him by King Henry who contrary to all Justice had kept her from him And that John the third Son of King Henry usually called Sans-Terre Without Land to whom it seems the King to take off that ignominious Name had given his Interest in Ireland should also take up the Cross Henry on the contrary persisted obstinately in his Protestations that he would never suffer this Marriage although he said he would give his Consent or at least made that Pretence that the Princess should marry John the youngest Brother of Richard knowing well that that fierce and haughty Prince would never suffer tamely that Indignity to be put upon him Whereupon Philip seeing there was nothing further to be expected from that Conference broke it up and protested that he would do himself Justice by his Arms since he was refused it by Reason But the Cardinal d' Anaigne without considering that the Injury proceeded from him who obstinately refused to accomplish a Treaty so solemnly sworn whereas he ought to have pressed the King of England to keep his Promise and to restore the Princess Alice to her designed Husband year 1188 and not to put such an invincible Obstacle to the Peace by so manifest and unjust an Infraction of the Treaty fell upon Philip the August and spoke to him with a surprizing Confidence in such Language as without doubt Pope Clement had made no part either of his Commission or Instructions For he told him plainly That if he did not entirely accord Matters with the King of England he would put the whole Realm of France under an Interdict To which Philip who had a great Soul and who was perfectly acquainted with the Extent both of the Bounds of his own Power and that of the Church which are two Orders very different and which have both their just Limits answered him very readily That he did not in the least stand in fear of that Sentence and that being most unjust as there could be no doubt but it was it must therefore be mill and void That Rome never had any Right to make any Judgment against the Realm of France whether the King should take up Arms or not either to oblige his Enemies to do him Reason or to chastise his Rebellious Subjects And for any thing more the Sentence seemed to be the Product of English Sterling and not to proceed from a dis-interessed Legate whose Duty was to perform the Office of a common Father in the place of the Pope whom he was sent to represent This was to speak like a great King who without Emotion knew how to maintain the Rights of his Crown independent from any other but God alone and to preserve his Soveraign Authority without shocking that of the Church whose Kingdom is wholly spiritual and which it holds from Jesus Christ and therefore as he hath assured us is not of this World But Prince Richard who though he had seen as many Years as Philip was not by far so moderate nor so much Master of his Passion as to be able to contain himself in such reasonable Terms For finding himself particularly interessed in this Procedure of the Legate which wholly ruined all his Pretensions he was so transported that running furiously upon him with his Sword in his Hand without considering where he was or what he was about to do he had undoubtedly run him through if the Archbishops and Lords who assisted at the Conference had not all together rushed upon this violent Prince to stop his Fury and thereby given opportunity to the Legate half dead with Fear to secure himself by Flight from the greatest Danger that ever he had run in all his Life The Preliminary Discourse of the Peace being thus broken Philip who was powerfully armed pursued his Point so vigorously that he took Ferte-Benard Montfort Beaumont and some other places and afterwards attacked and by Force carried Mans from whence Henry who was retired thither did not without great difficulty escape to Chinon after having lost the greatest part of his Men in that Retreat which was little better than a Flight His Son John also whom among all his Children he loved the most tenderly abandoned him to joyn with Philip who at the Head of his Army passing the first over a Ford upon the Loir took Tours by Assault After which the King of England being in fear of his own Person and having no assured place of Retreat was forced to submit to the Law of the Vanquisher and accept such a Peace as he would please to give him which was upon these following Conditions That Henry should pay to Philip twenty thousand Marks in Silver for the Expences of the War That he should put the Princess Alice into the Hands of such as should be appointed by the King and Prince Richard who was to marry her after his Return from the Holy Land That the two Kings and Prince Richard should Rendesvouz in the Mid-lent of the Year following at Vezelay to begin together the Voyage which they were obliged to by their Vow That the Vassals of the King of England should take an Oath of Fealty to Richard and that those of them who had followed him in this War should not be obliged to render their Homage to Henry till such time as they were to go this Voyage to the Holy Land That the Great Men of England should promise to abandon the King in case he should fail in the performance of any one of these Articles and that in the Interim Philip and Richard should hold certain Towns in Hostage till such time as he should fully and truly have performed what was comprehended in the Treaty It is reported that as the two Kings were in a Treaty in the open Field towards the end of June between Tours and Chinon concerning the Articles of this Peace year 1189 which seemed very insupportable to Henry there happened two days successively two most terrible Claps of Thunder although the Heavens were so serene that there was not the least speck of a Cloud to be seen in the Sky at which Henry was so dreadfully amazed that if some of his Followers had not instantly run to him to support him he had fallen from his Horse and that being thereupon struck with mortal Apprehensions of some terrible Punishment from Heaven if he persisted longer to retard the Crusade by refusing the Peace he accorded to Philip whatsoever he demanded and immediately signed the Treaty He had nevertheless a few Moments after so many terrible Assaults of Shame and Grief upon his Soul and was in particular so sensibly touched with the undutiful Actions of his own Children who had from being one of the greatest and most glorious Princes in the Universe reduced him into that piteous Estate to comply so meanly and tamely to what was imposed upon him that he presently fell desperately sick and in three days time dyed in the sixty first Year of his Age upon the Octave of the Apostles St. Peter
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 loseth 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 Death of Amauri and the Troubles and Divisions which it caused in the Realm The Conquests of Saladin thereupon The Raign of Baldwin the Leprous The Ambassage to the Princes of the West to desire their Help against Saladin The Negotiation of the Ambassadours with the Pope and Emperor in France and England with Henry the Second The Artifices of that King to elude this Ambassage A famous Care of Conscience proposed in the Parliament at London upon this great Affair The reasons on one side and the other The best opinion rejected by the Bishops as False The Displeasure of the Patriarch Heraclius against the King The Conference between Philip Augustus and King Henry which recommences the War The Apostacy and Treason of a Templer The Death of King Baldwin the Fourth and of the young King his Nephew The Artifice of Sybil Mother to the deceased Infant King to obtain the Crown for Guy de Lusignan her Second Husband The Despight of Raymond Earl of Tripolis thereupon His Character His horrible Treason and secret Treaty with Saladin who enters Galilee and besieges Tyberias Division in the Councel of War held by the King The unfortunate Battle of Tyberias which was lost by the Treachery of Count Raymond The Advantage which Saladin made of his Victory The Relation of the Siege and taking of Jerusalem by that Victorious Prince The sorrowful Departure of the Christians from Jerusalem and the Generosity of Saladin The Cruelty and miserable Death of the Earl of Tripolis The Triumph of Saladin An Account of the Preserving of Tyre by Marquis Conrade The Causes of the Loss of the Holy Land p. 113. BOOK II. The Death of Pope Urban III. upon the News of the Loss of Jerusalem The Decrees of Pope Gregory VIII and the Rules of the Cardinals to move God Almighty to Mercy and Compassion upon the Christians Gregory makes Peace between the Pisans and the Genoese Clement III. his Successor sends his Legates to the King of France and to the King of England The Conference at Gisors Where the Arch-Bishop of Tyre proposes the Crusade which is received by the two Kings The Ordinances which they made for the Regulation of it The War recommences between the two Kings which hinders the Effect of the Crusade Richard Duke of Guienne joins with King Philip against his own Father The Death of Henry II. King of England His Elegy and Character The Legates propose the Crusade at the Diet at Mayence The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa there takes upon him the Cross as do many other Princes and Prelates of the Empire The Description of that Emperor His March to Thracia where he is necessitated to Combat the Greeks The Character of the Greek Emperor Isaac Angelus The Reason why this Emperor betrayed the Ltains 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 Stratagem of the Emperor ' s. An Heroick Action of a certain Cavalier The first Battle of Iconium The Description Assaulting and Taking of that City The Second Battle 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 Battle 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 p. 149 BOOK III. The Beginning of the Reign of Richard Coeur de Lyon King of England and his Preparations for the Holy War The Preparations of Philip the August The Conferences of Nonancour and Vezelay between the two Kings The Portraict of Philip the August The Character of Richard King of England The Voyage of the two Kings to Messina An adventure of the English Fleet. A Quarrel between the English and the Messineses The taking of that City The Quarrel between the two Kings and their new Accomodation The Relation of the Abbot Joachim and his Character His Conference with King Richard The Departure of King Philip and his Arrival before Acre The Departure of Richard The Relation of the Conquest of the Kingdom of Cyprus by that Prince His Arrival before Acre A new Difference between the two Kings and the true Causes of it Their Accord The Reduction of the City of Acre The extreme Violence of King Richard The Return of Philip the August The March of Richard The Battle of Antipatris The single Combat between King Richard and Sultan Saladin A noble Action of William de Pourcelets who saved the Life of that King Richard presents himself before Jerusalem at an unseasonable Time and therefore retires and disperses his Army into Quarters The Marquis Conrade slain by two Assassins of the old Mountain The Description of that Government and those People A wicked Action of the Templers which hindred their Conversion The Cause of the Marquis his Death Richard accused of that Crime His Innocence is proved Isabella Marries Count Henry and is declared Queen of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan made King of Cyprus Richard pretends a Second time to besiege Jerusalem defeats the Enemies takes the Caravan of Egypt but retires by a cunning Agreement A calumny against Richard which he clears by a most memorable Action The Battle of Jaffa and the taking of that Place from the Sarasins by Richard His Treaty with Saladin and his unfortunate Return He is taken and Imprisoned His Deliverance The Justice which he demanded and which he obtains A new division among the Princes of the East appeased by the Count de Champagne The Death of Saladin and his Elogy Division happens among the Infidels which gives occasion to a fourth Crusade p. 186. PART III.
