Fable touching the pawning of the Holy Eucharist to the Sarasins by the King Lewis His deliverance and admirable Fidelity to his Promise and the perfidiousness of the Egyptians BOOK III. The General Consternation all over France upon the News of the King's Imprisonment the Tumult the Shepherds their Original their Disorders and Defeat St. Lewis after his deliverance performs his Articles with great Justice The Admirals fail on their part The Original of the Hospital of the Fifteen Score The Councel debates the matter of the King's return The Reasons on the one side and the other It is at last concluded for his stay in Palestine Four Famous embassages to St. Lewis from Pope Innocent from the Sultan of Damascus from the Ancient of the Mountain and from the Emperor Frederick The Death of that Emperor and the different Opinions thereupon An Error of St. Lewis who loseth a fair opportunity of making use of one Party of the Sarasins to ruin the other The Election of a Mamaluke Sultan The gallant Actions of St. Lewis in Palestine The Death of Queen Blanch and the return of the King into France The Rupture and War between the Venetians and Genoese occasions the loss of the Holy Land The Conquests of Haulon Brother to the great Cham stops the Progress of the Sarasins The Relation of the Mamaluke Sultans They vanquish the Tartars which ravage Palestine The Character of Sultan Bendocdar the great Enemy of the Christians His Conquests upon them His Cruelty and the Glorious Martyrdom of the Souldiers of the Garrison of Sephet and of two Cordeliers and a Commander of the Temple The taking and Destruction of Antioch by this Sultan The quarrels between the Popes and the Princes of the House of Suabia obstruct the Succours of the West The Histories of Pope Innocent and the Emperor Conrade of Pope Alexander and Mainfrey against whom he vainly publishes Crusades The History of Charles d' Anjou to whom Pope Urban the Successor of Alexander and Pope Clement the Fourth give the Realms of Naples and Sicily as Fieffs escheated to the Church by Felony His Exploits his Battles and his Victories over Mainfrey and Conradin The deplorable Death of that young Prince The Victories of Charles cause the Pope and St. Lewis to entertain a Design for a new Crusade An Assembly at Paris about that Affair where the King the Princes and Lords take upon them the Cross All other Nations decline the Crusade The Collusion of the Emperor Michael Paleologus The Condition of the King's Army The Resolution taken to Attack Tunis and the Reasons wherefore The Description of Tunis and Carthage The taking of the Port the Tower and the Castle of Carthage The Malady makes great Destruction in the King's Army His Death Elogy and Character The Arrival of Charles King of Sicily The Exploits of the Army The Treaty of Peace with the King of Tunis who becomes Tributary to Charles The return of the two Kings their Fleet is horribly beaten by a Tempest Prince Edward of England saved his Vow to go to the Holy Land His Voyage his Exploits and his return The vain indeavours of Pope Gregory the Tenth for a new Crusade The second Council of Lyons The last causes of the loss of the Holy Land The quarrel among the Christian Princes for the Succession to the Kingdom of Jerusalem The Death of Bendocdar The defeat of his Successor by the Tartars The hopes of the recovery of all Palestine by the Arms of King Charles of Anjon ruined by the sad accident of the Sicilian Vespers The new division among the Princes and the Progress of the Mamaluke Sultans The Relation of the lamentable Siege and the taking of Acre by these Barbarians All the other places are lost and the Christians of the West wholly driven out of Palestine and Syria The vain and fruitless attempts which have since been made to renew the Crusades THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land BOOK I. The CONTENTS of the First Book The greatness of the Subject of the ensuing History The newness and advantage of it The Original of the Turks and their Conquest in Asia from the Sarasens The Conference of Peter the Hermite with the Patriarch of Jerusalem The Description of the Hermite His Negotiation with Pope Urban the Second and his Preaching the Crusade The Relation of the Council of Placentia that of the Council of Clermond The horrible Disorders occasioned by the little Wars between private Persons which were tolerated in those times and which were regulated by the Canon of the Peace and the Truce Aymar de Monteil Bishop of Pavia Legate of the Pope for the Crusade The prodigious number of those who took upon them the Cross and the Disorders that insued The Names of the Princes of the Crusade An account of Duke Godfrey and his Character He sends Peter the Hermite before him A Description of the Conduct and manner of living of this Solitary He divides his Army into two Bodies The Disorder and Ruin of the first under Gautier Monyless The greater Disorder and ill Fortune of the second commanded by Peter himself The Defeat of two other Armies of Crusades conducted by a Priest Godescalc and Count Emico their overthrow by the Hungarians The Conference of Peter the Hermite with the Emperor Alexis The Character Conduct and secret designs of that Prince and the reasons of his perfidiousness The passage of the Hermites Army into Asia and the continuance of their disorders The Italians and Germans separate from the French The first overthrown by young Soliman Sultan of Nice The first Battle of Nice where the other part are overthrown also by Soliman The Voyage of Godfrey of Bullen and the Princes that accompanied him The Voyage of Hugh the Great and the Princes that followed him his Character Conduct and Imprisonment by the Greek Emperor The War of Godfrey against Alexis The Extremity to which the Emperor is reduced and the Treaty concluded between him and the Princes The Relation of the Conquests and Settlement of the Normans in Italy The Voyage of Bohemond Prince of Tarentum and the Princes that went along with him The Voyage of Raymond de Tholose of Aymar de Monteil Bishop of Pavia and the other Princes and Lords which accompanied them The Character of that Earl his Conference with the Emperor and the Treachery of that Prince The Voyage of Robert Duke of Normandy his Character and Treaty with the Emperor IF ever any Undertaking were capable of possessing the Historian with a just fear of defeating the mighty Expectation of his Reader most assuredly it may be apprehended in attempting the Design of relating the ensuing History of the Crusade And indeed amidst all the most extraordinary Revolutions which may be found either in the Establishment of New or the Ruine of the Ancient Monarchies one shall difficultly meet with any thing more memorable and whether we
and that he would dispense with this Article of their Rule from which they could every day dispense with themselves in other points that were much more Essential For the Lord Joinville who executed his Orders most punctually going into one of their Gallies with a good Hatchet which he had already lifted up to break open one of their strong Coffers in the name of the King the Marshal of the Temple who found that he would be obeyed caused the Keys to be given him and thereupon he took out what Money he pleased and the King who was very well satisfied with the Action instantly caused to be paid to the Sarasins not only the thirty thousand Livres which was wanting of the Sum which was due but also ten thousand more of which they had cheated themselves without perceiving it in weighing the Money in their Scales So exact was this incomparable Prince religiously to observe his Word and Faith even to those who had none themselves and who had so brutally violated that which they had given him with so many horrible Oaths After which the Count de Poitiers whom the Sarasins set at Liberty being come up to the Road which Philip Count de Montfort where the King who after the Money was paid was now gotten and staid for them they set Sail and in a few Days came happily to an Anchor in the Port of Ptolemais where this great Prince was received with as much Joy for his deliverance as there had been sorrow for his Captivity THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART IV. BOOK III. The CONTENTS of the Third Book The General Consternation all over France upon the News of the King's Imprisonment the Tumult the Shepherds their Original their Disorders and Defeat St. Lewis after his deliverance performs his Articles with great Justice The Admirals fail on their part The Original of the Hospital of the Fifteen Score The Councel debates the matter of the King's return The Reasons on the one side and the other It is at last concluded for his stay in Palestine Four Famous Ambassages to St. Lewis from Pope Innocent from the Sultan of Damascus from the Ancient of the Mountain and from the Emperor Frederick The Death of that Emperor and the different Opinions thereupon An Error of St. Lewis who loseth a fair opportunity of making use of one Party of the Sarasins to ruin the other The Election of a Mamaluke Sultan The gallant Actions of St. Lewis in Palestine The Death of Queen Blanch and the return of the King into France The Rupture and War between the Venetians and Genoese occasions the loss of the Holy Land The Conquests of Haulon Brother to the great Cham stops the Progress of the Sarasins The Relation of the Mamaluke Sultans They vanquish the Tartars which ravage Palestine The Character of Sultan Bendocdar the great Enemy of the Christians His Conquests upon them His Cruelty and the Glorious Martyrdom of the Souldiers of the Garrison of Sephet and of two Cordeliers and a Commander of the Temple The taking and Destruction of Antioch by this Sultan The quarrels between the Popes and the Princes of the House of Suabia obstruct the Succours of the West The Histories of Pope Innocent and the Emperor Conrade of Pope Alexander and Mainfrey against whom he vainly publishes Crusades The History of Charles d' Anjou to whom Pope Urban the Successor of Alexander and Pope Clement the Fourth give the Realms of Naples and Sicily as Fieffs escheated to the Church by Felony His Exploits his Battles and his Victories over Mainfrey and Conradin The deplorable Death of that young Prince The Victories of Charles cause the Pope and St. Lewis to entertain a Design for a new Crusade An Assembly at Paris about that Affair where the King the Princes and Lords take upon them the Cross All other Nations decline the Crusade The Collusion of the Emperor Michael Paleologus The Condition of the King's Army The Resolution taken to Attack Tunis and the Reasâns wherefore The Description of Tunis and Carthage The taking of the Port the Tower and the Castle of Carthage The Malady makes great Destruction in the King's Army His Death Elogy and Character The Arrival of Charles King of Sicily The Exploits of the Army The Treaty of Peace with the King of Tunis who becomes Tributary to Charles The return of the two Kings their Fleet is horribly beaten by a Tempest Prince Edward of England saved his Vow to go to the Holy Land His Voyage his Exploits and his return The vain indeavours of Pope Gregory the Tenth for a new Crusade The second Council of Lyons The last causes of the loss of the Holy Land The quarrel among the Christian Princes for the Succession to the Kingdom of Jerusalem The Death of Bendocdar The defeat of his Successor by the Tartars The hopes of the recovery of all Palestine by the Arms of King Charles of Anjou ruined by the sad accident of the Sicilian Vespers The new division among the Princes and the Progress of the Mamaluke Sultans The Relation of the lamentable Siege and the taking of Acre by these Barbarians All the other places are lost and the Christians of the West wholly driven out of Palestine and Syria The vain and fruitless attempts which have since been made to renew the Crusades year 1250 WHilest matters went thus in the East the news which was received in France of the two Victories which the King had gained near Massora was followed with a false report which was currant of the defeat of the Sultan and the taking of Grand Caire And this coming from the Court of the Pope to whom the Bishop of Marseilles who had seen it in Letters Written to the Commandator of the Hospital of St. John had sent it Men being apt easily to believe that which they passionately desire there was no doubt made but it was true so that all was full of rejoycing even then when upon the suddain they were obliged to change this excessive joy into an extreme afflicton by the certain intelligence which they received of the loss of the whole Christian Army and the Captivity of the King and all the Princes And this Affliction was followed by most furious disorders year 1250 which were occasioned by the illusion and folly of some and the extreme Wickedness of others who made use of the simplicity of the former to commit with impunity the most detestable Crimes under the false pretences of Zeal and Piety for the deliverance of the King In Germany a Troop of Vagabonds mingled with young People and the Scum and Refuse of the Peasantry ran all over crying that they must make a Crusade for the deliverance of the Ring of France And a certain Hungarian Apostate of the Cistercian Order one of the most prosligate Villains in the World but very able and Learned in many Languages put himself at the
