Demicircle it comes to a Butt upon the same Sea upon the East near the City of Issus so celebrated for the Battle which Alexander the Great gained against Darius in the Straits of these Mountains They are for the most part by reason of their excessive heighth covered with Snow that there is no passing of them but in Summer and then so broken with Precipices so steep and ragged that they are wholly inaccessible except by three Passes which are extream narrow and difficult of Access So that they are called by the Greeks Piles or Ports by one of which there is a necessity of passing to enter into Cilicia It was by that of these three which leads towards Cappadocia and Lycaonia that the Emperor after having reposed some time at Laranda began to engage himself in the Passage of these Mountains which could not be performed in many days and with a great deal of difficulty He received during this troublesom Passage with abundance of Joy Livon Prince of Armenia the Brother of Rupin de la Montagne who with the principal Persons of that Country came to wait upon him and pay him their Respects offering all that they had at his Service for his Accommodation After they had taken their leave of him leaving six of them to accompany him he at last accomplished this difficult Passage the 10th of June and dis-incumbring himself of these tiresom Rocks he descended into the Valley which is
watered by the River Cydnus This River ariseth out of Mount Taurus in the Coast of Cappadocia from whence entring into Cilicia by one of these Valleys which are formed by these Mountains it rowls its gentle Streams extream clear and fresh upon its murmuring Bed of clean Gravel and Pebbles and is not very spacious tiil year 1190 having passed through the famous City of Tharsus it dischargeth it self into the Ocean History hath made this River famous by the extream danger which Alexander there run of losing his Life whilst in the Heat of Summer being all on fire with the violence of the burning Season he would needs bath himself in these too cool Streams of Cydnus being then upon his March against Darius But an Accident more deplorable which here happened to the Emperor Frederick by the very same way ought for ever to render the Memory of that fatal River odious For the very same day which was a Sunday the Eve of St. Barnabas this great Prince after having dined upon the Bank of that River which he had just passed seeing the Water which to him seemed very delightful and not able to support the intollerable Heat of that Season of the Year without making use of that Remedy which was so easie and which he naturally loved would needs bath himself in those cool and refreshing Streams notwithstanding all that was alledged to divert him from it but he was no sooner in the River into the middle of which he threw himself but that the excessive Coldness of the Water seized him in a moment and penetrating his Pores which by reason of the extream Heat were so open combated his natural Heat and Spirits with so much Violence that in a Swound he sunk down to the bottom of the Water He was however taken up alive and so soon as he began to return to his Memory perceiving his death approaching he gave Thanks unto Almighty God who did him the favour to call him in his Pilgrimage and in the Performance of his Vow and recommending his Soul into his Hands and offering his Life in Sacrifice for the Remission of his Sins he presently expired I know that many Writers report the matter otherwise and say that his Horse foundring in the Passage of the River his Foot hung in the Stirrup and so he was drowned as he was passing into Armenia over the River Salef but as the most ancient Historians his Contemporaries and some of them who were present positively some of them affirm it was the River Cydnus And others of them say it was a River near Tarsus in which he was drowned swimming after Dinner and that one of them informs us that he died not till the Evening In my Opinion there is not the least place left for deliberation which of them we ought to believe especially considering that it is very easie to reconcile these Historical Differences by what was before observed that it was then very customary to confound Armenia with Cilicia and that the River Salef is the same Cydnus as the Annalist Roger gives us to understand by the Description which he makes of those Countries Thus died one of the greatest Princes that ever silled the Throne of the Caesars Frederick the First in the seventieth Year of his Age whilst he was marching to combat Saladin for the Re-Conquest of the Realm of Jerusalem to which important Design he had levelled the Way by all those Victories which he had so gloriously gained against the Greek Emperor and the Sultan of Iconium the Allies of Saladin The sole Renown of the Actions of this invincible Prince struck that famous Conqueror with so great a fear that upon the very Rumour and Noise of his Coming despairing to be able to maintain them against him he caused the Walls of Laodicea in Syria of Giblet Tortosa Biblis Berytus and Sydon to be demolished and had thoughts himself of retiring into Egypt that he might not be obliged to hazard his Fortune against that of an Enemy so successful and formidable He was happy in finishing a Life so illustrious in the Course of his Victories and before giddy Fortune who never loves to court one Favourite long had begun to forsake him but much more happy in a Death so full of Glory and of Deserts before God and Men since he died in the generous Pursuit of his great Design in quitting his own Empire to re-establish that of Jesus Christ in that mysterious Spot of Ground where he was pleased to work by his Life and by his Death the great Wonder of our Salvation For thus it is that we ought charitably to judge of the Death of this Prince by those things which we know of him and not according to the rash medling Humour of some who will needs pretend to enter into the incomprehensible Judgments of God who have had the Confidence to attribute his Death to the Divine Vengeance as a Punishment for the War which he made against the Holy See year 1190 Great Presumption of Humane Nature which under the pretext of Religion and Piety dares so audaciously undertake to regulate the Decrees of Heaven and by a Judgment which in its own nature is extreamly criminal to pre-judge that which Jesus Christ himself only hath the Authority of giving and which must be kept secret until the last Day So soon as the general Consternation or rather the extream Despair in which the Army was by reason of this deplorable Accident was a little over the Princes and General Officers being assembled by a common Consent acknowledged Frederick Duke of Suabia for their General the Emperor his Father at his death having recommended the Care of the Army to him and left it under his Command It was with as much Joy as was possibly to be expected in such a deep Affliction that the Army took the Oath of Fealty to him whom they acknowledged as the true Heir and the living Image of all the great Qualities and Vertues of his Father And this Prince who in reallity possessed them in a degree very nearly approaching the Perfections of that admirable Emperor made it appear quickly that he was his true Successor by his Liberality in bestowing great Largesses upon the Soldiers to whom he divided the greatest part of the Treasure which fell to his Father's share at the taking of Iconium After he had therefore divided the Army into two parts the lesser number imbarked on the Vessels which the Armenians who then held divers places in Cilicia furnished him withal and himself with the greater Party after having interred the Emperor's Entrails and embalmed the Body of his Father at Tarsus took his way by Land towards Antioch where he did not arrive till after a tedious March of six Weeks wherein he suffered extreamly both by the defect of Provisions and by the continual Ambushes of the Turks But the Abundance which he found in this great City where he was most magnificently received was more fatal to
Geoffry Ridel Bishop of Ely for appearing before him with the Train of a King at the City of Winchester but all this magnifick Pomp could not prevent the Triumph of Death which seized imediately upon him by this Surprise and divested him of this stately Vanity so unbecoming the Sacred Character of a Bishop For this Prince believed that these great Riches might to much better Advantage be imployed in defraying the Expences of his Coronation than so foolishly lavished in the Pageantry of worldly Pomp and that he might thereby spare his own which he indeavoured to keep as a Reserve to support the Charges of his Voyage to the Holy Land He also surrendred to William King of Scots for ten thousand Marks Sterling the Castles of Rocksborough and Berwick which he had been constrained to yield to King Henry the Second for his Ransom he being taken Prisoner in the War between them He also acquitted him of the Homage which he was obliged by force to pay as one part of the Price of his Liberty And in short as on one hand he was resolved not to be incumbred with the multitude of the Crusades the Multitudes of which had done more Hurt than Service in the other Expeditions and on the other that he knew very well that diverse of the richest of his Subjects who had ingaged themselves two Years before to undertake that Voyage were willing enough to be dispensed with he therefore obtained Permission from the Pope to discharge all such from their Vow upon Condition that they should proportionably to their Estate contribute a summ of Money towards the Charges of the Holy War All this joyned to the Treasure of his Father which he had at first seized upon and which amounted to more than nine hundred thousand Livers in Gold and Silver gave him the Ability to live after the best manner and in a far more Royal Way than any of his Predecessors had ever done So that he caused to be equipped in all the Ports of England Normandy Bretany Poitou and Guienne a great number of Ships to compose one of the fairest Fleets which had ever before been put to Sea For when he weighed from the Road of Messina where he had passed the Winter he had one hundred and fifty great Ships fifty three Gallies besides Barks Tartanes and other small Craft which attended the Navy with Provisions and Munitions of War He gave the Command of the Fleet to Gerrard Archbishop of Ousch and Bernard Bishop of Bayonne to whom he joyned in Commission Robert de Sablé Richard de Chamville and William Fortz Earl of Albermarle three excellent Men in Sea Affairs who had order without sparing any to put in Execution those admirable Orders which were proclaimed for preventing of Disorders and Punishment of Offences in the Fleet. He could not for all that stop those which were at the same time committed almost all over England upon the Jews of which himself was the Occasion tho he did not command it For as the Jews whom his Father had always favoured were upon his Coronation Day contrary to his express Command entred into the Palace from whence they were thrust out and some of them treated very severely the People who imagined that it was the King's Inclination that they should exterminate that perfidious Nation who for their Extortion Avarice and other enormous Crimes were extremely hated fell upon them with such Fury that it was impossible to appease them And this Example spreading it self occasioned a most horrible Massacre among those miserable People in many Cities where the young People who had undertaken the Cross year 1190 and wanted wherewith to furnish themselves for so chargeable a Voyage were ravished with such opportunity of Plundring their Houses and thereby being inabled to put themselves into an Equipage at the Expence of these declared Enemies of Jesus Christ In this time Philip the August prepared for this Enterprise in a manner more regular and did not to procure Money take those Methods of selling Offices and temporal Dignities to the Prelates of his Realm who were more regular and modest than those of England Neither did he raise any Taxes or Contributions for the Expences of this Voyage in regard that all the French Lords who had taken the Cross were resolved to accomplish their Vow and he believed that he should have enough out of his good Husbandry of that Tenth which was given for this War and which still remained in Bank ever since the last Year For this Reason therefore he caused an Edict to be published and all concerned to be sworn in the Parliament which he held at Paris that they should render themselves at Vezelay in the Week of Easter from thence together to take the Voyage And this being done he sent Rotrou Earl of Perche into England to advertise King Richard of his Proceedings who on his side made those who had taken the Vow swear the same thing upon the Holy Evangelists in the Parliament at London After which the King having recommended the Care of the Realm to Queen Eleonor his Mother having delivered her from the Confinement in which the late King had for five or six Years last kept her and to William Longfield Bishop of Ely his Chancellor he imbarked the fourteenth day of December at Dover and landed the same day at Graveling from whence he went about the end of the Month to Confer with King Philip at Nonancour There it was that after they had mutually given the one to the other all the assurance of an inviolable Amity they caused Letters Patents in the Name of both the Kings to be dispatched whereby they fixed the time of their Departure with all their Subjects of the Crusade and promised to each other a most sincere and indissoluble Friendship according to the Faith which they had severally plighted to one another Philip King of France to Richard King of England as his Friend and faithful Liegeman and Richard King of England to Philip King of France as his Lord and Friend These are the very Words of these Letters dated the thirtieth day of December at Nonancour as they are reported by Radulph Dean of London who writ in that time such Matters as he himself was an Eye Witness of and in the Transaction whereof he had a considerable Share But in regard the Time which they had limited appeared too short for the Preparations which were of necessity to be made the two Kings had a second Interview at Vezelay where they lengthened the time of their Rendezvouz till the Week after Midsummer In which time they finished their Treaty which among others had these Articles That if either of them died in the time of the Holy War the other should make use of the Money and the Army of the deceased King to carry on and finish the War That the Lords of the two Kingdoms should maintain a fraternal Correspondence and that the Bishops should excommunicate all those who
but they were mixed with so many Faults and Vices which exceeded his Perfections that they were obscured and sullied by them He was about the three and thirtieth Year of his Age of Stature very tall but of a Shape very disproportionate being become excessive gross either by his Intemperance or by a Swelling which remained after a long Quartane Ague which had left his Vifage of a pale Leaden Colour His Arms were also somewhat with the longest though very strong and Nervous and his Thighs too short in Proportion His Eyes were full of a Fire but a Fire that was too fierce and ardent His Hair extraordinary light and inclining towards Red which denoted his Complexion to be excessively hot and cholerick and naturally strong if the Violence of his Exercises his Passions and his Debauches had not so ruined it as to make it appear almost quite overthrown and wholly languishing It is said also that he had abundance of Cauteries or Issues upon his Body in order to the continual discharging of those corrupted Humours with which he abounded so much had that tedious Ague and the Disorders of his Life altered the Establishment and Foundation of his Health and all the beauteous Lineaments of his Face which Nature had bestowed on him He was however in the main a Prince magnanimous bold enterprizing brave fearless and of an invincible Courage by which he acquired the Sir-name of Caeur-de-Lion or Lyon's Heart a Name which the English and Normans bestowed on him and which the Memory of those noble Actions which he so happily and couragiously executed have preserved to him to this day It was nevertheless easily discoverable that he had something of the Fierceness and Brutallity of that Animal mixed with the noble Courage of the Lyon for it is certain that he was most violent rash and turbulent subject to the Transports of Fury hard and severe even to Cruelty which rendred him odious Besides he was inconstant making little Account of his Word and Faith without a true Sense of Friendship Tenderness or good Nature even to the Violation of the most sacred Laws and Rights of Nature as appears by his frequent taking up Arms against his own Father Above all He was as eager to draw Money from every thing as he was prodigal in wasting it when he had it He was presumptuous proud and arrogant voluptuous and debauched even in publick and so far from being concerned to conceal them that he would turn his Crimes into Raillery witness the Answer which he gave one day to that holy Man Fouques de Neuilly who preaching before him in Normandy told him seriously that it was time for him to set his Affairs in order and to quit himself of three dangerous Daughters which he had which would certainly prove his Ruin if he kept them any longer with him Richard who took him according to the literal meaning thinking that it was very easie to convince him of Imposture That is false said he to him thou Hypocrite I have no Daughters at all Pardon me Sir replied the good Man you have three very lewd ones your Arrogance your Avarice and your Luxury which will infallibly in a little time ruin you if you keep them them with you Very well replied the King year 1190 laughing instead of seriously thinking of Repentance and Amendment Since there is a necessity then of parting with them therefore I do immediately bequeath my Arrogance to the Templers my Avarice to the Monks and my Luxury to the Prelates of my Realm But as on the one side notwithstanding all his Debauches he had a Principle of Religion which was firmly rooted in his Soul and on the other side according to his impetuous Nature he was usually in the Extreams either of Good or Bad he had sometimes such great Transports of Devotion and was so sensible of the Enormity of his Crimes that to witness his Repentance and to satisfie God Almighty for his Follies he would do such things as certainly the most severe Directors of Conscience would never have thought fit to be exacted from so great a King And that which was infinitely advantageous to this Prince was that this Principle of Religion summoning up all its Power in his Soul at the Hour of his Death made him express the most rigorous Repentance that is possible to be found in the Histories of the greatest Saints Thus so long as a Man more especially a Prince preserves the Principles of true Faith by submitting his Sentiments to those of Religion and the Catholick Church one may still retain a Hope notwithstanding the Infirmities to which he is subject that this Root of Life will in time produce the Fruits of a true Conversion and like a Plant which keeps its Root how dead soever it may appear in the Winter and dispoiled of its Leaves and Flowers yet at the Return of the Spring it will recover its native Beauty and pleasant Verdure Sea now what kind of Men these two Kings were and from so vast a difference of their Tempers and Inclinations it will be easie to fore-see that they could not remain long in a good Understanding one with the other as appeared but too visibly in the Consequences of their future Voyage Philip whose Fleet waited for him at Genoa parted the first with a brave and flourishing Army composed of the greatest part of his Nobility and the choice Soldiers of France though it is hard to determine precisely in what number they consisted in regard the Writers of those times have not left us any certain Information But this is most certain that he was accompanied with the greatest Men of the Realm the Principal of which were Eudes Duke of Burgundy Peter Count de Nevers Renaud Count de Chartres Geoffrey Count de Perche Aubrey de Rullen Mareshal of France Matthew de Montmorency who was afterwards Constable of France the Counts de Beaumont Rochefort Valery Dreux de Mello Lord de Loches and Chattillon and William de Mello his Brother The Fleet was met at Sea with a furious Tempest which gave the King occasion to shew the Greatness of his Soul in the magnificent Gifts which he bestowed on chose who lost their Equipage being forced to throw it over-board for the Safety of their Lives At last he came to an Anchor upon the 6th of September in the Road of Messina where the two Kings had before agreed the place of their Joyning should be In this time King Richard after having waited eight days to no purpose the Arrival of his Fleet at Marseilles being pushed on by his natural Impatience he imbarked himself the 17th of August upon thirty Merchants Ships which he caused to be fitted up and after having Coasted all along by Genoa Tuscany and Champaign in Italy he arrived happily at Naples from whence he passed to Salernum there to expect News of his Fleet whose long and unaccountable Delay gave him an extraordinary Inquietude and Displeasure The Fleet had put
to Sea in Easter-Week and after it had been soundly beaten with a Tempest which they say was miraculously calmed by Thomas of Canterbury who had raised many worse in his Life according to the credulous Humour of those Ages it being affirmed by some that he appeared upon the Deck of the great Ship called the London that Vessel came up with Cape St. Vincent over against the City of Silves nine other Ships entring the River of Lesbon where they came to an Anchor The Miramolin or King of the Sarasins of the Western Africa at that time made War with a potent Army against Sancho King of Portugal whom he had surprized and who with an inconsiderable number of Troops had put himself into Santaren This Prince believing that Heaven had sent him the Succour of these Strangers year 1190 as it had before done to the late King Alphonso his Father requested them to help him in this his pressing Necessity Whereupon five hundred of the bravest of them immediately went into his Service whilst that fourscore of the most valiant young Gentlemen who were aboard the London put themselves into Sylves for the Defence of that City But Fortune without giving them the liberty of drawing their Swords put an end to this War by the suddain Death of Mirmalion after which his Army immediately disbanded it self The English then returning to their Vessels sound there sixty three more of their Ships who had put in there to refresh themselves and all that great City in Arms against their People who had committed great Insolencies and Disorders against the Inhabitants insomuch that Blood had been drawn on both sides divers Houses plundred and burnt and some of the English committed to Prison But all these Matters being calmed by the Prudence of King Sancho who knew very well how to pacifie both Parties the English took their leave the 25th Day of July and the same Day joyning three and thirty great Ships with which Admiral William Fortz attended them at the Mouth of the Tagus they prosperously pursued their Voyage till they came to an Anchor before Salernum There it was that King Richard met his Fleet and the 30th of September arrived at the Port of Messina where he was received by the French and Sicilians with all possible Honour and with all the Marks of a sincere and perfect Friendship But this was not of any long Continuance and the good Understanding which at first appeared among these three Nations was presently interrupted and broken by two great Quarrels which Richard had and which were the Cause that the two Kings instead of presently pursuing their intended Voyage were obliged to defer it till the following Year and to pass all the Winter at Messina The manner was thus William king of Sicily being dead without Issue the Sicilians who were resolved to have a King of the Race of their Norman Princes placed his Cousin Tancred the Natural Son of Roger Duke of Pavia upon the Throne notwithstanding that before his Death William had caused Queen Constance his Aunt the Wife of the Emperor Henry VI. to be acknowledged their Queen and had declared her to be the Inheretrix of the Crown Now Richard without pretending to have any part in this great Difference between the Emperor and Tancred only desired of this new King that he would send to him Jane his Sister the Daughter of Henry II. King of England the Widow of the deceased King William that he would restore to him her Dowry with several other things to which he pretended and above all an hundred Ships which the late King had promised to his Father-in Law King Henry for his Voyage to the Levant Tancred immediately sent the Queen to him but deferring to give him Satisfaction in his other Pretensions Richard who was resolved that he should do him Reason seized upon two strong Places which lay upon the Straits This gave such a Jealousie to the Messineses who naturally are not too much given to forbearing that they took Arms against the English and beat them out of the City and the English no less naturally impatient of Beating but more hot and brave than the Sicilians ran immediately to their Arms and issuing in Battalia out of their Camp repulsed these forward Burghers into the City and put themselves into a Posture to attack it by Force There was however a few Moments Truce agreed to by the Interposition of Philip the August who endeavoured to accommodate this Difference between them But Richard having discovered or at least believing that the Messineses had an Intention to surprize him during the Preliminary Treaty of the Peace began the Assault upon the Town with so much Fury that he carried the Place but he left it again presently after he had received the Excuses of the Magistrates and the Satisfaction which he demanded of them out of Respect as he said to King Philip who had his Quarter in the City and who was not at all satisfied with these violent Proceedings of King Richard For this Reason Richard to strengthen himself against him by the Alliance of Tancred concluded a Peace with that King who offered him besides the Ships twenty thousand Ounces of Gold to quit all his other Pretensions and twenty thousand more for the Portion of his Daughter year 1190 who was to be married to Arthur Duke of Bretany Nephew to King Richard So that the Conclusion of this Quarrel was the Foundation of another incomparably more dangerous which hereby grew between the kings of France and England For Tancred perceiving that the French King had no reason to be satisfied with this Marriage which was surreptitious concluded without his Knowledge and which directly shocked all his Interests endeavoured to link himself more closely with the English as he did and to exasperate them against King Philip. And truly finding that these two Princes were already imbroiled upon the Subject of the Taking Messina where Richard having caused his Standards to be planted Philip sent to have them taken down He went to the King of England and shewed him the Letters which he assured him came from the King of France wherein he offered him the Assistance of all his Forces if he would make War with Richard who he said had no other Thoughts but to amuse him with the Shew of Peace thereby with more Ease to seize upon his Realm Richard although he was extreamly provoked with this Procedure yet was very well pleased to have so specious a Pretence to break with Philip. Philip complaining with Justice enough reciprocally against him that having so long since affianced his Sister Alice he had now altered his Thoughts and was designed to marry Berengera the Daughter of Garcias King of Navarre following therein the Counsel of Queen Eleonor who her self had conducted that Princess thither There seemed great Foundation for the Complaints on either side and their Spirits were wound up to that degree as indangered the Breaking of the holy