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
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
to him who above all others had so many powerful Reasons both Divine and Humane to oblige him to take them into his Protection The King gave him Hopes that he should in a little time receive Satisfaction in what he had proposed assuring him with all the appearances of a great Sincerity that with God's Help all should go well and that this Affair should succeed to his Contentment And in the Interim he conducted the Amhassadours to London there to attend the more particular Answer which he promised to give them after he had first according to the Custom taken the Advice of the Prelates and Lords of his Parliament upon it which he had ordered to be called against the first Sunday in Lent And accordingly he did not fail to call a Parliament where besides the great Men of England there were also present William King of Scotland and David his Brother and the Lords of that Realm which then was held of the King of England Now the Patriarch as the Pope in his Letter and himself in his Speech had done principally insisted upon the Promise which the King made when he obtained his Absolution to go in Person to the Holy Land the King consulted the Bishops and the Abbots in the Case to know whether considering the present Circumstances of his Affairs he was obliged to aquit himself of his Promise by accomplishing that part of his Penance which was imposed on him by the Pope and to which he had so solemnly obliged himself This certainly was a most nice and curious Case of Conscience and which ought in the first place to be decided in regard that if his Promise was binding there was no longer place for Deliberation and that he had but one Choice to make which was to acquit himself of it by undertaking the Voyage If he was not obliged to that Condition of his Penance then it must fall under Examination whether of these two was most Expedient either that the King should assist the Orientals without going in Person out of the Kingdom or that he should himself conduct the Succours into Palestine As for the King to shew that his Proceedings were clear and with good Faith upon the matter he would by all means that the Patriarch and the great Master should themselves Assist at the Debate while this Question was under Deliberation with full and intire Liberty there to offer what they should judge Convenient And withal he strictly required of all that assisted at that Assembly that they should faithfully give their Opinions without any sort of Complaisance to him and declare their Judgment upon their Consciences which of these two was most expedient and necessary for his Souls Health and Salvation year 1185 protesting that he was firmly resolved to put in Execution what should be determined by the Plurality of Votes in that Assembly The more severe Opinion assuredly was That the King should abide by his Word and Promise that he should accomplish the Penance which he had accepted of and that he should go in Person to the Succour of the Holy Land and this the Patriarch failed not to support with all the Reasons and Arguments which could be alledged For urged he What is there in all Civil Society which ought to be more sacred and inviolable than the Word of a mighty King Can there be any thing that ought more religiously to be observed than a Promise made upon receiving the Holy Sacrament at the Absolution given for an Offence which was granted upon the Condition of accomplishing the Penance which is accepted to satisfie God Almighty And supposing that there could be a Dispensation so as to change it to another Who could give that Dispensation or make that Exchange except the Pope who had imposed the Penance and who was so far from being willing to grant any such Dispensation that he presssed the Performance of it in the most pressing Terms and with the most terrible Menaces of the Judgments of God if the Satisfaction was longer deferred These Arguments without doubt appeared very strong Nevertheless all the Bishops and Abbots among whom there were many extraordinary knowing and very good People among others Baldwin Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a Man of most wonderful Merit concluded with one common Consent for the more mild Opinion and maintained that the King was not only not obliged at present to undertake this Voyage to Palestine but also that it was more conducing to the Health of his Soul that he should stay to govern his Dominions in regard that the Promise which he had made in accepting the Penance was not only in its own Nature dispensable but ought to be dispensed with because nothing could oblige a Prince to the prejudice of another Promise which was made before it and which was indispensable and by which the King by his Coronation Oath had obliged himself to govern his Subjects and defend them against the Attempts of all their Enemies both Foreign and Domestick which it was impossible for him to do in his Absence in a Government where his Presence could not be wanting And for what concerned one of the Sons of the King which was desired in default of the King 's going in Person they all agreed unanimously with the Lords Temporal that the Parliament had no power to determine upon it in regard they were absent and that therefore the Resolution which was to be taken upon that Matter depended absolutely upon their own Will and Pleasure And in short they judged all together that though the King had of himself a mighty desire to go this Voyage yet he ought not to undertake it without first consulting the King of France who in respect of the Estates of Normandy Guienne and other Provinces which he held in the French Monarchy was his Lord and Soveraign But that notwithstanding he might give liberty to his Subjects to take up the Cross and undertake that Voyage upon the first Occasion and that the King should advance a Sum of Money for their Support who should undertake this War who it was promised should follow shortly after This was the Resolution which was taken in the Parliament of London and with which the Patriarch Heraclius who was of a very violent Humour was so exasperated by thinking all his Hopes and Endeavours were lost that he instantly threw off all manner of Respect which was due to so great a Prince and treated him after so rude a fashion that it is impossible to excuse it under the soft name of Zeal as he endeavoured to persuade the World For the King that he might sweeten what seemed so harsh in this matter was resolved himself to remonstrate to the Ambassadours whom he sent for the Reasons which had moved the Parliament to come to that Resolution which they esteemed so prejudicial to the Hopes of their Embassage He informed them that it was the fear they had that the French with whom they never continued long in Peace would draw some
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
their Empire and delivering them into the Hands of the Philistins Chaldeans and other Infidel People who were the Executioners of his Justice so did he punish the horrible Crimes of the Christians whom he had brought into Palestine by the victorious Arms of the first Crusades by depriving them of that Kingdom and abandoning them to be Slaves to those People whom their Ancestors had with so much Glory so often vanquished But farther to give some natural Reason for this Change the first Conquerors of Palestine were warlike and most valiant Men accustomed to Fatigues and such as frankly exposed themselves to all manner of Dangers and were never known to recoil let the number of their Enemies which they were to incounter be never so Prodigious they esteemed it a Happiness to dye Martyrs in combating gloriously for the Faith and for the Name of Jesus Christ And the Orientals against whom they fought were at that time little skilled in Wars cowardly undisciplin'd and half-armed People who were not able to abide above one Shock as having nothing to trust to but their Bows and Arrows which they shot at Rovers and commonly rather slying than fighting Whereas on the contrary the Christians having exchanged with the Infidels for all their Vices had also gotten their Cowardice their esseminate and idle way of Living loving Repose and Pleasure and hating the trouble of War and the Severity of that Discipline which is so necessary to a Soldier and which they wholly neglected The Turks and Sarasins on the other hand were become mighty Warlike under their victorious Sultans Sanguin Noradin Syracon and Saladin who having learnt at their Cost to arm themselves like the Europeans with good Curiasses and strong Lances had also taught them to follow their Colours year 1188 to fight hand to hand and had inspired them with Courage and Considence both by their Examples and the fortunate Success of their Arms. And in short The Conquerors of the Holy Land under the first Kings were under one sole Head who uniformly governed the whole Body of his Estate and Army which acted according to the Measures which he prescribed with a perfect Unity without Division without diversity of Interests Inclinations and Opinions as if the whole Army had been as one Man according to the Expression so frequent in the Scripture Whereas the Turks and Sarasins were then divided almost into as many particular Estates as there were Cities in Palestine and Syria and therefore could raise no great Armies but what must be commanded by many Chiefs who for the most part never accorded very well by reason of the diversity of their Opinions and Interests which made them almost continually be overthrown though they were incomparably the stronger in number of Soldiers than their Conquerors But upon the falling of the Realm the Christian Army was composed of the Troops of diverse Chiefs those of the King of Jerusalem the Prince of Antioch the Earl of Tripolis and the great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who all of them had different Prospects and Designs which did not at all agree one with the other On the contrary all the Estates of the Infidels bordering upon the Christians Egypt Arabia Mesopotamia the Realms of Damascus and Cilicia were at that time united into one single Monarchy under the great Saladin and so their Army had but one Captain and Head who being most Wise and Valiant gave one Impression and a constant regular Movement to this great Body which did not act but according to his positive Orders And certainly it is most particularly this Unity which hath always made great Armies Victorious as may be seen in all Ages and Histories but was never more manifested than in this last Campaign which was so glorious and so advantageous to the King of France For on the one part the Emperour and the Spaniards and great part of the Princes of the Circles of the Empire and the Hollanders being leagued and confederated against him had raised very strong and numerous Armies to invade France both by Sea and Land On the other side that King alone without imploying any other Power but his own and giving out himself those Orders which were with Fidelity Executed always prevented them I do not say from entring but so much as approaching France Beat them thoroughly to the very Islands and in Person by main Force conquered one fair and large Province and his Army alone in Flanders under his auspicious Fortune commanded by the famous Prince of Conde having to oppose them three great Armies of the Emperour the King of Spain and the Hollanders joyned in one Body under three Chieftains yet cut in pieces their Rere took their Baggage ravished from them more than one hundred Colours and shamefully chased them from before Oudenard and pursued them beyond the Scheld And there it was that their Commanders having at last the Leisure to take Breath and to complain one to another were constrained to avow by their Flight which they disguised under the name of a Retreat that as there is but one Soul in one Body to give it Life Movement and the Power to perform those admirable Operations of a Man so there ought to be but one absolute Monarch in a Kingdom and one General in an Army to procure the Felicity of the People and to inable them to triumph gloriously over all the Enemies which go about to trouble their Repose or rob them of their Happiness But after these Reflections which I have made according to my little Art in Politicks which possibly will not appear altogether Useless or at least Indivertive it is time to return to my Subject and pursue this History of the Crusade THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART II. BOOK II. The CONTENTS of the Second Book The Death of Pope Urban III. upon the News of the Loss of Jerusalem The Decrees of Pope Gregory VIII and the Rules of the Cardinals to move God Almighty to Mercy and Compassion upon the Christians Gregory makes Peace between the Pisans and the Genoese Clement III. his Successor sends his Legats to the King of France and to the King of England The Conference at Gisors where the Archbishop of Tyre proposes the Crusade which is received by the two Kings The Ordinances which they made for the Regulation of it The War re-commences between the two Kings which hinders the Effect of the Crusade Richard Duke of Guinne joins with King Philip against his own Father The Death of Henry II. King of England His Elegy and Character The Legates propose the Crusade at the Diet at Mayence The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa there takes upon him the Cross as do many other Princes and Prelates of the Empire The Description of that Emperor His March to Thracia where he is necessitated to combat the Greeks The Character of the Greek Emperor Isaac Angelus The Reason why this
He came into France at the same time that Cardinal Henry the Bishop of Albano Legate from the Holy See arrived there And there are some Authors who assure us that Pope Clement honoured this Archbishop with the same Character and joyned him in Commission with the Cardinal to treat a Peace between the two Kings of England and France to the end they might unite in the Resolation of undertaking the War against Saladin That War which Philip the August had declared against Henry II. King of England for the Restitution of the Earldom of Vexin had been terminated by the Undertaking of Pope Vrban upon condition that the King of England as a Dependant for those Estates upon the Crown of France should in a time prefixed submit himself to the Judgment of the Court of France That Term being expired Henry not only still retained the Earldom which he was obliged to restore but also the Princess Alice the Sister of Philip who was designed to be married to Richard the Son of the King of England Philip resolved to do himself Reason for such a visible Injustice year 1188 was about to enter into Normandy with a potent Army where Henry also was expecting him with considerable Forces when the Archbishop of Tyre arrived very opportunely to suspend at least for a time the Anger of these two Princes And so it was that by the force of his Genius and his Eloquence he procured an Interview between them in a Plain between Trie and Gisors where they were used to meet when they treated one with the other The two Kings met there about the middle of January accompanied with the Princes Prelates and great Lords of both the Kingdoms And there it was that the illustrious Archbishop employed all the Power of his Eloquence and of his Wit to represent in that August Assembly The deplorable Estate into which the fatal Divisions of the Christian Princes of the East had reduced the Kingdom of Jerusalem which the first Crusades had from so many barbarous and Infidel Nations so gloriously conquered with their victorious Arms. He then remonstrated That of four puissant Estates which they had established upon the Ruins of the Mahomitan Empire and which extended the Dominions of the Christians from Cilicia to Egypt and from the Sea to the River Tygris there remained nothing to them now more than three Cities That Antioch dispairing to be able to preserve it self by its own Forces had already promised to surrender if it were not immediately relieved by those of the West That Tyre without necessary Succours was not in a condition to sustain a second Siege having in the first lost the greatest part of its Defendants That Tripolis was too weak to endure one and could no longer remain in Freedom than it pleased Saladin to present himself before it to add it to his other Conquests And that further after so lamentable a Loss as that of Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land there was great danger of losing also the very Hopes which remained to the Christians in those places from whence they might take a Beginning to re-establish the Kingdom of Christ Jesus if those two Kings the most potent of Christendom did not unite their Hearts and their Arms to run to the Relief of Christ and his Cause of whose only Grace and Goodness they held all which they did possess And in short he said upon that Subject so many pathetick things and in a manner so powerful and so touching that the two Princes whether they had in a former Conference which they had agreed this as one of the Articles of the Peace or that God in whose Hands are the Hearts of Kings to change them in a Moment by the extraordinary Working of his Power it is certain that they embraced one the other mutually in the Presence of the whole Assembly and did it with all the Marks of a perfect Reconciliation and a sincere and cordial Friendship as if there had never been any Subject of Discontent or Difference between them And at the same time might be heard on all sides the confused Voices of a Multitude of People who broak out into great Cries of Joy and from every Quarter was to be heard Long live King Philip Long live King Henry Let us go Let us go to this War against the Infidels under the Conduct of these two mighty Kings Let us deliver Jerusalem and extirpate the Enemies of Jesus Christ The Cross the Cross let it be given us the Sign of our Salvation and the Ruin of the Sarasins These Acclamations were also presently followed with that happy Success which attended the Legation of this brave Archbishop of Tyre that the two Kings first presenting themselves to receive the Cross from the hands of the Legates they were followed by Richard the Son of the King of England Duke of Guienne and Earl of Poitou who had voluntarily taken it before the Loss of Jerusalem but would now anew receive it from the hands of the Legates As also did Philip Earl of Flanders the Duke of Burgundy the Earls of Blois Dreux Champagne Perche Clermont Barr Beaumont Nevers James Lord of Avesnes and almost all the great Lords of France England and Flanders who were present at this Assembly And to distinguish the one from the other it was ordained that the French should take a Red Cross being the same they bore in the first Crusade the English a white one and the Flemmings one of Green It is said that at the same time there appeared one in Heaven bright and shining which helped to inflame the Devotion of those who took up the other as if God himself had manifestly called them to this Holy War by a sacred Signal from above And to render the Memory of so great an Action Eternal a Cross was erected and a Church built in the midst of the Field of this Conference which was ever after called The Holy Field year 1188 After this the Kings to support the Charges of this War and to prevent the Disorders which had been so injurious to the former Crusades resolved to publish these following Ordinances That all Persons who had not undertaken the Cross of what Quality soever even the Ecclesiasticks except the Chartreux the Bernardines and the Religious of Fontevraud should pay one Tenth of their Revenues and of their Moveables except their Arms their Habits Books Jewels and consecrated Vtensils and Ornaments which was afterwards called by the name of Saladin's Tenth by reason that it was raised upon the Occasion of making this War with Saladin That the Crusades should have liberty to raise a Tenth of all their Subjects who did not go to this War And that the Husbandmen who undertook to go and take the Cross without the Leave of their Lords first obtained should not be exempted from this Impost That all Interest upon Money lent should cease for all the time that the Debters were upon Service in the Holy Land That