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
Venice in order to their Transportation had changed their Resolution and went to embark at Marseilles as did the Bishop of Autun and the Burgundians John de Nele Chastelain of Bourges Nicholas de Mailli and Thierri the Cousin of Baldwin with whom that Count had intrusted the Fleet which he had equipped in Flanders And others of them in the Ports of Pavia among which the brave William de Nevilli Henry de Longchamp and Renaud de Dampierre General of the Troops of Champagne either because they believed that the Passage would be shorter and less dangerous that way than to embark at Venice or that they had some Distrust and Jealousie of the Venetians or which is most probable that they thought they should thereby be exempted from paying their Quota of so great a Sum of Money as was promised to be paid to that Republick Insomuch that there being a great number of those who ought to have contributed to the Charge drawn off year 1202 and that many of those who were present were not able or rather not willing to pay more than their first Proportion being inwardly pleased to think that the Army would by this Accident be broken and they should be at liberty to return it was absolutely impossible for the Princes to raise the Sum which they ought to pay for the Re-imbursment of the Venetians So that after they had generously above what was their Part given all that they had in Gold Silver and Jewels they still found themselves in Arrear thirty four thousand of the eighty five thousand Marks which they were by Contract obliged to pay Thus this noble Enterprise which was so happily begun ran the danger of being shipwrack'd even in the Port where it was to be imbarked But the Doge who was a mighty Politician made his Advantage of this Accident to serve the Republick by furnishing the Princes who extreamly desired it with an Opportunity of dis-engaging themselves from the trouble and perplexity of this untoward Accident For after he had communicated his Design to the Senate who approved it as a most suitable Expedient to secure both their Honour and their Interest and also to purchase them a considerable Advantage he went to the Princes and offered to give them time for the Payment of the residue of their Debt till such time as the Holy War should be happily accomplished by their Conquests provided they would presently joyn with the Venetians for the recovering of Zara a strong and potent City in Dalmatia which having revolted four or five times from them had about three Years before put it self into the Power of the King of Hungary There were a great many who stoutly opposed this Proposition some out of a secret Malignity of Spirit and a desire they had to see the Army disbanded others on the contrary by the eager desire which they had to go immediately to the Conquest of the Holy Land amongst whom the hottest were some Abbots of the Cistertian Order as the Abbot du Val de Sernay the Abbot of Trappe and a German named Martin Litz Abbot of a Monastery in Alsatia who after he had by the Order of Pope Innocent preached the Crusade about Baste after the Example of Peter the Hermite had put himself at the Head of an Army of Crusades and conducting them by Trent and Verona arrived at Venice a little before this Accident fell out Great Disputes there were upon this Subject and the Reasons which were urged on one side and the other were very plausible Those who were against it alledged that besides its being a most detestable thing for Christians who had taken upon them the Cross to turn those Arms which they had taken up against Infidels upon their Brethren by making War against a Christian King it was a known thing that the Bulla of the Crusade declared all those Excommunicate who should attempt any thing during the Holy War against the Crusades and that none could be ignorant that the King of Hungary who was in possession of Zara had taken upon him the Cross and was making Preparation to pass into Palestine And in truth Pope Innocent fearing that they would undertake this Siege had a little before sent Cardinal Peter de Capua to Venice to oppose that Design and expresly to forbid the Crusades under pain of Anathema to engage therein But on the other part Henry Dandolo the Doge remonstrated That these Lightnings of Rome were not discharged but against such as went about to make any Advantage of the Absence of the Crusades and thereby unjustly to ravish from them their Estates and that they were not designed against such as pursuing that natural Right wherewith God had invested them and which it was not in the power of any Pope to take from private Persons much less from Soveraigns designed only to recover their own Estates to reduce their Rebels to Obedience and to constrain those who supported them to leave them to the Justice and the Clemency of their Masters That if this were not allowed to be Truth it must of necessity follow that a thing so sacred as the Crusade must be the Cause of all manner of Injustice by favouring and giving Protection to Thieves Robbers Revolters Rebels and Vsurpers to whom the Popes by virtue of their Bulla's under pretext of the Holy War must give the Opportunity to glory in their Crimes and to confirm themselves in their Revolts and Vsurpations That the Authority of the Church extending it self only to things purely spiritual which were intrusted to it by Jesus Christ year 1202 whose Kingdom as he declares is not of this World could not undertake to be the Arbiter either of Peace or War which Princes make according as they judge it conducive to the publick Good and their own Interest That therefore the Church had nothing to do in this Case or to hinder them from taking Arms against the Zarantines who besides that they were Rebels were also by their continual Piracies and destroying Commerce publick Enemies to Mankind and particular Enemies to the Crusades whose Passage into Palestine by Sea as that of their Provisions they made very unsecure and dangerous Now as these Reasons both on the one side and the other appeared very strong it was a long time before any Resolution could be taken and in that time many of the Germans who were come thither under the Conduct of the Abbot Martin having consumed what they brought with them for their Voyage and divers others of the more Wealthy resolving not to make War against the Christians took occasion to return back into their own Countries But at length the greatest part of the French suffered themselves to be persuaded by the Reasons of the Doge which made a strong Impression upon their Spirits to which the necessity to which they found themselves reduced either to joyn with the Venetians or give over the Enterprise contributed not a little towards the finishing this Agreement Nevertheless it
Two great Armies of Sarasins besiege the Camp They attack the Lines and force them A great Combat within the Lines The Enemy at last repulsed The Arrival of St. Francis before Damiata His Conference with the Sultan The Battle without the Lines lost by the Crusades An advantageous Peace offered to the Christians by the Sultan The Reasons for and against it It is at last rejected by the Legate Damiata taken by Night year 1204 WHilest the Confederate Princes did with so much Glory and good Fortune conquer a whole Empire those who had separated from them to go directly into Palestine or who had taken other ways to put themselves under other Commanders met with all manner of ill Success and were so far from supporting that tottering State that in conclusion they did nothing but weaken the poor remainders of the Christian Power in the Holy Land The Truce which had for some time continued between them and the Sarasins having been broaken by one of the Admirals of Egypt and no sort of Satisfaction to be obtained for it the War broke out more furiously than before between King Emeri and Coradin the Son of Saphadin who was as great a Captain as his Father By Saphadin's Orders therefore he immediately advanced with a powerful Army and incamped within a League of Ptolemais Now John de Nele who commanded the great Fleet which had been equipped in Flanders and who staid at Marseilles to Winter having heard this News made hast from thence and whereas he should have joyned the Princes who besieged Constantinople as Count Baldwin had ordered him he sailed directly for Ptolemais where he landed having more Soldiers aboard his Fleet than there was in the whole Army of the Consederate Princes So that with those who were already passed by the Ports of Brindes and Otranto under Simon de Montfort Renard de Dampierre and the other Lords who had quitted the Confederates before they left Venice together with that great Multitude of Bretons who followed the Monk Herloin thither there were more Forces than might have chased the Infidels out of Palestine But there happened so many ill Accidents to them as ruined all their Designs for the Plague which began a little before in Ptolemais raged so furiously among these new Comers that it is reported there died in that City at one time above two thousand Persons in an Hour so that almost one half of them perished of that terrible Disease and the remainder to avoid that Danger year 1204 instantly re-imbarking failed back again to Europe There was also a fearful Dissention between the Christians themselves and the Crusades occasioned by a War betwixt Livon King of Armenia and Bohemond Earl of Tripolis and Prince of Antioch for the Principality of that State and as many great Lords and among others Renard de Dampierre with whom Theobald Count de Champagne at his Death had intrusted his Troops took the Part of Bohemond and marched to his Assistance they were surprized by the Sultan of Alepo who defeated them so intirely that there was scarce one who escaped either being taken or flain Villaine de Nevilly one of the most valiant Men of his time was there unfortunately slain and his Bother William de Nevilly Bernard de Montmirail and John de Villiers were taken as Renard de Dampierre General of the Champenois who was led to Alepo where he remained a Prisoner for thirty Years as for the poor Bretons they having only the Monk to lead them and he knowing better how to persuade them to take Arms than how to manage them they like those who followed Peter the Hermite were quickly dispersed and neither knowing what they had to do nor how to do it they perished either by the Plague or Famine or the Swords of the Infidels and the poor remainders of that great number did not without great Difficulty at last regain their Country of Bretany without having done any thing worthy of the great Zeal and Courage which carried them out of it But it hath been an old Observation that Lions with a timerous Stagg for their Captain will all prove Harts and that even fearful Deer when led by a Lion will do like Lions But in short there was not one of those who separated from the Army of the Confederates to go without them into the Holy Land who had not sufficient Reason of Repentance either for the Disgrace or the Damage which he suffered Even Simon de Momfort who before this had done so many Wonders in the War against the Albigenses was forced to return into France without bringing home with him from the Voyage any thing except the Trouble to have done nothing So dangerous it is to quit the main Body to which one is related and