League by a deadly War between these two Princes which if it had happened had absolutely ruined all the Hopes of ever re-establishing the Affairs of the Christians in the Holy Land But in Conclusion there were Expedients found out for the appeasing of this great Quarrel by an amicable Composure which pacified their Spirits at least in Appearance and for some time Richard protested that he would most inviolably have kept his Promise in marrying the Princess Alice if he had not been most certainly assured for some time before that the late King Henry his Father who was known to have been most passionately Amorous of her had not exceeded the Bounds of Modesty in his Courtship to her and she those of Vertue in the Caresses which she received from him And that after this Discovery all the Laws both of God and Nature opposed this Marriage And whereas the Princess pretended her self to be wholly innocent of these Crimes alledging that she had never done any thing Criminal and that the Appearances of Kindness which she might be accused of in permitting the Visits of that importunate old King as she never consented to them so she was not in the Capacity of hindring them which possibly might be true yet it was impossible to repair the Blemish which her Honour had received and which therefore to him was intollerable because it was incurable and the malicious World would to his Dis-reputation believe it true though it might be false He therefore offered to restore Vexin which she was to have in Dowry and to pay her ten thousand Marks in Silver And in short he passed his Royal Word to King Philip that with the beginning of the Spring he would be ready without any further delay to accompany him in the Enterprise of the Holy Land Philip also on his side complained highly and protested that the Letters were suppositious and a treacherous Artifice to engage him in a Quarrel with the King of England his Ally and Companion in Arms in this Holy War Thus the two Kings having once more patched up an Accord did unprofitably renew the Protestations of their Amity which was impossible to hold long between two Princes who had an insuperable Antipathy the one to the other However they passed the remainder of the Winter something more calmly at Messina where it is said the famous Abbot Joachim foretold the little Success which they were to expect from their Voyage This Man who whilst he lived made such a Noise and Figure in the World and who to this very day ever since his Death is so great a Riddle and Mystery was a Calabrian by Birth and an Abbot of the Monastery of the Cistertians in his own Country his Way of Living and his Conduct was wholly extraordinary and of which never any spoke with Mediocrity whether it were good or evil for some would have him pass for one of the most eminent Doctors year 1190 the most famous Prophets and the greatest and most miraculous Saints that ever was in the Church of God On the contrary Others hold him for a most impudent Impostor a wicked Hypocrite and a most dangerous Tritheite Heretick for the proudest most arrogant and presumptuous of Mankind But those who without prejudice have coolly examined all that is alledged on both sides touching this famous Abbot believe that without doing him Injustice one may keep the middle way between these two Extreams and affirm that he was a bold and ignorant Visionary who having a weak Head and a strong Imagination together with little Learning and less Solidity of Judgment to manage it took all his Imaginations and his own Fancies for Oracles and that therefore undertaking to make Predictions amidst a hundred things which he pretended to foretel he must play with very ill Fortune if some of them did not prove true though it were by the pure Effect of Chance So that those who had took their Measures of him according to what he had foretold them truly cried him up as a mighty Prophet and the others who had been deceived as well as he by his Presages treated him as a Cheat and an Impostor Neither the one nor the other of these People all this while having the Wit to perceive that he was in reallity neither Prophet nor Cheat but a silly over-run Visionary who deceived himself first and afterwards those who believed him by his ridiculous Illusions which possibly was the genuine Effect of his few Brains and much Presumption And for certain this is true that going to visit the holy Places at Jerusalem at the Age of fifteen Years when he hardly understood his Grammar he pretended that the Spirit of God was infused into him in the Church of the holy Sepulchre and there a perfect Knowledge of all the hidden Mysteries of the Scripture was bestowed upon him especially of the Book of the Apocalyps whereof he said he had the Key which no Man before him could ever find That thereupon without applying himself to any other Studies he began to labour with the Visions of that Book which he endeavoured to adjust to his own as best pleased him taking his own Dreams for the true Sense of those sacred Mysteries However he was so ingenuous as to acknowledge that he neither had any Revelations nor yet the Gift of Prophecy but that he had received from God the Spirit of Understanding as clearly to understand what was contained in the Prophecies of the Old and New Testament as the Prophets themselves who writ them by the Impulse of the Spirit of God Moreover he was a Man who affected Singularity and who aimed at nothing but was very uncommon and extraordinary both in his Conduct and his Doctrine and that therefore in the Council of Lateran under Innocent III. he was declared an open Heretick because he had undertaken to write and maintain against the Great Master of the Sentences some Positions concerning the Trinity which was open Tritheism for he was of Opinion that every Person in the Holy Trinity had a distinct Proper and peculiar Essence and that they were begotten one from another He was also presented in the Pope's Court and accused by the Religious of his own Order among whom he raised a most dangerous Schism In short He was an eternal Medler with Prophecies Predictions and the Affection of foretelling future Contingencies And if some one of his Presages by mere Chance proved true in the Event there were a hundred of them so obscure and ambiguous that might be interpreted either way many of the most famous of those which he published with so much Noise and Confidence being proved false in their Events even whilst he was alive which cannot be made appear better than by this famous Conference which he had at Messina with King Richard For there being a mighty Talk of this Abbot Joachim who was at this time in the Top of his Reputation especially in Italy where all People heard him as a Prophet Richard
taken considering the mighty Earnestness which so many brave Men shewed so fresh and so resolute if King Philip who always acted with great sincerity had not been something too scrupulous upon this Occasion even to the disadvantage of the publick Interest For whereas one of the Articles of the Treaty which he had made with the King of England imported that they should equally share their Conquests he understood this Article to extend even to Glory and was resolved that Richard should share it with him in the Taking of the Town which he was in a Condition to take without him And therefore contenting himself with lodging at the Foot of the Wall he resolved to put off the Assault till his Arrival And in truth that Prince was resolved to put to Sea immediately after Philip but he was constrained to defer it some time by reason that Queen Eleonor his Mother who brought along with her the Princess Berengera arrived the same day that Philip sailed He caused these two Princesses to be magnificently received at Messina where he affianced this new Mistriss after which Queen Eleonor returning for England taking with her Jane his Sister and the Princess Berengera he commanded part of his Fleet to attend them and himself with the rest darted at last upon Wednesday in Passion-Week from Messina eighteen days after King Philip the August It is true the Sea was not at all propitious to him for upon Good-Friday he was met by a most furious Tempest but having till this time been ever mighty fortunate he drew a great Advantage from this Accident and the Tempest which scattered his Navy was worth to him the Conquest of the Island of Cyprus The manner whereof I will in short recount The Island of Cyprus one of the fairest and greatest of the Mediterranean Sea lying about some hundred Miles from Syria was at that time under the Dominion of the Emperors of Constantinople who sent thither some Duke or Lieutenant to be their Deputy-Governor Isaac a Prince of the House of the Comnenius's by his Mother who was Daughter of another Isaac Brother to the Emperor Manuel had seized upon that Government during the Empire of Andronicus by virtue of Letters Patents from that Emperor which this Cheat had counterfeited and not long after he very openly usurped the absolute Dominion of the Place by taking upon him the Title and Authoritâ— of Emperor After the Death of the unfortunate Andronicus he maintained himself in his Usurpation year 1191 against all the Forces of Isaacius Angelus whom he defeated with the Assistance of Margeritus Admiral of the Fleet of William King of Sicily After which as this Tyrant who was one of the most wicked of Mankind saw himself assured in his new Empire according to the custom and nature of Tyranny which is indifferently to commit all manner of Crimes to enjoy the first which is committed by revolting from a lawful Master there was no manner of Wickedness Injustice Robbery Extortion Violence or Cruelty which he did not exercise upon the poor Islanders whom he reduced even to the utmost Dispair Nor had he much more Humanity towards Strangers for three great Ships of the English Fleet which by the Violence of the Tempest had been thrown upon the Island and stranded in the View of Limisso anciently called Amathus upon the South side of the Island this Barbarian who presently run with his Soldiers to the Bank caused all those who escaped the Wrack to be taken and after having inhumanely despoiled them of all they had about them and in their Ships he caused them to be bound Hand and Foot and thrown into a deep Dungeon there miserably to perish by Famine Nor would he permit the great Ship on Board of which were the two Princesses and which was in manifest danger of being lost to come within the Port of Limisso as they had earnestly desired Permission of him to do but would have them ride it out exposed to the Mercy of the Seas and the Waves that so he might have the brutish and cruel Pleasure either to see them sink to the Bottom or split against the Rocks In this time the Tempest being appeased Richard who had taken Port at Candia and from thence had sailed to the Rhodes where he re-assembled his Ships and hearing of the ill Treatment which some of his Ships had met with in the Island of Cyprus he came and presented himself with the rest of his Navy in good Order before Limisso the 6th Day of May and immediately sent to the Tyrant to demand Satisfaction for the Affront had been done him with a peremptory Command to him instantly to set such of the English at Liberty as he had made Prisoners and to make full Restitution of whatever he had taken from them The furious Brute fiercely replied to the Envoys of the King That they should go tell their Master that he was so far from giving him the Satisfaction he foolishly demanded that if he did not make the more haste and take the advantage of his Sails and Oars he must expect the same Treatment for himself And thereupon he marched directly to the Shoar with all the Troops which he kept in Pay and a multitude of confused undisciplined People ill armed and worse ordered who ran down in hopes of Booty and not in expectation of Blows But he was mightily mistaken in the Man with whom he was to deal for Richard furiously exasperated by his Answer gave present Order that all his Army should make a Descent by the help of the Barks and Chaloups and putting himself into the first Row of the Barks at the Head of his Archers he rained such a Storm of mortal Arrows as he rowed to the Shoar upon the Heads of his affrighted Enemies that under the favour of that Consternation he leaped first ashoar and was followed so courageously by his Men who sound none to oppose their Descent that they charged so briskly upon these Barbarians with their Swords in their Hands and fell into the Battalions of these cowardly and disorderly Greeks they presently put them into Confusion and in a few Minutes to a manifest Flight and in the Pursuit made a dreadful Slaughter among them till they got to the Mountains where they saved themselves Then returning the victorious Army entred Limisso without Resistance the Soldiers who were to have kept it having for fear abandoned the place This happy Beginning was presently succeeded by a Conclusion no less fortunate for the Night following he surprized Isaac who having rallied his People came to encamp within five Miles of Limisso and having cut the best part of his Troops in pieces dissipated the rest and taken all his Baggage So that this miserable Wretch abandoned of the Cypriots who the next day after the Victory came to do Homage to King Richard was constrained in most humble manner to beg a Peace which he obtained upon Conditions hard enough and sufficiently ignominious
War is always a great Fault in a Prince or Captain And certainly he ought not to have made any Scruple of Taking the City as he might easily have done without King Richard whom he unprofitably staid for so long time while that King more cunning and less scrupulous and who had not for others such tender Concerns did without him take a whole Kingdom For in short the missing of this Opportunity gave Rise to many Accidents which had like to have entirely ruined the Enterprise For the Besieged made great advantage of that long Repose and the leisure which was given them by a kind of Truce of which they knew not the Cause however they employed it to the repairing of the Breaches and were so strengthned by little Succours which frequently slip'd into them that they found themselves in a Condition often to repulse the great Assaults which were given against them at unseasonable times the Opportunity being lost before Besides the King of France first and after some time the King of England fell sick of that dangerous Malady which made them lose their Hair Nails and Skin by its subtil and Corrosive Malignity which consumes all that Matter which is necessary for the Defence or the Ornament of the Body But the most dangerous Evil of all and which endangered the common Ruin was the Division which broke out more furiously than ever between the two Kings The ancient English Historians of that time lay all the Blame upon Philip whilst the French who writ at the same time accuse King Richard and lay all the Fault at his Door and the reason is plain that both the one and the other living at the same time and writing what was done in their own time either their Fear or their Hope their Love or Hate took from them the power and the liberty of writing the Truth sincerely and without Partiality For my own particular who besides the natural Love I have for it have always made Profession to speak and write when there is occasion with that frank and honest liberty which can never be taken from a good Man year 1191 and who am under no manner of Temptations from any of these Passions which may hinder me from speaking concerning these Kings what I believe to be true it cannot be supposed I should do otherwise since I have nothing either to hope or fear from them and that there is no danger four hundred Years after their Death any Person should so warmly espouse the Interests of their Ashes I say then that after having strictly examined whatever is written upon one side and the other concerning this great difference I find that Richard did not use King Philip with that Respect which was due to him as his Liege Lord for so many great and fair Provinces as he held of him in France For as he had amassed prodigious Sums of Money in England in Sicily and in Cyprus he spared no Cost to allure the bravest Men to his Party and to draw them to his Service by excessive Profusions and the extraordinary Advantages which he made them insomuch that understanding that Philip gave three Crowns in Gold by the Month to every Horse-man he promised four to such as would quit that Service and take Pay under him So that he seemed to endeavour to exhalt himself above his Master and to render him contemptible But then on the other side Philip who had a great Heart and who bore it very impatiently to be in this manner insulted over by his Vassal shewed so much displeasure that he gave those whom the Profusions of Richard had gained especially the Levantines who were most charmed with them occasion to believe that he was not able to support his Greatness and his Merit to be thus topped and overshaded Moreover as Philip before the Arrival of the English had so far advanced the Works and so beaten down the Walls and ruined the Defences that he might easily have taken the place if he had not been too scrupulous of taking all the Glory to himself whereas Richard to whom he had given the opportunity of taking his share by a strange Effect of Jealousie and Ambition would by no means have the City taken whilst Philip was there insomuch that when the French assaulted the Town this jealous Prince prohibited the English either to sustain them or to assault it on their side as had before been resolved upon at the Council of War This brought on Reproaches Quarrels and Hatred which daily increased and grew more violent between the two Nations than that of the War which had begun to break out before under King Henry there being besides naturally not too much Sympathy between them That which augmented this Division was also the Difference between Guy de Lusignan and the Marquis Conrade de Montferrat for the Realm of Jerusalem which the one pretended to keep and the other to have when as Saladin was yet possessed of it For King Philip carried himself openly for the Marquis in the Right of his Wife and for that being a great Warrier who had by his good Conduct preserved the small Remainder of that poor Realm it seemed much better that he should have it rather than his Rival who had lost it so unfortunately for want of Courage and sufficient Conduct On the contrary the King of England for that very reason opposed his Pretensions being unwilling it should fall into the hands of so brave a Man and therefore with all his Power he supported Guy of Lusignan by reason that that unfortunate Prince having much Weakness and little Merit Richard was in hopes of disposing of the Realm according to his own Will And in short the new Conquest which the King of England had made of the Island of Cyprus which he was resolved to keep did not at all please Philip who demanded the half of that Realm in virtue of the Treaty by which they were obliged to divide equally between them whatsoever should be gained by that Voyage But Richard maintained either that this Division was to be restrained to such Conquests as were made upon the Infidels or otherwise that by the same reason he ought to divide the Succession to the Earldom of Flanders with the King since by the Death of the Earl Philip pretended to have acquired a Right unto And by reason of this Division their Spirits were so exasperated that while nothing was done against the common Enemy both sides reproached each other with holding a secret Intelligence and Correspondency with the Infidels both the one Party and the other receiving Presents from Saladin And in truth this brave Sarasin Prince who was naturally generous and made War like a noble Enemy was used from time to time to send the most excellent Fruits of Damascus to the two Kings who in Return sent him some of the pretty Rarities of Europe year 1191 Thus matters were so far from being advantaged by the coming of these two mighty Armies
strictly united with them during this Crusade So soon as the Armies came within View which was about Noon the Combat was not long deferred For James d' Avesnes who was one of the bravest and most prudent Captains of his Age charged so furiously upon the first Squadrons of the Enemies who were posted on this side the River that he broak into them twice overturning and killing all that opposed his Passage But being transported with the heat of his Courage as he returned to the third Charge followed but by a few in comparison of that fearful Number of those who succeeded in the place of the broaken Squadrons he received a terrible Blow with a Scymiter which cut off his Leg notwithstanding which he sustained himself by the force of his invincible Courage and failed not still to fight and to Slay on the right and the left all such as durst venture within the reach of his dreadful Sword till at last that also with the Sword fell by another unfortunate Blow of the Scymiter whereupon those cowardly Infidels fell upon him and by a thousand Wounds gave him a glorious Death after he had opened the Way to Victory by that Carnage which he had made of the most daring of the Sarasins and by the Flight of the more Cowardly For Richard who sustained him and who heard him a moment before his Death cry out aloud Brave King come and revenge my Death all in Fury at his Fall entred at the Breach which this illustrious Deceased had made and fell in like a Thunderclap among the thickest of the Enemies where the Flemings mad even to dispair to have lost their General already made a dreadful Slaughter among them that unable to stand the dreadful Shock they turned their Backs and sled amain towards the Mountains to save themselves So that the Bank being on this side cleared of the Enemies this valiant Prince without giving the couragious English leave to cool one Moment threw himself into the River which at this time was but very low and drawing by his Example all his Battail after him and the Vanguard who now had no other General year 1191 he advanced towards that great Body of Sarasins who pretended to defend the other Bank This he did with so much Resolution that they had not the Considence to expect him but instantly dispersed themselves and sled the King not offering to put himself to the trouble to pursue them so that finding himself Master of both the Banks of the River where no Enemy appeared he believed he was in perfect Possession of a compleat Victory when he found himself mistaken and perceived at a great Distance on the other side of the River a prodigious Cloud of Dust mingled with Darts and Arrows which might be seen sly from all Quarters as also one might hear a confused noise of the Instruments of War the cryes of Men and the neighing of Horses This was occasioned by the greatest part of the Army of the Sarasins commanded by Saladin himself who descending from the Mountains into the Plain had surrounded the Arrere-guard which he believed was at too great a distance to be secured by the main Battle For Saladin who was a great Captain had cut them off so much to his Advantage and had them so in the plain Field that he promised himself an assured Victory and doubted not but he should certainly either cut them in pieces or force them to surrender at Descretion But he quickly found that he had to do with People who were Masters in the Trade of War who having without any Confusion ranged themselves into four Battalions sustained on the right and left by what Cavalry they had formed the Face of a Battle every way and with little Loss sustained all the Efforts of the Sarasins who believed themselves already Conquerours till such time as Richard advertised of the Danger of these gallant Men quickly repassing the River came running at full Speed to their Assistance Then it was that for some time the Combat began to be more surious and bloody than it was before the two Kings by their Voice and Gesture but much more by their Example animating their Souldiers to aspire to Victory For after having done all that could be expected from two of the most able Captains in the World Providing against all Events giving out necessary Orders and themselves in the Charge giving the the first Blows it happened that in the Rencounter knowing each other by those Marks which distinguished them from the rest they both hit upon the same thought and each of them believing he had sound an Enemy worthy of himself and whom with honour he might combat both as a Souldier and a King they both believed that the general Victory would depend upon their particular Encounter and that he whom Fortune should declare her Favourite would not fail of having the Glory of singly obtaining the Victory So both of them at the same time charging his Arm with a strong Lance they furiously ran one against the other and being both of them most Stout and Valiant Men admirably mounted and animated with an ardent desire of Glory wherein Hatred had the least Share the Shock was extreme Rude and Violent their Lances flew into a thousand Splinters and Richard was something disordered with the mighty Blow which he received but he had managed his Lance with so much Adress and Force that he overthrew both Horse and Man upon the Ground This raised a mighty Shout from both the Armies as if Saladin had been slain and the Sarasins came tumbling in Shoals about him so thick either to relieve him if alive or to carry him off if he were dead that Richard who was approaching with his Sword advanced to finish his Victory was constrained to let it fall upon less considerable Enemies of whom he made a most horrible Slaughter for their interposing betwixt him and Glory Saladin the goodness of whose Armes had saved his Life sorely bruised in Body and tormented with the Shame of his Fall being mounted upon a fresh Horse did by his speedy Flight prevent a worse Destiny and left the Christians in possession of a cheap and perfect Victory For seeing that a great part of his Men frightned by the Belief they had that he was slain had already found their Heels and that the rest being altogether in Confusion and Disorder retreated before the Enemy he thought now no longer of any thing but how to save himself and after him the whole Army thought it no Disgrace to make the best hast they could from Death and Danger which followed them closely at the Heels Thus the Christian Army remained Victorious on all sides year 1191 and with so great a loss of the Enemies that what in the Battle and what in the Pursuit above fourscore thousand of them were slain and among them thirty two Emirs were found among the Dead on the Field of the Battle so great a Victory cost