all Persons might mortgage their Inheritances or their Benefices for three Years during which time the Creditors should peaceably enjoy them whatever happened to the Owners That all unlawful Games of Chance all Swearing Blasphemy and Disorders should be severely punished To which were also added very admirable Orders for the Regulation of Excess in Apparel in the Tables and the Retinues of the Crusades and above all that except some old Landresses there should no Women be suffered to go along with the Army as had been permitted in the former Crusades and which had occasioned great Disorders These Ordinances were received and solemnly published in both the Kingdoms where an infinite number of People enrolled themselves for the Cross some out of Zeal and true Devotion others to be exempted from the Tax which though it was consented to by the Bishops in the Parliament of Paris which was held this Year about Mid-Lent yet there were some Ecclesiasticks who declared themselves against it tartly enough Among the rest Peter de Blois one of the most knowing Men of his Age writ against it to Henry de Dreux Bishop of Orleans the King's Nephew in very hard Terms pressing him to oppose this Ordinance of the King which he said was a Breach of the Liberties and Privileges of the Ecclesiasticks from whom he pretended no other Aids ever were or ought to be exacted besides their Suffrages and Prayers But this Advice of this Archdeacon of Bath in England though otherwise an able Man prevailed nothing upon the Bishops of France whom he something too liberally accused of following too gentle and easie a Conduct For they as well as the Bishops of England with great Justice and Reason as well as Piety believed that such a part of the Goods of the Church might very lawfully be employed upon such an holy Occasion for the Deliverance of the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ and so many poor Christian Slaves and in a manner all the Oriental Churches from the Oppression and Tyranny of the Infidels See now how Zeal when it is a little over-heated easily becomes so false and foolish as to blind Men to that degree that they are not able to see that for good Sense which common Reason alone without other Theology discovers so plainly to the whole World Thus then all things were disposed for a happy Beginning to this Crusade if the Division which in a little time after broke out again between the two Kings had not turned those Arms against Christians which they had before prepared to fight against the Sarasins Among other Articles which were agreed upon at this famous Conference in the Field of Gisors it was ordained That all Matters in difference on one part and the other should remain in the same Estate wherein they stood before and that no one should enterprize any thing against his Neighbour till such time as the Holy War were determined In this time Richard Duke of Guienne and Earl of Poitiers to the prejudice of a Treaty so solemnly made concluded and ratified renewing the ancient Quarrel betwixt him and Count Raymond of Tholouse threw himself suddenly into that Count's Territories and presently took from him Cahors and Moissack Philip in mighty Indignation for this Action and moved with the Complaints of the Count who came to implore his Succour as his Soveraign immediately made a powerful Diversion in the Provinces of the English where he took Castle-Roux Busencais Argemon Levroux Montrichard and all the places which the English at that time possessed in Avergne and Berry Henry on his part did not fail to make haste to his Son's Assistance who went to joyn him in Normandy year 1188 Philip also marched thither with his Victorious Army where he obtained great Advantages against the English till at length a Conference for Peace was held near Bonmoulin at which the Earls of Flanders and Champaigne with divers other Princes continually importuned the King to conclude protesting to him that otherwise they would desert him for that they were resolved to accomplish their Vow in going to the Holy War There never was any Conference managed with greater Dexterity and Policy than this was by King Philip For knowing perfectly the Humour and the Interests of the King of England and his Son he only demanded that the Princess Alice his Sister whom the late King his Father had designed to be married to Richard and who was kept in Custody by Henry should be put into the hands of her intended Husband since they were now both of Age and that Richard should be declared joynt King of England with his Father as the deceased Prince Henry had been who had married Margaret the eldest Sister of the Princess Alice Henry against whom the Prince his eldest Son supported by the French had formerly made a most cruel War fearing lest Richard who was no less ambitious than his Brother should create him the same trouble or possibly having his Soul pre-possessed with another Passion less excusable but more strong than either Fear or Policy would by no means agree to these two Articles So that this Conference produced no other Effects but only a Truce of a few Months during the Winter and that which Philip had foreseen did not fail to happen to his advantage as well as according to his Expectation for Richard who was of a Temper extream ambitious and turbulent was so exasperated with this Denyal that he instantly abandoned his Father and passed into the Party and Interests of Philip did him Homage for all the Lands which he held in France and promised him an inviolable Fidelity and to serve him against all Persons whatsoever even his own Father as he did And indeed as soon as the short Truce which had been made came to be expired which it did the next Spring the King with all his Forces joyned with those of Richard who had drawn to his Party besides the Gascons and Poitenins his Vassals many Angevins and Bretons marched against Henry who lay with a very few Troops at Saumur But the Cardinal d' Anaigne the Pope's Legate who succeeded in the place of the Cardinal d'Albano who was dead not long before negotiated so happily with the two Kings that they promised to meet in Whitsun-Week near Ferte-Benard and there amicably to treat before him and the Archbishops of Reims Bourges Rean and Canterbury who were to decide all their Differences Whereupon these Prelates instantly pronounced an Anathema against all those of what Quality soever except the Persons of the two Kings who should any way go about to obstruct the Conclusion of a Peace so necessary to all Christendom and without which the Crusade would become wholly ineffectual The Kings and Richard Duke of Guienne and Earl of Poitiers accompanied with all the Great Men of both Realms being come to the place designed for the Conference Philip demanded as before That his Sister the Princess Alice who was affianced to Duke Richard should be delivered to
and St. Paul at the Castle of Chinon bestowing his Maledictions upon his disobedient Sons which he would never be persuaded to revoke notwithstanding the repeated Instances which were made to him by the Bishops who waited on him in his Sickness He did however receive the Sacrament and Extream Unction with great Devotion giving manifest Tokens of his Repentance in submitting to the Divine Justice which he acknowledged had justly laid this great Change of Fortune upon him as a Punishment for those Crimes which he had committed in his Prosperity He had also the Misfortune that his Domesticks every one seizing upon something left him without any thing else but a poor Sheet to cover him But his Son Richard who had so furiously opposed him in his Life gave all the Testimonies of an excessive Sorrow for his Death and caused him to be carried most magnificently adorned in his Royal Robes to be interred at the Nunnery of Fontevraud where he had a desire to be buried This new King himself assisted at the Funerals where he testified by the abundance of his Tears that he was unfeignedly touched with Sorrow and Remorse for his Father's Death But it is reported that to his other Grief he had the Displeasure to be afflicted with an odd and unaccountable Accident for as he approached the Corps of the deceased King as he lay in the Coffin the Blood which gushed out of his Nostrils seemed to reproach him with his Ingratitude and unnatural Rebellion and even as the Discourse went the Parricide of his Father whom his Disobedience did in some measure seem to have hastned to his Tomb sooner than Nature which was yet strong and vigorous in him had intended He nevertheless stayed out the whole Ceremony till such time as the Royal Defunct was interred in the Quire of the Church of those Religious Nuns which verified the Revelation of a Monk who praying upon a certain time for the Prosperity of the King heard these words which he then did not understand but which were explained by the Event He shall take up my Sign and in carrying it shall be mightily tormented The Belly of his Wife shall rise up against him and at the last he shall be hid among the Veils For as he took the Cross for the Holy War he carried the Sign of Jesus Christ and he was immediately after cruelly tormented by the Persecutions of his Sons which continued till his Death after which he was covered with the Veil of Death being interred in a Quire of Veiled Nuns We must however do Justice to the Memory of this Prince who was one in this Crusade though it so happened that he never had his part in any Action in regard it was so long deferred by the War whereof he was the Occasion He was a French Man by Nation born in the City of Mans which he therefore used to call his Darling and most assuredly he was one of the greatest and most potent Kings that ever sat upon the English Throne and certainly had been the most fortunate if either he had never been a Father or if toward the latter end of his thirty and five Years Reign he had not met with the Opposition of the young and invincible Philip the August whose Fortune supported by his Courage and admirable Prudence was as a fatal Curb which according to the Prediction of the famous Morling was to tame this fierce and haughty Leopard or like a strong Dam which stopped short and broke that impetuous Torrent of his Power and Ambition year 1189 which menaced an Inundation over the rest of France whereof Henry already possessed a very great part For besides England where he reigned as Soveraign Monarch and Ireland which he had conquered Scotland which was Tributary to him he also possessed Normandy in the Right of Inheritance descending to him by his Mother Maud the Empress Daughter of Henry I. King of England and by Geoffrey Earl of Anjou his Father who was Son to Count Fowk he had Anjou Maine Touraine a great part of Berry and Avignion where he pretended to be Soveraign And in Right of Queen Eleonor his Wife whom Lewis the Young quitted to him by a Canonical Sentence he had Gascon Guienne Poitou and the other Countries which depended upon them Besides that Britanny fell to his third Son Geoffrey by the Marriage of the Heiress of that Country So that he was as potent on this Side the Sea where he was a Homager to the Crown of France as he was on the other side where he was King of England and Lord of Ireland He was of a middle Stature but of a Shape no way handsom by reason that he was extream gross and corpulent notwithstanding that he was not only very temperate but amidst the great Affairs in which he was always employed and which he managed with wonderful Application in continual Action either travelling or Walking or making use of the more violent Exercises of Riding the great Horse or Hunting that thereby he might abate the growing unwieldy by his Fatness to which his Sanguin Complexion had condemned him As for any thing else he was of Temperament robust and sound having a large full Breast and a big Head His Eyes were blew handsom and full of Fire His Hair yellow and soft inclining something too much towards the red His Voice hoarse his Speech rough and his Mind very fierce and Martial For his Mind he was very dexterous and of a penetrating Understanding but something more crafty than became so great a Prince He had however cultivated his Spirit with the Study of Ingenuous Learning which inabled him with a certain Eloquence very easily and naturally to express himself And there was in his Soul such a Stock of Vices as well as Vertues natural Perfections and Imperfections which were so blended together that if they would not permit it to be said of him that he was a very exceeding good Prince yet they very absolutely prohibit the fixing the Character of a very ill one upon him For he was gentle and sweet to every body when he was in dangers but harsh fierce and severe when he saw himself out of them he was complaisant abroad morose to his Domesticks liberal to Strangers and in publick but parsimonious to his own and too great a Husband in his private Affairs A great Promiser but a slender Performer above all things loving his Liberty and hating Constraint to that degree that he could not endure to be a Slave to his own Word or his Faith which he made no great scruple upon occasion to violate In matters of Justice he was too slow and sometimes by the Interposition of Money which he loved excessively he would wholly remit the Execution of it He drew great Sums from his Subjects with which he often chose rather to buy Peace than maintain War in which he did not delight though when he was forced to make War he did it like a great Captain and
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