from which no better Fortune is to be expected but like a Branch cut from the Stem of a Tree to be blasted and withered In this miserable Estate were the Christians in the East and almost reduced to the utmost Dispair when they received the News of the taking of Constantinople by the Confederate Princes of whom even those who had abandoned them were constrained to demand Help from those to whom they had before denied theirs tho it was not to be expected that so small a Number ingaged in so great an Enterprise as the settling of their new Conquests and inlarging them could for the present be able to afford them It is impossible however to express the Joy which this News gave the Christians of Palestine who now did not question in the least but the Way was opened for the most short and certain Deliverance of the Holy Land from the Oppression of the barbarous Infidels But in regard of the Fear they were in of losing all after so many Misfortunes as one upon the Neck of another had fallen upon them King Emeri had before made a most disadvantageous Truce with the Infidels for six Years whereupon all the Crusades who were in Palestine went to wait upon the new Emperor at Constantinople The Legate himself Peter de Capua Cardinal of St. Marcellus being sent for thither by Baldwin to regulate the Affairs of the Church sailed thither and was followed by his Collegue the Cardinal of St. Praxede and such a multitude of the Oriental Christians of all Conditions that the King was almost left quite alone without any Forces considerable enough to oppose the Infidels if they should attempt to break the Truce as they quickly after did The Pope was hereupon mightily afraid and extremely troubled that his Legats should also without his Order abandon the Holy Land But the Providence of God averted this threatned Misfortune by a War which presently broke out among the Sarasins one against another and the Pope comforted himself with the Conquest of Constantinople which was altogether so unexpected to him He now no longer condemned this Enterprise of the Crusades as he had done formerly the fortunate Success thereof fully justifying the Undertaking
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
proceedings he made a long Deduction in his Manifest how many and great Subjects he had of Complaint for the Injustices which he said were done him by Pope Innocent his Guardian during his Minority in seizing upon and usurping his Regalities and Rights and even by Honorius also whom he accused to have contrary to all Justice exacted many things of him which he was constrained to yield so much against his will that so he might receive from him the Imperial Crown which he could not in Justice have dispenced with himself in denying to place it upon the Head of an Emperour so lawfully Elected and who had two several times before been Crowned The Pope who was very prudent and of a temper very soft and sweet was resolved not to carry matters to Extremity and therefore he answered to these Complaints that he was a Father and that his Son though he were disobedient and undutiful yet was not therefore either a Stranger or an Enemy so long as there was any hope that he might return to his Duty He therefore satisfied himself to answer to the Complaints and Reproaches of Frederick with abundance of mildness in a long Letter which to speak properly was a Manifest or Apology for the Conduct of his Predecessors and his own year 1222 in reference to this Prince He exhorted him also by other Letters full of Tenderness and Reason seriously to recollect himself and to consider that as he was Emperor he was the Protector of the Church and that therefore he ought not to oppress her or take away her Liberties but to take pity of Christianity in the East which held up her suppliant hands to him from whom only she had hopes of being assisted But whether Frederick was moved by these Remonstrances of the Pope or whether he feared the dangerous consequences of this Rupture particularly in Lombardy where they began to form a great League against him it is certain that this procedure sweetned both Parties and that the Emperor satisfied the Pope taking all his Dominions into his Protection and that the Pope during all his Pontificate never proceeded further than these Menaces and Anathema's as may be seen plainly by the Letters of Honorius and that after this they both acted by Agreement for the Succour of the Holy Land in this following manner They had first a meeting at Veroli between the Cities of Anagnia and Sora where after a Consultation of five Dayes with the Cardinals they ordained that there should be another Conference to which were to be invited King John de Brienne the Legate Pelagius the Patriarch and the Great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who were better able than any others to give them such an understanding of these Affairs as might enable them to come to the last Resolution upon them After which the Emperor sent four Gallies to bring them over and upon their arrival this famous Conference was appointed to be held in Champagne in Italy the year following There it was that to ingage Frederick more strongly than ever to undertake this Holy War year 1223 it was agreed by common consent that this Prince who had in the preceeding year lost the Empress Constantia his Wife the Daughter of the King of Aragon should marry the Princess Jolante the Daughter of King John de Brienne the Heiress of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Conquest whereof it was believed he would take more Interest than before when it should be his own Estate for which he was to sight It was also ordained that in two Years he should part with all the Forces of the Empire at Midsummer to which those that were present and Parties obliged themselves by a Solemn Oath that whoever should fail in the performance of his Promise should be Excommunicate After which the Pope the Emperor and the King of Jerusalem parted every one to indeavour for his part according to his power to dispose all things for this Holy War which was to be begun two Years after For this purpose the King of Jerusalem who was able to do nothing more in Europe but to sollicite the Princes to contribute their part to this War went to desire the Assistance of England Spain Germany and above all in France where he arrived a little before the Death of Philip the August his Benefactor and Protector This great Prince who had laboured under a Quartan Ague for above a Year and who nevertheless did not cease to visit his Provinces and always to carry himself as a Great King with all the strength imaginable of a Soul which did not seem to be concerned at the weakness of the Body died this Year at the Castle of Mante the fourteenth day of July in the eight and fiftieth Year of his Age and the three and thirtieth of his Reign which by the Glory of his Actions by his Heroick Qualities by his Power and by the Force of his Arms he had rendred the most flourishing of all that France had ever seen since that of Charlemagne And as he had worn the Cross in the third Crusade which was famous for the remarkable winning of the City of Ptolemais so he gave in his Will a Noble Testimony of the Zeal which he still preserved for the Glory of Jesus Christ and for the Deliverance of his Holy Sepulchre For among other Magnificent Effects of his pious Liberality which are therein to be observed for the comfort and relief of the Poor for the Deliverance and Ransom of the Wife of Amauri Count de Montfort who was a Prisoner amongst the Albigenses and for other Works of Christian Piety he bequeathed three hundred thousand Livres for the Relief of the Holy Land one hundred thousand to King John de Brienne and so much to each of the two great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital nor was his going of the Theater of the World less glorious than his Actions on it year 1223 for there being at that time a Council assembled at Paris against the Albigenses they all assisted at his Funerals as did also the King of Jerusalem who was also present at the Coronation of Lewis the eighth the Son and Successor of King Philip. As for the Pope he being perswaded that it was to be in his Papacy that Palestine was to be reconquered which was the thing of the World which he most desired he did all that lay in his power to render the Crusade following most numerous and powerful He sent new Preachers throughout Europe to excite the People to undertake it he writ to the Bishops to oblige them to preach it themselves and to collect all the Money which the Ecclesiasticks were obliged to contribute out of their Revenues towards the carrying on of the Holy War And in short he did all that it was possible for him to do to oblige the Christian Kings and Princes to make Peace among themselves and to join their Forces to those of the Emperor and to march in Person
wherein he was he could not possibly brook the Sea But this little Voyage was very unfortunate to the poor Lantgrave for the Fever redoubling upon him he died in a few days after receiving the Sacrament from the hands of the Patriarch with great Piety and Devotion He was a Prince of an extraordinary merit and had so well profited by the Admirable Example of his Wise St. Elizabeth the Daughter of Andrew King of Hungary to whom he did not yield in Sanctity and it is said that it pleased God to make his Piety more resplendent after his death by diverse Miracles which were done at his Tomb. I cannot affirm positively what effect the death of this Prince had upon the Soul of Frederick or whether he believed that it furnished him with a specious Pretext to break of his Voyage but it is certain that after this he thought no more of departing but continually pretended that his Malady was the Obstacle to it insomuch that near forty thousand Crusades who were gone before him hearing this news they also suddenly returned to Brindes and from thence into their respective Countries Now the Pope who was then at Anagnia being informed in what manner the Emperor after having begun the Voyage had broken it off he was seized with an excessive Grief seing all the hopes which he had of the happy Success of this Crusade vanished in a moment He had no Consideration of what was alledged concerning the Indisposition of the Emperor he believed that it was all a Fiction and nothing but a false pretext which this Prince made who notwithstanding all his Oaths had no Inclination to accomplish his Vow thereby to elude the Punishments both of God and man And therefore without deferring any longer and without having recourse to Menaces or so much as giving him any notice of it or giving him longer time as had been done before he went in his Pontifical Robes accompanied with the Cardinals and the Prelates the nine and twentieth day of September being St. Michael's day to the great Church where he solemnly declared him excommunicate according to the Sentence to which he himself had voluntarily submitted before the two Legates of the late deceased Pope At the same time he writ to the Princes and Bishops throughout all Christendom his circular Letters wherein he shewed the reasons which had obliged him to have recourse to this severe Method which was the Crimes the Perjuries and the Artifices of the Emperor and especially That having nothing in readiness for the transportation of the Crusades at the time prefixed that he had with a formed design of mischeif stopped them that so the greatest part of the Army might perish by the Intemperance of the Air during the excessive heats of the year as accordingly it had unfortunately happened And in short he said that this Prince nevertheless having not the Power to stop them all but that in despight of his detestable Arts there still remained a great number who having set sail for Syria he had basely abandoned them under the pretence of a feigned Sickness by the most abominable Artifice that so he might return into his Realm and there plunge himself in his scandalous Debauches On the contrary Frederick furiously incensed against the Pope and resolving being as he was Potent and Vindicative to carry matters to the utmost Extremities of Revenge failed not also on his part to send to all the Kings of Europe year 1227 and to all the Princes of the Empire his Manifest in answer to the Pope's Letters wherein After having protested that the pressing