to endure the violence of the pain of that terrible Inflammation he caused it to be cut off but the Inflammation of whose Nature the Physicians were wholly ignorant mounted from his Leg to his Thigh and from his Thigh expanding its Flame through his whole Body he then acknowledged that it was the Hand of God which was upon him confessed his Fault delivered the Hostages of King Richard became a Penitent received Absolution from the Bishops and died in the Peace of the Church after he had by his last Will and Testament ordered Restitution to be made to Richard King of England of all the Money which he had received from him But it is commonly to be observed that these kind of Restitutions with which dying Persons charge their Executors are rarely discharged by the Living And Pope Innocent III. who succeeded Celestin had not a little trouble with the Successors of Leopold when he endeavoured to oblige them to the Performance of that part of his Will the difficulty of Restitution persuading them against the Justice of it But as to any thing further it is to be observed that neither this Leopold nor his Successors of whom I discourse were at all related to those Princes who at present possess the Title of Austria that Family which about a hundred Years after entred into the House of Hapsbourg being descended from the House of Alsatia from which that August Family which now bears the name of the House of Austria derives its Original In this time the Affairs of the Christians of the East remained in great Tranquility in reference to the Sarasins who willingly maintained a Truce which was so extreamly advantageous to them and which gave them reason to hope that in a small time they should become Masters of all the Remainder of Syria But they happened to be something embroiled by a kind of Civil War which was like to break out by the Treachery of Bohemond the third of that Name Prince of Antioch For being a Man of great Ambition little Prudence and less Power to support it he had recourse to unworthy Artifices and Cheats which he made use of to oppress the Armenian Princes his Neighbours whose Power and Greatness which increased every day gave him a troublesom Jealousie He had by these Cowardly ways made Rupin of the Mountain his Prisoner upon pretext of a Conference and thought to have done the same to Livon who did not only succeed in the Power of his Brother Rupin but was also more successful and augmented that Power by the taking of divers places from Bohemond This Prince after he had made an Accommodation with him thought to have surprized him also in the same manner and having sent to him to desire an Interview in a certain place he resolved there to seize upon him and make him his Prisoner But Livon who followed the Maxim of those who hold That one ought never to trust a Man who hath once violated his Faith came to the place appointed strongly guarded with a great number of brave Men whom he placed in Ambuscade in a place at a convenient distance from the place of Meeting and then advancing only accompanied with two Persons according as it was concluded between them perceiving by the Company which Bohemond had with him the Treachery which was intended he gave the Signal to his People who immediately came pouring in upon Bohemond and surprized him putting him into the hands of Prince Livon who carried him Prisoner into his Dominions Count Henry who saw well that this Quarrel must necessarily divide all the Christians of the East went himself into Armenia where he was by Livon received with all the Respect imaginable but with a strong Resolution nevertheless to draw all the Advantage he could possibly from his good Fortune as indeed he did For the Count so well managed the Spirit of Bohemond year 1195 that to re-gain his Liberty which he made him understand was never to be obtained but upon these Terms he at last consented that Prince Raymond his Son should marry the Princess Alice the Daughter of Rupin and Neice to Livon That Livon should hold all the Places which he had conquered in the Principality of Antioch and that for the future that Principality should do Homage to Armenia After which Livon by the Consent of Count Henry took upon him the Title of King of Armenia which was afterwards confirmed to him by the Pope and the Emperor It is most certain that the Sarasins might have drawn extraordinary Advantages from these Divisions which began to arise among the Christians but the Divine Providence averted that Misfortune by the Revolution which happened in the Empire of the Infidels by the Decease of Saladin who amidst these Actions died at Damascus after he had tamed all the Rebels on this side Euphrates He was certainly a Prince notwithstanding all the Sarasin he had about him who was possessed of Vertues and Qualities which might well be compared with those of the most famous Conquerors of Antiquity and who after having performed a thousand noble Actions in his Life did one at his Death which ought to be received by Posterity as a most admirable Lecture of the Vanity of all Earthly Pomp and Glory For some Moments before his Death calling for him who used to carry his Banner before him in all his Battles he commanded him to tie to the Top of a Lance a Linen Shrowd in which he was to be wrap'd at his Interment and displaying it as being the Standard of Death which triumphed over so great a Prince to make this Proclamation This is all which the great Saladin Vanquisher and Master of the Empire of the East must carry with him out of the World of all the Treasures and the Glory which he hath acquired by so many mighty Conquests A rare Spectacle and most worthy to be eternally regarded by the greatest Kings who from hence may see and know that though their Birth and Fortune have elevated them above the Level of Mankind yet Death which will one day equal them with the meanest of their Subjects will strip them of all the Pomp and Grandure of this World and that nothing but the Riches of the Soul and the Glories of their Vertue will distinguish them from others in the Life to come As to the rest This great Prince who by the Obligations of his Birth and the Policy of State upon which his Interest and his Fortune depended had during his Life made publick Profession of Mahometanism at his Death seemed not so very well satisfied of the Truth of that Sect for after he had disposed of his Dominions in favour of his Children he divided all his Personal Estate into three Parts which he ordered to be equally distributed among the poor Sarasins Jews and Christians which should be found in all his Dominions And this he did with an Imagination that at his Death he having these three Strings to his Bow though two
done an insinite deal of Mischief in the World And after this there is nothing that thou canst do to me which I fear And since I am assured of thy Death I shall with Joy be ready to receive my own though it comes accompanied with all the Terrors and cruel Torments that can be inslicted on me And I replied the King immediately will for the Love of God that thou shalt live And thereupon he caused him presently to be set at liberty commanding that an hundred Pounds Sterling should be bestowed upon him and straitly prohibiting all his People to do him any Injury But presently after the death of the King the Lieutenant General of his Army causing him to be seized made him be hanged and roasted alive in a most barbarous and horrible manner At his Death the King commanded a good part of his Treasure to be distributed among his Domesticks and the Poor He ordered that his Body should be interred at Fontevraud at the Feet of his Father as it were to make some honourable Reparation by this little Humility at his Death for the ill Treatment which he had given him during his Life He bequeathed his Heart to the Church of our Lady at Roan which he had always particularly cherished And for his Soul he entirely submitted it to the Divine Justice offering himself after such an exemplary Repentance to suffer the Pains of Purgatory even till the Day of Judgment for the Expiation of his Crimes It is not my Province to judge of what it pleaseth God to determine and ordain but this is certain that three and thirty Years after his Death Henry Bishop of Rochester in England preaching after he had given holy Orders the Saturday before the Passion-Sunday on which Day the Church begins the Service with those words of Isaiah Ho! Every one that thirsteth come to the Waters saith the Lord Come and drink with Joy In the midst of his Sermon as if it had been by a suddain Enthusiasm he cried out Rejoyce my Brethren the Soul of the glorious King Richard after having till this time been purified like Gold in the Furnace is now passed into Heaven And he affirmed it with such an assured Air exposing to every Person all the Circumstances of the Revelation which he pretended to have had that the Authority of a Prelate who was known to be a most vertuous and learned Man and who was never accused for a Visionary made very many wise People believe that without Weakness they might give Credit to it However it be it is not so much upon these sort of Revelations which are liable to be doubted as upon the manner of the Death of this great Prince that one may reasonably found a Belief of his Salvation However I thought fit to recount these edifying Particularities of the Death of this King who had so great a Share in these Crusades that so Princes may understand that when they have had the happiness to render unto God any considerable Service by any Heroick Action as did this King Richard in being the first that took upon him the Cross in this Holy War where he performed so many brave things they have great reason to hope that the Divine Goodness which is never slow in rewarding the meanest Services will recompense them by the greatest of all Favours in permitting those to die well who have employed their Lives in his Service and for his Glory year 1199 In this time Fouques de Nevilli continued his preaching the Crusade with a most wonderful Success and after he had run through abundance of Provinces distributing an infinite number of Crosses among the People he at last happily sinished his Enterprise by the Engagement of two great Princes in his Design who could not but by their Example draw after them a great number of considerable Persons These two Princes were Theobald IV. Count de Champagne Brother to Henry II. King of Jerusalem who died by the unfortunate Accident at Ptolemais and Lewis his Consin-german Count de Blois and Chartres both of them nearly related to I hilip the August both by the Father and the Mother They were both young and both passionate of Glory And Theobald who was a magnificent Prince that he might declare himself with more Splendor and draw after him more Persons of Quality published a Tournament to be held at his Castle of Escri upon the River Aisne in Advent of that Year 1199. whither the principal Gentry of the Neighbouring Provinces assembled themselves to be Sharers in those Manly Exercises There it was that the brave Count Theobald amidst those noble Exercises of Chivalry which the French and particularly the Counts de Champagne have always so much delighted in resolving to pass magnificently from that gallant Representation of War to that true and holy War which he was about to undertake in most solemn manner took upon him the Cross together with the Count de Blois his Cousin They were immediately followed by two Lords of extraordinary Merit and high Reputation the famous Simon de Montfort and the valiant Renaud de Montmirail the Cousin of Count Lewis After which all those who were under any particular Obligation to these two Counts and many other Gentlemen and Barons especially of the Isle of France and of Picardy also followed their Example and took upon them the Cross The principal among these new Champions of Jesus Christ whose Names are most known and which I mention in this place reserving my self to speak of the others upon occasion of their brave Actions were Geoffry de Joinville Steward and Geoffry de Ville Hardouin Mareshal of Champagne who like a frank and generous Cavalier hath obliged Posterity with the History of this War the Counts Gautier and John de Brienne Gautier de Vignori William and Villain de Neully Erard de Montigni Manasses de l' Isle Guy de Chappes Renard de Dampierre Oliver de Rochefort Ives de Laval Anselme de Courselles Henry de Montreil Paien d'Orleans Matthew de Montmorenci Guy de Couci Robert de Malvoisin Enguerrand Hugh and Robert de Boves Counts d' Amiens to whom the Year following joyned the Counts Hugh de St. Paul Renand de Bologne and Geoffry de Perche and Stephen his Brother with divers other Lords which followed them And to take care of the spiritual Militia of this Army designed for a Holy War Garnier Bishop of Troies who had taken the Cross the Year before and Nevelon Bishop of Soissons resolved to accompany this Crusade Such a famous Action which could not fail of making a mighty noise in the World was the Parent of others great Examples being commonly very prolisick which were produced thereby in generous Minds and Hearts which were amorous of Glory The young Baldwin Earl of Flanders and Henault Nephew to the late Count Philip who died at the Siege of Acre seeing himself at liberty by the Peace of Peronne which he had concluded with Philip the August was resolved
that so he might be nearer his Brother-in-Law the King of Hungary The Venetians had the Isles of the Archipelagus and a great part of Peloponnesus or Morea with many Cities upon the Coasts of the Hellespont and Phrygia together with the Isle of Candia which they purchased of the Marquis of Montferrat to whom it had been given by the young Alexis Bithynia under the Title of a Dutchy fell to the Share of the Count de Blois William de Champlite of Champagne had the Principality of Achaia and Peloponnesus which he Conquered and at his Death left to Geoffry de Ville Hardouin Nephew to the Mareshal of Champagne who had also for his Share the Province of Romania There were also several other Principalities Lands and great Cities both in Europe and Asia conferred upon the most considerable Persons in the Army After this the Emperor taking the Field before the Winter reduced all the Cities of Thracia under his Obeysance and to compleat his good Fortune the old Alexis and the persidious Murtzuphle who still carried themselves as Emperors in that Province fell alive into his victorious Hands and received Justice according to their Demerits Murtzuphle after his Flight was retired into a City of Thracia about four days March from Constantinople and having rallied some Troops he with them seized upon Tzurulum at this day called Chiorli between the imperial City and Adrianople But when he perceived that all Places surrendred themselves to Prince Henry year 1204 whom the Emperor had sent before with the Men at Armes he quitted that open Country and retreated to Messinople anciently and truly called Maximinianopolis in the Province of Rhodope where the old Alexis had made himself be acknowledged as Emperor during the Siege of Constantinople Murtzuphle sent to him to offer him his Troops and his Service against the common Enemy and intreated him to do him the Honor to consider him and receive him as his Son-in-Law who could have no other Interests but his But Alexis whether it were that he hated him because he was more wicked than himself or that he distrusted him or that he was resolved to revenge the Affront and Dishonor that had been done by him to his Daughter or possibly that wholly Miserable as he was himself yet he could not indure that another should call himself Emperor he resolved to destroy him and to punish his Perfidy by another Treason For as the Devils in the other World are the Executioners of God's Decrees upon the Damned so the Crimes of wicked Men in this Life serve his Justice in the punishing of those Offences which other wicked Men have committed This dissembling and treacherous old Man therefore made shew of receiving these Offers of his Son-in-Law with all the Marks of Tenderness and Affection which he could have wished he went in Person to Confer with him they imbraced they kissed and reciprocally gave to each other their Faith protesting that they would hereafter never have any other but the same Interest and the same Heart After which Murtzuphle made no difficulty intirely to trust his Father-in-Law and went confidently to an Entertainment to which he was invited by him but as he was conducted into a Chamber where the Trap was set for him the People of Alexis who were in Readiness for that Purpose fell upon him and overthrowing him they immediately pulled his Eyes out of his Head Thus divine Justice the wise Disposer of all things ordered it that one Tyrant should execute upon another the same Cruelty which he himself had about nine Years before advised him to act upon his own Brother the Emperor Isaac Not long after Alexis understanding that Baldwin to whom all Thracia submitted was coming against him he fled into Macedon with so much Precipitation and Disorder that some of the Friends of Murtzuphle all whose Troops were disbanded found the Means to procure his Escape But after he had for some time wandred in Disguise with a small Attendance intending to pass the Strait of the Hellespont to save himself in Asia he was surprized by Thierri de Los who had got notice of him and carried Prisoner to Constantinople where the Emperor would have him proceeded against in due course of Law He was therefore accused before the Princes of an infinite number of Crimes and above all of being guilty of the most detestable Parricide upon the Person of the young Emperor Alexis who he had strangled with his own Hands The Fact was publickly notorious nor could he deny it but yet he had the audacious Confidence to indeavour to justify himself by maintaining that he had done nothing but what was most Just and what was approved by the Greeks and even the Relations of Alexis who had lost his Right to the Empire and deserved Death for having betraied his Country in selling it to Strangers But as his insolent Answers were so far from diminishing his Crime that they rendred him more Odious so he was condemned to a Death which might strike a Terror into all those who were the Accomplices or Approvers of his Parricide For this Purpose he was led into the great Square called that of the Bull in the middle of which the great Theodosius had erected a marble Column of extraordinary Height which being hollow had a Staircase within by which they might go to the Top upon which that Emperor had caused his Statue in Brass upon Horseback to be placed but that happening to be thrown down by an Earthquake in the Reign of Zeno Anastatius his Successor caused his to be set up in the Room of it and that having also the same Fate there was nothing after set up but it remained as a little Lodge which was inhabited by a new Stylite who by the means of that Retreat injoyed a Solitude in the midst of the greatest and most populous City in the World It was to the Top of this high Column that the Unfortunate Murtzuphle was carried and in the view of the whole City which might easily see it from all parts this Square of the Bull being one of the most eminent of the seven Hills upon which Constantinople stands year 1204 he was thrown down headlong and dashed in pieces Just it was that he should thus die by this fearful manner of Death that from thence Posterity may learn that if Ambition sometimes mounts wicked Men to the Eminency of Fortune by Treasons Poisonings Murders Parricides and all manner of Crimes which she never spares to prompt her Followers to when she judges them for her Purpose Yet does she at the last bring them when at the top of this Height to the most horrible Precipice from whence their Fall is so much the more Fatal by how much they fall from the greater Height That which is most strange in this terrible Execution is that among other Figures which were carved round about this Column there was to be seen that of an Emperor thrown down in that very manner