by which the Army must certainly have perished if the Marquis had not taken Care from time to time to supply them abundantly with his Fleet. This absolutely gained him all the Commanders and the Souldiers who took his Part against Guy de Lusignan who now had nothing left but the vain Shadow of Royal Majesty without the least Substance of Power or Authority Thus the Army being extremely diminished did nothing now but act upon the Defensive in their Retrenchments opposing the Assaults of Saladin on the one side and the Sallies of the Besieged on the other till the Arrival of the two Kings whose Voyage and Actions it is now time for me after having given myself and the Reader a moments Breath to recount unto him THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART II. BOOK III. The CONTENTS of the Third Book The beginning of the Reign of Richard Caeur-de-Lion King of England and his Preparations for the Holy War The Preparations of Philip the August The Conferences of Nonancour and Vezelaï between the two Kings The Portraict of Philip the August The Character of Richard King of England The Voyage of the two Kings to Messina An Adventure of the English Fleet. A Quarrel between the English and the Messineses The taking of that City The Quarrel between the two Kings and their new Accommodation The Relation of the Abbot Joachim and his Character His Conference with King Richard The Departure of King Philip and his Arrival before Acre The Departure of Richard The Relation of the Conquest of the Kingdom of Cyprus by that Prince His Arrival before Acre A new Difference between the two Kings and the true Causes of it Their Accord The Reduction of the City of Acre The extreme Violence of King Richard The Return of Philip the August The March of Richard The Battle of Antipatris The single Combat between King Richard and Sultan Saladin A noble Action of William de Pourcelets who saved the Life of that King Richard presents himself before Jerusalem at an unseasonable Time and therefore retires and disperses his Army into Quarters The Marquis Conrade slain by two Assassins of the old Mountain The Discription of that Government and those People A wicked Action of the Templers which hindred their Conversion The Cause of the Marquis his Death Richard accused of that Crime His Innocence is proved Isabella Marries Count Henry and is declared Queen of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan made King of Cyprus Richard pretends a second time to besiege Jerusalem defeats the Enemies takes the Caravan of Egypt but retires by a cunning Agreement A Calumny against Richard which he clears by a most memorable Action The Battle of Jassa and the taking of that Place from the Sarasins by Richard His Treaty with Saladin and his unfortunate Return He is taken and imprisoned His Deliverance the Justice which he demanded and which he obtains A new Division among the Princes of the East appeased by the Count de Champagne The Death of Saladin and his Elogy Division happens among the Infidels which gives Occasion to a fourth Crusade year 1190 T The Crusade which had been so solemly sworn in the Holy Field and which the War that was kindled between the two Kings had so long time retarded had at length its Effect by the perfect Understanding which for some time there was between Philip the August and Richard sirnamed Caeur-de-Lion at the beginning of the Reign of this new King For so soon as he had received the Sword as Duke of Normandy at our Ladies Church in Roan and the Crown of England at Westminster with the general Applause of all his Subjects who saw that he took quite differing Courses from his Father who was not at all beloved he had no other Thoughts but of making Preparations for the Holy War Above all things he applied himself to the procuring a good Treasury of Gold and Silver but not by charging the People with the rigorous Exaction of Saladins Tenth as did his Father who when he had received it made use of it in the War between the two Crowns For this purpose he took the way of selling all the Dignities which he could all Offices and the Lands of his Demesnes at a very low rate thereby to intice the Avarice or the Ambition of unwary Purchasers who easily suffered themselves to be imposed upon with those cheap Bargains not foreseeing that he had Design of Reassumption after his Return as he did without any other Reimbursment than by allowing upon the Foot of the Account what they made over and above their Charges of the Demesnes during the time that they injoyed them But he dissembled the matter so well and on one side seemed so truly to have a design to sell all that he could and on the other shewed so many Marks of a ruined Constitution which both his constant Fatigues of War and his Debauches gained an easy Credit to that the Purchasers without any Difficulty suffered themselves to be perswaded that he would never return and that he had no other Prospect than of the present as not having any hopes of living long And for these Reasons it was that very many straitned themselves to lay hold of this occasion of Profit whereby he drew from them vast Summs turning every thing into Money even to protesting to those who were astonished at his Proceedings that if he could find a Chapman who was able to buy of him the City of London he should make no Difficulty to sell it to him But he drew the greatest Advantages from diverse Prelates of his Realm that were extraordinary Rich from whom he drew all the Money that they had by selling to them temporal Dignities which they were mighty glad to add to their Bishopricks or their Abbies It was by this Stratagem that he drew into the Net the Bishop of Durham year 1190 an old Man equally Covetous and Ambitious by persuading him to purchase the Earldom of that Province which he would unite to his Bishoprick For that Prelate who was ready to die with the Desire which he had to be Earl of Northumberland gave him for that Title all the Riches which he had for a long time been hoarding up out of the Revenue of his Bishoprick as well as those other less honest Markets which he had made And to this he threw in also all the Money which he had reserved purposely to defray his Expences in the Voyage which he had undertaken to make to Jerusalem thereby renouncing his Vow his Conscience and his Honour that so he might become great in this World out of which his old Age was even now ready to chase him which made the King very pleasantly to say when he had gotten all his Money That he was about to work a kind of Miracle and to make a young Earl out of an old Bishop He also seized upon all the Estate of
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
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
and such as possibly King Richard would not have required of him but his Cowardly Fear dictated them to him year 1191 And he who in his Prosperity was so presumptuous to imagine he could not offer too little in this Reverse of his Fortune thought he could never offer enough The Conditions were these That he should own the King of England for his Soveraign and should do him Homage for the Island under the Title of the Realm of Cyprus That he should give his only Daughter and Heiress to whomsoever King Richard should nominate That besides delivering the Prisoners which he had taken he should pay twenty thousand Marks in Gold for Dammages to those whom he had plundred That he should go in Person with twenty thousand choice Men to serve the King in the War of the Holy Land That for the Security of his Promises he should instantly put all the Places in his Dominions into the King's Hands and that reciprocally the King should engage upon his Honour to restore them to him so soon as he had accomplished all his Engagements And to begin with what was most shameful he immediately came to do his Homage to King Richard in the Presence of Guy King of Jerusalem and Geoffrey de Lusignan his Brother Raymond Prince of Antioch and Bohemond Count of Tripolis his Son Aufrey de Thoren and the other Lords who were come to Cyprus to oblige King Richard to enter into their Interests against the Marquis of Montferrat Prince of Tyre whose Party King Philip the August seemed much to favour But this Peace did not last long for whether this unfortunate Tyrant was ashamed of his Cowardice or that some Person had advertised him secretly that there was a design to make him a Prisoner he fled the same Day and made it be told to the King That he was resolved never to keep such an unjust Treaty which being the Effect of Force and the suddain Disorder of his Judgment by Dispair was not at all obliging For this Reason Richard who was better pleased with War than Peace which how advantageous soever ravished from him a Conquest which he could not fail of obtaining instantly caused him to be pursued both by Land and Sea with so much Heat and Expedition that running over the whole Island with his Troops divided into several Parties all the Cities opened their Gates to him so soon as he or his Lieutenants appeared before them So that the miserable Isaac abandoned of all the World who had him in Detestation even in his better Fortune was constrained to surrender The Princess his Daughter who was in the Castle of Cherin was the first to implore the Clemency of the King who received her with great Civility and caused her to be conducted to Limisso where was the Queen his Sister and the Princess Berengera After which the Tyrant who had now no other Retreat left besides a Monastery fortified upon a Rock seeing that he was about to be attacked could not resolve to die honourably in making a noble Defence but by extream Lowness of Spirit resolved to beg a Life which ought to have been more insupportable than a thousand Deaths He came then from the Monastery in the Habit of a Mourner his Hair and Beard neglected his Eyes overflown with Tears throwing himself like a Slave at the Feet of the King and he who had so audaciously assumed the Title of an Emperor submitted himself entirely to his Mercy only making his Request that he would not put him in Chains which of all the things of the World he said was what he most feared and which would assuredly make him die with Grief Whereupon King Richard who naturally loved to divert himself with the most serious things and who was so far from being touched with any Compassion for the Misery of this Infamous that in regard of his woful Cowardice he had scarcely the Patience to see him turning himself to Raoul his Chamberlain to whose Charge he consigned this miserable Man and smiling he commanded him to use him as an Emperor and that therefore he should put upon him Manacles Fetters and Chains of Silver to distinguish him to be a Prisoner of Quality Which Raoul did not fail solemnly to put accordingly in Execution Thus the Realm of Cyprus was without any considerable Loss conquered in less than three Weeks by King Richard who at the same time married the Princess Berengera at Limisso and caused her to be Crowned Queen of England year 1191 and of Cyprus with all manner of Magnificence and as it were in a kind of Triumph after such a happy Conquest This done he sent the two Queens and the Princess the Daughter of Isaac with a good Party of his Fleet who arrived happily at Acre the 1st Day of June being the Eve of Whitsunday He caused the Tyrant to be conducted Prisoner to Tripolis and for himself after he had regulated the Affairs of his new Kingdom which he put under the Conduct of two Governors he received from his new Subjects the Value of half their Moveables which they offered him of their own Accord that so they might have from him the Confirmation of the Privileges which they had formerly enjoyed under the Emperor Manuel All which Matters being adjusted upon the 5th of June he parted from Cyprus with the King of Jerusalem and the Levantine Princes The next day he passed before Tyre where the Garrison of Conrade fearing he might seize upon the Place would not permit him to Land The next Day as he drew near to Acre he discovered the biggest of all the Ships that he had ever seen upon the Sea who had the Arms of France painted upon her Stem but suspecting it might be some Stratagem and sending out to hall her he found it was a Ship of Saladin's which had on Board her five hundred choice Men Provisions Arms and Munition as also Artificial Fire-works and two hundred most venemous Serpents in Glasses to throw into the Camp of the Christians Richard caused her to be attacked by his Galliots and after a long and furious Combat which was maintained with extraordinary Obstinacy by those desperate People till such time as being pierced in a great many places by the Stems of the Galliots who ran upon her with full Sails and Oars that she sunk to the Bottom all the Soldiers and Mariners who threw themselves into the Sea or into the Ships of the Christians to save themselves being either drowned or slain excepting two hundred of the principal Officers and Engineers who were taken Prisoners After which Richard landing the next day being the 8th of June entred as it were in Triumph laden with Spoils and Glory into the Camp before Acre Philip the August received him with the greatest Demonstrations of Joy and Friendship But that Prince too generous learnt quickly after by a dangerous Experiment that an Excess of Vertue which causes one to lose a fair Opportunity especially in Matters of
happened news was brought him that the Caravan of Egypt guarded with above ten thousand men with all sorts of Munitions for the Relief of Jerusalem was advancing thither and at no great distance whereupon taking five thousand Horse he marched upon the Eve of St. John Baptist to surprize them and charged them so Impetuously that after having slain the greatest part of the Convoy with the loss of not above seventeen or eighteen Horsemen and dissipated the rest he took betwixt four and five thousand Camels and an Infinite Number of other Beasts of Burden charged with Gold Silver and precious Merchandises not only for Necessity but delight such as come from the Indies by the Arabian Gulph to Egypt And this great Booty he destributed liberally among the Army without reserving any thing for himself which was more then ever he had done in all the former Battles which he had gained And in Truth it seemed very resonable that after two such great Victories and the taking of such a rich Convoy the taking of Jerusalem could not be a thing to be doubted but the Joy which possessed the whole Army which with incredible Ardor undertook that Enterprise was presently after changed into an Excessive Grief when the Resolution of returning to Ascalon was declared to them as the Advice of twenty Captains whom Richard had chosen to deliberate concerning the Siege of Jerusalem whilest he marched to attack the Caravan For they all concluded that the Siege was not by any means fit to be undertaken alledging many weak and feeble reasons but concealing the true ones upon which it was grounded which was that the King of England had strongly resolved to return to his own Dominions and that all which he had done was but to amuse the World and to make a shew as if he would besiege Jerusalem For he had received advice two several times after Easter by two Expresses from England that his Brother John having by force displaced and driven out of the Realm the Bishop of Ely his Chancellor year 1192 and the Principal Officers of the Crown manifestly intended to make himself King he was also assured that he was powerfully protected by the King of France who was ready by force to take Vexin because it was refused to be surrendred to him according to the Articles of Messina Richard who was extreme hasty would have immediately imbarked himself leaving to the Count de Champagne with the Places in Palestine three hundred men at Arms and two thousand English Foot together with the Forces of the Country for his Defence But a certain Ecclesiastick a very able man who was near his Person and in whom he reposed very much Confidence perswaded him to deferr his Departure for a little time that so he might save his Honor by making some Movement by which the World might be perswaded that it was not his Fault that Jerusalem was not taken and upon this Account it was that he did all that is before mentioned and that he would have those twenty Captains of whom he was very well assured determine the Affair concerning the Siege of Jerusalem who by no means approved it but urged that it was much better to continue the Fortifications of Ascalon and Gaza which were the two Keys of the Realm towards Egypt and by that means to secure themselves from the Attempts of Saladin before they undertook the Siege of the Capital City So that Richard seemed only to deferr it upon the Opinion of so many knowing men who were chosen from among the Templers and Knights of the Hospital the Lords of the Country and several of those who come from Europe after which he declared publickly that since it was judged inconvenient at that time to attempt the Siege of Jerusalem he would there leave thee Count de Champagne his Nephew to undertake it in due time and that for himself he was obliged to return to defend his Dominions against such as laid hold of this Advantage of his Absence to Enterprize against him and to invade them It is impossible to express the Mischief which this Imprudent Declaration occasioned which he did before he had perfected his Treaty with Saladin which was then a Foot for Saladin seeing the Danger he was in to lose all was contented to have some and to yield the rest to the Christians upon most advantageous Conditions But so soon as he perceived that he had nothing to fear from that quarter and that upon Richard's resolving to depart the whole Army would Instantly disband he held so firm and fierce that a Truce in such a manner as he pleased was all that could be gained from him a Truce unworthy of the Reputation and Courage of a King of England the Army of the Crusades being herewith most furiously inraged and almost mad to see themselves robbed of the Glory of delivering the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus Christ which they had with so much Danger come so far to search after disbanded of its one accord the greatest part of them thinking now of nothing but returning into their own Country bestowing a thousand Curses upon King Richard whom they accused more than ever to have assassinated the Prince of Tyre to have attempted against the Life of Philip the August and sold the Holy Land to Saladin with whom he held a Correspondence Richard by the Grandeur of his Soul and his Natural Courage gave himself no manner of trouble for what was the Effect of Rage and Anger and the Malicious pleasure which men take to speak Evil of those whom Fortune or Merit have elevated above them or what they spoak so outragiously against his Conduct in this War and indeed in a short time after he made it evident by a most glorious Action that this last Accusation was as great a Calumny as the two former For as he arrived at Acre where the Duke of Burgundy with the French were also come to give order for their Return he received advice that Saladin understanding that the Christian Army was broken up had laid Siege to Jaffa Upon this news he rallied all the Troops he could and dividing them into two Bodies he gave one to the Count de Champagne with Orders to march by Land and with the other he himself went by Sea with the choice Lords of the French and Flemings who would follow him upon this great occasion Those who manifested the greatest Ardour and whom among others he chose to be near his Person were Gauchier de Chastillon who had lost his Brother in the Siege of Acre the Counts of Cleves and Limbourg the Baron of Stanford Valeran de Luxenburg Guy de Montfort Bartholomew de Mortemar Raoul de Mauleon William de L' Estang Andrew de Savigni Henry de Nevile Dreux de Mello and William de Barres He was for some time stayed by contrary Winds and did not arrive till precisely the Evening of that day wherein those who had retired into the Castle after the taking
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