Affairs of his Estate and the War which he was constrained to make against his Rebels had obliged him to desire those prolongations of time from the Pope which could not with any manner of Justice be denyed him That he took God to Witness that it was no feigned but a real Indisposition of Body which hindred him from pursuing that Holy Voyage which he had begun with a most real Intention of performing it and that in despight of the Injustice which was done him he was resolved so soon as he was in a Condition for it to undertake it anew And then inlarging himself in sharp Invectives against the abuses and the Crimes whereof he accused the Court of Rome he did what he could to interest all Crowned heads in that which he said was their several and particular concern and to perswade them to unite with him to oppose those Vsurpations which were designed against them and their temporal Rights which they held only and immediately from God alone These Letters which on both sides were with great diligence dispatched to all places produced the Effects which are usual in such quarrels as happen between Great men which is to divide into parties the People and the Writers of those times some declaring themselves for the Pope others for the Emperor and both the one and the other accusing their adverse Party of Calumnies and Impostures But the Emperor who was resolved to make use of other Arms besides Invectives that he might make his Vengeance the more remarkable instead of seeking for the Favour of absolution as the Pope by his Letters invited him to do found means to chase the Pope from Rome For having got to him the Frangepanis year 1228 and diverse other great Lords and Roman Barons who endeavoured nothing so much as powerfully to establish their own Fortunes He made them Princes and Feudatories of the Empire after a manner very advantageous unto them For he bought all their Lands for ready Money which he presently surrendred to them again to be held of him in Fee by making them take an Oath to do him true and Faithful Service and to obey all his Orders without exception so that upon their return to Rome the Pope having upon Holy Thursday anew excommunicated the Emperor they raised against him such a horrible Sedition among the People who in those times did not love the Domination of the Popes that he was constrained to quit Rome and for his Security to retire to Perusa In the mean time the Emperor who omitted nothing to satiate his Revenge terribly prosecuted the Ecclesiasticks whom he believed to adhere to the Pope ravaging their Lands and the Patrimony of the Church by the Sarasins whom he had transported out of Sicily into Pavia pillaging and Sacking the Houses of the Templers and the Hospitallers whom he held for Enemies and by his Lieutenants making a most cruel War in the Duchies of Spoleta and Beneventum and in the Marquisate of Ancona from whence King John de Brienne whom Gregory set to oppose him as his particular Enemy repulsed his Troops being speedily assisted by a powerful Succour from the Lombards who upon this occasion manifested a very great Zeal for the Service of the Church But all these Hostilities did not at last hinder Frederick from taking the resolution to undertake the Voyage into Palestine to which he found himself obliged
the Bulla of this Crusade and the Pope's Letters which exhorted the Crusades to follow him so that he sound a great many who either to please the Pope or that they thought this Enterprise less difficult and dangerous than that of the Holy Land presently joyned with him and among others Peter de Dreux Duke of Bretagne who promised to assist him with twelve thousand men This gave so great a displeasure to the King of Navarr the Duke of Burgundy the Counts of Bar Vendosme and Montfort who had before devoted themselves for the Holy Land and who thought very hard that one Crusade should be ruined or at least extremely weakned by another that they complained thereof to the Pope himself and in a manner reproached him with Levity and this Change which they said was most prejudicial to the principal Enterprise the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus Christ But Gregory made them answer that being at least as zealously interested as they in the Affairs of the Holy Land he also understood himself better than they could inform him and was in the Opinion that it was impossible ever to chase the Infidels out of Palestine unless the Conquest of Constantinople was first well assured and that now it was in danger to fall under the Power of the Schismatical Greeks and therefore he conjured them to joyn with Baldwin remonstrating to them that this was to labour most efficaciously for the End by applying themselves to the means which was so absolutely necessary for the attainment of it year 1238 The Princes nevertheless would not suffer themselves to be perswaded but remained firm in their first Resolution Even the Breton himself Peter de Dreux who had promised the Pope to serve for Constantinople wheeled off again and chose rather to joyn himself to the King of Navarr so that by this Accident there being a great Division among the Minds of men some following Baldwin others the King of Navarr it fell out that in the place of one great Crusade which might have proved successful either in Greece or Palestine there were two very indifferent ones which had in neither place the good Fortune which was to be hoped and desired This was the first Division which hurt the Army of the Crusades but that which happened presently after between the Pope and the Emperor was much more fatal to them and had like to have ruined all The Island of Sardinia as well as several other Estates had been now for a long time held as Fiefs from the Holy See and Gregory had sent thither one Roland one of his Chaplains to receive the Homages and Reserved Rents and to take possession of some Lands about Cagliari Frederick who notwithstanding all the Intreaties and Remonstrances of the Pope who had sufficient cause to be afraid of his Power was now come from Germany into Lombardy with an Army of one hundred thousand men and having gained a great Victory over the Milaneses and reduced the greatest part of the Confederate Cities under his Obedience he believed himself to be in a condition to make himself Master of what ever he pretended appertained to him as being dismembred from the Body of the Empire And thereupon those of the Principality of the Tour which now is called Sassari having given it to him after the Death of their Lord Vbald he sent thither his natural Son Henry who was usually called Entius who presently seised upon the whole Isle which his Father erected for him into the title of a Feudatory Kingdom to be held of the Empire year 1239 The Pope who was in Possession of the Sovereignty of this Isle strangely surprized at this procedure complained bitterly of it and demanded reparation But Frederick was so far from giving him Satisfaction that he seized upon other Lands of a Bishop of Sardinia which the Magistrates had adjudged as Demesnes to the new King and withal he made it be answered to the Pope for good and all that Sardinia had been usurped from the Emperors and before those Usurpations had always belonged to the Empire and that for his own particular it was well enough known that as he was Emperor he had sworn that he would do all that lay in his Power to reunite to the Body of the Empire whatsoever had been dismembred from it and that he was fully resolved most exactly to acquit himself of his Duty in this particular Hereupon the Pope seeing that he remained immoveable in that Resolution solemnly excommunicated him upon Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday for invading the Patrimony of the Church and such other Causes as are comprized in the Decretal which he pronounced himself and which he sent to all Christian Kings Princes and Prelates with orders for them to publish it by the Sound of Bells prohibiting all the Emperor's Subjects to obey him and all the Ecclesiasticks from celebrating the Divine Offices in the Cities or Castles wherever he should be It is said also that having declared that he was fallen from the Imperial Title and Dignity he offered the Crown to St. Lewis for his Brother Robert Count d' Artois but that for very good reasons that pious King rejected the Offer and this is most certain that by a most discreet Policy he would never concern himself in this difference nor be persuaded to change the Conduct and Maximes of his Government by taking Arms against the Emperor although he was extremely sollicited to do so by the Pope as in the following year the King gave the Emperor an account by his Letters The War between the Pope and the Emperor began by the Writings the Letters and the Manifests which both the one and the other dipersed abroad in which were contained the Accusations and the Answers which they made which may be seen at their full length in Matthew Paris after which the Emperor Frederick having a potent Army whilest the Pope sent to all places to demand the Assistance of the Princes and Republicks caused his Son Entius to enter into the Marquisate of Ancona whilest he himself taking the Right Hand marched over Tuscany where the greatest part of the Cities and even Viterbum receiving him and declaring against the Pope he advanced directly towards Rome not doubting but that he had such a Party there as would upon his Appearance open the Gates of that City to him But Gregory who in the extreme danger wherein he found himself destitute of all humane Succours had recourse to God by a great Procession from the Church of the Lateran to that of St. Peter in which he did so movingly harangue the Romans holding between his Arms the Venerable heads of the Apostles protesting with Sighs and Tears that he was not in any sort able to protect them without the Assistance of the People of Rome who were their Protectors that they cried out with an incredible Ardour that they would all perish in the defence of them Hereupon the Pope who was resolved to make his advantage
an hostage Whereupon one of the Commissiones Geoffrey de Sergines one of the wisest and most Valiant Knights of that Age briskly broke up the conference protesting that the French would chuse rather to be cut all in a thousand pieces than to indure being always subject to the intolerable reproach of having given the King of France for an Hostage or to owe their safety to such a base and detestable submission It was therefore upon a Tuesday the fifth of April that the Army attempted to retreat in view of an Enemy whose Forces were infinitely augmented by the conjunction of new Troops which he had received from time to time from all parts of his Empire All was done that could possibly be represented to the King to oblige him considering his Sickness to go before the Army and save himself as did the Legate and divers Bishops who went off in a great Gally which breaking through the Sarasins arrived safe at Damiata But he constantly refused protesting that he would dye a thousand times rather than abandon so many Gallant men who had so generously exposed their Lives for his and the Service of God Thus by his orders they began in the Evening to imbark the Sick and wounded upon those Vessels which were come up the Nilus for the Service of the Army when they approached Massora and for himself taking his way by Land he put himself with Geoffrey de Sergines into the Reerguard which was led by the brave Gaucher de Chastillon But certainly it was impossible without running the danger of losing all to make a movement before an Enemy who was ten times stronger and who only watched for this opportunity to fall upon an Army already half overthrown by Famine and Diseases and in truth they followed them so quickly that they had not so much time as to destroy the Bridge but that the Enemy passed it almost as soon as the Reerguard were got over whilest that a Party of the Sarasins falling into the Camp pitilesly cut the throats of all the Sick and Wounded who waited upon the bank of the River year 1250 for the Vessels that were to take them in After this there was nothing to be seen throughout but a fearful disorder which was followed by the most intire and lamentable loss that any History ever gives a Relation of for on the one part of all the Vessels which went down the Nilus to save themselves by Sea