Peace which was offered him upon Condition that the Prisoners on both sides should be set at liberty year 1213 But these Letters of the Pope produced not those Effects which he hoped and promised himself for Saphadin who had so frequently combated against the Christians knew by Experience that the Crusades would overthrow themselves if the fury of their first Efforts were but prevented and above all having the Courage the good Fortune and the Success of Saladin he was not much moved by the Remonstrances of Innocent for whom he had no great Consideration And for the other Letters which the Pope writ to all Christian People they came to nothing at last but to raise those great Disorders which had happened in the former Crusades For it happened by a strange Illusion or rather a kind of Frensy which like a Plague spread it self over all France and Germany the Youths of all sorts of Conditions taking a strong Impression in their Minds that God would make use of their Hands to deliver the Holy Sepulchre out of the Hands of the Sarasins and that he commanded them to go to Jerusalem to atchieve that high Enterprise they assembled to the number of thirty thousand in France and twenty thousand in Germany who took upon them the Cross There were many Monks and Priests who undertook to justifie this Folly by another which was greater and as if God had commanded it put themselves at the Head of these Boys and other Vagabonds who maliciously followed them to make some advantage of this Disorder and it being impossible to stop the Torrent of this furious Folly they pleasantly marched along singing and crying all together with all their power Lord Jesus bestow upon us thy Holy Cross The greatest part of those of Germany taking disserent Roads either perished miserably on the Way or were dispoiled by Thieves and Robbers Those of France who could escape to Marseilles were there miserably cheated by two Merchants whose Names were Hugh le Fer and William Porc notorious Villains who having promised to transport them into Palestine for nothing putting them on Board seven of their Ships two of the Vessels were shipwrack'd with the loss of all those poor Boys with which they were charged and for those who were upon the other sive these Traytors carried them into Egypt and there sold them for Slaves to the Sarasins It is true that God who alone can bring Good out of Evil for his Glory drew this Advantage from this great Disorder and horrible Treachery that divers of these Innocents whom the Infidels endeavoured to force to deny and renounce their Faith persisted so constantly to confess Jesus Christ for whose sake they had taken the Cross that they chose rather to be cut in pieces than to renounce their Faith and by this irregular and frantick Action came at last to obtain the Crown of Martyrdom At last the memorable Victory which Philip the August obtained against Otho who having been crowned after the Death of the Emperor Philip troubled all Europe gave the Pope the occasion to accomplish by the General Council the great Design of the Crusade which he had begun by his Letters and which the Preachers by his Orders published every where This Emperor Otho made a most cruel War against the Pope who had always been his Protector so that he was at last constrained by his extream Ingratitude to excommunicate him as also for his openly invading the Churches Patrimony seizing upon what the Holy See had received from the magnificent Liberality of the Kings of France Philip the August who besides that he hated Otho as being the Nephew of his Enemy the King of England thought himself obliged to maintain what his Predecessors had done in favour of the Holy See sailed not to declare himself for the Pope and negotiated so powerfully with divers Princes of the Empire the principal whereof were the King of Bohemia the Dukes of Austria and Bavaria the Archbishops of Treves Mayence and Cologne that they deposed this ingrateful excommunicate Prince and elected Frederick whom his Father the Emperor Henry VI. had caused to be declared King of the Romans at the Age of three Years and who was also King of Naples and Sicily in Right of the Empress Constantia his Mother He came soon after into Germany where he was received by the Princes and crowned Emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle year 1213 by Thierri Bishop of Cologne And that he might support his Right by the Arms of his Protector he came directly to Vaucouleur where after a Conference with Lewis the Son of King Philip he made a new Treaty with the King and renewed the ancient Alliance which had been between his Predecessors and the Crown of France Otho on his side who had a powerful Party in Germany believing that if he could but ruin Philip he should be able easily to manage Frederick and the Pope made a League against France with the English Ferrand de Portugal Earl of Flanders who had revolted against his Master and his Benefactor who had married him to the Heiress of Flanders year 1214 and joyned the Troops of the English and Flemmings which together with his own composed an Army of above two hundred thousand Men So that making no doubt but that he should be able to cut the French Army in pieces who were not a third part so numerous he assailed them when they least expected a Battle as they were passing the Bridge of Bovines But Philip without being dismayed at this Surprise having put himself at the Head of the Rereguard whilst the Vant-guard re-passed the Bridge sustained their first Shock and gave a Check to the Enemies till such time as the other Troops were drawn up in Battalia upon his Right and Left according to the Orders which he had given And then the French animated by the Sight the Words but much more by the Example of their King who this Day behaved himself like one of the ancient Heroes charged with so much fury every where that after having fought victoriously in all places from Noon till Night the Army of the Enemies was totally routed All the principal Captains lay stretched out at length upon the place or else were taken Prisoners Otho only excepted who escaped by the swiftness of his Horse and retreated into the Lower Saxony where about two Years after he died with Grief to see himself forsaken by all the Princes of the Empire and another Emperor generally acknowledged and received by all the Germans This great Victory of Philip and that which Prince Lewis his Son obtained almost at the same time in Poitou against the King of England having made a great Calm in the Church and the Empire the Pope who during the Wars which troubled all Europe could not assemble the Council now caused it to be called year 1215 and accordingly it was held the Year following in the famous Church of the Lateran at Rome This was the twelfth Oecumenical
Dragon after his Death which demanded Justice of God against him till at last covered all over in slames he was condemned to Purgatory till the day of Judgment for having commited three great Crimes in his Life for which he had certainly been condemned to Hell for ever if our Lady to whose Honor he had built a Church had not obtained the Grace for him that he repented of them before his latest Breath Now this which calls it self an Apparition so plainly resembles the travelling Stories of Apparitions of this Nature that I am astonished there should be any who should doubt of its Falshood so much as for a Moment but it is the sordid Humor of low Spirits to dishonor the Memories of the greatest Lives in the World whom they durst scarcely speak of or look upon whilest they were in it and nothing is more frequent than for Calumny to blast the Reputation of the Dead by reason of that Impunity which Men hope for by being undiscovered nor is there any thing so silly but what will either by the Weakness of some or the Malice of others be believed so that the most sottish and groundless Illusions come many times to gain the Reputation as well as the Name of supernatural Visions and Revelations The Cardinal Cencius a Roman of the illustrious House of Savelli a Person of a great Estate and as great Learning succeeded Innocent within two days by the Name of Honorius the III and imitating his Predecessor in his Zeal for the Deliverance of the Holy Land he at the same time writ Letters to the Princes and Prelates throughout all Europe exhorting them powerfully not to cool in their Zeal which they had till then manifested for the Execution of what had been Decreed in the Holy Council in reserence to the Crusade And the Consequence of these Letters and the Negotiations of his Legats which he sent to all places to press the Accomplishment of this great Affair which lay so near his Heart and which he followed so closely with his utmost Application and Diligence was so successful that an infinite number of Crusades particularly among the Northern Nations were ready to pass both by Sea and Land into the Holy Land at the time appointed He who ought to have Headed them was the Emperor Frederick the II. who had with the first taken upon him the Cross then when he stood in need of the Assistance of the late Pope Innocent for his Establishment against Otho in the imperial Dignity He took it upon him with more Solemnity the year after the Battle of Bovine when all things being at Peace in Germany he was by the Authority of Pope Innocent the second time crowned at Aix by the Hands of Siffride Archbishop of Mayence There he renewed his Vow and with a great deal of Reverence and Submission received the Decree of the Council for the Crusade But as he had a specious Pretext to deser his Voyage in regard he had not been at Rome to receive the imperial Crown nor to regulate the Affairs of Italy the Pope thought it was not convenient at that time to press him further with the Accomplishment of his Vow year 1217 So that Andrew King of Hungary was taken in to supply his Place upon this great Occasion being the only King of Europe who was in a Condition to march at the Head of the Crusades For Peter de Courtenay the Emperor of Constantinople had by Treachery been taken Prisoner in Macedon by Theodore Comnenius who had seized upon Thessaly Philip the August who had already fulfilled his Vow did not believe that he was obliged to ingage himself in another Crusade at a time when France stood in need of him to oppose the Albigenses England Scotland and Ireland were extremely agitated by the Troubles which the Fury of Civil War had raised in them The Kings of Castile Portugal and Navarre were in Arms against the Moors who always prevented the People of Spain from entring into the Crusades with other Nations for the Deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre by obliging them in continual Action against those Infidels who were possessed of many of their Provinces And the King of Arragon was so far from joyning with the Crusades that he had taken Arms in favour of the Hereticks the Albigenses against whom there was another Crusade at the same time And the King of Norway who had caused a great many Men of War to be fitted out for the Holy War would not abandon his Realm by taking the Cross altho he obliged many of his Subjects to undertake it year 1217 that so he might have a share in the Honor of the Enterprise The King of Hungary was therefore the only Prince of Europe who in Person made that Holy Voyage and the principal Princes and Prelates who accompanied him in the Undertaking were the Dukes of Austria Bavaria Moravia Brabant Limbourg the Counts Palatin of the Rhine of Los of Juliers of Holland and Wida the Marquis of Baden the Archbishop of Mayence and the Bishops of Bamberge Passau Strasbourg Munster and Vtrecht as also the greatest part of the Prelates of Hungary who would accompany their King in this War The Cousades whose Number increased daily without expecting those who not being yet ready might well enough follow after to Re-inforce the Army in Palestine divided themselves into several Bodies for the greater Convenience of Passage Andrew King of Hungary with Leopold Duke of Austria Lewis Duke of Bavaria and the greatest part of the other Princes took their Way by Land to Venice where they imbarked upon the Shipping of the Republick which expected them to transport them to the Island of Cyprus which was appointed by the Pope for the Place of Rendezvouz It is said that upon this Occasion to pay the Charges of their Passage the King quitted Dalmatia to the Venetians Another Party of the Crusades were embarked at Genoa Messina and Brindes where they received Orders from the Pope by which he commanded them with all possible Expedition to joyn the King of Hungary in Cyprus and to follow him whithersoever he should judge it necessary to lead them expressly prohibiting them upon pain of Excommunication to separate from the Gross of the Army under pretence of going as Pilgrims to visit the Holy Sepulchre in regard that he feared that this irregular Devotion at such an unseasonable time might weaken the Army and inrich the Infidels by the great Tributes which they exacted of the Pilgrims and the continual Excursions which they made at last to rob them of all they had Those of Cologne and the Frisons animated by the sight of three wonderful Crosses which miraculously appeared in Heaven whilest the Crusade was preaching upon the Friday before Whitsunday put to Sea with a gallant Fleet of three hundred Ships and about the end of May joyning in the Mouth of the Maze with that of William Earl of Holland and George Count of Wida they all together set
purpose either broken by the Engines of the Town or burnt by the Greek Wildfire from which they were never able to secure them But the greatest of all the evils which the Besiegers suffered was the division which happened between the Infantry and Cavalry which had like in one day to have ruined the whole Army For the Cavalry in those times was in a manner wholly composed of Gentlemen who loved their ease and pleasure so much that they left the Foot to all the hard duty and exempted themselves from it The Foot who believed themselves undervalued loudly murmured against them reproaching them with want of Courage and accusing them of leaving them to shift for themselves in the most dangerous combats On the contrary the Cavalry maintained the quite contrary saying the Foot did nothing at all as appeared plainly in the last Battle within the Lines where the Infantry proved themselves good Footman in running for it and that all had been infallibly lost if the Cavalry had not spurred up to their assistance and almost alone repulsed the Enemies So that by the most foolish and strange adventure that ever was seen in an Army both Horse and Foot that they might manifest who had the greatest Courage and most Valour compelled the King to lead them against the Enemy and oblige them to a Battle It was then that St. Francis of Assise who by the earnest desire which he had to gain the Crown of Martyrdom by preaching the Faith to the Infidels was come to the Camp at Damiata and contrary to his custom in medling with matters which were not religious or agreable to his Profession opposed himself stoutly against this foolish Resolution And the Spirit of God being an Emanation of the divine Wisdom upon us which agrees perfectly with good sense and reason made him predict with a great deal of reason to these foolish Braves that if they would be so rash to undertake such an ill grounded Enrerprise it would prove fatal to them year 1219 But these People could hear no other Language but that of their Passions and such was their Fury that they compelled their Captains to go along with them making little Account of what St. Francis threatned them withal who was a man of no presence and whom they did not believe to be a Prophet Leaving therefore a few men to guard the Camp against the Besieged they marched against the Enemy in Battalia upon the nine and twentieth day of August The Sarasins upon the sight of them drew off and retreated into a large Champaign between the Nile and the Sea where there being no water and the season excessive hot they were reduced to the utmost extremities of weariness and thirst and broak all their Ranks and order to search for water to refresh themselves The Sarasins then who waited for this disorder to make advantage of it immediately faced about and came pouring upon the Cyprus Cavalry which was upon the left Wing and charging them in the Flank broak them and dissipated them in a moment whereupon the Italian Infantry who were covered by them presently fled and after them the Horse the Legate and Patriarch who carried the Cross being not able to stop them and in short all had been infallibly lost that day if the King who was in the main Battle perceiving the horrible disorder and letting the Fugitives pass by him that they might not hinder his march had not instantly advanced being followed by the Knights of the three orders the English French and Flemings who stopped the Pursuit of the Sarasins and made good an honourable retreat to their Camp where the Army entred well mortified with the ill Fortune which they had met withal in this foolish adventure For they lost above six thousand men besides the Prisoners among which were the Bishop of of Beauvais and his Brother Andrew de Chastillon Nantueil Gautier de Nemours Brother of Peter the Bishop of Paris John d' Arcis and Henry de l' Orme the Marshal of the order of St. John of Jerusalem and above thirty Knights of the Temple Thus the Prediction of the holy man St. Francis d' Assise was accomplished but he pursuing his principal design wandered from the Christian Camp and permitted himself to be taken by the Sarasins who after they had given him a thousand blows presented him to Meledin to get the reward which he had promised to those who should bring him a Christian dead or alive The good man notwithstanding this preached the Gospel to him with an admirable Zeal offering himself to the Flames for the proof of the truth thereof But he laboured in vain as to the design which he had propounded to himself being neither able to gain the Crown of Martyrdom by reason that the Sultan charmed with his discourse his Patience and his Vertue was so far from putting him to death that he gave him a thousand carresses and all the obliging Usage imaginable nor could he obtain the Conversion of this Prince the fear in which he was of his Subjects being more prevalent with him than the truth which was propounded to him So that the Saint finding there was no good to be done took his way back again and the Prayers which the Sultan whose presents he refused desired of him for his Salvation proved ineffectual by the just Judgement of God who rigorously punishes those who either out of fear or malice refuse his Grace and the tenders of Salvation For the Authors who have written for the Honour of St. Francis that in Virtue of his Prayers this Sultan was converted and baptized before his Death are under a mistake of the Sultan of Iconium who never saw St. Francis who this very year of the Siege of Damiata received Baptism at his death whereas this Sultan of Egypt neither died that year nor was ever baptized And it is a great weakness to give it no worse Title to make such fabulous relations of holy men for the Saints who in Heaven enjoy infinite happiness do neither desire nor stand in necessity that those who write their lives or make their Elogies should give them praises upon Earth that are not true whether it be in magnifiing their Actions or in attributing to them such miracles as may well be doubted and rationally disproved and which is the most abominable and pernicious flattery making them so perfect in all things as to be free from all manner of sin That which is certainly true in this matter is That Sultan Meledin not only treated St. Francis but after this the Christians and particularly the Prisoners with great humanity sending some of the principal of them to the Christian Camp to treat of a Peace year 1219 This Sultan who was a better Politician them a Soldier understood very well that notwithstanding his Victory he had many pressing Considerations to move him to labour all he could for a Peace All the provisions in the City were almost spent the Siege
the Princess Jolante the daughter of King John de Brienne Heiress of the Realm of Jerusalem John de Brienne is dispoiled of his Crown by his new Son-in-Law He puts himself under the Protection of the Pope Honorius The good Offices of the Pope to pacifie the Princes The death of Lewis the eight King of France He is succeeded by his Son Lewis the ninth The death of Pope Honorius He is succeeded by Gregory the ninth The Portraict of this new Pope The Army of the Crusades much diminished by diseases The Emperor takes shipping He stays at Otranto where the Lantgrave of Thuringia dies A great rupture between the Pope and the Emperor The Pope excommunicates him Their Manifests The Revenge which Frederick takes He passes at last into Syria His differences with the Patriarch and the Templers His Treaty with the Sultan his Coronation at Jerusalem his return and accord with the Pope The Conference of Spolata for the Continuation of the Crusade The History of Theobald the fifth Earl of Champagne and King of Navarr His Voyage to the Holy Land with the other Princes of the Crusade His description and his Elogy A Crusade published for the Succour of Constantinople An Abridgement of the History of the Latin Emperors there The Causes of the little Success of the King of Navarr's Enterprise A new Rupture between the Pope and the Emperor The Occasions thereof The deplorable effects of that breach which ruins the Affairs of the Holy Land The Jealousie among the Princes occasions their loss Their defeat at the Battle of Gaza The unsuccessful Voyage of Richard Earl of Cornwall The death of the Constable Amauri de Montfort His Elogy his Burial and that of his Ancestors and of Simon de Montfort in the Monastery of Hautebruiere A Council called at Rome The Pope's Fleet defeated by the Emperor's and the taking of the Legates and Prelates going to the Council The death of Pope Gregory The election of Celestin the fourth and of Innocent the fourth He breaks with the Emperor and retires into France year 1220 THe report of the Victory which the Crusades of the West had obtained against the Sultans of Egypt and Damascus being spread all over Asia raised the Courage and hopes of the Christians in the East and more particularly of the Georgians who then were and are at this day the bravest among all those Nations These People to whom that name was given either from their particular Veneration of St. George upon whom they call in their Combats or by Corruption of the word Gurges their Country being called Gurgiston inhabit those Regions which extend themselves from the West to the East between the Euxine and the Caspian Sea the Countries which anciently were called Colchis Iberia a part of Albania and also of the great Armenia as far as Derbent They were at this time under the Obeisance of one King who governed the whole Nation united into one Monarchy and not divided as they are now among many small Princes who are not able to free themselves from paying tribute either to the Turk or Persian They have been Christians ever since they were converted by a young Maid a Christian Slave in the Reign of Constantine the Great and followed the belief and Cerimonies of the Greeks although in some things they differ from them much and especially in this That they have nothing of that Aversion for the Church of Rome which the Greeks have They all shave the middle of their heads in form of a Crown but with this difference among them That the Ecclesiasticks have it round like that of the Roman Churchmen the other square with great Mustaches year 1220 and a long Beard which reaches down to their very Girdle They are in the main People well proportioned and of a good Mind kind and obliging to Strangers terrible to their Enemies great Soldiers extremely brave even to the very Women who like Amazons will go to the Wars and sight most valiantly and they are so taken notice off for this Valour above all other of the Eastern Christians that the Sarasins either out of Fear or respect permit them to enter with their Colours flying like Soldiers into Jerusalem and without paying any thing when they come to visit the Holy Sepulchre But they have this great Blemish that they are most intolerable Drinkers and make little account of such People as will not debauch with them having entertained a brutish persuasion that it is impossible for any persons to be truely valiant who are not excessive Lovers of drinking So that they never go to the Combat till they have well drunk for which purpose they always carry to the field a Bottle of Wine tied to their Girdles and before they begin the Battle they presently and with Chearfulness toss it off to the last drop and then furiously charge the Enemies being elevated with the Wine and half drunk This was the Temper of these Georgians who were now most highly incensed against Coradin because without consulting them he had caused the Walls of the Holy City to be demolished during the Siege of Damiata for which as a common Injury done to all Christians in General they loudly threatned to be avenged on him For this purpose so soon as they heard the news of the taking of Damiata their King writ to the Princes of the Crusade to give them joy of their Victory and to exhort them to follow their good Fortune assuring them that for his own particular as he should esteem it a dishonour to him not to follow the glorious Example which they had given him so he was resolved in favour of them to make a powerful diversion in Syria and to attack Coradin even in his Capital City of Damascus But all these fair hopes of chasing the Insidels out of the Holy Land quickly vanished by two unhappy Accidents which ruined all the Affairs of the Christians in the East The first was that as the King of the Georgians was preparing for this Holy War he received advice that the Tartars who began to make diverse Conquests in Asia were ready to fall into his Dominions and this hindred this Valiant Prince from executing what he had so generously resolved against Coradin The second was the deplorable misfortune which befel the Christian Army which having lost a great deal of time had at last took the field to endeavour to finish in conquering the rest of Aegypt what they had so happily begun by taking the strongest of all the Cities of that Realm and it is this which I am now to treat of and in few words to give an Account of the Causes of this sad event After that the Army had passed the Winter at Damiata and the Country about it to recover themselves from so many Fatigues they were so far from being in a Condition to pursue their Conquests in the Beginning of the Spring that they found themselves more weak than at the end of the Siege for