deliver the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ He writ very pressing Letters to Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury year 1195 and Primate of all England and to his Suffragan Bishops to oblige them to preach the Crusade throughout England And he was determined also to constrain by the Censures of the Church all such as having not accomplished their Vow had quitted the Crusade to take it upon them again and with all convenient Expedition to put themselves into a Condition to undertake the Voyage to the Holy Land Or however if their imperfect Health would not allow of their undertaking it in Person to send a Man in their place who might be able to serve in that War But after all the Care and Pains of this devout Pope he found very slender Effects of them in the two Realms For Philip who after having discharged his Vow no longer carried the Cross was not at all inclined to re-assume it nor to joyn himself again with a Prince of whom he had so many and great Subjects to complain and with whom it was almost impossible that he should have any firm or durable Peace so much did their Interests as well as their Humours contradict each other However he permitted the two Cardinal Legates whom the Pope had sent to him to cause the Crusade to be preached in France where many took it upon themselves fully resolved to undertake that Voyage with the first Opportunity that should fairly offer it self King Richard still carried the Cross upon his Habits as a Token that he designed upon the Expiration of the Truce to return to the Holy Land But the Troubles which he daily created to himself as by degrees they lessened his Inclinations so also at length they took from him the power of putting that Design in Execution So that he was forced to make the best of it by persuading the Great Men of his Realm to undertake the Expedition for the Health of their Souls and his and since he said he was not in a Condition to satisfie the Desire and Intention which he had once more to combat against the Infidels in Person he hoped he should in some sort accomplish those Intentions by the brave Actions which those who should supply his place would perform in that War But for all that this turned to no great Account whether it were that the Lords were a little shock'd with the thoughts of a Voyage so long dangerous and toilsom or that they easily discovered the little Sincerity in these Discourses of the King who they knew had much rather that they should stay at home than abandon him in the Wars which he then had with France The Pope therefore perceiving that he was to expect little Aid either from France or England in such an unlucky Conjuncture turned all his Thoughts towards the Emperor in hopes that that Prince would not be displeased with so fair an Occasion of putting himself into good Terms with the Holy See And in truth this way which seemed next to impossible after such a notorious Breach as had been betwixt the Pope and the Emperor had an unexpected and undifficult Success For Henry resolved absolutely upon this Occasion to give the Pope all manner of Satisfaction whether it were that he was really touched with a true Remorse for his past Faults and that hereby he thought to oblige Celestin to restore him to the Peace of the Church or that he was glad to have so fair an Opportunity to return into Italy with a powerful Army where the Empress her self highly dissatisfied with his Conduct towards the Norman Princes had raised a potent Interest against him It is certain that he received the Cardinal Gregory in an extraordinary manner at Strasbourg where at his Return from Italy he had caused an Assembly of the States and Princes of the Empire He most favourably heard the Speech which the Legate made to him at the Diet when he presented to him the Letters of Celestin in which the Pope without taking the least notice of their former Differences or the Anathema which he had denounced against him exhorted him as if there had never been any Unkindness or Breach between them to take upon him the Cross and to unite all the Forces of the Empire to gain the Glory of establishing that of Jesus Christ in Palestine The Emperor hereupon at least in outward Appearance embraced that glorious Design with all his Heart and protested publickly that he was ready to do whatsoever the Pope should desire in reference to this holy Enterprise and that he was resolved to employ his Estate his Forces and his Life to put it in Execution and following the Example of his Father to march himself at the Head of the Christian Army year 1195 against the Infidels For this purpose he called a general Diet at Wormes where almost all the Princes Ecclesiastick and Secular were assembled about the latter end of November There he solemnly declared in the Cathedral Church his Resolution to undertake the Holy War in a Discourse which moved the whole Assembly After which eight of the most famous and eloquent Bishops every one in his Turn did for eight days make elaborate Speeches upon this Subject and discoursed it with so much Force and Zeal that the whole Assembly took upon them the Cross some out of a true Sentiment of Piety and a suddain Transport of Devotion others by the Obligation of Shame not to follow the Example of so many Great Men after the Throng of whom they were necessitated for their Honour to permit themselves to swim along that generous Stream Thus it sometimes happens that Men do well even contrary to their own Inclinations when by a kind of Necessity they find themselves forced by the Company and Example of such as out of good Inclinations and Greatness of Soul follow the Paths of Piety and Vertue The most remarkable of those who in this Assembly took upon them the Cross were Henry Duke of Saxony Otho Marquis of Brandenbourg Henry Count Palatin of the Rhine Harman Lantgrave of Thuringia Henry Duke of Brabant Albert Count of Hapsbourg Adolphus Count of Scawenbourg Henry Count de Pappenheim Mareshal of the Empire the Duke of Bavaria Frederick the Son of Leopold Duke of Austria Conrade Marquis of Moravia Valeran Brother to the Duke of Limbourg and the Bishops of Wirtzbourg Breme Verden Halberstad Passau and Ratisbonne But that which was the most extraordinary and which deserves the Admiration of all Ages was that Bela King of Hungary being dead not long before this Diet Queen Margaret a Daughter of France his Widow the Sister of Philip the August and who had some time worn the Crown of England as Wife to the young Henry finding her self a second time in a State of Freedom was resolved to employ that Liberty together with her Life and Fortunes in the Service of Jesus Christ in this fourth Crusade For this purpose she took upon her the Cross and solemnly engaged
Division arose between the Orientals and the Germans who now began to perceive that they were betrayed so that separating from the Templers and Hospitallers whom they left at Piolemais resolving to have nothing further to do with such base and infamous Traitors they drew off to Jaffa to preserve that place which they had fortified and to defend it against Saphadin who threatned to besiege it And in truth that Sultan that he might make his Advantage of this Disorder among the Christians after having made them raise the Siege of Thoron took that Resolution and came to Incamp in view of Jaffa almost at the same time that the German Army arrived there Now as it was very much weakned by the Fatigues of a long Siege and by the Retreat of the Orientals who had separated from the Germans they durst not adventure upon a Battle but satisfied themselves with molesting the Sarasins by continual Skirmishes wherein they generally had the Advantage And particularly one time having drawn the Sarasins into a great Ambuscade which they had laid for them they cut in pieces the greatest part of their Army but this cost the Life of the brave Duke of Saxony who was slain upon the Place and of Frederick Duke of Austria who died the night following of a Wound which he received in Combating against the Lieutenant of Saphadin whom he overthrew dead upon the Place with the stroak of his Lance. Such a considerable Victory gave some room to hope that in a little time they might become Conquerors and that they might happily Re-establish the Affairs of the East but the unhappy News which arrived while these Matters were in Agitation from the West caused all these blooming Hopes to wither in a Moment together with the Reinforcements which the Princes of the Crusade expected which obliged them instantly to return into Germany where all was in a Flame of War for the Reason which I am about to relate The Emperor Henry the VI. who had so cruelly treated the Norman Princes in the Realms of Naples and Sicily died a little before at Messina in the Month of September of the preceeding Year either with the Regret which he had to submit to those shameful Conditions imposed upon him by the Empress Constantia his Wife who with the Assistance of the Sicilians had surprized and besieged him in a Castle from whence it was impossible for him to escape or as some suspected but with more malignity than Probability of Poison which that Princess who for his proud and cruel Humor hated him had caused to be given him Now he knowing that he had formerly been Excommunicated by the Pope for his unjust Imprisonment of Richard King of England in his Return from the Crusade when he came to die he manifested great Sorrow for the same He also sent to that King that so he might make him some sort of Satisfaction by the acknowledgment of his Offence and by his last Will he obliged his Heirs to make Restitution of the Money which he had so unjustly exacted from him for his Ransom and in case of failure he desired the Pope to employ all his Power to see it performed Great Weakness of Princes who cannot resolve to make Restitution while they live of what they believe themselves unjustly possessed when they come to die or to think they discharge themselves sufficiently by charging it upon their Successors who commonly are of the same Temper and not troubled with these Sucruples till they come to die where it is not very difficult to make fruitless Orders which rarely oblige the Living who may be supposed after their Example will detain it as long as they live and then only relinquish it when they leave the World and can hold it no longer This unhappy Prince died in the very prime of his Age being about two and thirty Years old and when he was upon the point of putting in Execution those great Designs which he had formed against the Greek Emperor whom he had compelled by the only Terror of his Armes and Name year 1198 to pay him a great Tribute for the Provinces which William King of Sicily had formerly conquered from the Greeks and which they had recovered during the Troubles of Italy He was of a middle Stature having a weak Constitution and a lean Body his Face was handsome enough but something too Meagre his Complexion was delicate and very fair his Head not altogether large enough for the Proportion of the other parts of his Body which were well made and fit for all manner of Exercises in which he was very dextrous either on foot or horsback he was an excessive lover of Hunting Walking and Field Sports and therefore he chose the Country rather than the City for his usual Residence and it was very seldom that he repaired to the City unless it were to shew his Magnificence in the Spectacles and publick Sports or Festivals which he loved to make with great Magnificence and even Vanity This nevertheless did not in the least hinder his applying himself to publick Affairs or acting upon all Occasions with abundance of Vigor Prudence and Resolution for he had a Spirit lively penetrating cultivated by Study and supported by an Eloquence Easy and Natural a Judgment solid a Soul great and enterprizing and a Heart truly generous But all these noble Qualities were dishonoured by his Avarice his Violence and Injustice his extreme Ambition and above all by his insupportable Humor his herce and insatiable desire of Revenge and his barbarous Cruelty which rendered him odious to his own Wife by whom he held the Realms or Naples and Sicily which made her conspire against him thereby to stop the horrible Inundation of his Hatred and Fury He left only one Son about three Years of Age whose Name was Frederick as was his Grandfather and who afterwards was Emperor He had caused him from his Cradle to be recognised for his Successor to the Empire but the Princes and Estates notwithstanding their Oath being on one hand resolved to have an Emperor who was able to manage the publick Affairs and on the other hand not being able to agree among themselves upon whom to fix the Choise there arose a most furious Schism among them in which some of them chose Philip of Suabia Brother of the deceased Emperor others elected Otho the Brother of Henry Duke of Saxony and both the one and the other took Arms to support and defend their Emperor This raised great Troubles and War not only in Germany but all Europe by the different Interests of the several Princes who believed themselves obliged to joyn upon this Occasion with each Party Richard King of England joyned with Otho his Nephew the Son of his Sister to whom he had given the Earldome of Poitiers Philip the August who took the opposite part to the English declared himself for Philip and the Pope on the contrary who believed that the House of Suabia whose Princes
delivered according to the Command of the Gospel he shook off the dust of his Feet against them and continued his preaching constantly to other Cities till such time as Pope Innocent being well imformed of the Vertue and the admirable Talent which this marvellous man had in preaching he appointed him by his Breve bearing Date November the fifth in the Year 1198 to publish the Crusade with all its Indulgences and prerogatives throughout all France Sometime after understanding that the Abbots of the Cistercian Order held their general Chapiter being accompanied with abundance of his Disciples he there solemnly took upon him the Cross as did also at the same time Garnier Bishop of Langress possibly to put himself into good Terms with the Pope who was not over well satisfied with him for his Conduct After which he made his Supplication to the Assembly that since there were met there so many Abbots famous for their Learning and their Vertue they would be pleased to appoint some one of their Number who might share with him in this glorious Employ for the Service of Jesus Christ and his Religion by assisting him in preaching the Crusade and accompanying him in this Holy Voyage But he could not meet with a Gratification in his Request it may be year 1199 because the Pope having already given Commission to some Abbots of the Cistercian Order to preach the Crusade in France Germany and Italy they did not judge it convenient to draw any more of their Abbots from their Charges to employ them in this Ministry So that Fouques departed from the Assembly and was scarce got out of the Gate of the Monastry where an Infinite Number of People were assembled upon the Report of the Arrival of this Holy Man but he began to preach up the Cross with so much fervency and Eloquence that all of them indifferently engaged themselves to take it upon them After which having made choice of one among his Disciples who was most capable to second him in this Exercise of preaching he travailed over almost all France where an infinite Number of Persons of all sorts and Conditions took upon them the Cross whilest Herloin a Monk of St. Dennis a very able and knowing man and well acquainted in the lower Bretanie did the same in all that Country and that those whom the Pope had commissioned to publish the Crusade in England proceeded there also with admirable Success For King Richard who ever since his return from the Holy Land wore the Cross as a mark of his Resolution to return thither made a most Magnisicent Entertainment at London where the greatest part of the Gentlemen who resorted thither to gain Honour in the Tilts and Tournaments which were held there engaged themselves after his Example to combat more nobly against the Sarasins for the Honour of Jesus Christ But whether this was done in reallity this Prince having an Intention to go once more to Palestine or that it was only in Appearance and to ingratiate himself with the Pope that so he might fix him to the Interests of his Nephew Otho and assure his Pretensions to the Empire is very uncertain but let it be which of them soever there presently after happened an Accident which put an end to his Intentions and Designs For having understood that the Poitouins were revolted from him he passed over with an Army so suddenly that by his only Presence he repressed the Rebels but though he knew how to overcome his Enemies yet he was not so happy in conquering his Passions and his Natural Temerity instigated by the Rebelious Vice of Covetousness brought this brave Prince to an untimely Grave when his Affairs were in the most flourishing and prosperous Condition For Vinomare Vicount of Limoges having found a mighty Treasure in some of his Lands offered him one half provided he might possess the other himself But King Richard who inordinately doated upon Money resolved to have it all alledging that the Treasure of right appertained to the Lord of the Fee and upon the Vicounts refusal he presently laid Siege to the Castle of Chalus where he imagined the Treasure was kept So soon as those of the Garrison saw their Prince in Person before the Place fearing to fall into his Hands they offered to surrender the place provided they might be permitted to march out of it honourably and with their Arms but this sierce Prince to discourage them commanded it to be signified to them that he did not use to capitulate with his Subjects that he was resolved to take the Place by Force and to hang every one of them who had dared to oppose him This terrible Menace reduced these poor people to Despair and that Despair begat in them a Courage and Resolution to defend themselves to the last Whereupon this Prince whose Heart was always a Stranger to fear coming to take a View of the place in order to attack it and approaching too near one Bertrand Gourdon a principal Officer of the Garrison knowing him took so true aim at him that he shot him out of a Cross-Bow with a barbed Arrow through the left hand and a little under his Shoulder the King inraged with the Wound caused the Place to be so furiously stormed night and day without Intermission that according to his Desire it was at last carried by Assault after which he caused all the Officers and Soldiers who defended it to be hanged Gourdon only excepted who had wounded him and whom after his recovery he resolved to put to death by the most cruel Punishments But it was in vain that he promised himself Health and Revenge For the Chirurgeon who when he attempted to draw out the Arrow left the Head behind being an unskilful Bungler made so many cruel and dangerous Incisions that the Wound Gangreen'd and the Cure became impossible year 1199 for in twelve days after he was hurt he died being in the forty second Year of his Age and the tenth of his Reign the sixth Day of April in the Year 1199. He died in the Arms of Gautier Archbishop of Roan with so many Sentiments and Marks of true Repentance as one shall rarely find greater among the most celebrated Saints So rigorously did he permit himself to be treated in those Extremities of his Life that by his Patience and Submission he might in some manner attone the Divine Justice by offering to God the Sacrifice of a Heart perfectly and truly humble and contrite and a Body mortified by the severe Pains which he endured besides those which he suffered by his Wound A little before his Death he caused Gourdon who had given him the mortal Wound to be brought into his Presence and calmly demanded of him Why he had endeavoured to take away his Life It is replied he siercely and very resolutely because thou hast slain my Father and my two Brothers because thou didst resalve by the ignominious Halter to take away my Life and because thou hast