at Damiata there were only a few Boats which secured themselves under the favour of the Legate's great Gally which opened her way by the Force of her Oars all the rest were either taken or burnt by the Saltan's Fleet and one might hear the piteous cries of the Poor Sick Men who not being able to throw themselves into the River to yield themselves to the Enemies by Swimming were miserably consumed by the Flames whilest the greatest part of those who could get out of the burning Vessels either perished in the Waters or were slain by the Sarasins On the other side those who went by Land finding themselves presently surrounded by an infinite multitude of Enemies were so vigorously at tacked on all sides that after having in vain done all that was possible to defend themselves and to make way through so many Battalions and Squadrons as invironed them they were either all taken or Slain not so much as one escaping There it was that Guyde Chastell of the House of Chastillon upon the Marne Bishop of Soissons a most Valiant Man who chose rather to die by this kind of Martyrdom in a Holy War than to be taken Prisoner threw himself single his Sword in his hand into the midle of a Squadron of Sarasins who presently gave him that happy Death which he sought among a thousand Swords in Fighting against the Enemies of Jesus Christ The Greeks indeed are often used to reproach us that our Priests and Bishops make no scruple of going to the Wars and Fighting contrary to the Canons which prohibit them under most rigorous penalties to manage Arms and I must acknowledge that there have been great disorders in this particular among us in former Ages and that the Popes have frequently complained of it to our Kings But in these times of the Crusades our Ancestors believed well that the Canons did not extend to these Holy Wars to which when the Ecclesiasticks had devoted themselves by taking up the Cross as well as the Laicks it was permited them to fight against the Infidels and esteemed as Lawful as for a Shepherd who leaves his Flock to pursue the Wolves if he can to kill them Neither was it known that for this they ever abstained from the exercise of their sacred Function witness the Valiant Chaplain of the Lord de Joinville He was a Priest and constantly officiated for his Master but that nevertheless did not hinder him but that Armed with a Curiass and his Head covered with an Iron Cask his Sword in his hand he went and attacked six Captains of the Sarasins singly in the sight of both the Armies and beat them all to the admiration of all the beholders who could not but praise his Courage and his bravery This makes it clear that the Canons and the Councils which are the Laws of the Church ought to be taken and interpreted according to the usage which they permit or tolerate However it be the Bishop of Soissons believed that inexposing himself in this manner to a certain Death he should acquire a Crown of Immortality both in fame upon Earth and in Heaven nor ought it reasonably to be doubted but that he did At the same time Gaucher de Chastillon his kinsman who Commanded the Reer-guard performed an Action of the like extraordinary Merit and which deserves the Honor of Posterity the Recompence of Heroick Actions of which it may be his was one of the greatest that was ever done For having posted himself the last Man in a narrow passage through which the King was to go to gain a little Village called Kasel he alone for a long time sustained the shock of all the Sarasins upon whom facing about he threw himself like Lightning killing and slaying all those whom he could overtake and then after he had pursued them a while making his retreat whilest he received their Arrows and their Darts upon his Shield his Curiass and his Body which was all bristled with them he would return again upon his Enemies with greater fury than before and every time as he charged raising himself upon his Styrrops he cried amain Follow Chastillon Follow Chastillon my Noble Knights Where are all our gallant Men And thus he maintained continually this strange kind of Combate wherein he was singly against them all year 1250 till such time as being oppressed with the throng of his Enemies who yet were not able to dismount him they wounded him with a thousand Swords and Javelins and at last cut of his head as he still sate upon
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
Abagas King of the Tartars that he would go in Person into Palestine against the Sultan Bendocdar He also caused a fair Fleet of Men of War to be fitted out at Barcelona and a great many Gallies and imbarked himself in the beginning of September one thousand two hundred sixty nine a year before St. Lewis But being near the Isles of Majorca and Minorca met with a furious Tempest which threw him upon the Coasts of Languedoc he went no farther than Aigues-Mort from whence he returned by Land into his own Kingdom alledging for the hiding of a certain shameful and criminal Passion which governed his Soul and which possibly was the true cause of his altering his resolution That he was well satisfied that God dispensed with him for his Voyage which he made known by this accident was not at all pleasing to him so that there were only some few Ships of this Fleet which arrived at Ptolemais with Dom Ferdinand Sancho the Son of this King who presently after returned again without doing any thing As for what concerned the Greek Emperor he acted in this occasion only like a Politician for his own private Interest without ever intending to have any share in this War This Emperor was Michael Paleologus who about eight years before had taken Constantinople by Treachery from the Latins who lost that Empire under Baldwin the Second which Baldwin the First had so gloriously conquered with the French and Venetians about fifty eight years before This Greek Prince who feared to be attack'd on the side of Asia by Bendocdar after that Sultan should have conquered Syria and Palestine and who was already on the Coast of Greece by the New King of Sicily did all that possibly he could with the Pope and the Princes of the West to ingage them in a War against the Sarasins And in regard that the Pope had written to him That the way to secure himself from the Arms of the Latin Princes was to unite the Greek Church with the Latin and to go in Person as did St. Lewis to this Holy War he promised Shipping Provisions and Souldiers and all that could be desired for the War He also sent his Ambassadors into France offering to make the King the Arbiter of the difference which was about the Re-union of the two Churches but St. Lewis who would not undertake to be Judge in a matter of this nature which was purely spiritual remitted him to the Judgment of the Sacred College the Holy See being then vacant by the Death of Pope Clement who deceased about the end of the preceding year But after all this Emperor who was extreme politick had no desire or design either to make a true Re-union or to joyn with the Latin Princes in the Holy War All his Design was only to engage them in a Crusade and thereby to deliver himself from the fear which he had of the Sarasins and the King of Sicily So remote are the Intentions of Princes who act purely according to the Maxims of human Policy from what they seem to appear to those with whom they negotiate with a design to delude them And for the King of England to whom the Pope had at first sent the Cardinal Othobon his Legate he was too far advanced in years and too much oppressed with his own Affairs by reason of the troubles of his Realm to be in a condition to perform the Vow which he had made in taking upon him the Cross and to acquit himself of the Promise by which he was ingaged to the King to accompany him in this War with five hundred Knights for whom the King gave him a years pay in hand and believed that without restoring the Money he satisfied fully for all in giving his Blessing to his Son Prince Edward who not being in a condition to enter upon Action till after the Death of St. Lewis was able to do almost nothing in Palestine Thus of above two hundred and fifty thousand men which were levied in Europe there were none but the Troops of St. Lewis which were about sixty thousand men and the few Spaniards which went with the King of Navarr his Son-in-Law which were in a condition to pursue this Voyage Nevertheless he undertook it with so much resolution as if he had had the Forces of the whole Earth year 1269 The difficulty was only to resolve whither he should go and after having a long time conferred upon this Affair with the Ambassadors of the King of Sicily he resolved at last to go first against Tunis before he undertook to attack the Sultan of Egypt It was for this purpose represented to the King that he ought to begin with the Realm of Tunis if he would go immediately as in reason one ought to do to the Spring and the Root of the Mischief in regard that it was from Tunis that the Sultans of Egypt drew their principal Forces their Horses and the best of their men And besides that in leaving this Kingdom in their Reer as they must do if they marched directly against Egypt or into Palestine they must expose themselves to the hazard of losing their Convoys and the Supplies which were to come from Europe which would run the Fortune of being defeated and taken by the Shipping of these African Pirates who were continually crusing upon the Seas There were also many other Politick Considerations added which are easie to be found out when People are resolved to maintain an Opinion But in Truth that which was most prevalent was that the Inclinations of the two Kings were both conformable to this Enterprise for two very different Reasons For Lewis who like a great Saint regulated all his Actions by the Principles of Piety and Christianity believed that in shewing himself before Tunis that Moorish King who had given him hopes of his Conversion would turn Christian and be baptized which the King most passionately desired as appeared by what he said to the Ambassadors of that Prince whom he commanded to acquaint their Master That he would be contented with all his heart to be a Slave to the Sarasins again and to pass the rest of his Life in the most dreadful of their Dungeons and never more to see the Sun provided that the King of Tunis would with his whole Realm embrace the Faith of Jesus Christ But Charles who was more Politick than Devout resolved to make use of such a fair opportunity to assure himself of that Realm which without doubt was very convenient for the security of the Coasts of Naples and Sicily Thus the two Brothers resolved each upon the same thing though both of them for private Reasons which they did not impart to any Persons but only concluded upon the Enterprise against Tunis the King who fore-saw that it would not meet with a general approbation reserved the Declaration of his Resolution till he came to Cagliari in the Isle of Sardinia at which place he had appointed the Rendezvous of