proceedings he made a long Deduction in his Manifest how many and great Subjects he had of Complaint for the Injustices which he said were done him by Pope Innocent his Guardian during his Minority in seizing upon and usurping his Regalities and Rights and even by Honorius also whom he accused to have contrary to all Justice exacted many things of him which he was constrained to yield so much against his will that so he might receive from him the Imperial Crown which he could not in Justice have dispenced with himself in denying to place it upon the Head of an Emperour so lawfully Elected and who had two several times before been Crowned The Pope who was very prudent and of a temper very soft and sweet was resolved not to carry matters to Extremity and therefore he answered to these Complaints that he was a Father and that his Son though he were disobedient and undutiful yet was not therefore either a Stranger or an Enemy so long as there was any hope that he might return to his Duty He therefore satisfied himself to answer to the Complaints and Reproaches of Frederick with abundance of mildness in a long Letter which to speak properly was a Manifest or Apology for the Conduct of his Predecessors and his own year 1222 in reference to this Prince He exhorted him also by other Letters full of Tenderness and Reason seriously to recollect himself and to consider that as he was Emperor he was the Protector of the Church and that therefore he ought not to oppress her or take away her Liberties but to take pity of Christianity in the East which held up her suppliant hands to him from whom only she had hopes of being assisted But whether Frederick was moved by these Remonstrances of the Pope or whether he feared the dangerous consequences of this Rupture particularly in Lombardy where they began to form a great League against him it is certain that this procedure sweetned both Parties and that the Emperor satisfied the Pope taking all his Dominions into his Protection and that the Pope during all his Pontificate never proceeded further than these Menaces and Anathema's as may be seen plainly by the Letters of Honorius and that after this they both acted by Agreement for the Succour of the Holy Land in this following manner They had first a meeting at Veroli between the Cities of Anagnia and Sora where after a Consultation of five Dayes with the Cardinals they ordained that there should be another Conference to which were to be invited King John de Brienne the Legate Pelagius the Patriarch and the Great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who were better able than any others to give them such an understanding of these Affairs as might enable them to come to the last Resolution upon them After which the Emperor sent four Gallies to bring them over and upon their arrival this famous Conference was appointed to be held in Champagne in Italy the year following There it was that to ingage Frederick more strongly than ever to undertake this Holy War year 1223 it was agreed by common consent that this Prince who had in the preceeding year lost the Empress Constantia his Wife the Daughter of the King of Aragon should marry the Princess Jolante the Daughter of King John de Brienne the Heiress of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Conquest whereof it was believed he would take more Interest than before when it should be his own Estate for which he was to sight It was also ordained that in two Years he should part with all the Forces of the Empire at Midsummer to which those that were present and Parties obliged themselves by a Solemn Oath that whoever should fail in the performance of his Promise should be Excommunicate After which the Pope the Emperor and the King of Jerusalem parted every one to indeavour for his part according to his power to dispose all things for this Holy War which was to be begun two Years after For this purpose the King of Jerusalem who was able to do nothing more in Europe but to sollicite the Princes to contribute their part to this War went to desire the Assistance of England Spain Germany and above all in France where he arrived a little before the Death of Philip the August his Benefactor and Protector This great Prince who had laboured under a Quartan Ague for above a Year and who nevertheless did not cease to visit his Provinces and always to carry himself as a Great King with all the strength imaginable of a Soul which did not seem to be concerned at the weakness of the Body died this Year at the Castle of Mante the fourteenth day of July in the eight and fiftieth Year of his Age and the three and thirtieth of his Reign which by the Glory of his Actions by his Heroick Qualities by his Power and by the Force of his Arms he had rendred the most flourishing of all that France had ever seen since that of Charlemagne And as he had worn the Cross in the third Crusade which was famous for the remarkable winning of the City of Ptolemais so he gave in his Will a Noble Testimony of the Zeal which he still preserved for the Glory of Jesus Christ and for the Deliverance of his Holy Sepulchre For among other Magnificent Effects of his pious Liberality which are therein to be observed for the comfort and relief of the Poor for the Deliverance and Ransom of the Wife of Amauri Count de Montfort who was a Prisoner amongst the Albigenses and for other Works of Christian Piety he bequeathed three hundred thousand Livres for the Relief of the Holy Land one hundred thousand to King John de Brienne and so much to each of the two great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital nor was his going of the Theater of the World less glorious than his Actions on it year 1223 for there being at that time a Council assembled at Paris against the Albigenses they all assisted at his Funerals as did also the King of Jerusalem who was also present at the Coronation of Lewis the eighth the Son and Successor of King Philip. As for the Pope he being perswaded that it was to be in his Papacy that Palestine was to be reconquered which was the thing of the World which he most desired he did all that lay in his power to render the Crusade following most numerous and powerful He sent new Preachers throughout Europe to excite the People to undertake it he writ to the Bishops to oblige them to preach it themselves and to collect all the Money which the Ecclesiasticks were obliged to contribute out of their Revenues towards the carrying on of the Holy War And in short he did all that it was possible for him to do to oblige the Christian Kings and Princes to make Peace among themselves and to join their Forces to those of the Emperor and to march in Person
proceeding of the Emperor so little obliging nevertheless as he desired nothing so much as to quiet all those discords and Wars which might be prejudicial to that which he so much desired should be made against the Enemies of Jesus Christ and his Church he did not forbear doing what was most advantageous for the Emperors Interest insomuch that he perswaded the greatest part of the Cities of Lombardy who were confederated against him to lay down their Arms and obliged himself to obtain their Peace and pardon with the Conservation of their Privileges and Immunities upon condition that they should at their own charge maintain a certain number of Soldiers to serve under the Emperor for two years in the Holy War It was for the same reason that he hindred Henry the third King of England from Enterprizing any thing against France whilest Lewis the eighth made War against the Albigenses That King prosecuted the War against them with so much heat and Zeal that he did not spare continually to expose his Royal Person to all hazards and dangers and after having taken Avignion and the greatest part of the considerable places in Languedoc he was seized with that dangerous Malady which was got into his Army year 1226 of which he died at Montpensier the eight of November in the fourtieth Year of his Age and the third of his Reign leaving for his Successor his eldest Son Lewis the ninth of the Age of twelve years under the Regence of the Queen his Mother Blanch of Castile This was he who by the August Sirname of Lewis the Saint which was given him by God by the Authority which he hath given to his Church hath made himself be more gloriously distinguished by that title since his death than all other Kings have done during their lives by all the most Illustrious Sirnames and most magnificent appellations which men have bestowed upon them At last the term drawing near wherein the Emperor had obliged himself to begin this Voyage and that all things appeared better disposed than ever they had been before to the undertaking the Pope believed that the deciding Blow which he had so long desired was now certainly to be given And therefore redoubling his Efforts as one shall see a Flambeau blaze out twice or thrice with mighty Force before it is extinguished so he pressed the Crusades with so much Ardour that an infinite number of them came from all Europe into Italy it is reported that out of England alone there came above sixty thousand men to whom the appearance of a marvellous Crucifix from Heaven all glorious and shining in which were plainly to be seen the five Wounds had given so much Courage that they desired nothing so much as to combat and to die for Jesus Christ But as this devout Pope believed that he should enjoy upon Earth the Fruit of so much care and pains as he had taken to assemble so many Crusades he was taken more happily for himself to receive them in Heaven from whence he might see though without trouble in a small time after that which would have sufficiently afflicted him in this life that the Success of this Crusade proved quite otherways than he had vainly flattered himself withal in the time of his Pontificate But that a man may therefore never be disappointed there is nothing better than for any Person constantly to do what he ought to do and what he can do without promising himself any certainty of future contingencies and Events for which God alone is able to answer year 1227 He died at Rome the sixth of March in the Year 1227 and two days after the Sacred College by common consent gave him for his Successor the famous Hugoline Cardinal of Ostia who took the name of Gregory the ninth He was Nephew to Innocent the third who had imployed him in the most important Affairs of the Church a man of a mighty Spirit well made and of a Port extremely Majestick very knowing a great Canonist and of an irreproachable Life to whom St. Francis whose order he took into his Protection had predicted that he should be Pope He was in short of great Courage and incapable of yielding even in the greatest dangers but withal too quick in Execution of what he proposed without fearing the Consequences how mischeivous soever they might happen to be The first thing that he did after his Exaltation was to pursue the Enterprise of his Predecessor and to press the Emperor Frederick to put himself as soon as it was possible into a Condition to perform what he had so solemnly promised This Prince who after so many delays durst no longer desire the time to be prolonged appointed the Rendevouz to be at Brindes where the Shipping lay all ready for the Transportation of that Infinite number of Crusades who descended from all parts of Italy But as they came into Pavia during the great heats of the Summer which in that Country are excessive an Epidemical Distemper began to disperse it self among them which took off a great number and made others withdraw themselves though few of them ever returned into their own Country but perished miserably by the Way That which further contributed to the diminution of the Army was that a certain Imposture set up by some of the Principal Persons in Rome who had no kindness for the Pope as it appeared presently after counterfeited an Authority and Power from Gregory who had appointed him his Vicar for that purpose to take of the Cross from such as desired to be dispensed with as to the Performance of the Voyage and to commute their Vow into some considerable Alms of which this Cheat made his own advantage It is true that he was taken by the order of the Pope year 1227 and paid the price of his imposture but it was not till after many who were very glad to be dispensed with from a Voyage which they found already to be troublesome and dangerous had quitted the Cross by this Way which they believed was a very lawful and authentick way of being disbanded In short those who remained into Pavia came to Brindes with the Emperor and Lewis Lantgrave of Thuringia and Hesse who had conducted a gallant Troop of Germans who were imbarked about the middle of August and sailed towards Syria not doubting but they should be followed by the Emperor who seemed continually disposed and ready to part thither also And accordingly so soon as he saw the Lantgrave a little recovered of some Fits of a Fever which he had gotten in a little Island near Brindes whether he had gone to divert himself he put to Sea the eight of September with this Prince and the Patriarch of Jerusalem and those few Troops which remained But he sailed not far for the third day of the Navigation he commanded them of a sudden to tack about and stand for the Port of Otranto alledging that he found himself much indisposed and that in the Condition
a well known passion tied him and in which he expresseth himself in thoughts infinitely tender though at the same time full of that profound respect which he had lying so near his heart year 1236 So soon as he saw himself peaceably settled in his Dominions and that he believed himself safe on the side of Arragon the King of which Realm pretended some manner of ill grounded Title to that of Navarr he was resolved to accomplish the Vow which his Father Count Theobald had made when he took the Cross with the Earls of Flanders and of Blois He therefore took it himself and by his Example ingaged in the same Enterprise Hugh Duke of Burgundy Peter de Dreux surnamed Illclerk Duke of Bretagne John his Brother Count de Brain and Mascon Henry Count de Bar Guy Count de Nevers the Constable Amauri Count de Montfort the Counts de Joigni and Sancerre and many other Barons of France Navarr and Bretagne as the Counts Guiomar de Leon Henry de Goâ—tlo Andrew de Vitrey Raoul de Fougeres Geoffry de Avesnes and Fouques Paynel who all acknowledged him for their Head and General together with an infinite number of Crusades of France and Germany who waited only for a General of that high Reputation to conduct them year 1236 And certainly there was great probability of the Success of this third Effort which was about to be made happily to determine this Crusude if there had not happened Accidents which could not be foreseen which contributed extremely to the rendring it unfortunate and unsuccessful First by an unhappy Incounter it fell out that the Pope was obliged to publish in the same time another Crusade for the Relief of the Empire of Constantinople which was reduced to the last Extremity For the French as it is observed of them who know much better to make great Conquests in a little time than afterwards to preserve them very long were not so fortunate in keeping this Empire as they had been in gaining it the Emperor Baldwin the First lost it being taken prisoner in a Battle against the King of the Bulgarians who barbarously put him to death His Brother Henry who succeedeed him did truly for above ten Years hold it with great Success and Glory but his Successors found nothing of the same good Fortune For Peter de Courtenay Count d' Auxerre the Husband of Yolanda of Flanders Sister to the last Emperor having succeeded him was taken by treachery as he passed through Macedon to Constantinople and afterwards murdered by Theodore Comnenius Prince of Epirus and in a short time after the Empress who had taken her passage by Sea died of Grief at Constantinople after her delivery of the last Child she had by Peter her Husband Robert de Courtenay his second Son upon the refusal of his Eldest Brother Philip Count de Namur succeeded Peter in the Empire and had the Misfortune in his time to see it miserably dismembred For after he had lost a great Battle in Asia against John Ducas furnamed Vatacus the Successor and Son-in-Law of Theodore Lascaris the Conqueror took from him all that the French were Masters of on the other side the Bosphorus and the Hellespont And on the other side the Prince of Epirus won from him all Thessaly and a great part of Thracia insomuch that after his Death the French Barons seeing that his Brother Baldwin who was not above eight or nine years of Age was not in a condition to sustain the burthen of an Empire which was in so great disorder and attacked on all hands they sent to desire of the Pope to have King John de Brienne who was then the General of his Army for their Emperor assuring him that after his Death the Succession of the Empire should return to Baldwin who was to marry the Princess Mary his Daughter whom he had by his second Wife Berengera the Daughter of Alphonsus King of Castile It is true that this Emperor who was one of the greatest Captains of his time did in some measure re-establish the Affairs of this miserable Empire and with a poor handful of men he defeated a great Army which besieged Constantinople both by Sea and Land But at last two potent Armies Vatacus Emperor of the Greeks and Azen King of Bulgaria who had confederated against him attacked him on both sides with very great Forces whereas he had precisely no more men than were necessary to defend himself in Constantinople in which he was forced to shut himself up he was obliged to send Prince Baldwin his Son-in-Law to implore in Europe the Succours which he had so often desired and so long in vain expected and in the midst of these Transactions he died leaving to all Gentlemen in the History of his Life year 1237 an admirable Example by which they may learn by what ways they must expect in despight of all the disgraces of a malicious Fortune to raise themselves to the height of all earthly Greatness and Glories For he had nothing from his Father who would have constrained him contrary to his Martial Inclinations to devote himself to the Church notwithstanding which he made it his indeavour to find his good Fortune in himself and establish an Inheritance upon the Foundations of his Vertue and by that it was that he so well distinguished himself in the Court of Philip the August that that great Prince who knew how to esteem men for their Vertue judged him worthy not only of his Esteem but his particular Favour and after he had acquired a high Reputation for those Gallant Actions which together with his Brother he performed in Italy he raised him to the Throne of Jerusalem from whence it seemed that Fortune had not made him descend but to mount him with more Glory by his Vertue to the Empire of the East from whence it is easie to observe that true Merit is the best supporter of such Noble Persons who indeavour to obtain the favour of Kings year 1237 who without this are apt to tumble those down for their Vices whom they had for their pleasure raised rather than for their Vertue In this time Baldwin his Son-in-Law and Successor to the Empire found the Pope so well inclined to assist him that as if he had now had no other concern but for the Establishment of the Empire of Constantinople he writ to the Kings of France England and Hungary and to all the Bishops of those Realms to exhort them to contribute the utmost of their power to the Aid of the Emperor Baldwin the Second even so far as to permit those who had undertaken the Crusade for the Holy Land to change their Vow to that of succouring Constantinople He caused also a new Crusade to be preached every where for that purpose and that the greatest part of the money which was designed for the Holy Land should be employed that way Hereupon the Emperor Baldwin went into France and from thence into England with
Battle lasted two dayes the seventeenth and eighteenth of October wherein the Christians fought with more Courage but also with greater misfortune than ever they had done in all their former Battles year 1244 The whole Army was divided into three Bodies Gantier the third Count de Brienne and Jaffa Nephew to King John and the Son of that Count Gautier who died in the Conquests of the Realm of Naples commanded the Left Hand Body with the Knights of the Hospital The Sultan of Chamella or Emessa who conducted the Confederate Sarasins had the Right And the Patriarch accompanied with the other Knights and Barons was in the main Battle He had sometime before excommunicated the Count upon his refusing to give him a Tower in the Castle of Jaffa to which he pretended it being called the Patriarch's Tower This Prince who was a very good Christian and unwilling to have any thing lie upon his Conscience which might hinder him from courageously exposing himself to death demanded absolution of him two several times before they came to charge And as this Prelate without doubt criminally rigorous and too severe in an occasion of this nature persisted obstinately in his refusal to give it him The Bishop of Rama a man of great Courage and who made use of the Sword in this War against the Insidels as well as of the Cross in his Church unable to indure that by this accident so much leisure was given to the Enemies to range their Troops cried out aloud My Lord Let not this Scruple trouble you any longer Let us charge The Patriarch is in the Fault and therefore I absolve you in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost And thereupon the Count who took it for a sufficient absolution went to the Charge with his Lance couched and being followed by his Valiant Bishop he threw himself into the thickest Battalions and Squadrons of the Enemies in the place where he observed the Prince of the Corasmins invironed with all the most brave of his Army The Sultan of Emessa also on his side did very Nobly but he was not followed by above two thousand of his Sarasins the others flying upon the first Charge Nevertheless the Christians though abandoned by these Cowards yet never fought more bravely being resolved rather to perish in the Field of Battle than ever to quit it So that after having always maintained their ground without ever recoiling one step in two days from Morning until night at last oppressed by the Multitude of their Enemies who were not only stout men but also infinitely surpassed them in number and of whom notwithstandhing they made a horrible Carnage they were almost all either slain upon the place or taken Prisoners So great was this defeat that there escaped with the Patriarch Robert and some of the Bishops and Abbots not above three and thirty Knights of the Temple six and twenty Hospitallers and three of the Teutonick Knights the Constable Count Philip de Montfort Prince of Tyre Nephew to the Illustrious Count Simon and some hundreds of Soldiers who retired to Ascalon from whence they came to Ptolemais were all was in the utmost Consternation for this dreadful loss The great Masters of the Temple and the Teutonick Order were slain upon the place and the Master of St. John of Jerusalem was taken Prisoner and carried in Irons into Egypt as was also the brave Gautier de Brienne who after he was taken did an Action which made him triumph even in his Captivity over all the Forces of his Conqueror and which doubtless deserves to be recorded to his immortal glory For the Prince of the Corasmins who thought to make advantage of his being taken to gain the City and Castle of Jaffa caused the Valiant Count to be bound under his Arms to a Cross which he had erected before the Gate of the Castle telling the Soldiers of the Garrison who from the walls beheld this woful Spectacle that he would in the most cruel manner put the Count to death except they presently ransomed his life by the surrender of the place But this invincible Hero making a Sacrifice of his life to Jesus Christ to save that little remainder of his Inheritance in the Holy Land cried to his Soldiers as loud as ever he could from his Cross that they should take no care for him but leaving him to the rage of these Dogs to whom he should be obliged for the Crown of Martyrdom that they should courageously defend the place with which he had intrusted them not only for himself but to preserve it for Jesus Christ for whose only sake they had come into Palestine So that the Barbarian losing all hope of gaining the place by this cruel Artifice and not daring to attack it by main Force he would not also lose the opportutunity which he had of making an agreable Present to the Sultan of Egypt year 1244 to whom he sent the brave Count with the other Prisoners and in a few days after the Sarasins of Grand Caire who esteemed him their greatest and most terrible Enemy having demanded him of the Sultan who durst not deny them they fell upon him with the Fury of cruel Wolves or inraged Dogs and after having made him suffer an Infinite number of horrible Torments they tore him in a thousand pieces acquiring for him a thousand Palms and a thousand Crowns of Martyrdom for one which he had wished and which he believed he should have obtained upon his Cross before Jaffa Some years after St. Lewis who had the Memory of this great man in singular Veneration having recovered his Bones which the Admirals of Egypt caused to be restored to him he rendred to him at Acre all the Funeral Honours which were due untohim who had so gloriously given his Life to the Honour of Jesus Christ As for the Corasmins who had exercised so much cruelty upon the Christians and had committed so many horrible Sacrileges in the holy places they afterwards fell out among themselves and the Sultan of Egypt having drawn from them all the Service which he expected he drove them out of his Dominions so that they all miserably perished by the hands of the Sarasins themselves who united all against them for their destruction having a horror for them as the most wicked and most execrable of all Mankind Mean time the news of the lamentable desolation of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Christian Army and of the dangerwherein those few which remained were to be presently besieged by the Sultan of Egypt being brought to the Pope made him resolve to make his last Efforts to procure Succours for them from a General Council which he had convoked For this Pope fearing to fall into the hands of Frederick had saved himself by Sea at Genoa his Native Country and from thence he went by land by Montferrat and Savoy to Lyons where he put himself under the Protection of the King of France resolving to