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
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
above fourscore of these miserable men being saved upon the broken Planks A Party also of Frieselanders who hitherto had so well behaved themselves having abandoned their Companions were no sooner returned into Frieseland but they were miserably swallowed up by the Sea which having this Year broken the Banks and passed all the Bounds overflowed all the Country with such a fearful deluge that above a hundred thousand Persons were swallowed up of the merciless Waves But nevertheless the loss which the Christian Army suffered by this desertion was quickly repaired by the Arrival of diverse Troops of Crusades who being excited by the Letters which Pope Honorius had writ continually to all the Princes of Europe arrived one after another during all the Autumm The Cardinal d' Albanâ— the Popes Legate for the Holy War arrived with the first accompanied with a fair Troop of the Nobility of Rome whom the Pope who was himself of the first of those orders had obliged to take upon them the Cross that so they might draw others by their Example There came also from Germany the Low Countries Venice Genoa and Pisa and many from France who inbarked at Genoa with Robert de Corceone an English man Cardinal of St. Stephen upon Mount-Coelius whom the Pope ordered to accompany them in this Voyage The most signal of those who with the consent of Philip the August went from France were the Counts Hervey de Nevers Hugh de la Marche Miles de Barr upon the Seine with his Sons and the Lords John d' Artois Ponce de Grancey Ithier de Tacy Savary de Mauleon and among the Prelates William Arch-Bishop of Bourdeaux William de Beaumont Bishop of Anger 's Gautier Bishop of Autun Miles de Chastillon de Nantueil Bishop Elect of Beauvais with Andrew his Brother and Peter de Nemours Bishop of Paris the Son of Gautier great Chamberlain of France and Brother to the Bishop of Meaux and Noyon This good Prelate after he had for ten years governed with great Wisdom the Church of the Capital City of the Realm where he took great care to maintain the Purity of the Faith against the Errors of Amauri of Chartres which he caused to be condemned resolved also to signalise his Zeal against the Infidels by taking upon him the Cross with which he gloriously consummated that kind of Martyrdom at Damiata where he died after the taking of the City Prince Oliver also the Son of Henry the third King of England came by the same passage in September with the Earls of Chester Winchester and Arundel and William de Harcourt accompanied with a Gallant Troop of English who had devoted themselves to the Holy War The Legate being arrived with so considerable a Succour presented to the King of Jerusalem the Duke of Austria and the other Princes the Letters by which the Pope after having extremely commended the Cardinal informed them that he had sent him principally to create and preserve a perfect Union in the Army and to animate them to do well by going before them not with the Pomp and Majesty of a Prince to command but with that humility worthy of Jesus Christ whom he represented and for whose Cause the Crusades in taking up his Cross had obliged themselves to combat But it must be avowed that this good Prelate did very ill acquit himself of his Charge and acted directly contrary to the Intentions of the Pope and the good Instructions which he had given him For at the first Conference which he had with King John de Brienne to whom all the Chief of the Crusades yielded Obedience he told him plainly and without a Complement that he was resolved to command the Army alledging for his reason that the Church having commanded the Crusade and that the Crusades who were come to the relief of the Holy Land were not Subjects of the King of Jerusalem but depended upon the Church by the Authority whereof they had taken upon them the Cross The King was extremely surprized with such a foolish Proposition which he had so little expected but as he was very discreet he did not declare it lest he should be obliged openly to break with a man whose Ambition year 1218 which keeps no measures especially when it is supported by a great name might carry him to dangerous Extremities in abusing a Power and Authority which Jesus Christ hath not given to the Church but for the spiritual Kingdom which is not of this World as he himself assures us and hath nothing to do with the Temporal On the other side notwithstanding this as this Prince had a great Soul he was resolved to do nothing to stain his Honour or to lessen the August Character of Royalty which he was resolved to support with the utmost Vigour against all that should enterprize any thing against it He therefore kept fair with the Legate he made no direct answer to any thing which he said but would turn the discourse to some other Subject always treating him with extraordinary Civility but in the same time he continued more positively than ever to give out his Orders independant of any other Person and caused them to be exactly obeyed and acted in all things so like an absolute Master and a King that the good Legate at last perceived that he had to do with a Prince who in rendring to God with a profound Veneration that which was due to him knew also continually how to maintain the Rights that appertained to Caesar This nevertheless did not fail to occasion some Trouble in the Army by dividing the principal Officers for those who found themselves any ways dissatisfied with the King inclined always to the Legate and he finding himself able to do nothing more usually came to the Council only to give his Opinion in contradiction to the King But at length the Arrival of the Sultan Meledin who came down the Nile to Damiata with a potent Army before the Christians had passed the River to besiege the City by Land obliged all the Commanders to re-unite and recover the time which they had wasted and lost by an extreme Negligence and seriously to dispose themselves to Combat the Enemy After some light Skirmishes wherein the Sarasins were constantly beaten upon the thirtieth of November there arose such a furious Tempest that the Sea repelling the Waters of the Nile and breaking over all the Banks the whole Army had like to have perished by the Inundation many of the Ships were driven ashoar and beaten in pieces and four great Vessels upon which there were Castles built in order to attack the City were driven by the Wind and the Waves against the Towers and the Walls where they were unfortunately Consumed by the Wildfire which the Besieged with ease threw into them in the sight of the Christians who during that dreadful Storm were not able to Relieve them Several Knights of the Temple who were in another great Ship which the Tempest had also forced to
the whole Army was divided and in perpetual contests for several days But the Sultan who made use of that Opportunity to endeavour to put some succour into the place during this discourse of Peace the King's Party which was the least reunited again with the Legate Hereupon the Conferences for Peace were broken and it was resolved to pursue the Siege with all imaginable Vigor But it lasted not long for one of the Towers which lay upon a Corner of the Town being by the force of the Machins so ruined that it was easie to enter by the Breach and there appearing no great number of Defendants to secure the Breach the Legate made choice of a very dark night wherein the Wind blew very loud to cause it to be attacked The Soldiers approached the Tower and the Gate adjoining which they set on sire and passed to the second Wall whilest others clapt up Ladders and scaled the first Wall in diverse places without resistance then the King being immediately advertised of this strange Success led his Troops thither in good order and with the same facility gained the second Wall and the next morning being the fifth of November by break of day they took the third Wall with so little resistance that there was but one man lightly wounded in his Foot Immediately the Christian Standards were planted upon the Towers which the Sultans perceiving they retired with precipitation setting fire to their Camp and Bridge that so they might not be pursued Thus Damiata which had cost so much Blood and labour for eighteen Months was in one night taken by the Christian Army without Noise without Tumult there being none left in this fair and great City in Condition to defend it For the extreme Famine which they had indured and the diseases which followed upon it had made such a horrible ravage that of eighty thousand Soldiers and Citizens which were in it at the Beginning of the Siege there were scarcely lest three thousand alive and of those not above one hundred who were able to bear Arms. All the Streets and houses were filled with dead and dying Persons which the living who with extreme weakness expected the same Fate were not able to bury so that the Army was forced for a long time to encamp without the City before they could get it cleansed There were found in the City infinite Riches in Vessels of Gold Silver Pearls precious Stones Silks and all manner of Indian Drugs and Spices year 1219 But the Sarasins during the Siege having buried most of their Money and notwithstanding that the Legate had denounced the Anathema against those who should conceal any of the Booty which he ordered to be brought together to make a just distribution among the whole Army yet particular persons concealed the greatest part of the Booty so that there could never be got together above four hundred thousand Crowns in Money which was distributed among the Soldiers There were about four hundred among the Prisoners who were the most considerable who were reserved to be exchanged for those who had been taken by the Enemies during the Siege year 1220 The Principal Mosque which was supported by one hundred and fifty Marble Pillars and invironed by five curious Galleries with a noble Cupelo in the middle upon which was a lofty Spire was consecrated to God in honour of the blessed Virgin and upon the Feast of the Purification the Cardinal Legate accompanied by the Patriarch the Bishops and Clergy of Ptolemais followed by the King the Princes the Lords and all the Chief Commanders went in Solemn Procession there to celebrate the Sacred Mysteries of the Christian Religion after which they built a new Bridge which joyned the City and the Fort which they had during the Siege built upon the other bank of the Nile and then Damiata by the consent of the Legate and the whole Army was annexed to the Realm of Jerusalem and to add to the good Fortune some few dayes after a Party of a thousand Soldiers being commanded to go abroad for Forrage and Provisions failing up the second branch of the River Nilus which is called the Tanitique the Egyptians terrified by their comming cowardly abandoned the strongest of their Castles which was built upon the Ruines of the Famous City of Tanis in Ancient Time the Capital City of Egypt and the Residence of the Pharaohs the place where Moses to move the heart of that obdurate Prince wrought all those memorable Prodigies which are recorded in the Holy Story in the Book of Exodus It is also reported that in a place near Damiata the Christians found a Book written in Arabick the Author whereof who assures us that he was neither Jew Christian nor Mahometan predicted the Victories of the great Saladin the taking of Ptolemais by the Kings of England and France that of Damiata nine and twenty Years after and that one day there should come a King from the East whose name should be David and another from the West whom he does not name who joyning together should overthrow the Empire of the Mahometans and recover the City of Jerusalem But as one cannot judge of the Truth of this Prophecy by the former part of the things which it doth predict since they were already come to pass when the Book was found so it must be Posterity who only can be able to make a certain judgment of the truth of the second part when it shall happen to be accomplished which we have not yet seen The End of the Third Part. THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART IV. BOOK I. The CONTENTS of the First Book The Condition the manners and the Religion of the People of Georgia who resolve to join 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 discription of this Legate An account of the miserable adventure of the Christian Army which by the innundation 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
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
in a Valley so deeply Sandy and loose that both the men and Horses who were soundly harrassed by the nights march had much difficulty to dragg their Legs out of this deep Sand. The Governour of Gaza who had by his Spies been advertised hereof laid himself in Ambush behind some little Hills and all of a suddain appeared upon the top of them with some of his Squadrons but without advancing as first resolving to observe the Countenance of the Christians And accordingly seeing that they made a Halt and shewed some surprize to find those People in order of Battle whom they had thought to have found asleep in their Beds he commanded some Squadrons to descend and charge them at full Speed and the light Arabian Horses running as freely upon these Sands as if they had been upon firm ground they made a furious discharge of their Arrows and then retreated to their main Body in a little time returning again in greater numbers shooting always without coming nearer than the distance of their Arrows and without danger of being pursued by the Christians who did not without difficulty advance over the heavy Sands so that wheeling and running round about the Army all day they harassed them till Night a Night that was to be spent in Arms without repose and repast and without the Possibility of advancing or retreating and in nothing but miserable trouble and waking dispair in which they were overwhelmed And indeed their Fortune was much more deplorable the next morning when the whole Army of the Sultan being joined to the Garrison of Gaza encompassed them on all sides and without fear attacking the poor Soldiers already half dead and almost unable to carry their Arms they came to charge them with the Sword and Lance. The Christians indeed performed in despight of their Fortune all that could be expected from men of Courage and infinitely above their Strength but there was a necessity that they must yield to multitude with which they were oppressed most of them being either slain or taken that miserable day Henry Count de Bar one of the most Valiant Princes of his time Simon Count de Clermont the Lords John de Barres Robert Malet Richard de Beaumont and many others of the Bravest and most remarkable men remained dead upon the place The Constable Amauri and seventy other great French Lords after having fought most courageously and by their long resistance given an opportunity to the Duke of Burgundy to make his escape were taken Prisoners and carried in Chains to Grand Caire Thus ended this unhappy Jealousie Ambition and Vain Glory which were governed by rashness and Imprudence in this fatal Encounter of our Ancient Worthies whose misfortune may teach all the Gallant men of our times that they can never be truely Brave unless their Courage be regulated by Prudence in the Commanders and Obediences in the Inferior Officers and Soldiers This unfortunate news did so astonish all the rest of the Army which was at Ascalon in no very good understanding among themselves that they presently returned to Ptolemais where the divisions which continued still among them as well as between the Sultans of Egypt and Damascus compleated the loss of all by two most Shameful Treaties with the Infidels For the Templers who had one part of the Army on their side made a Truce with Nazer Sultan of Damascus year 1240 upon condition that he should surrender to them the Castles of Beaufort and Saphet with all the Territory of Jerusalem and that they should assist him with all their Forces against Melech-Salah Sultan of Egypt who had dethroned his Brother Edel to possess himself thereof and the Hospitallers supported by the King of Navarr the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretany and the other part of the Army made a truce quite opposite to this with the Sultan of Egypt against the Sultan of Damascus After which the King of Navarr the Duke of Bretany and the greatest part of the Cusades embarking in the Port of Acre returned into their own Country almost at the same