Prince Henry de Poitiers the Son of Bohemond the fourth of that name Prince of Antioch and of Plaisance the Daughter of Hugh Lord of Giblet From Henry de Poitiers and Isabella de Lusignan sprung Hugh the third who after the death of his Cousin Hugh the Second who died without Issue was King of Cyprus in Right of his Mother The last Husband of Isabella the Daughter of Amauri King of Jerusalem was Emeri King of Cyprus who had by her the Princess Melisantha who was second Wife to Bohemond the fourth Prince of Antioch and Father to Henry de Poitiers and by her he had the Princess Mary of Antioch who was the Subject of this difference For immediately after the death of Conradin Hugh the third the King of Cyprus who was descended in a right Line from Alice de Champagne the Daughter of Queen Isabella by her third Husband passed into Palestine and at Tyre caused himself to be crowned King of Jerusalem in right of his Grandfather But the Princess Mary of Antioch maintained that the Realm appertained to her in regard that being the Daughter of Melisantha she was nearer by one degree to Queen Isabella than Hugh who was the Son of her Cousin The Process hereupon lasted a long time The Princess Mary opposed the Coronation of Hugh but perceiving that the Patriarch took little notice of her opposition she appealed to the Holy see and came in person to pursue her right before Pope Gregory the tenth who appointed Delegates for the Examination of the matter She also presented her self to the Council of Lyons and there demanded Justice And the cause being remitted to the Barons of the Realm who neither esteemed nor much loved King Hugh the Princess at length with the consent of Pope John the twenty first judicially transferred to Charles d' Anjou King of Naples and Sicily all her Right and Title upon certain conditions by a Treaty year 1277 which was signed by the Cardinals and the Prelates of the Court of Rome And by this Right it is that the Realm of Jerusalem which hath been possessed by the Princes of the House of Suabia Kings of Sicily as Descendants from Queen Isabella year 1277 by Jolanta her Grand-Daughter the Wife of Frederick the Second was devolved to Charles d' Anjou and his Posterity and for this reason the Dukes of Lorrain who are descended from Ranatus d' Anjou King of Sicily by Jolanta his only Daughter Mother to Ranatus Duke of Lorrain bear the Cross of Jerusalem together with the Arms of the House of Anjou which they have added to their Atchievements The Kings of Arragon who usurped Sicily from the Anjouin Family and after them the Kings of Castile heirs to the House of Arragon have also taken to their Arms the Cross of Jerusalem and the Title of that Realm And thus these Princes have pleased themselves with the Shadow the Name and the empty shew leaving the Body the Substance and the reality to the Infidels the weak for want of Power and the strong for want of Zeal chusing rather to imploy their Arms in less difficult Enterprises For it is more easy to take what may be had of what is our own than to recover what belongs to us and might be had though not without trouble charge and hazard In the mean time Charles who resolved to take possession of his new Realm sent Roger Count de St. Severin to Ptolemais where he was received by the Governor who put the Fortress into his hands And King Hugh having refused two or three several times to appear before the Barons to make out the Reasons of his pretensions to that Realm they acknowledged Charles d' Anjou for their King and did him Homage which did still more augment the Division by reason that the King of Cyprus having his Party although it was weak yet was it able to give abundance of trouble even in Ptolemais which he had like to have surprized And certainly there was much danger lest Bendocdar who was so admirably skilled in making his own advantage in such opportunities should lay hold of this to seize upon those small remainders which were yet possessed by the Christians in Syria but that God himself was pleased to deliver them from this formidable Enemy For this Sultan receiving information that the Tartars had besieged a Fortress which he had upon the Euphrates he Marched immediately to relieve it and causing his Cavalry to Swim over this great River he thought to have surprized his Enemies but they received him so well that they cut in pieces almost all his Troops and it was not without great difficulty that he himself escaped having received a dangerous Wound in the Encounter but at last he got to Damascus where the Flux and Fever coming upon him by reason of his Wound he died in a few Days after the Battle It is impossible to express the joy which his Death occasioned among the Christians but it was much increased by the taking of the Fortress of Margath and by the Defeat of the Sarasins who indeavoured to retake it from the Knights of the Temple but above all by the great Victory of the Tartars for these People being entred into Syria laid all wast before them without giving any Quarter to the Sarasins when at length Melech-Sais the Successor of Bendocdar Marched out of Egypt with an Army of two hundred thousand Men to give them Battle The two Armies met and fought most furiously in the plain of Emessa and after a most terrible Slaughter on both sides the Egyptians in conclusion lost the Day and the Tartars who had also lost abundance of Men satisfying themselves with their Victory and the huge Booty which they had taken returned again beyond the Euphrates This without all doubt had been a conjuncture extremely favourable to the Christians and Charles King of Sicily who was the greatest Captain of his time an extreme lover of Glory and Greatness and who at the Solicitation of Pope Gregory the Tenth had taken the Cross and as King of Jerusalem had the principal Interest in the Holy War would certainly have led a powerful Army into Syria to recover the Realm of Jerusalem as was the Expectation of the whole World But the cruel adventure of the Sicilian Vespers year 1281 which happened almost at the same time having overthrown all his designs did also ruin all the hopes and the Affairs of Christendom in the East For on the one side King Hugh year 1282 who had been obliged to return into Cyprus entred now again into Syria year 1283 to make advantage of the Misfortune of King Charles and seized upon Tyre year 1284 and after his Death which happened at the same time King Henry his Son who succeeded to his Brother John was received in Ptolemais besieged and in five Days took the Fortress year 1286 and caused himself to be Crowned King of Jerusalem this also made the division increase among the Christians who divided
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.
great many Cardinals who attended him in his Voyages There was confirmed the Decrees of the Councils of Placentia year 1095 Melphi Beneventum and Troyes which were held under this same Pope for Reformation of the Disorders which had been introduced by the Schisme There new Canons were made to restore Liberty to the Church formerly oppressed and to restore to the Ecclesiasticks the Possession of their Benefices Churches Tithes and Offerings which had been kept from them by the Laicks from the time of Charles Martel by the Grants of the Kings and by the Consent or at least Connivance of the Bishops After which Vrban judging that all Matters were fairly disposed towards the Success of his great Design of promoting the Holy War he thought it convenient to propose it to the Council which he also did in the great Square of the City year 1095 in a most elaborate Discourse which he had prepared for this extraordinary Occasion where with all the power of his Eloquence he delivered himself in these Terms If in this Vniversal Joy which guilds the Face of this great and Illustrious Assembly there appear in mine all the Marks of a most profound Sadness my venerable Brethren and Dear Children in Christ Jesus you will find no Cause of wonder when with me you shall have considered that notwithstanding all that we have hitherto done for the Remedy of our pressing Evils we have neglected to apply any Effectual Redress to those which are the greatest We have indeed humbled the Power of the Schism we have disarmed the Heresie reformed abuses and have reinstated the Church in the possession of those Rights which had been suffered to be lost But alas what pleasure can we reap from all these glorious acquisitions whilest the pittiless Enemies of the Christian Name continue to dishonour it and to commit the most violent Outrages and Tyrannies and are permitted to tear the better part of us in pieces Yes my Brethren the Holy Land the City of God the Inheritance of Christ Jesus which he hath bestowed upon his Children having taken it out of the Hands of Jews and Pagans that admirable Spot of Ground where the Saviour of the World wrought all the stupendious Mysteries of the Salvation of Mankind the very Heart of Christendom as I may term it has for many Ages been usurped by the Infidels by the Turks and Saracens and we permit them insolently to triumph even over Jesus Christ himself if I may so say whom they seem to have chased out of the Capital City of his Empire whilest they establish their cruel Tyranny upon the Ruins of so many Sacred Monuments of his miraculous Conquests What Tongue is able to express the fearful Prophanations which are daily committed in those Holy Places which the Actions the Miracles the Blood and Sufferings of the Saviour of the world have Consecrated and made Venerable to all Christians who from every quarter of the Earth resort thither to pay their Religious Devotions as if Christ Jesus himself were there personally present And if amidsts the horrible marks of their Impiety the overthrowing our Temples and our Altars these Insidels have spared the Church of the Holy Sepulchre we are obliged for that good Office to the Avarice of these Inhumane Robbers who have imposed an Excessive Rate upon the Devotion of the Faithful Christians whom though they cannot rob of their Faith they despoil of their Goods and many times by insufferable torments take away their Lives And all this time the Christians of the West of whom one single Nation were sufficientlyable to Infranchise the East from this unworthy Servitude Coldly and without being moved behold the Oppression of their Brethren as if they had no manner of share in the Injury which these Barbarians do to Jesus Christ whilest they invade that Inheritance which solely appertains to Christians who are his Children we suffer them peaceably to enjoy a Conquest so shameful to all Christendom whilest we lye buried in unimployed Laziness without a single thought of running to our Arms. Without running to Arms did I say Alas one shall see nothing now adayes throughout all Europe but Christians running into Armes one against another for their mutual Ruin and Destruction those Arms which ought to be employed to Exterminate the Enemies of Christ Jesus are turned against him in his Members when they shed the Blood of their Brethren his Children Insomuch that one would think they acted by Confederacy with the Infidels for the Ruin of Christianity whilest that at the same time that those Barbarians bend all their Forces their Malice and their Cruelty to destroy it in the East these no less Barbarous Christians infeeble the West by their Wars their Quarrels and Contentions by so many Slaughters daily diminishing the Number of those who might root out these Cruel Enemies of the Christian Name whose Strength consists chiefly in the advantages which they make of our unfortunate Divisions One of our Realms might with ease triumph over these Barbarians if it were not either wholly employed to defend it self or attack another And what then might they not all do if it should please the Spirit of God to unite them in the Prosecution of so glorious an Vndertaking It is for this Reason my Dear Children that I am now come into this most Christian Kingdom with a design to oblige the French Nation whose Ancestors have been so celebrated for Zeal to Religion to follow their Example and give one to the rest of Europe to follow The Armes of France which have formerly been so successful against the African Moors the Arabians and Huns under the Conduct of Charles Martel and the most August Charlemain cannot be less victorious under the Conduct of the Great God of Hosts who Exhorts you to follow him and reconquer the Inheritance of his Son by chasing out the Infidels who daily dishonour and profane it by a Thousand abominable Sacriledges Follow Generous Frenchmen Follow your Invisible Cheiââain in this glorious Enterprise to which you are called by your Honour your Interest your Religion by all the oppressed Christians of the East by me the Vicar of Christ Jesus upon Earth nay by Jesus Christ himself Represent to your selves that your blessed Saviour who from his Holy Sepulchre now captive in the hands of the Saracens triumphed over the World Death and Hell presents unto you his Cross It is the Cross which he displays as his Standard to all the Christians of the West under which Ensign it is impossible for you not to be Victorious here shall you acquire Immortal Glory whether you return from this Holy War loaden with the Trophies and Spoils of these Infidels or whether in emptying your Veins by a glorious Death for the Love of God he shall bestow upon you the Crown of Martyrdom Mean time if the Church And here as he was about to pursue his Discourse he was Interrupted by the Exclamations and Crys of an infinite number of People who