Whitsunday the greatest part of the Knights and Soldiers descending from the Ships in their Arms into the Shallops and flat-Boats which were built in the Isle of Cyprus for the purpose the King ranged them in two great Lines which extended upon a long Front to possess the whole length of the Bank upon which the Enemies stood in Battalia in the same posture as the day before only the Sultan was not there by reason that his sickness increasing he had caused himself to be carried to a Country house about a League from Damiata The King was upon the right hand accompanied with the two Princes his Brothers the King of Cyprus the other Princes and the Flower of the Nobility and Knights who encompassed him with their Boats He was in his with the Cardinal Legate who himself carried his Cross which he held up aloft to animate the Soldiers by beholding the Saviour of the World represented dying for them and for whose sake they were going to expose their Lives The Bark which carried the Oriflame or Banner of St. Dennis went before all those which accompanied the King The Count de Jaffa was upon the Left hand drawing towards the Mouth of the River and appeared at the head of his Vessels in a magnificent Galliot painted all over with his Arms. And Count Errard de Brienne was in the middle of these two Squadrons with Baldwin de Reims who led a thousand Gallant Knights As soon as the Signal was given all these Vessels began to row towards the shoar and so soon as they approached within distance the Archers and Cross-Bows made a furious discharge to scatter the Enemy who advanced to the Bank shooting without Intermission from their side also and at the same instant sooner or later found themselves aground according as the Sea was deeper or shallower in diverse places to which they rowed the Soldiers leaped out of the Boats and advancing out of the Water upon the Sand they drew up in their Battalions covering themselves with their Bucklers and presenting the points of their Pikes and Swords to their Enemies who durst never so much as once charge them One of the first Barks which landed was that which carried the Banner of St. Dennis which the King no sooner perceived year 1249 but without staying till they could run his Barge aground and notwithstanding all the remonstrances of the Legate who used his utmost Power to restrain him he threw himself into the Sea up to the very Shoulders his Shield hanging about his neck his Cask upon his head and with his Sword in his hand he had in this Posture advanced directly against the Enemy if those who crouded after him had not in a manner by Force stop'd him till the Knights who animated by his Example precipitated themselves overboard with the desire to come up to him had put themselves into order of Battle as they did presently after Hereupon the Sarasins whom those who were already landed had beaten and repulsed twice or thrice seeing that the whole Army began to move to charge them in good order and that the King himself marched at the head of his Battalion they no longer thought of sighting but after a faint resistance the Governour of Damiata who commanded them being slain upon the place with two Admirals and a considerable number of their men they presently fell to running with so much Precipitation and disorder that they had not time to break their Bridge of Boats by which they entered into Damiata And that which was still more surprizing was that they instantly quitted the City which was one of the strongest in all Egypt and after having set fire to the Magazins and Merchants Ware-Houses they marched out and retreated towards Caire And to compleat the good Fortune of this famous day at the same time that the Army gained the shoar from the Enemy and that they fought upon Land in this Heroick manner the great Ships and the Gallies entring almost without resistance into the Mouth of the River constrained the Sarasins Ships to save themselves by Flight as they did all except those who having sailed up the River as far as the Bridge could not pass so soon through the passage which they had made but that they were taken by the Christians And in truth all this seemed to look like something miraculous to see a puissant Army which consisted principally in Cavalry routed in so short a time by so few men all on foot and all moiled in the Mud and Water so that they could not land but in small numbers and had scarce time to draw themselves up into some disorderly Battalions and that the Ships in which there were scarce any besides the Seamen should overcome and dissipate a great Navy well armed but above all that one of the strongest Cities of the East which it was believed could never be taken but by Famine should immediately after be abandoned by men who after all this were excellent Souldiers and wanted neither Skill nor resolution as had well been made appear both in Syria and as too well appeared afterwards in Egypt But besides that they were amazed at the Courage of the French and the surprizing Boldness of the King and that God as it may well be believed possessed their hearts with that kind of Pannick fear which makes valiant Men sometimes lose both their Judgment and their Courage I find that a false Rumor which was brought them of the Death of the Sultan by some who came from Caire and which was believed to be true by both the Armies contributed much to this extraordinary Event in regard that all the principal Officers had an inclination to go directly to Caire to take care of their particular Interests in this great revolution of Affairs which the Death of the Sultan would in probability make so that they thought no longer of Fighting or of keeping a City which they chose rather to set on fire than to leave it intire to their Enemies However it was it is most certain that they did abandon it and that so much of the Bridge of Boats as their precipitation had given them leave to break having been in a few hours repaired a great part of the Army marched over and seized upon it and having extinguished the Fire and cleansed the Houses and put the great Mosquee into the condition wherein it was when it was consecrated to God in the Honor of our Lady at the first taking of Damiata thirty years before the King made his solemn entry into the City And certainly he did it in a manner which evidently shewed that he had an intention that God alone should have the Honor of the Triumph of such a memorable Victory which had not been gained but by the extraordinary wonders of his Power and his Goodness For he commanded that the Cross should enter first year 1249 and should immediately be followed by the Legate the Patriarch the Archbishops the Bishops and all the
fire and constrained him to throw himself half burnt into the River where he was pursued by the furious Mutineers who murdered him close by the Gally where the Seneschal of Champagne was who from thence beheld this horrible Execution After which one of these Executioners having pulled out the heart of this miserable Sultan had the brutish impudence to enter into the King's Tent and in shewing it to him to say What wilt thou give me as a reward for having slain thine Enemy who if he had lived would have done the same to thee To which St Lewis made no other reply but by a Look which made him know that he had a horror for this execrable Parricide At the same time the greatest part of these Murderers following the Admirals entred like so many unchained Furies with horrible Cries and dreadful Menaces their Eyes sparkling with rage and fury and with frightful Countenances in which was painted the lively Image of their Crime they all together presented the points of their naked Swords to the Throat and Breast of this admirable Prince who without the least sign of astonishment and without losing any thing of that Royal Air which inspires the most barbarous Persons with respect for Sacred Majesty appeared so resolute and easie in the middle of these Savage Beasts as if he had been among his Barons And whether it pleased God who governs all hearts suddainly to sweeten those of the Barbarians and to calm the storm of their sury or that these Admirals were unwilling to lose the benefit of their Crimes by losing the Ransom of the King which they might divide among themselves they proceeded no further than to Menaces thereby to oblige him immediately to ratifie the Treaty which he had made and presently to put Damiata into their hands At the same instant their Companions who acted by agreement with them used the Princes and the Lords who were aboard the Gallies at the same rate so that they believing when they saw them come rushing in upon them with their Swords in their hands that they should all be presently butchered by the Infidels they all fell upon their knees to confess themselves to an Ecclesiastick who belonged to the Earl of Flanders The Sire de Joinville saith that as he was holding his neck ready for these hangmen The Steward of Cyprus Gui d' Ibelin who believed also that he was going to Execution confessed himself honestly to him and he adds very ingeniously that in good faith he gave him the best Absolution that he could giving him all that God had given him power to give but tells us that he could never remember one word of what the Cypriote confessed so was he prepossessed and taken up with the thoughts of that death which he saw present before his Eyes But all this was done by the Emirs for no other reason but to gain by these Menaces the present ratification of the Treaty which lay close to their hearts in consideration of that great Sum of Money which they hoped to get before there should be a new Sultan The King who had resolved to surrender Damiata for his Ransom in regard that he found by the Opinion of all the Lords of his Council that it was absolutely impossible to keep it in the condition wherein his Affairs then stood answered coolly to the Admirals that what he had once agreed ought to be unchangeable and that he was ready to renew the Treaty with them which he had before made with the Sultan Whereupon it was again concluded upon the same conditions on one side and the other only with this addition That before the King parted from the River he should pay two hundred thousand Livres to the Admirals That the Count de Poitiers should remain their Prisoner at Damiata till the whole was paid That for the security of the payment of two hundred thousand Livres more they should keep the Sick the Munitions the Arms and the Machins till such time as the King should discharge this Sum in the City of Acre There remained nothing now to be done but to confirm this Treaty by a Solemn Oath on the one part and the other as the Admirals desired They made theirs in the strongest terms in which it could be made according to their Law but when according to the Counsel which was given them by some Renegado's they would have imposed upon the King a dreadful Oath conceived in these Terms That in case he should fail in the accomplishment of his Promises he would be reputed perjured as a Christian who had renounced his God his Baptisme and his Gospel and as one that in despight of God had spit upon the Cross and trampled it under his Feet year 1250 he had such a horror for these fearful Expressions that he protested he would sooner lose his Life than wound his Conscience by taking such an Oath There were however learned men and Persons of Authority who maintained that he might with a safe Conscience take it provided that he was resolved to perform in reallity all that he should promise The Patriarch of Jerusalem also whom the Admirals had already caused to be tied to a Stake to torment him because they believed that it was he who had put this Scruple into the King's mind cried out to him that he should boldly take the Oath and that he would be answerable for all that was criminal in it so did likewise one Master Nicholas an Inhabitant of the City of Acre who was very much esteemed by the Sarasins in whose Customs and Language he was very skilful and of whom they made use in such occasions as his industry might be serviceable to them and he told the King plainly to perswade him to it that if he did not take this Oath the Infidels were resolved to cut off his Head and those of all the other Prisoners But all this was not able to shake the constancy of St. Lewis who would by no means expose himself to the danger of committing what he thought so black a Crime but answered with an admirable resolution That they might do what they pleased as for his own particular he would never do a thing of that Nature which was against his Conscience Whereupon the Emirs admiring the greatness of his Soul were so far from doing him any outrage that they submitted with respect and receiving Law from him satisfied themselves with such an Oath as he was pleased to take This shews us with how little light of Judgment and Integrity the Protestant John de Serres hath in his History recorded as an undoubted Truth one of the most improbable Fables that ever was invented when he tells us that St. Lewis for the security of his Promises pawned to these Emirs the Box wherein it was kept and the Sacrament of the Eucharist For what appearance is there that this Holy King who chose rather to die than to take an Oath which he believed was contrary to the Law of
and that he would dispense with this Article of their Rule from which they could every day dispense with themselves in other points that were much more Essential For the Lord Joinville who executed his Orders most punctually going into one of their Gallies with a good Hatchet which he had already lifted up to break open one of their strong Coffers in the name of the King the Marshal of the Temple who found that he would be obeyed caused the Keys to be given him and thereupon he took out what Money he pleased and the King who was very well satisfied with the Action instantly caused to be paid to the Sarasins not only the thirty thousand Livres which was wanting of the Sum which was due but also ten thousand more of which they had cheated themselves without perceiving it in weighing the Money in their Scales So exact was this incomparable Prince religiously to observe his Word and Faith even to those who had none themselves and who had so brutally violated that which they had given him with so many horrible Oaths After which the Count de Poitiers whom the Sarasins set at Liberty being come up to the Road which Philip Count de Montfort where the King who after the Money was paid was now gotten and staid for them they set Sail and in a few Days came happily to an Anchor in the Port of Ptolemais where this great Prince was received with as much Joy for his deliverance as there had been sorrow for his Captivity THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART IV. BOOK III. The CONTENTS of the Third Book The General Consternation all over France upon the News of the King's Imprisonment the Tumult the Shepherds their Original their Disorders and Defeat St. Lewis after his deliverance performs his Articles with great Justice The Admirals fail on their part The Original of the Hospital of the Fifteen Score The Councel debates the matter of the King's return The Reasons on the one side and the other It is at last concluded for his stay in Palestine Four Famous Ambassages to St. Lewis from Pope Innocent from the Sultan of Damascus from the Ancient of the Mountain and from the Emperor Frederick The Death of that Emperor and the different Opinions thereupon An Error of St. Lewis who loseth a fair opportunity of making use of one Party of the Sarasins to ruin the other The Election of a Mamaluke Sultan The gallant Actions of St. Lewis in Palestine The Death of Queen Blanch and the return of the King into France The Rupture and War between the Venetians and Genoese occasions the loss of the Holy Land The Conquests of Haulon Brother to the great Cham stops the Progress of the Sarasins The Relation of the Mamaluke Sultans They vanquish the Tartars which ravage Palestine The Character of Sultan Bendocdar the great Enemy of the Christians His Conquests upon them His Cruelty and the Glorious Martyrdom of the Souldiers of the Garrison of Sephet and of two Cordeliers and a Commander of the Temple The taking and Destruction of Antioch by this Sultan The quarrels between the Popes and the Princes of the House of Suabia obstruct the Succours of the West The Histories of Pope Innocent and the Emperor Conrade of Pope Alexander and Mainfrey against whom he vainly publishes Crusades The History of Charles d' Anjou to whom Pope Urban the Successor of Alexander and Pope Clement the Fourth give the Realms of Naples and Sicily as Fieffs escheated to the Church by Felony His Exploits his Battles and his Victories over Mainfrey and Conradin The deplorable Death of that young Prince The Victories of Charles cause the Pope and St. Lewis to entertain a Design for a new Crusade An Assembly at Paris about that Affair where the King the Princes and Lords take upon them the Cross All other Nations decline the Crusade The Collusion of the Emperor Michael Paleologus The Condition of the King's Army The Resolution taken to Attack Tunis and the Reasâ—ns wherefore The Description of Tunis and Carthage The taking of the Port the Tower and the Castle of Carthage The Malady makes great Destruction in the King's Army His Death Elogy and Character The Arrival of Charles King of Sicily The Exploits of the Army The Treaty of Peace with the King of Tunis who becomes Tributary to Charles The return of the two Kings their Fleet is horribly beaten by a Tempest Prince Edward of England saved his Vow to go to the Holy Land His Voyage his Exploits and his return The vain indeavours of Pope Gregory the Tenth for a new Crusade The second Council of Lyons The last causes of the loss of the Holy Land The quarrel among the Christian Princes for the Succession to the Kingdom of Jerusalem The Death of Bendocdar The defeat of his Successor by the Tartars The hopes of the recovery of all Palestine by the Arms of King Charles of Anjou ruined by the sad accident of the Sicilian Vespers The new division among the Princes and the Progress of the Mamaluke Sultans The Relation of the lamentable Siege and the taking of Acre by these Barbarians All the other places are lost and the Christians of the West wholly driven out of Palestine and Syria The vain and fruitless attempts which have since been made to renew the Crusades year 1250 WHilest matters went thus in the East the news which was received in France of the two Victories which the King had gained near Massora was followed with a false report which was currant of the defeat of the Sultan and the taking of Grand Caire And this coming from the Court of the Pope to whom the Bishop of Marseilles who had seen it in Letters Written to the Commandator of the Hospital of St. John had sent it Men being apt easily to believe that which they passionately desire there was no doubt made but it was true so that all was full of rejoycing even then when upon the suddain they were obliged to change this excessive joy into an extreme afflicton by the certain intelligence which they received of the loss of the whole Christian Army and the Captivity of the King and all the Princes And this Affliction was followed by most furious disorders year 1250 which were occasioned by the illusion and folly of some and the extreme Wickedness of others who made use of the simplicity of the former to commit with impunity the most detestable Crimes under the false pretences of Zeal and Piety for the deliverance of the King In Germany a Troop of Vagabonds mingled with young People and the Scum and Refuse of the Peasantry ran all over crying that they must make a Crusade for the deliverance of the Ring of France And a certain Hungarian Apostate of the Cistercian Order one of the most prosligate Villains in the World but very able and Learned in many Languages put himself at the
head of them and undertook to be their Captain Conductor For this purpose he passed into France with his Company and fell to Preaching as if he had been a Prophet and published this Crusade as he said from God Almighty for the deliverance of the King telling of a world of Miracles Visions and Revelations which he had especially from the Blessed Virgin and the Angels which these simple well meaning People especially the Countrymen and Shepherds looked upon as the express Commands of God For he said himself and caused it to be Preached also by his Impostors whom he sent abroad that Jesus Christ who was the good Shepherd and Innocence it self was resolved to make use of Shepherds and the good innocent Country People for the deliverance of the best King in the World And herewith he assembled an infinite number of young People Shepherds and Peasants who leaving their Teams and their Toils their Flocks and Herds took upon them the Cross and took up Arms all the Rabble joyning with them under this new head of the Crusade thereby to gain their Liberty under such a specious pretext as this of the deliverance of the King And in truth it was an Army of Villains of Thieves Murderers and Sacrilegious Wretches which was divided into Companies who had a Lamb painted in their Colours which gave occasion to their name of Shepherds He also himself created Captains among them who were called Masters to whom he gave the Sacrilegious Licence to exercise the Sacerdotal and Pontifical Functions so that they undertook to bless the People giving remission not only for Sins already committed but such as should be committed for the future making Marriages and Divorces according to their pleasure committing a thousand other Sacrileges and above all declaring War against the Priests and Monks whom they cruelly Murdered alledging they had drawn down the indignation of God upon the People and were by their dissolute Lives the cause of the King's Misfortunes and Captivity The People at first were so Sottish as to favour these new Crusades who where-ever they came committed infinite disorders Those of Orleans were so silly as to permit them to do what they pleased in their City where they put all the Clergy to the Sword They would have done the same at Berri where they began to Plunder but they found there some People too Wise and Courageous to endure it For after they had been driven out of Bourges where they thought to have done the same they did at Orleans the Gentlemen of Berri took Arms together with the Commons and pursued these Robbers and overtaking them between Mortemer and Villeneuve upon the Char they cut the greatest part of them in Pieces together with their Apostate General who was slain upon the place The remainder of this Rout who saved themselves by Flight and all that could be found of them in the other Provinces perished shortly after either by the Halter or by the hands of such as followed the Example of these brave Gentlemen of Berri to whom the Queen Regent was obliged for the Tranquillity which they restored to the state in the absence of the King who in this time was busie in the Affairs of the Realm of Jesus Christ in the East The first thing which he did after his Arrival at Ptolemais was to deliver all the Sarasin Prisoners according to his Promise and to send Men and Ships into Egypt to bring the Christian Captives from thence according to the Treaty as well those who were taken last as those who had been made Prisoners after the Truce of the Emperor Frederick with Sultan Meledin who had so generously exposed their Lives and Liberty for the Glory of Jesus Christ But these perfidious Admirals who already repented and reproached their own folly as they called it in letting so great a King escape out of their hands could never be perswaded to restore more than four hundred year 1250 of above twelve thousand whom they held in Chains at Caire unless he would pay more Money for their Ransom It is reported also that they did most inhumanely cause the Eyes of three hundred of the most Noble and bravest among the other Captives to be put out before they sent them back to the King thereby to put them out of a condition of ever being able to bear Arms against them any more And it was as it is credibly believed in Memory of these three hundred blind Gentlemen that St. Lewis afterwards founded the Famous Hospital of the fifteen score at Paris as it is declared in the Bulla which Pope Sixtus Quartus gave in the year one thousand four hundred eighty three in favour of that Famous House wherein there are at this Day maintained three hundred poor blind People of both Sexes according to the intention of their Founder St. Lewis But it was not here that the Perfidy and the Cruelty of these Infidel Emirs stopped for besides that they would never restore either the Arms the Horses the Munitions nor the Baggage of the Christians they picked out all the handsomest young Men and making them kneel down one after another under a Scymiter which the Executioner held up ready to give the blow they pressed them to renounce Jesus Christ and embrace the Law of Mahomet And in truth some of them overcome by a Cowardly fear of Death abandoned their Religion to preserve a Criminal Life which rendred them Infamous before God and Man for their base Apostacy but the greatest number of them dispising the Menaces of these Barbarians died gloriously in confessing Jesus Christ for whose sake they had taken upon them the Cross And thus it was that the Success of this Crusade which appeared so unfortunate in humane appearance became most happy in the sight of God whose Glory was highly exalted by these new Martyrs The King was surprized with this News and the perfidiousness of these Barbarians meaning well himself he thought during all the time of the Truce which he had concluded for ten years that nothing was to be feared as to Palestine but now perceiving he was deceived although he had caused the Ships to be made ready for his return into France yet he called an Assembly of all the Princes and Lords both of France and Palestine Where having opened to them the condition of his Affairs in France where it was apprehended that the English would make advantage of his absence as also the terms in which they then stood with the Egyptians who openly infringed the Treaty of the Truce and that in the most Barbarous and insolent manner in the World he commanded them to consider seriously what they thought fit to advise him thereupon and to give him their Opinions within eight Days Whether he ought to return into France or remain some time longer in the East The eight Days being expired the Council was reassembled where there were two Opinions directly opposite one to the other proposed The first was that of the