time that Richard Earl of Cornwall Brother to King Henry the third of England arrived in Palestine with good Troops of English Crusades This Prince who following the Example of his Uncle Richard Coeur de Lyon had taken the Cross with a great Party of the Nobility and Gentry of England embarked at Dover about Whitsontide and landing in France passed to Paris where he was magnificently received by St. Lewis who lodged him in his Palace and caused him to be royally treated and conducted to Lyons from whence passing by Roan to Arles where he was to be received by Count Raymond de Provence he came to Marseilles and about the middle of September he imbarked upon the Fleet which he had sent through the Straits and upon the eleventh of October in fifteen days after the departure of the King of Navarr he came to Anchor in the Road of Ptolemais The Sarasins had a strange fear upon them for this Prince whose very name was formidable to them renewing the memory of the famous Richard King of England who by his marvellous Feats of Arms was so terrible to these Infidels that the Women were wont to quiet their Children when they cried with threatning them with King Richard and the Horsemen to make a Skewish boggling Horse go forward would commonly say to him in clapping their Spurrs to him What dost think it is King Richard And certainly his Nephew wanted neither Spirit nor Courage neither Money nor Conduct to support a name so great and so terribly to the Sarasins He did all that could be expected from a very great Prince to put things into a Condition so that it might be hoped the War against the Infidels might be happily prosecuted for within three days after his arrival he caused it to be proclaimed by the sound of Trumpet through the whole City That if any one of those who remained in the Holy Land stood in need of Money he would furnish them during all the time of their Service But he quickly learnt that in the deplorable condition to which matters were reduced by the division which still continued among the principal Officers and above all the Templers and Hospitallers there was no appearance of succeeding by the way of Arms. And therefore seeing that it was impossible to bring them to any agreement and that the Sultan of Damascus did not at all observe the truce whereas he of Egypt offered to continue it with new advantages to the Christians he resolved at last by the advice of the Duke of Burgundy the great Master of the Hospital and the greatest part of the Crusades to accept of it upon these conditions That all the Prisoners an each side and especially those who were taken at the Battle of Gaza should be set at liberty and that the Christians should enjoy certain Lands which the Sultan possessed in Palestine Mean time the Earl whilest he staid for the
follow the design of his Predecessor year 1244 to redress the Evils of the Church by a General Council for the calling whereof he sent his Circular Letters throughout all Europe It was held at Lyons the year following and was opened upon the Eve of the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles It was at this Council that the Cardinals received from Innocent the Red-Hat for a distinction of their Dignity and the Obligation which they had to loose even their Lives for the cause of God and of his Church especially in this Persecution of the Emperor Frederick The Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch as also those of Aquilea and Venice assisted at this Council together with one hundred and fourty Arch-Bishops and Bishops of France Italy Spain England Scotland and Ireland the Deputies of many other places the Abbots of Cluni the Cistercians and Claraval the General of the order of St. Dominick and the Vicar of that of St. Francis as also a great number of other Abbots and Priors of the same Kingdoms There came scarcely any at all from Germany for fear of offending the Emperor nor from Hungary by reason of the irruption which the Tartars had made at that time into those Countries Baldwin the Emperor of Constantinople who came to desire assistance from the Pope was there also together with Raymond Count of Tholose Raymond Berenger Count de Provence and the Ambassadors of the Emperor the Kings of England France and the other Christian Princes Affairs of the greatest moment certainly passed with wonderful Expedition in those times in Comparison of what they do in our days For this great Council wherein matters of the Greatest Importance were treated of the smallest of which would now take up much a longer time and would be discussed and debated with extraordinary difficulty was finished in three Sessions In the first of them the Pope being seated upon a Throne which was raised in the great Church at Lyons having at his Right hand the Emperor of Constantinople and upon his Left the other Princes he made a most Pathetick Discourse in which comparing his pains and Grief to those of Jesus Christ upon the Cross he said that the Church had received five great Wounds from which it was impossible but he must be extremely sensible of her pain The first was the abuses and disorders which were so frequent among the Ecclesiasticks The Second was by the Insolence and the Tyranny of the Sarasins year 1245 who had prophaned the Sacred places and laid wast the Holy City and were upon the point of taking all that remained in Palestine from the Christians The third Wound was that which was given by the Schism of the Greeks whose power though it had been brought down yet now began to rise again and even to threaten Constantinople which was reduced to the last Extremities The fourth was by the furious irruption of the Tartars into Hungary even to the very consines of Germany where they filled all with Blood Slaughter and Ruin The Fifth was by the terrible Persecution of Frederick who exposed the Church to all those Sufferings for which Pope Gregory had cut him off from the Body of the Church in which he not only persisted but daily augmented his former guilt by new and greater Crimes After which the Patriarch of Constantinople and Valeran Bishop of Berylus who was sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to implore the Succour of the Christians of the West gave a Relation of the deplorable condition wherein the Affairs of the Latins were in Greece and Palestine And then Thadeus de Sessa the Judge of the Imperial Palace and the Emperors Ambassador rose up and spoke to the Council in the name of his Master At first that he might gain the Favour of the Assembly he repeated in general and few words what the Pope had said concerning the Sarasins Greeks Tartars and the Emperor and protested that Frederick whose Power by reason of so many Victories as he had gained against his Enemies was greater than ever it had been before offered himself withal his heart to employ all that he had his Fortunes and his Arms to reduce the Greeks to reason and to repulse the Tartars and that he was ready to go himself in person and at his own charges into Palestine to drive out the Corasmins and there to reestablish the Affairs of the Christians which were in such ill terms and that in the mean time he promised to restore to the Church whatsoever should be found that he had taken from it and to make all the satisfaction that could be expected if in any thing he had offended To this the Pope not doubting but all this was said as an Artifice to surprize and amuse the Council only answered that they were not met there to talk of new promises but to see that he performed those which he had already made upon his Oath which he had so often eluded And then added he after having so often deceived us what Caution will he give to Warrant that which he promiseth The Kings of France and England boldly and without delay answered Thadeus ought not they to be accepted By no means replyed the Pope because if he should again fail in his promises as thereis reason enough to believe that he will we shall be obliged to take our remedy against these two Kings So that the Church for one Enemy which she hath now upon her hands shall then have three which are the three most puissant Princes in all Europe Then Thadeus continuing his discourse to come to the point which was in question and upon which he was defired to insist he endeavoured to answer precisely to all the Crimes which the Pope had objected against Frederick And being very dexterous and wonderful Eloquent he spoke with so much Art and gave so soft and plausible a turn to his defence that there were very many in the Assembly who appeared highly satisfied But Innocent who was a very able man and who was perfectly well acquainted with all the Circumstances of this Affair replied instantly to all that the Emperors Ambassadour had said in defence of his Master and answered to every particular with as much exactness and Strength as if he had been a long time before prepared by seeing what Thadeus would say upon this Subject And this was what was done in this first Session In the Second which was held eight days after upon Tuesday the fifth of July diverse Bishops especially the Spaniards who were come in greater numbers to the Council than any other Nation tendered an accusation consisting in many Articles against the Emperor urging the Pope to condemn him especially upon this whereon they insisted principally That it was the intention of that Prince as appeared by his own Letters to dispoil the Ecclesiasticks of all their Estates and to reduce them to the same condition that they were in during the times of the primitive Persecution The Ambassadour on
the other side endeavoured to satisfie the Council in every particular of the Charge year 1245 But perceiving that the greatest part of his Judges were not like to be favourable to him he desired that at least it might be deferred for some days till the third Session to the end that the Emperor who he assured them was upon his way to come to the Council might have time according to his desire to make his appearance To this the Pope willingly consented as believing that if that Prince were present all differences would easily be adjusted And although many who desired that this Affair should be quickly determined opposed it he gave twelve days respit in which they laboured in the private meetings to regulate all the other matters that were under debate At last the term being expired and that the Emperor who would by no means acknowledge the Council to be the Judge of his differences with the Pope did not appear the third Session was held upon the Monday being the seventeenth day of July where the seventeen Decrees which were made for the reformation of manners and discipline were approved as also those for finding out the ways to succour the Empire of Constantinople and to oppose the irruption of the Tartars and for the Publication of a Crusade against the Sarasins who possessed the Holy Land That which was decreed upon this Article was That the Crusade should be preached in all places That those who had already taken upon them the Cross and had not accomplished their Vow should be constrained by the Prelates to take it up upon pain of Excommunication That the Ancient Crusades and those who should take it up anew should at a certain time and place to be appointed repair to the Pope to receive his Benediction That there should be either a Peace or a Truce for four years among all the Christian Princes That during all that time there should be no publick Turnaments or Tiltings held That the Lords of the Crusade should retrench all manner of Superfluity and Vain Magnificence in their train their Equipage their habits and their Tables That the Bishops should take great care to exhort their People and especially such upon whom they imposed any Pennance for their Crimes to contribute some part of their Goods to the Holy War and that they should keep an exact Register of what was thus collected That all the Ecclesiasticks should be obliged to pay for this War the twentieth part of their Revenue for three years those only excepted who took up the Cross themselves and that the Pope and the Cardinals should pay the tenth to give an example to others who might be ashamed not to follow them And in short all the Privileges granted by the Councils and by the Popes in Favour of the Crusades were confirmed and all those Punishments denounced by the Bullas and the Canons against such as enterprised any thing against the Persons or Estates of the Crusades or against such as favoured the Pyrates or carried Arms to the Infidels were also ratified And for the obtaining the aid of God Almighty it was ordered that Prayers should be made in all Churches in the Octaves of the Nativity of our Blessed Lady After this the Cause of the Emperor who had refused to appear was taken into consideration And as his Ambassador Thadeus perceived that the Sentence which was already prepared was going to be pronounced by the Pope he protested aloud against it to stop it from proceding any further crying That he appealed to a general Councel To which the Pope replyed with great Moderation That this was one that all the Prelates and Princes had been called to and that if the Bishops of Germany and some others were not present it was the Fault of his Master who had hindred them from coming On the other part Hugh Bigod William de Chanteloup and Philip Basset the Ambassadours of England who favoured Frederick the Brother-in-Law of their King whose Sister he had married to gain time presented to the Pope Letters in the Name of the whole English Nation which contained two very nice points wherein they demanded to have Justice done them and which doubtless would take up a great deal of time The first was upon what the late King John had done who in despight and contrary to all right as well as against the Inclination of all his People had they said made a Donation of England and Ireland to the Pope to have the Crown for the future held of the Holy See which they protested was wholly null and void the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury having in the name of the whole Body of the Realm opposed it The Second was a complaint to the Pope that his Legates Nuncio's and other Ministers year 1245 whom he sent into England besides the levying of the Peter-Pence made there under a thousand Pretexts such insupportable Exactions upon the People as they were resolved no longer to suffer To this Innocent who easily discovered the Artifice answered coldly That the Council being not assembled for those matters the discussion of them must be deferred till some other time wherein they might be debated more fully and with more leisure And then after having acquainted the Assembly with how much respect Honour and all the Testimonies of a sincere affection he had treated the Emperor Frederick both before and since his Pontificate and acquainted them how many times he had ineffectually endeavoured to reduce him to his Duty by mild and gentle methods he first pronounced the Sentence against him viva voce and afterwards caused it to be read by which He declared him excommunicate deprived him of the Empire and all his Realms and of all manner of Honours preheminences and Dignities for all those Crimes which are therein at large expressed absolving all his Subjects from the Oaths of Allegiance which they had taken to him and expresly prohibiting all manner of persons under pain of Excommunication to acknowledge him either as Emperor or as King or in that quality to give him either Counsel or Aid And at the same time the Bishops who held the Tapers lighted in their hands approved and confirmed the Sentence and in extinguishing them pronounced the Anathema against him After which the Pope rising from his Throne began the Te Deum with which Hymn this famous Council was concluded in which there was neither Decree nor Canon made concerning matters of Faith though there were many Heresies in those times there being nothing made but certain Regulations for the Discipline of the Church and after the Judgment which was given against Frederick the Pope decided nothing but a Politick and tender Affair of State in which all Sovereigns seemed to have a great Interest For upon occasion of this Council the Estates of Portugal being disatisfied with their King Dom Sanches whom in by reason of the weakness of his Mind they believed unfit and unable to govern they sent to Lyons the Archbishop