turns the greatest Sinners into the greatest Saints Thus was Jerusalem recovered from the Infidels by the Army of the Crusades in the fourth Year of their Expedition the fifteenth day of July upon a Friday and which is most Remarkable at the very precise Hour wherein the Saviour of the World rendred his Blessed Soul into the Hands of Almighty God his Father as if the Divine Providence had determined so to manage the Movements of this great Affair that the Christians should recover his Inheritance exposing their Lives for his Glory at the same time wherein he had assured them of Immortality and Glory in Heaven by dying upon the Cross to purchase it for them Eight days after this happy Conquest during which time News was brought of the Death of the Patriarch Simeon who was Deceased in the Isle of Cyprus the Princes and Lords who followed them Assembled to Reestablish the ancient Kingdom of Jerusalem by giving it a King as David and Solomon and the other Princes their Successors had been till the Babylonish Captivity Count Raymond of Tholose was then proposed but whether he thought himself in the Age to which he was advanced too weak to sustain so weighty a Charge or feared that this Civility which was offered him would not succeed in regard his own People who had already twice forsaken him acted secretly against his Pretensions he excused himself by reason of his Age and would by no means suffer it to proceed to an Election The same Honor was also offered to Robert Duke of Normandy but this Prince having a great Desire to return as soon as he could had no other design but to get his Chaplain to be chosen Patriarch and it is with great probability of Appearance that it was he who made the Speech which one of the Writers of that time hath transmitted to us which proposed that double Election after this manner My Lords Since it is full time after having Accomplished so happily our Vow in this Glorious Expedition that we should now begin to think of Returning into Europe to Govern in our Persons those Estates which God hath there been pleased to give us and since you have also thought it expedient with all convenient Dispatch to take care for the Government of this Place which we came to reconquer from the Infidels Now my Lords this Capital and Holy City of Jerusalem being both a Royalty and a Patriarchate it is necessary that it should have both a King and a Patriarchate the Royalty and the Priesthood are so nearly linked together and accord so well that the one cannot be without the other for that hath need of the Priesthood to procure the Blessings of Heaven and this stands in need of the Royalty to support it and strengthen that Spiritual Authority which God hath Invested it withal It is our Duty to give our Assistance to the Clergy in the Choice of a Pastor for this Church who may be a Man of Wisdom Probity Spirit and Eloquence capable of so great an Office and all this we have Experienced in Arnold de Rohes who is without Contradiction the most Knowing and Able Man of all the Ecclesiasticks who have followed the Army and therefore I am of Opinion that we who are to take Care as much as possibly we can of this Church ought to Recommend him to their Election for a Patriarch As for that which concerns a King which is wholy in our own Power I can see nothing that should Oblige us to defer the Election for one Moment for it is most evident that we ought to Chuse without any sort of Hesitation that Person whose Piety Modesty Prudence sweet Temper Clemency Justice Integrity Liberality Experience in War Generosity Valour Successfulness Reputation and the Glory which he hath acquired in a thousand noble Occasions whose strength of Age of Body of Spirit whose Nobleness admirable Composure and very Air of Greatness and Majesty worthy of an Empire and a hundred other Perfections conspire to rank him among the greatest Kings that ever were My Lords All these extraordinary Qualities which render themselves so Conspicuous in the Person that possesses them make it appear wholy unnecessary for me to name him and must needs have prevented me in that Design nor is it what I can say but it comes from an Authority far Superior to mine God himself in giving him these surpassing Advantages above the rest of Mankind hath himself named the Person whom he hath chosen like a second David to be the King of Jerusalem It is the Illustrious Godfrey of Bullen Duke of Lorrain and that year 1099 The Prince could not sinish the rest for so soon as he had pronounced the Name of Godfrey all the whole Assembly Interrupted him crying out with the same Mind and Voice Godfrey Godfrey long Live Godfrey the most puissant and pious King of Jerusalem And notwithstanding all the Resistance which the Modesty of that excellent Prince brought to oppose it he was obliged instantly to consent to the Election which by so suddain and universal Consent manifested it self to have the Divine Will and Approbation The very same day he was Conducted to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and there Proclaimed King amidst the Acclamations of the whole Army and all the Christians of the Country who came flocking in to Inhabit the City of Jerusalem He was there presented with a Crown of Gold which he absolutely refused protesting that he would never wear a Crown of Gold in a City where the King of Kings had for the Sake of Mankind worn a Crown of Thorns And tho he would not take upon himself the Title of King yet it was constantly given him as all the Historians of that time and Posterity have ever since done to this very Day and certainly never any King better deserved to wear that glorious Title which he adorned with so many Royal Actions the first was of Piety for he Founded two Chapters of Canons in the Churches of the Temple and the Holy Sepulchre as also a Monastery in the Valley of Jehosaphat The second was of his Power and Authority in Obliging Count Raymond to put into his Hands the strong Fortress of the Tower of David which he pretended to keep in his Possession at least till his Return into France though he was generally Condemned by the whole Army for it and even by his own Gascons and Provencalls The third was an Action of incomparable Valour and Conduct manifested in that memorable Victory which he obtained over the Sultan of Egypt for the Sultan coming too late to Succour his People Advanced with a formidable Army to Besiege Jerusalem but King Godfrey eased him of that Trouble For so soon as he received that News he sent to recal Tancred and Earl Eustace who were Marched to take the Fortress of Napolis otherwise called Sichem and Sichar formerly the place where Samaria had stood And as these two Princes who were Advanced as far as
had before-hand complotted their Destruction there perished a hundred thousand men besides an infinite Number of Women who were led into miserable Captivity The Earl of Poitiers having lost all was reduced to the deplorable Necessity to make his Voyage on Foot Hugh the Great could not finish his but died by the way at Tarsus in Cilicia The Earl of Tholose making Use of the small Remainder of the Pilgrims to regain Tortosa from the Saracens who had seized it abandoned his Benefactors and fortified himself in his Conquest following the Design which he had always cherished to acquire some little Principality in the East The rest after having visited the Holy Places conducted by their ill Destiny compleated their Misfortunes by joyning with the King in this unhappy Battle only the Earl of Poitiers escaped having taken Shipping at Jaffa in order to his return into France the rest who stayed were either slain upon the Place as were the Earls of Blois and Burgogne or taken Prisoners as were the Earl of Bourges and many other brave though unfortunate Persons The King nevertheless escaped to Rama and in a few days having drawn together the Troops of Antipatris Tiberias Jerusalem and Jaffa into which Place he had put himself he made a Sally to so good purpose upon his Enemies who prepared to besiege him that in the End he constrained them to take their Flight leaving to him all the Marks of an absolute Victory the Field of Battle the Bodies of the Slain all their Engines and their Baggage After which he took Ptoelmais by the Help of the Genoese who besieged it by Sea with seventy Ships he a second time defeated the Saracens of Egypt in the Plain of Rama he took the City of Tripolis year 1105 which under the Denomination of an Earldom and the Condition of Homage he conferred upon Bertrand the Son of the Earl of Tholose year 1109 who was dead about four years before he made himself Master of Sidon Beritus and all the Sea-Coast Towns excepting Tyre which he kept blocked up by the Fortress of Scandalion which he caused to be built upon the Coast some five Miles from that City in the same place where Alexander the Great had formerly formed his Camp when he besieged that City In the End after having also built upon the further side of Jordan the Castle of Mont-Real to bridle the Incursions of the Arabians and having carried his Victorious Arms even into Egypt year 1118 he died of the Flux and was interred near his Brother Godfrey at the Foot of Mount Calvary in a Chappel adjoyning to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre He left the Christians in Possession of four large Soveraignties which they had conquered in the East the first was the Earldom of Edessa which extended it self from the further side of Euphrates to the River Tygris the second was the Principality of Antioch in which was comprized all the Country which is between Tarsus of Cilicia towards the West and the City of Maraclea on the East upon the Coast of the Phenician Sea as far as Tortosa It was afterwards governed by Roger the Cousin of Tancred after the Death of that brave Prince who had governed it till after the Deliverance of his Uncle and then returning into France he married Constance the Daughter of King Philip the first and after having made War in Epirus and in Dalmatia with the Greek Emperor he died in Italy leaving behind him a Son of his own Name The third was the Earldom of Tripolis which extends it self along the Sea-Coast of Phenicia beyond Maraclea as far as the River Adonis which runs between Biblis and Baruth The fourth was the Kingdom of Jerusalem which beginning at the same River stretches it self almost to the Castle of Daron upon the Frontier of Idumea near unto Egypt In this flourishing Estate stood the Affairs of the Christians in the East at the death of Baldwin the second His Brother Eustace Earl of Bullen who ought to have succeeded him was at that time in France and in Regard there was a Necessity that they should have a King who should be actually within the Kingdom year 1118 to maintain things in that Condition wherein they stood against so many Potent Enemies which they had upon all hands therefore the Earl of Edessa his Cousin Baldwin de Bourg who was at that time at Jerusalem was called to the Succession of the Kingdom which he took upon him leaving the Earldom of Edessa to Josselin Earl of Courtenay who was his Kinsman Now in Regard that it was in the Beginning of his Reign that the Order of the Knights Templers were first founded in his Palace and that it is requisite something should be said of these Knights as also of the other Order which was called Hospitallers I think it will not be amiss in a few Words to inform the Reader of the Original the Intention the manner of Living and the Employ of these Military Orders which were established in Palestine under the first Kings of Jerusalem It is certain that before the Christian Princes had conquered the Holy Land there were Hospitallers at Jerusalem whereof some received and Entertained the Pilgrims which came from all Parts of Christendom to visit the Holy Places and others of them had the Charge of the Poor Sick and Diseased People and particularly of the Lepers of which there were great Numbers in those times Those who were called the Hospitallers of St. Lazarus are far more Ancient than the first of these as appears by the great Number of Hospitals and Insirmaries of the Name of St. Lazarus which were wholly intended and principally in the East for such as were afflicted with the Leprosie St. Gregory Nazianzen assures us that St. Basil built one at Cesarea dedicated to the same Saint the supposed Protector of the Lepers and that he gave Rules to these Charitable Hospitallers who devoted themselves to the Service of those diseased People As for the others who made Profession to serve the Pilgrims of the Holy Land they were not in being till a long time after that the Merchants of Amalphi in Italy who trafficked into Syria obtained Permission of one of the Caliphs to build a Monastery near the Holy Sepulchre to which they added a Hospital and an Oratory dedicated to St. John the Eleemosynary there to receive the poor Pilgrims as well as the sick and diseased For after they were embodied into a Community as formerly they took Care only of the Infirm and Leprous so now there were others who were particularly appointed to attend the Pilgrims and both the one and the other were indifferently called Hospitallers they lived a long time in this peaceable Exercise of Charity under one Superior who was called the Master of the Hospital until that after tho Conquest of Palestine by the Princes of the Crusade they took up Arms not only for the Desence of the poor Pilgrims but also to serve the Kings of