his Legates for his misfortune and writ to him most excellent Letters dated from Lyons the twelfth of August by which after he had said all the finest and most Christian things suitable to give consolation to a Prince in Afflictions of this nature he conjured him by no means to abandon Palestine but offered him all that he himself should think the Holy See was able to assist him in The Saâ—tan of Damascus also by his Ambassadors desired the conjunction of his Arms against the Mamalukes promising to yield to him thereupon the whole Kingdom of Jerusalem to which St. Lewis willingly accorded provided that the Admirals refused to give him satisfaction But they fearing the Arms of the King offered to give him all manner of satisfaction and to surrender to him all the Realm of Jerusalem which was in their hands provided that he would assist them against the Sultan of Damascus who they said offered the King what was none of his own And to manifest at this time that they dealt sincerely they sent immediately to him all the Christian Prisoners as also the Bones of Count Gantier de Brienne and sometime after the King peremptorily demanding that as a preliminary before he would enter upon a new Treaty with them they sent him the Heads of the Christians which they had set upon the Walls of Grand Caire and all the Children and Young People whom they had compelled to deny the Faith of Christ which alone were considerable Effects of the resolution which this Prince had taken to stay in Syria The Ancient of the Mountain also who at first according to his insolent custom had sent to demand a kind of Tribute which the other Princes had been used to pay him that thereby they might live in safety sent new Ambassadors to him with presents of Rock-Crystal in diverse Figures which was the only Rarity of his Country desiring his Amity and Protection in a most submissive manner And the King in return also sent him with rich presents Father Breton a Dominican who was very skilful in the Sarasin Language to endeavour his conversion although that pious design was not followed with answerable Success But that which was most taken notice of by the French Lords was the Ambassage of the Emperor Frederick who believing the King was still a Prisoner offered him all that lay in his Power for his deliverance and assured him that he had writ in most positive terms to the Sultan of Egypt of whose death he was then ignorant to let him know that he would renounce his Amity and his Alliance if he did not immediately restore the King to Liberty with all his People who were Prisoners In truth the greatest part of the French Lords distrusted the Intention of this Emperor in regard that although the King would never break with him notwithstanding his differences with the Pope yet nevertheless that Prince had alway manifested a displeasure because St. Lewis had protected Pope Innocent by affording him a Sanctuary in France and giving him the Liberty to hold a Council at Lyons where matters were carried so high against him However they rejoiced mightily that these Ambassadours did not arrive till after the King had regained his liberty in regard their was reason to be afraid lest if they found him still a Prisoner they might possibly have endeavoured underhand to hinder his deliverance But let it be as it will this was one of the last Actions good or bad that Frederick did for he died not long after in the same Year at Tarentum the third of December As the Actions of his Life were diversly discoursed of so was also his Death some will have it That he died impenitent without any fence of God or Religion without Sacraments That he was poysoned and also strangled by the hands of Mainfrey one of his Natural Sons whom he had made Prince of Tarentum and who by this Parricide thought to seize upon his Treasure and the Kingdom of Sicily And the Monk of Padua makes no manner of difficulty to send him directly to Hell loaden as he clownishly enough expresseth it with a Sack full of his sins On the contrary others affirm that he died very peaceably in his Bed between the Arms of the Arch-Bishop of Palermo year 1250 who gave him absolution he having confessed himself with marvellous Sentiments of contrition and humility that he forgave all his Enemies and submitted himself wholly to whatsoever the Church should ordain concerning the restitution of what appertained to it by his Will giving great Alms to pious uses and commanding that for the health of his Soul all the Prisoners which were in the Empire and in his other Kingdoms except Traitors to the State should be set at Liberty and in short saying and doing all the great things which might give hopes of his Salvation But it is frequent to find in History Relations directly contrary one to another which the Passions of contemporary Historians who have been ingaged in different Parties have left us and wherein it is not very easie to distinguish Truth from Falsehood which many times fails not of very plausible Probabilities to impose upon the Reader For my own part who if I could avoid it would neither deceive any nor be deceived I leave the Judgement of this Dead Prince to God Almighty to whom only it appertains and in his Character which I have given I have drawn both the good and the ill qualities which appeared during his Life and as to what appertains to the History of the Crusades I only say that as appears by an extract out of his last Will and Testament which may be seen in the Imperial Constitutions of Goldastus he gave a Legacy of a hundred thousand Ounces of Gold towards the carrying on the War for the recovery of the Holy Land and certainly this deserves so well that an Historian of the Crusades is bound to shew some respect to the Memory of an Emperor who after all performed many most brave and noble Actions if he had not had the misfortune to do some very ill ones year 1251 Mean while the King finding that he had now an Army able to take the Field he parted from Acre towards the end of the Winter and went to incamp near Cesarea which the Sarasins had demolished and which he undertook to rebuild and fortifie as he did neither the Sultan of Damascus nor the Egyptians offering to oppose him in regard that both the one and the other were in continual hopes to conclude their Treaty with him and to strengthen themselves by his assistance in the War which they were about to make Here it was that the Admirals of Egypt to anticipate their Enemy and ingage the King into their Party sent their Commissioners to assure him that they were ready to surrender the Young Runnegado's and the Heads of the Christians which they had set upon the Walls and Towers of Grand Caire and that they would also acquit him
moment and desolated to that degree by the Mamalukes that it became a vast solitude as it still continues to this Day So little assurance is there of any thing in this World where there needs no more but one Moment to Ruin and Destroy what hath been growing a many Ages Thus Bendoedar who found no more Enemies in the Field to give the least check to his Conquests still pushed his good Fortune forward into Syria whilest the Christians of the East divided into divers Factions seemed to combine with him for their mutual destruction And in vain were any Succours expected from the West for the Assistance which the Armenians and the Tartars came to desire against the Sarasins were always either hindred or diverted by the Quarrels which continued between the Popes and the House of Suabia and which were not to be determined but by the downfal of that Noble House to raise upon its ruines that of France which consequently took up the design of that Crusade again And it is this which I am now obliged to relate for the finishing of this History of the Crusades After the Death of Frederick the Second Pope Innocent did not fail to Excommunicate Conrade the Eldest Son of that Prince because he stiled himself Emperor against William Earl of Holland whom some German Princes who were of the Pope's Party had chosen to oppose Frederick Conrade who wanting the good qualities of his Father had all the ill ones and all the fierceness the Cruelty the insatiable desire of Revenge and the implacable hatred against the Popes entred with great Forces into Italy where he was with joy received by the Gibelins and favoured by the Venetians upon whose Shipping he passed the Gulph into Pavia and having joyned the Troops of his natural Brother Mainfrey his Lieutenant General in that Realm year 1268 he reduced under his obeysance in a short time what ever had declared for the Pope and having at last taken Naples he there executed his most cruel Vengeance by the Desolation of that fair and flourishing City This so amazed the Pope Innocent who after he had struck him with the Anathema had no other Arms to which he might have recourse to oppose him that he believed he was obliged to cause a Crusade to be published against him which without doubt did not contribute much to the Success of that which proved so unfortunate against the Sarasins And at the same time he caused the two Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily to be offered first to Charles d' Anjou who would not then accept them without the consent of the King his Brother who was then in Syria and afterwards to Richard Brother to Henry the King of England but he also refused them not thinking it was at all agreeable to Justice or a good Conscience to despoil the young Prince Henry his Nephew to whom the Emperor Frederick had left for his share the Kingdom of Sicily Whilest matters stood thus Conrade who had underhand procured the Death of this little Prince his Brother that he might have his Kingdom died himself of Poison which as it was believed was given him by his Brother Mainfrey to whom as not suspecting him Guilty of his Death Conrade left the Tuition of his Son Conradin then an Infant of the Age of three Years Innocent resolving to take advantage of his Death went and presented himself before Naples where in hatred of Conrade he was received with great Applauses Mainfrey himself being surprized also submitted to him and was received with all Civil treatment But presently after throwing himself into Nocere whither the Emperor Frederick had transplanted the Sarasins of Sicily he raised an Army and took the Field and Fortune declaring her self at first in his favour he in a Battle defeated the Army of the Pope which was Commanded by the Cardinal de Fiesque the Nephew of Innocent who being then Sick when he received this News at Naples died in a few Days after Alexander the Fourth his Successor had also the same Fortune for having Excommunicated Mainfrey this Prince who from the Example of his Father had learnt not to fear these Roman Thunderbolts Marched directly against the Pontifical Army which had taken the Field under the Conduct of Cardinal Vbald and he not being so great a Captain as his Enemy also lost a Battle which was fought between them Hereupon Mainfrey fierce with these two Victories and sure of the Favour of the Populace which always follows the strongest side caused himself to be Proclaimed King of Naples and Sicily with as much ease as he had with dexterity caused the report to be spread of the Death of the little Conradin his Nephew After which he lead his Victorious Army into the Ecclesiastick Estates where finding little resistance he seized upon the County of Fondi and his Partisans being animated by the report of his Victories the Gibelin Faction became presently the most powerful but principally in Lombardy Tuscany and even in Rome it self Alexander astonished with this Progress and fearing that he should at last fall under the Power of such a formidable Enemy had recourse to the King of England and following the Example of Innocent he offered him the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily for his Son Edmund to whom he also sent the Investiture of them and to oblige that King to undertake the enterprise he absolved him from the Vow which he had made in taking the Cross to be of the Crusade against the Sarasins in the East by changing it into that which he caused to be Preached every where against Mainfrey Also fearing lest the Partisans of the House of Suabia should place Conradin upon the Imperial Throne in the room of Count William who had been slain in the War against the Frieslanders he sent Prohibitions to all the Electors requiring them under pain of Excommunication not to chuse that young Prince But all this which signified just nothing against Mainfrey did a World of mischief to the Crusade which was designed against the Sarasins The Parliament which the King of England had called at London upon the subject of the Neopolitan War would give the King no Money and afterwards all the great Men of the Realm happening to be Embroiled with the Royal House this Project of the Pope's did not Succeed And for Germany one part of the Princes having chosen for their Emperor Alphonso King of Castile and the other Richard Earl of Cornwall year 1268 Brother to the King of England there arose a Schism in the Empire which occasioned mighty Troubles and Disorders there So that Italy Spain England and Germany having so many troublesome Affairs upon their hands there remained only France in a condition to serve the Holy See to any purpose in this occasion and all Christendom indeed against the Infidels For this reason therefore Vrban the fourth the Successor of Pope Alexander having again vainly tried the way of a Crusade against Mainfrey which for want of
of War in Africa and that they wanted refreshments and above all fresh Water which is very scarce in that Country Diseases and especially the Flux and Fevers fell into the Army and in a short time made a most fearful destruction The greatest part of the bravest and youngest men of the Army were unable to resist the violence of this terrible Enemy which daily carried off abundance of them And among the rest John Tristan Count de Nevers a Young Prince of about twenty years of Age died upon the third of August and the King his Father who loved him most tenderly although it was a most sensible Affiction to him yet sacrificed it to the Will of Heaven with the resignation and constancy of a Christian Hero The Cardinal Legate did not survive the Young Prince above four or five days and Philip the eldest Son of St. Lewis was also seized with a quartan Ague of which by the Strength of his Age and the heat of the season he was quickly delivered But the King his Father who had already fallen into the Flux being shortly after seized with a continual Fever left the whole Army languishing with extreme Grief for his death which happened the five and twentieth day of August after he had received the Sacrament with an admirable Presence of Mind an incomparable Piety and Sedateness of Spirit having nothing in his heart or upon his lips but the Glory of God for which only he had undertaken this Voyage He was constantly saying with a dying but Intelligible Voice to those who applyed their Ear to his Mouth to receive his last words For the Love of God let us indeavour some way to have our Holy Faith preached and received at Tunis Ah! My God whom shall we find to send thither to declare thy Gospel It must be such a one would be say naming a certain Religious of the Order of St. Dominick who was known to the King of Tunis and with these Zealous Ejaculations and this Apostolick fervency which he had for the conversion and salvation of Tunis he rendred his pious Soul into the hands of Almighty God precisely at the same hour that Jesus Christ gave up his to his Father making the same wishes for the Salvation of the whole world I have believed that in the quality of an Historian of the Crusades I was obliged in giving an account of the death of St. Lewis to recount this admirable circumstance which is so essential to my Subject since it shews so well what was the end which he proposed to himself in forming this Enterprise of Tunis and for the other particularities which in such a wonderful manner appeared in his death and all that which is so precious before God in the death of the greatest Saints as they do not properly began to my Crusades I leave them as well as the other admirable and Holy Actions of his miraculous life to those able Writers who so many years ago have promised us and who as I hope will write it exactly after so many Originals and so many Copies as the Writers of his own and the following times have left us I shall only add to give some Idea of his Body and of his Mind that he was then about the Age of five and fifty years of a middle Stature and a delicate Complexion but which he had greatly weakned by his great Austerities His Visage was something long but full his Forehead large and Majestick his head a little inclining to one side his Eyes extreme sweet his Mouth little and pleasing his Speech easie and very agreable and in his whole Person an Air of Goodness so winning and so charming especially in a King that it was impossible to look upon him without loving him or to love him without paying him that respect which was due to the Majesty of so great a Prince And for the Qualities of his Soul whether Natural or acquired one may say That there are few Princes who have possessed them in those high Degrees of Perfection as he did for he had an admirable composure of Spirit quick and clear and which he had cultivated by the Study of polite Learning and a solid Judgement so that he was always the most able Person of his Council always penetrating further than any of them when any difficult matter was under consideration having very easie conceptions of things and expressing himself extempore with much Gracefulness and Ingenuity year 1270 whatever he had to deliver governing much by himself especially after his return from the Holy Land but yet never acting but with the advice of his Council except in the Treaty which he made with the English to whom to oblige them to quit the rest he surrendred Guienne and Gascony not out of any scruple as Nangis writes since he himself acknowldged in Council that the Kings of England could not pretend any Right to them but for Peace sake although herein his Policy was much mistaken by reason that this Treaty having brought a Stranger into France brought a War upon it which lasted above two hundred years before he could again be expelled out of it This indeed is the only blemish with which St. Lewis can be reproached for having in this occasion contrary to the advice of his Council suffered himself to be too far misled by the Goodness of his Nature For as for any thing else there was nothing to be found in his Life but an admirable composure of all Royal and Christian Vertues in a most exact Temperament For he was the most valiant courageous fearless firm and immoveable in the midst of the greatest dangers and withal the most sweet pacifick kind and most easie of Mankind Austere humble modest devout respectful to the Holy See zealous for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls retired patient and mortified above all that is admired in the most Apostolick Men and the most Renowned among Recluses for their penitent Life and yet nowithstanding at the same time he was obliging affable complaisant and of an agreable humour in his Conversation familiar with his Confidents easie in his Domestick Affairs an admirable Husband an indulgent Father a sure Friend a good Master and a most excellent King loving his Subjects and reciprocally beloved by them firm and inexorable in causing Justice to be done his Ordinances and Laws to be observed Jealous of the Rights of his Crown and those of the Gallican Church conformable to the Common Law against all the abuses all the Novelties and the indeavours of such as would shock them he was liberal and magnificent in the ordinary expences of his Houshold in Ceremonies and publick entertainments which upon certain occasions he made very much to the Honour of France with a Splendor and Majestick Pomp far surpassing all his Predecessors which made him be equally admired both by the French and strangers In short there was never seen a more perfect accord than what appeared in this admirable Monarch
of Royal Majesty mingled with true Sanctity of Christianity without Illusion without Weakness and without Defaults And I cannot tell whether one can find another of whom may be said with so much Justice what I have said of this Christian Hero to finish in one word his Character and his Elogy That he Was the greatest King of a Saint and the greatest Saint of a King that ever any age hath known The Army of France was under an extreme consternation for the death of the Holy King and for the Indisposition of Philip his Successor and their was great probability that they should in that very moment abandon this unlucky Enterprise if the King of Sicily who was in a great measure by his long delay the Cause of this ill Success had not by a strange adventure arrived with a fair Fleet at the very same time that his Brother the King breathed out his last As he was a great Captain and that his Army which was composed of Neapolitans Sicilians and Provencals was very fresh and he having still in his head his first design to assure himself of the Kingdom of Tunis in at least making the Sarasin King become his Tributary he easily persuaded the French that it was for their Honour to finish the War which they had begun with so much Courage and which they might bring to a happy period being strengthened by the Conjunction of such a Potent Army as desired nothing so much as to be led to the Combat against the Sarasins Hereupon the Army advanced towards Tunis to block it up more closely and for three Months there were every day some little Encounters with the Moors who always went off with disadvantage And it is also reported that they were once overthrown in a set Battle that their Camp was taken and plundered and that such of them as fled thinking to save themselves in the City blindly precipitated themselves into those trenches which they had digged in the Fields with a design to have the Christians fall into them but in regard those of our Historians who writ in those times say nothing of any such matters I dare not be confident of the truth of them year 1268 That which is very certain is That the King of Tunis seeing that the Christians daily gained upon him and that he was always beaten fearing that in conclusion he should lose his Kingdom he sent to desire a Peace or at least a Truce offering to submit to such conditions as the two Kings themselves should judge to be fair and reasonable This matter was long debated in the Council of War in which many were of opinion that the Siege ought to be vigorously pressed on without hearkning at all to the Proposition of the Sarasin King who they said after the losses which he had sustained was in no Condition for any long time to defend the City But the King of Sicily remonstrated to them That if they should take the Town of which they were not to be too confident yet it was impossible for them to keep it in regard That though the whole Army might be commodiously quartered there it being now very near Winter they could not receive either from Italy or Sicily so much provision as was necessary for the subsistence of the Troops and that if they left there only a Garrison it would not be able to defend it against all the Forces of Africa which would most certainly attack it And therefore he concluded that the way for them to come off with Honor and safety in this Affair was rather to treat with the King of Tunis in an honourable and advantageous manner and like Conquerors rather to give him Law than to put themselves into the manifest danger of losing all Thus in regard that King Philip was also very willing to go as soon as he could to take possession of his Kingdom a Truce of ten years was concluded with this Insidel Prince upon these following Conditions That he should presently pay a round sum of Money upon which they were agreed to defray the Charges of the War That he should deliver all the Christian Slaves which were in his whole Realm That he should permit the Religious of the Orders of St. Dominick and St. Francis to preach the Gospel and to build Monasteries there and to all his Subjects Liberty to receive Baptism And that he should yearly pay to King Charles a Tribute of forty thousand Crowns which was the sum that the King paid to the Pope for the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily See what were the aims of Charles for his private Interest and what it was which made many honest People murmur against him as beleiving that he had no mind to take Tunis because he could not hope to dispose of it as he pleased and that he had not advised this War but for his own Ends to make this Sarasin King his Tributary Prince Edward of England also who arrived before Tunis with his Fleet at the same time that this Treaty was concluded could not hinder himself from making the extreme displeasure which he had at it appear publickly especially when he saw that the Fleets of France and Sicily without thinking any further of their principal design which was the Holy War were upon the point of returning home And indeed so soon as the King of Tunis who was very desirous to quit himself of these People who had put him into the fear of losing his Capital City and his Kingdom had delivered the Captives and paid the Money which was agreed upon by the Treaty the two Kings imbarked Philip with the Bones of his Father which according to the Custom of those times were separated from the Flesh and Charles with the Flesh and Entrals of that Holy King which he caused afterwards to be magnificently interred in the Church of the Abby of Montreal near Palermo And certainly it was very advantageous to these two Kings that they carried with them in their Ships the Sacred Remains of that Saint which preserved them from that Lamentable Wreck which the greatest part of the others suffered in View of the Port of Trepano in Sicily eighteen of the biggest men of War and a great number of smaller Vessels with all the Money which was received of the King of Tunis and above four thousand men were cast away in this Tempest and it was not without great difficulty that the Kings were able to make the Port of Trepano where Thibald King of Navarr who was sick before when he came from Tunis in a few days after his landing died Queen Isabella his Wife the Daughter of St. Lewis did not survive him long for about four Months after she died at Yeres in Provence And for King Philip having taken his way by Land as far as Messina he passed over into Italy and so crossing quite through it and France he came to St. Dennis year 1270 whither he brought the Relicks of the King St. Lewis his Father