Reigned in France year 1246 had gained over the Princes of the League over the Duke of Bretany the Counts of Tholouse and March and over the King of England and the Prince Richard his Brother who had indeavoured to support the Earl of March and by a pretty piece of Policy he carried along with him all the Princes and all the Great men of the Realm who might give any Suspicion or the least occasion to fear that they had either the Power the Will or the Temptation during his absence to trouble the Repose of his Dominions For of the two most mutinous Spirits of whom he had most reason to be distrustful he took one of them which was the Earl of March along with him and the other which was Raymond the Young who was Earl of Tholouse who had also taken upon him the Cross died before the Voyage leaving his Dominions to Alphonsus the King's Brother the Count of Poitiers who had married the Princess Joanna his Daughter and Heiress and the King for his greater assurance sent that Prince to establish himself in his new Dominion of Languedoc before he imbarqued himself as he afterwards did to go and joyn him in the East Moreover he deferred his Voyage for almost four Years to take the advantage of two fair occasions which presented themselves the one to reunite the County of Mascon to the Crown which he bought of the Countess who after she had distributed the money for which she sold it to the poor retired to the Nunnery of Maubuisson and there professed herself the other was to bring the County of Provence into the Royal House which had been separated from it for above three hundred Years For Raymond Berenger the Fifth of the Name and the last of the Catalonian Family who had reigned in Provence being dead the year preceeding the King knew with so much Art how to gain Romee de Villeneuve and Albert de Tarascon the Trustees and Guardians of the Princess Beatrix the remaining Daughter of the four which Count Raymond had had who was Sister to the Queen and the Heiress to the Count that he obtained her for Charles d' Anjou his Brother and without losing of time advancing towards Provence with one part of the Army which was ready for the Holy War he broke all the measures of James the King of Aragon Cousin German to the deceased Count and hindered his carrying the Princess away by force as he had designed if he could not procure her by other wayes in order to oblige her to marry his Son and by that means to retain this fair County in his Family which lay so conveniently for him During this time Lewis had all the leisure which could be reasonably desired to make his preparations and provisions year 1247 which were the greatest that ever had been seen and also to settle that Publick Peace and Tranquility which he had so happily given to all his Dominions and to assure himself on the side of England also For he prolonged the Truce which had been made with that King two or three Years before after the Victory of Taillebourg and also engaged the Pope to be the Guarranty that it should be inviolably observed as it was during all the time of his absence although the English hearing of his being taken Prisoner indeavoured to break it In short this Wise Prince neither went as the first Crusades had done by Land and thereby he avoided the dangers into which they had fallen of perishing by Famine and the miseries which attended those vast Desert Countries which were possessed by the Barbarians neither did he go with a confused Multitude of all manner of Persons and People who were to be gotten together who served for no other purpose but to put all into disorder but with a good Army consisting in betwixt thirty and forty thousand men which was such a number as the Great Alexander had when he went to the Conquest of Asia but this Army was composed for the greatest part of Gentlemen and choice Souldiers such as were capable of marching over the bellies of all that Egypt and Syria could oppose against them unless some accident should happen or some extraordinary misfortune befal them against which no humane Prudence can give any Warranty or Assurance And that which was most considerable the whole Army was absolutely at his disposal in regard that it consisted wholly of French for the King of England would not permit the Bishop of Berytus who went thither to preach the Crusade to publish it in his Dominions alledging that he stood in need of all his Subjects to defend himself against his Enemies if they should attack him year 1245 King Lewis having wisely provided all things necessary for his Voyage which he undertook in his very prime strength being about three and thirty Years of Age he had nothing further to do but to take care of the Government of his Realm in his absence and this he left to his Mother Queen Blanch the most able Woman and most capable of Governing of any of her time after which he went according to the Custom of those Ages to St. Dennis to receive the Oristame the Scarf and the Pilgrim's Staff which he did in great Solemnity for he parted from Paris upon the Friday after Whitsunday in the year 1248. accompanied with the two Princes his Brothers the Legate year 1248 and the most part of the Princes of the Crusade being preceded by all the Processions of the whole City which were followed by an infinite number of People who all in tears marched from the Palace to the Nunnery of St. Antonina singing Psalms and Letanies for the prosperity of his Voyage From thence he went by Burgundy to Lyons where he made his Entry with all manner of Magnificence for never any King was better acquainted with the Art of making his Royal Majesty most conspicuous in those Publick Ceremonies where he was minded to shew it and the Historians of that Age inform us that among other remarkable Circumstances of this Magnificent Entry there were an hundred Knights who being compleatly armed and mounted upon their great charging Horses caparisoned with their Coat Armor according to the manner of those times marched before him with their Swords drawn in their hands and this is that which our present King who in Magnificience and Grandeur surpasseth all his Predecessars hath revived in our dayes to render to the Majesty of our Kings that which St. Lewis himself as great a Saint as he was judged necessary upon some occasions for the manifesting his Lustre and his Greatness After this the Holy King having again conferred with the Pope who kept his Court at Lyons descended by the Rhone and went to take Shipping with the Queen upon the twenty fifth of August at Aigues-Mortes where the greatest part of his Fleet waited for him the remainder being at Marseilles there to take in the rest of his Army After which setting sail
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
Money to pay the Crusades came to nothing and seeing himself straitned by that Prince who joyning with the Rebells of the Church had constrained him to withdraw to Orvieta he had at last recourse to France He therefore made new Offers and Solicitations to Count Charles of Anjou and Provence to accept the Realms of Sicily and Naples as Fiefs escheated to the Church by the Felony of the Princes of Suabia who had injoyed them after the Normans And that he might do this more effectually he sent the Arch-Bishop of Cosenca into England to redemand from the King and Prince Edmond his Son the Right which he had invested him within these Kingdoms to which they could now no longer pretend since they had not accomplished the conditions upon which it was granted After which Simon de Brie Cardinal of St. Cecily passed as Legate into France to bestow the Investiture upon Charles who accepted of it by the King's consent and upon the pressing Solicitations of the Countess Beatrix his Lady who was ready to die with longing to be a Queen as well as her three other Sisters who had been so for a long time He therefore promised the Cardinal that he would presently March with a Powerful Army against Mainfrey And accordingly after that Clement the Fourth the Successor of Vrban had confirmed his Election he Sailed from Marseilles with thirty Stout Men of War and arrived safe at Rome where he expected his Land Army which this new Queen like a Female Hero led over the Alps quite through Italy receiving all the way as she passed the Auxiliary Troops of the Guelphs and being come thither she was Crowned Queen as the Count was King of Naples and Sicily in the Church of St. John of Latran by five Cardinals delegated by the Pope for the performance of that Ceremony he himself being then at Perusa After which the new King at the Head of his Army took the Field and forcing the passage of Goriglian and the Fortress of St. German he Marched directly towards the Enemy and in short gave Mainfrey Battle near Beneventum The Battle was bravely fought by Mainfrey who shewed himself a great Captain and Valiant Souldier but in Conclusion he lost it abundance of his gallant Men and he himself remaining among the Dead After which the young Conradin who was now about fifteen years of Age coming with a flourishing Army of Germans strengthened with the Gibelins of Tuscany and Lombardy attempted to recover the Inheritance of his Father but not being able to pursue the advantage which he had intirely at the beginning of the Battle which he fought against Charles he lost all For Charles who knew how to improve his error to his own advantage in conclusion won the Day from him near the Lake of Celano in a second Victory more Glorious and Compleat than the first But his Policy without doubt too severe not to say inhumane in this Rencontre made him dishonour it by cutting off the head of this unfortunate young Prince and that of Frederick of Austria by a Conduct which had nothing in it of the Genius and nature of St. Lewis or of the French Lords who all condemned this Action as Posterity will certainly do and which as it fails not to do justice to the good or evil Actions of Princes will certainly never pardon to his Memory In the mean time the great progress which the Sarasins daily made in the East against the Christians of Syria during the troubles of the West arriving at Rome the Popes Vrban and Clement failed not to write to St. Lewis and to the other Kings to pursue the Crusade which had been begun against these Barbarians But those which the Popes were obliged at the same time to publish against the Princes of Suabia and the Wars of Italy obstructed the doing of any thing effectually towards the General Crusade till such time as Charles after his two great Victories was peaceably established in the possession of his two Kingdoms For then the troubles of Italy being appeased year 1268 and Peace settled throughout all Europe the Pope and the King by agreement took up the design of that Crusade which it was impossible to execute whilest the private ones were published against Mainfrey King Lewis as much St. as he was could not hinder himself from retaining a boiling displeasure for the unhappy Success of his attempt upon Egypt and moreover inflamed as he was with a Zeal for the House of God he was wonderfully afflicted with sorrow to hear every Day that Bendocdar was ready to swallow up all and to chase the Christians wholly out of the Holy Land of Palestine It was therefore his passionate desire to take up the Cross again and to imploy the remainder of his Days in combating against the Enemies of Jesus Christ for the reconquering of his Inheritance which was almost intirely lost But in regard he was unwilling it should be said that in a matter of this importance he acted by the sole movement of his own Inclinations he sent privately to Pope Clement one of his Confidents to Communicate to him his design and to desire him to send a Legate into France with Command to exhort him and all his Subjects to undertake the Holy War The Pope who was very Wise considering that this Great Prince had already done beyond what could be expected from a most Christian King in the War against the Infidels deliberated a long time about this Affair But at last having well examined the matter he kindly assented to the King's desire and highly approved of his Pious Design and consequently resolved not to lose so fair an opportunity to form a Holy League against Bendocdar to which in the beginning of his Pontificate he had exhorted not only all the Kings of Europe but also the King of Armenia and Abagas the King of the Tartars in Persia For this purpose therefore he sent Simon de Brie Cardinal of St. Cecily his Legate into France and the Cardinal Othobon into England with order to pass from thence as he also did into Spain and Portugal then he ordained as he had done formerly that the Religious of the orders of St. Dominick and St. Francis should Preach the Crusade through all Germany as far as Denmark and Poland But nothing of all this had any Success except only in France by the diligence the Care the Example and admirable Zeal of St. Lewis For so soon as the Legate was arrived this devout King called a general Assembly of the Princes Prelates and Barons of his Realm to his Royal Palace in Paris where with all his Power and Eloquence animated with his Ardent Zeal he himself exhorted the whole Assembly To take upon them again the Cross to avenge the Injuries which the Sarasins had for so long time done to Jesus Christ in the fairest part of his Empire and to maintain the Christians in their proper Inheritance out of which the Sultan of Egypt and
his Mamalukes the particular Enemies of the Name and Nation of France were upon the point of driving them unless they were speedily assisted He protested That he was resolved even tho he were abandoned by all the rest of the World in such a Noble Enterprise to pursue it vigorously himself and to imploy all that he had his Forces his Fortunes and his Life in this Glorious Service and that he should infinitely rejoyce to lose it in his Service who had laid down his precious Life for the Love which he had to Mankind in that precious spot of Earth for the Recovery whereof he exhorted all the French who he doubted not had doubtless the same Courage with which their Ancestors had so gloriously conquered it to take up their Arms and accompany him in this Noble Enterprise A Discourse of this Nature spoken with unexpressible Graces and by so great a King whose Age Experience Wisdom Equity and Love which he had for his People and above all his Eminent Sanctity rendred so much beloved and revered by his Subjects did so sensibly affect the Hearts of all the whole Assembly that after the Legate had made his Speech upon the same Subject and the King himself had with a Marvellous Devotion received the Cross the greatest part of the Princes and Lords following his Example also took it upon them The first among them were the three Princes his Sons Philip his Eldest John Tristan Count de Nevers and Peter Count d' Alenson Alphonso Count de Poitiers and Tholouse his Brother Thibald King of Navarr and Count Palatine of Champagne his Son-in-Law Robert Count d' Artois his Nephew John Son to the Duke of Bretany Son-in-Law to the King of England the Counts Guy of Flanders Philip of Nemours Guy de Laval and Philip de Montfort year 1268 The Lords de Courtenay de Beaujeu de Montmorenci de Harcour de Valeri de Neele d' Estrees de Longueval de Varennes de Clermont de Fiennes de Rochefort de Mirepoix de Cleri de St. Cler de Roye de Precigni de Chastenoy de Saux de Beaumout de Mailly de Vandieres de Lionne d' Auteil d' Orillac and the brave Oliver de Termes all Illustrious Names known and still reverenced in our days after so many Ages in the Persons who are honoured by them and who have done them Honour by their Merits These were followed by all the other Knights and Lords of the Assembly except only the Lord Joinville High Steward of Champagne who having had enough of the first Voyage dispensed with himself for the second alledging that by the first he had ruined his poor Subjects of the Lordship of Joinville and in the ill humour in which he was by reason of this second Undertaking which he did not at all approve he hath written very plainly That it was the opinion of many Learned Men that those who gave the King this Advice sinned mortally in regard that the King was so weak in Body and brought so low that he was but just in a condition to maintain that Peace and justice which by his presence he caused to flourish in his Kingdom and which would by his absence be most certainly banished from thence But this was not the opinion of Clement the Fourth who was esteemed one of the most learned and pious Popes which the Church had ever had and who St. Lewis having consulted him concerning this Voyage extremely approved of it as did also the Confessor of this Holy King And this makes it evident That in all times the most severe Casuists have not always been the most knowing nor the safest advisers in difficult matters After this great Action St. Lewis applied himself with an indefatigable Zeal to dispose all things for the Crusade sparing neither diligence pains nor cost to put it into a condition to have better Success than he had met with in his first Voyage and to draw along with him not only the French his own Subjects but also such of other Nations as were willing to share with him in the Enterprise And for this purpose he did what was possible in conjunction with the Pope to make an Accord between the Venetians and the Genoese that so they might enter with him into this Holy Vnion But it was all Labour in vain for these two Republicks whose difference occasioned so many mischiefs to Palestine had too much animosity one against the other to unite so easily or so quickly As for the Venetians who had at first treated with him for his passage they at last excused themselves from furnishing him with Shipping by the fear which they said they had that the Sultan of Egypt resenting it should seize upon all their Effects within his Ports But the Genoeses who always ran counter to their Enemies and who upon this occasion acted more nobly offered him theirs He also by his Royal Liberality obliged Edward Prince of England to take up the Cross a Prince whom he highly valued for his Spirit and his Valour and gave him thirty thousand Marks in Silver to put him into an Equipage to accompany him like a great Prince offering the same Sum to James King of Arragon who had some years before taken upon him the Cross The Pope also on his side did not fail to excite the Kings and Princes of Europe as also the Greek Emperor by the Example of St. Lewis to joyn their Arms with those of this great King for the deliverance of the Holy Land from the oppression of the Sultan of Egypt who wanted not above two or three Cities to be Master of all that the Christians possessed in Syria Palestine and Egypt since the time that they were conquered by Godfrey of Bullen but all was in vain Ottocare the King of Bohemia the Dukes of Saxony Bavaria and Brunswick Otho Marquess of Brandenburg and divers others whom Clement excited to take the Cross and some of which had already taken it were so incumbred by the Schism of the Empire and besides so exasperated by the Death of Conradin which for a long time rendred the Name of the French odious to them that they could not be perswaded to entertain a thought of uniting with them in the Holy War The King of Castile who disputed the Empire and whose Brother had been taken with Conradin was in the same opinion The King of Portugal Alphonso the Third took the Cross indeed and abtained a Grant to receive the Tenths of all the Goods of the Church in his Realm for the Holy War but after all he performed nothing year 1269 James the King of Arragon made the fairest advances in the World towards this War He protested in the Assembly of the Princes at Toledo That he would accomplish his Vow although his Age seemed to dispense with him for it and notwithstanding all that could be done to divert him from it He promised at Valentia to the Ambassadors of the Greek Emperor and to those of