Prince Henry de Poitiers the Son of Bohemond the fourth of that name Prince of Antioch and of Plaisance the Daughter of Hugh Lord of Giblet From Henry de Poitiers and Isabella de Lusignan sprung Hugh the third who after the death of his Cousin Hugh the Second who died without Issue was King of Cyprus in Right of his Mother The last Husband of Isabella the Daughter of Amauri King of Jerusalem was Emeri King of Cyprus who had by her the Princess Melisantha who was second Wife to Bohemond the fourth Prince of Antioch and Father to Henry de Poitiers and by her he had the Princess Mary of Antioch who was the Subject of this difference For immediately after the death of Conradin Hugh the third the King of Cyprus who was descended in a right Line from Alice de Champagne the Daughter of Queen Isabella by her third Husband passed into Palestine and at Tyre caused himself to be crowned King of Jerusalem in right of his Grandfather But the Princess Mary of Antioch maintained that the Realm appertained to her in regard that being the Daughter of Melisantha she was nearer by one degree to Queen Isabella than Hugh who was the Son of her Cousin The Process hereupon lasted a long time The Princess Mary opposed the Coronation of Hugh but perceiving that the Patriarch took little notice of her opposition she appealed to the Holy see and came in person to pursue her right before Pope Gregory the tenth who appointed Delegates for the Examination of the matter She also presented her self to the Council of Lyons and there demanded Justice And the cause being remitted to the Barons of the Realm who neither esteemed nor much loved King Hugh the Princess at length with the consent of Pope John the twenty first judicially transferred to Charles d' Anjou King of Naples and Sicily all her Right and Title upon certain conditions by a Treaty year 1277 which was signed by the Cardinals and the Prelates of the Court of Rome And by this Right it is that the Realm of Jerusalem which hath been possessed by the Princes of the House of Suabia Kings of Sicily as Descendants from Queen Isabella year 1277 by Jolanta her Grand-Daughter the Wife of Frederick the Second was devolved to Charles d' Anjou and his Posterity and for this reason the Dukes of Lorrain who are descended from Ranatus d' Anjou King of Sicily by Jolanta his only Daughter Mother to Ranatus Duke of Lorrain bear the Cross of Jerusalem together with the Arms of the House of Anjou which they have added to their Atchievements The Kings of Arragon who usurped Sicily from the Anjouin Family and after them the Kings of Castile heirs to the House of Arragon have also taken to their Arms the Cross of Jerusalem and the Title of that Realm And thus these Princes have pleased themselves with the Shadow the Name and the empty shew leaving the Body the Substance and the reality to the Infidels the weak for want of Power and the strong for want of Zeal chusing rather to imploy their Arms in less difficult Enterprises For it is more easy to take what may be had of what is our own than to recover what belongs to us and might be had though not without trouble charge and hazard In the mean time Charles who resolved to take possession of his new Realm sent Roger Count de St. Severin to Ptolemais where he was received by the Governor who put the Fortress into his hands And King Hugh having refused two or three several times to appear before the Barons to make out the Reasons of his pretensions to that Realm they acknowledged Charles d' Anjou for their King and did him Homage which did still more augment the Division by reason that the King of Cyprus having his Party although it was weak yet was it able to give abundance of trouble even in Ptolemais which he had like to have surprized And certainly there was much danger lest Bendocdar who was so admirably skilled in making his own advantage in such opportunities should lay hold of this to seize upon those small remainders which were yet possessed by the Christians in Syria but that God himself was pleased to deliver them from this formidable Enemy For this Sultan receiving information that the Tartars had besieged a Fortress which he had upon the Euphrates he Marched immediately to relieve it and causing his Cavalry to Swim over this great River he thought to have surprized his Enemies but they received him so well that they cut in pieces almost all his Troops and it was not without great difficulty that he himself escaped having received a dangerous Wound in the Encounter but at last he got to Damascus where the Flux and Fever coming upon him by reason of his Wound he died in a few Days after the Battle It is impossible to express the joy which his Death occasioned among the Christians but it was much increased by the taking of the Fortress of Margath and by the Defeat of the Sarasins who indeavoured to retake it from the Knights of the Temple but above all by the great Victory of the Tartars for these People being entred into Syria laid all wast before them without giving any Quarter to the Sarasins when at length Melech-Sais the Successor of Bendocdar Marched out of Egypt with an Army of two hundred thousand Men to give them Battle The two Armies met and fought most furiously in the plain of Emessa and after a most terrible Slaughter on both sides the Egyptians in conclusion lost the Day and the Tartars who had also lost abundance of Men satisfying themselves with their Victory and the huge Booty which they had taken returned again beyond the Euphrates This without all doubt had been a conjuncture extremely favourable to the Christians and Charles King of Sicily who was the greatest Captain of his time an extreme lover of Glory and Greatness and who at the Solicitation of Pope Gregory the Tenth had taken the Cross and as King of Jerusalem had the principal Interest in the Holy War would certainly have led a powerful Army into Syria to recover the Realm of Jerusalem as was the Expectation of the whole World But the cruel adventure of the Sicilian Vespers year 1281 which happened almost at the same time having overthrown all his designs did also ruin all the hopes and the Affairs of Christendom in the East For on the one side King Hugh year 1282 who had been obliged to return into Cyprus entred now again into Syria year 1283 to make advantage of the Misfortune of King Charles and seized upon Tyre year 1284 and after his Death which happened at the same time King Henry his Son who succeeded to his Brother John was received in Ptolemais besieged and in five Days took the Fortress year 1286 and caused himself to be Crowned King of Jerusalem this also made the division increase among the Christians who divided
themselves between the two Parties On the other side the Sultan Melech Sais retook the Fortress of Margath and made himself Master of the Castle of Laodicea and that of Crac which was one of the strongest places in Syria year 1287 and as at last he was preparing to lay Siege to Tripolis he abandon'd all upon the news which he had of the Death of his Son and returned into Egypt where Elsis one of his Emirs who was mightily esteemed by the Mamalukes tumbled him from the Throne and was chosen Sultan in his place by the name of Melech-Messor This Sultan who was a great Souldier re-entred presently into Syria where he besieged Tripolis year 1288 and at last took it by Assault Seven thousand Christians were there Slain year 1289 and the rest saved themselves by Sea partly in Cyprus and partly in Ptolemais The Sultan who was as able and dexterous as he was Valiant caused this great City to be demolished that so he might not be forced to keep a whole Army in Garrison there and after having taken several places thereabout he made a very advantageous Truce for two Years thereby to frustrate the Design of the Forces which he foresaw would be sent out of Europe against him And indeed a very considerable assistance which the Pope sent at his own charges into the East upon twenty Venetian Gallies arriving not till after the conclusion of this Truce was constrained to return without doing any thing It happened also that an infinite conflux of People of all Nations without Order and without Leaders coming to Ptolemais and finding no imploy committed so many disorders indifferently upon the Lands of the Christians and the Sarasins that the Sultan who only wanted an occasion to break the Truce to his advantage laid hold of that which he believed very favourable to execute the design which he had upon Ptolemais whilest the Christian Princes whom he knew to be ingaged in Wars one against another in Europe had neither Power nor Will to assist it year 1290 For this purpose as he had always a powerful Army on Foot he entred suddainly in the Month of October in the year following and advanced towards Phoenicia and then when he was upon the point of going to invest Ptolemais the Emir whom he had made his Lieutenant thinking by the favour of the Souldiers to obtain his place gave him Poison whereof he died But this did not prevent the Execution of the Design For the Mamalukes who loved Melech-Messor extremely pull'd the Traitor who had poisoned him in a thousand pieces upon the spot and Proclaimed his Son Ely Sultan by the name of Melech-Seraph This new Prince resolved to pursue the design of his Father who at his Death conjured him not to suffer his Body to be Interred before he had taken the City and driven out the Christians And for this purpose therefore without giving them leisure to make any advantage of this so sudden and great change turning short to the left hand towards the Sea he came and laid Siege before Acre or Ptolemais upon the fifth of April year 1291 in the year one thousand two hundred ninety one with an Army of one hundred and sixty thousand Foot and threescore thousand Horse Ptolemais of whose Situation and Strength I have given an account in the fifth Book of this History was at this time one of the fairest richest and most flourishing Cities of all the East by reason of the great Commerce of all the Merchandises which were brought thither from Egypt and Asia by Land and Sea to be from thence transported into Europe And as it was become the Capital City of the Realm since the taking of Jerusalem and the Sanctuary where all the Christians of Palestine took Refuge after the loss of their Cities so it was also then more Populous than ever it had been and such great Industry had been used in these late times in fortifying it that it was thought to be impregnable above all having at least thirty thousand Men well Armed to defend it besides eighteen thousand Crusades who were arrived there a little before without a Commander But this unfortunate City had within its Walls two kinds of Enemies infinitely more formidable than all the Forces of the Sarasins and which were the cause of its being lost year 1291 The first was the division which occasioned most fearful Disorders in regard that besides that there were two Factions which held one of them for the King of Cyprus and the other for the King of Sicily the Venetians the Genoese the Pisans the Florentines the English the Templers the Hospitallers the Teutonick Knights the Princes of the Country and even the Patriarch and the Legate of the Pope would every one so divide the Government as to be independent upon all others so that it might be said that there were in Ptolemais so many different Cities as there were quarters possessed by these Orders and different People who were not only without a Head whose Supreme Authority and Orders they should all obey but who were for the most part in Arms one against another And that which was yet more deplorable and which doubtless was the principal cause of the Desolation of this unfortunate City was that the Corruption of manners was so great and the irregularities of Peoples Lives or rather the inundation of all manner of Crimes and even of the most Infamous and Scandalous Vices were so excessive and horrible that the Divine Justice was even necessitated to exterminate such an abominable Race of Men who calling themselves Christians by their Actions so Wicked and Impious Blasphemed that and his Sacred Name among the Infidels So that one may say as one of the Authors of that time does who was a long time in the Holy Land and averrs it for a deplorable Truth That of all the People which inhabited Syria and Palestine the Christians were the most notoriously lewd and wicked The Sultan who had such a numerous Army and composed of expert Souldiers and above all his Mamalukes who were extreme brave attacked the City upon the Land side by main Force battering the Walls and the Towers Night and Day making abundance of Mines every where and sapping the Foundations of the Towers particularly those of the Tower called Judasses or the Cursed Tower which was as it were the Fortress of the City The besiged also at first defended themselves vigorously being in continual hopes of relief by the way of the Sea which they had open and being united for their better defence under one Chief whom by common consent they chose among all the Captains which was William Beaujeu Great Master of the Temple a most Valiant Man and perfectly skilful in Martial Affairs But there arrived to their assistance only five hundred Foot and two hundred Horse who were conducted by the King of Cyprus And the Great Master of the Temple being unfortunately slain with a poisoned Arrow they lost their Courage
Constantinople where for the Punishment of his Crimes he is thrown headlong from a high Columne Old Alexis taken His End The Glorious Success of this Crusade THE Imperial City of Constantinople of which I have given the Survey and exact Description in the Second Book of the History of the Iconclastes conformable to the Condition wherein it was under the Empire of Constantinus Copronymus was neither so strong so fair nor so well peopled at that time as it was now when the French and Venetians undertook to make themselves Masters of it by plain Force as for the Multitude of Inhabitants the Turks having now overrun and conquered the greatest part of Natolia except some Maritime places upon the Bosphorus the Propomis and the Aegean Sea the Asiatick Greeks came generally to inhabit at Constantinople to secure themselves from the Tyranny of the Infidels And for its Beauty it was so far from having lost any that it was mightily augmented by the great number of Palaces publick Buildings and magnificent Churches which since that time had been built which were so increased that one might count above five hundred of them which rearing their lofty Spires and stately Towers above the rest of the City shewed at once a most pleasing and Majestick Prospect to the Beholders so that when the Crusades first discovered this great and Illustrious City from the highest places of the Port of the Abby of St. Stephen they were so pleasingly surprized that they were forced to avow that they had never seen any thing comparable to it in the whole World And lastly for its Strength it had all that Nature could contribute to it by its incomparable Situation between three Seas which invironed it in the Nature of a Peninsula of a Triangular Figure the Propontis on the South the Bosphorus on the East and the Gulph which makes the Port upon the North. Nor was there any thing wanting which Art could add either towards the Sea or Land to render it impregnable and though the Avarice and Negligence of some of the later Emperors had suffered it to be much weakned in the Fortifications yet was it in such a Condition that the greatest Captains among the Crusades believed they had never seen any thing more difficult to be undertaken than to besiege it For to the Landward it was encompassed with double Walls of hewn Stone mingled with Brick with a Ditch of five and twenty paces breadth which was filled with a Spring which never suffered it to be dry the two Walls were eighteen Foot distance from each other and extending from the Angle of the Propontis on the South to the seven Towers and from thence to the Gulph upon the North joyning the Palace and the Gate of Blaquerness The inward Wall was one hundred Foot high year 1203 and about twenty broad having at just distances eighty six Towers to defend it The outward Wall was not above half so high but in like manner fortified with the same Number of strong Towers and reached from the one Sea to the other upon the Thracian side being near two Leagues in length The Walls which were next the Sea were much lower but very thick being above a good mile in length upon that side which is washed by the Propontis to the point of the Bosphorus and defended by one hundred eighty and eight Towers that side of the Gulph which stretches it self towards the North and makes the Port of Constantinople in the form of a Crescent being above two Leagues reacheth as far as Blaquerness and is defended by one hundred and ten Towers so that admitting there were men enough to guard so many Towers which mutually defend one another it must needs be a very difficult attempt to take the City by Assault Besides the Port was not only defended by these Towers and Walls by the Acropolis or Fortress which was upon the Point of the Promontory of the Bosphorus but also by the strong Town of Galatha situate on the other side of the Gulph but above all by the Tower or Castle there from whence a vast Chain supported by great Timbers in the Sea was drawn to the Acropolis and locked up the Entrance into the Haven And for the Multitude of those who were to defend the City it was innumerable for there were then at Constantinople above a hundred thousand men sit to serve on Horseback and more than three times that number of Foot well armed besides the Soldiers of the Imperial Guard which was very strong and composed principally of the English-Danes whom the Greeks call Barranges which being banished from England by Edward who was descended from the Ancient English Saxon Kings had betaken themselves to the Greek Emperors who had used these People for above a hundred and fifty Years as their Ordinary Guards This was the Condition wherein Constantinople then stood to the Strength of which Alexis Commenius too much trusted believing it impossible for the Power of the whole Earth if it were assembled together to be able to force it This Prince had acquired the Reputation of a valiant man and a great Captain before he came to the Empire and that was one great reason that he met with no greater Opposition in his Usurpation for it was generally believed that he was another kind of man for War and Business than his Brother Isaac Angelus and that therefore he would by his Arms better support the Majesty of the Empire and its Dominions against the Barbarians who frequently attacked them with great advantage But it is too often seen that the Change of Fortune and a happy State produce also a Change in the manners and the Conduct of men and those Vices which before it was necessary to conceal by the appearance of Vertue appear barefaced when they come to have Liberty fortified by Power and are from under the Curb and Discipline of Fear So this Alexis was no sooner an Emperor but that he became the most cowardly and dissolute Person in the World never thinking of any thing but how to drown himself in Pleasures and abandoning the Care of the publick Affairs to those who either wholly neglected them or at least regarded them only to search for opportunities of inriching themselves out of the Spoils of the publick And indeed he was certainly now become most stupid for though it was the Town Discourse at Constantinople what great Preparations the French and Venetians were making and that they had undertaken to resettle the Young Alexis in the Throne yet did he not make the least Preparations for a War only some times in the Jollity of his Entertainments and the Heat of his Wine in which he plunged himself day after day when his Head was warm he would tell those who were the Companions of his Debauches that he would send out a Party of his Guards who should bring this handful of Hairbrain Fellows bound in Irons who being weary of their Lives were come so far to search for Death
at so great a charge to have the Honor to die by his Commands Nor did he recover out of this profound Lethargie till he understood that the Confederate Army after the Reduction of Duras had assured themselves of the Isle of Corfu and then indeed he began to give Orders for the Defence of Constantinople causing all the Soldiers which were quartered round the Country to enter into the City year 1203 all that he could do to hinder them from entring into the Port was to arme twenty Gallies to guard the Chain so disfurnished was his Arsenal by the Negligence or Covetousness of his Brother-in-Law Michel Stryphnus the high Admiral who had turned the Sails the Cordage the Anchors and even the Bolts and Iron Nails of his Navy into Gold and Silver Having in this manner provided for the Defence of Constantinople so soon as he saw the Confederate Army was landed at Scutari he drew out and encamped also with the greatest part of his Army upon the Bank of the Bosphorus opposite to the Camp of the Confederates who took some days to refresh themselves before they resolved to pass the Arm of the Sea in the sight of the Emperor and his Army which was incomparably more in number than theirs And in the mean time Alexis caused his Brother-in-Law with the choice of his Cavalry to pass over three or four Leagues below the two Camps to hinder the Latins from forraging and to glean up such as they found straggling for Forrage in the Fields This gave an occasion to some brave men to make a happy Presage of this War by such an uncommon Action of Galantry as made it equally apparent how resolute and undaunted the French were and what shameful Cowards those were upon whom the Emperor depended as the most Valiant men of his Army For about fourscore Cavaliers under the Conduct of Eudes and William de Champlite the Count Gras who came along with the Marquis Montferrat of Oger de Saint Cheron and Manasses de L' Isle being gone out to score the Fields and Convoy the Forragers discovered at a good distance this Brigade of Greeks wherein there was at least five hundred men at Arms with a Proportionate number of Foot incamped at the Foot of a Hill which covered them This great in equality could not hinder these Valiant men from a sudden and generous resolution to attack them even in their Camp Having therefore divided themselves into four little Squadrons at the same time that the Greeks dispising so finall a number of Horse who had no Infantry to sustain them were putting themselves in Battle without their Camp with an Intention to surround them they marched to charge the Enemy who made shew of receiving them but upon the first shock these cowardly Greeks unable to indure the Sight of the Latins whom they thought Devils rather than men seeing with what Heat and Fury they ran to the Charge immediately routed themselves and betook them to a shameful Flight following the example of their Captains who were not in the Rere at that time so that the Squadrons who pursued them for a good League killed a great many without resistance whilest the rest saved themselves upon their ships leaving the Conquerors Masters of their Camp where they found a rich Booty which infinitely rejoyced the whole Army who now regarded no more the Cowardly Multitude of their Enemies but as a sort of People with whose spoils they were to inrich themselves There is nothing so pitifully Timerous as a wicked man who is attacked with a potent Enemy without at the same time that his guilty Conscience makes a cruel War within his Soul Alexis who was astonished at this unlucky beginning and who had now more than ever before his Eyes the terrible Image of his Crimes the dreadful Punishment whereof he feared the Latins were to execute besieved that it was his best way to endeavour to make a Peace and avoid an unpropitious War but withal without shewing any Fear that so he might obtain what he did so earnestly hope For this purpose the next day he sent to the Princes a Gentleman of Lombardy called Nicholas Rossi who was an Inhabitant of Constantinople The Lombard after he had shewn them his Letters of Credence the Confederates being Assembled in the Palace of Scutari to give him Audience delivered himself after this manner He acquainted them that the Emperor his Master was very well acquainted with their Merit and their Quality which did not give place to any in the World except crowned Heads That he was well informed that they had taken upon them the Cross and armed themselves against the Sarasins to recover the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus Christ out of their wicked Hands that therefore he was much amazed to find that instead of pursuing that glorious Design they were entred upon the I erritories of a Prince a Christian Emperor year 1203 That if they wanted Provisions he should with great Joy be ready most liberally to supply them with what ever they wanted that so he might have the Satisfaction on his part to contribute something to that Holy Enterprise that after this he fairly desired them to retreat with all Expedition out of the Countries of the Empire lest otherwise he should to his great regret find himself constrained to employ all his Forces against them which had they five times the Number of Troops they had they would find it impossible for them to resist This was what the Envoy had in charge to say who by the cunning Artifice of the Tyrant was taught not to touch in the least upon that jarring String of his violent Usurpation which he very well knew was the sole Canse of this Enterprise It was for this reason that the Princes after a Moments Deliberation upon what was fit to be done upon this occasion desired Conon de Bethune a Knight who had the Reputation to be one of the discreetest men and best Speakers of his time to give an Answer to the Envoy which with great Majesty and Eloquence he did in these Terms Tell your Master from the Princes and Confederate Lords that his Astonishment is neither rational nor sincere That he knows better than to need any Information that it is not upon the Lands of his Empire that we are entred since the Empire does not appertain to him but to the Prince Alexis his Nephew whom you see here present in this August Assembly and who is the only lawful Heir of the Emperor Isaac from whom his Brother hath most unjustly and cruelly usurped the Empire But that if repenting of this horrible Injustice he will come and beg his Pardon of the Prince who hath Arms in his Hand to punish him and at the same time lay the Crown at his Feet which he hath ravished from him by the most detestable Treason and Violence the Princes hope they shall be able not only to procure him that favour but to prevail with the Emperor Alexis