Promise of Repayment after the War he went according to the Custom of his Ancestors to St. Dennis to take the Oriflame or Standard of that Saint From thence he departed a little before Whitsunday towards the middle of June taking his way for Mets where was to be the general Rendezvous of all his Troops whilest in the mean time the Emperor as before was agreed marched with his towards Constantinople where they were to rejoyn their Forces The Emperor accordingly having assembled almost all the Forces of the Empire parted from Noremberg about the End of May upon Ascention Day with a most flourishing Army consisting in seventy Thousand Men at Arms all Curiassiers without computing the light Horsemen and with an Infantry the most numerous and in the best Condition that ever any Emperor had seen before After having passed the Danube at Batisbonne crossed through Austria Hungaria Bulgaria and Thracia without any of those mischievous Rencounters which happened to the first Crusades upon the seventh of September they entred into a fair large and delicious Valley in the middle whereof ran the River Melas in his Passage into the Gulph of that Name or the Black Sea and sometimes borrowing the Name of Cardia an Ancient City of the Thracian Chersonesus The Beauty of so agreeable a place obliged the Emperor to stay there to refresh his Army and to Celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin which was the next day But there happened a sad Accident which seemed to portend the unlucky Success of this fatal War For the Army encamping while it was yet Early day and it happening to be a Serene and Glorious Evening and the Medows on each side of the River extending themselves a great length to the very Foot of the Mountains there was nothing during the whole Voyage to be seen so fair and magnificent as this Encampment For the Camp represented some fair and lofty City being composed of an Infinite Number of very rich Tents which were disposed in diverse Streets the whole length of the Plain as far as one could well discern till they came to a little rising Hill where stood the Pavilions of Duke Frederick and appeared like the Cittadel of this Enchanted City They passed the Evening with great Jollity solacing themselves after the Fatigues of so long a March which they had endured a little before they were to go to their Repose after that the Bishops had begun the Solemnity of the following Festival by the Publick Prayers for the Eve of Ascention the Heavens began to be darkned with a few small Clouds which produced some light Drops rather of Dew than Rain but within a Moment after there arose one of those furious Whirlwinds which they call Hurricanes which made such a disorder as is not imaginable for immediately the Impetuosity of these contrary Winds which rushed one against the other with a most dreadful roaring was so great that having broken all the Cordages which held up the Tents all this City without Foundation was partly tumbled down to the Ground year 1147 and partly hoisted up into the Air where the Winds which wrapt themselves up in the Pavilions made them sly about and afterwards tore them in a thousand pieces this Storm was succeeded by such fearful Deluge of Rain as made a thousand litle Torrents come rolling down from the Neighbouring Mountains into the Plain which by their Rapidity carried before them Men Beasts Moveables and what ever they incountred in their Passage and at the same time the South-Wind the most violent of the rest drove up the Water of the River and swelled it with the Huge Waves of the Sea to that prodigious height that it overflowed all the Banks in that furious manner that all the Plain was drowned to the very Foot of the Mountains It is impossible to express the Tumult the Consternation and the Desperation of the Army upon this Terrible Accident all that the great Lords and Cavaliers could do was to run half naked to their Horses to get to the Mountains over this new Sea which had now taken Possession of those Beautiful Medows with which they were before so much delighted As for the poor Foot some of them got hold of the Tails of the Horses whilest others quaking with Wet and Cold as well as Fear followed the Track of the Horsemen a great many got upon the Waggons as upon a Rampart and others stood immoveable in the Places where they were up to the middle in Water waiting for the End of this Dreadful Tempest some by mistake falling into the River by reason the Banks could not be discerned miserably perished in the Waters and almost all lost the greatest part of their Baggage The loss of men however was not extraordinary in regard that the Tempest was too violent to last long The Inundation ceased in a few hours and the Waters falling immediately after the dispersed Souldiers rendevouzed upon the Mountain before the Emperor who learnt in this Rencontre how easie it is in a Moment for God to abase the Pride of men and when he pleaseth to humble the most formidable Powers of the Earth which are weak and miserable in Comparison of him This Prince who entertained himself with these Pious and Christian Meditations received this Blow of the Hand of Almighty God with great Humility and Submission to the Orders of his Providence and evidenced an extraordinary Greatness of Soul and Constancy of Mind under this Affliction thereby to encourage his Army at the Head of which he continued to march very chearfully leading them to lodge in the Suburbs of Constantinople there in some measure to recover this Loss In this time a fair Fleet composed of above a hundred Sail of Germans English Flemings and French which several private Persons had rigged out to make their Voyage more easily and quickly by Sea was diverted by an Adventure which was worth more than one Crusade and in which they happily found in Europe all that Glory which they went to search after in Asia This Fleet set Sail from England the twelfth of April having on board three or four Thousand men commanded by their particular Captains After they had for a long time met with foul Weather and Cross Winds at last they came to an Anchor before Lisbon thinking there to refresh themselves when they were surprised by finding that great City besieged by an Army of Christians to whom God sent this unexpected Succour to take Lisbon from the Sarasins and to make it the Capital City of that Realm which a Prince descended from the House of France had newly founded This Prince was Henry the Grand-Son of Robert of France Duke of Burgundy and Second Son of King Robert He being young and a passionate Lover of Glory went to seek for it in Spain at the Wars against the Moors towards the latter end of the Reign of Ferdinand the first King of Castile and made his first Campagne under that famous Captain
searing a Pursuit from the half-dismounted Cavalry Within a Moment they would return again to make another Discharge upon these poor People at whom they shot from the higher Ground to the lower as at a Butt they in the mean time being neither able to defend themselves nor revenge their death So that without the Expence of one Man to the Turk the poor Conrade who himself was wounded though but slightly with two Arrows was compelled to abandon all his Baggage the Dead and Dying the Sick and the greatest part of his Infantry to the Mercy of the Turks who killed a great number and carried the rest into miserable Slavery the Emperor himself with great difficulty escaping not with above the tenth part of his Army retired to the French Camp which was now advanced as far as Nice For while the Emperor Conrade marched before and was making this unfortunate Voyage the King after having taken a Review of his Army at Metz passed the Rhine at Wormes the 29th of June where he was most magnificently entertained and the Danube at Ratisbonne from whence he marched to Newburgh and so through Austria and Hungary without any molestation But being once entred upon the Territories of the Greek Emperor he found oftner than once the perfidiousness of that unworthy Prince who had given underhand Orders to all his Officers to do him all the mischief which possibly they could do in his Passage He did the same also himself to the Ambassadors which the King had sent accompanied with a considerable number of the French Nobility who received a thousand Affronts and Displeasures at the same time that this dis-loyal Man made them a thousand Protestations of Amity and Friendship The King however who was resolute to pursue his first Design and who with case defeated the Troops which endeavoured to oppose his Passage dissembling these Injuries though some there were who counselled him to Revenge he being much stronger than the Emperor In Conclusion the beginning of October he arrived at Constantinople where Manuel who knew his own Guilt and was in mighty fear of such a formidable Power as he was in no possibility of resisting received him with all the Respects and Honours imaginable All the Great Persons of the Empire the Patriarch with the whole Clergy and all the several Companies of the City went out to meet him and the Emperor himself cloathed in his Imperial Robes received him at the Gate of the great Palace year 1147 The meeting of these two Princes was certainly a very great and extraordinary Appearance they were both about the same Years being near twenty eight both of them of a Majestick Composure admirably well shaped and of noble Presence and both of them most magnificently habited though after a different manner and as they both knew admirably well how to dissemble the one by Nature and Malice the other by Art and Prudence there was not the least Punctilio of Respect Tenderness and Affection which they did not upon this occasion reciprocally bestow one upon the other They embraced they kissed and entertained each other by their Interpreters for a long time in the Emperor's Chamber environed with the principal Lords of the one and the other Nation And the Emperor after he had given the King a thousand Praises upon the Subject of his glorious Enterprize and had wished him all manner of prosperous Success offering to serve him with all that ever he had his Forces and Estate he made him be conducted by all the great Lords of the Empire to the Palace which was most magnificently prepared for him The next Day he accompanied him to the Church of St. Sophia and the other most celebrated Churches which the King had a mind to visit after which he treated him at an Entertainment where the magnificent Preparations the sumptuous rich and admirable Variety accompanied with all the usual Attendants of Rejoycing surpassed all that ever had been done by his Predecessors in their most splendid Receptions of other Princes and Kings He himself also ordered that so he might satisfie the King's Devotion that the Festival of St. Dennis the Areopagite the Apostle of France whom the Greek Church acknowledged as well as the Latin should be celebrated with a most extraordinary Pomp causing the Divine Offices to be performed with all the most Ceremonious Solemnity and most admirable Musick which to the French who are naturally Lovers of Novelties was most pleasing and delightful In short he did all that possibly he could to please the King saying to him such smooth and obliging things and framing his Countenance his Eyes his Gestures and all his Actions into so perfect a Harmony and Composure of extream Joy and Satisfaction that the greatest part of the Lords who judged the depth of his heart by these deluding Appearances which lay uppermost upon his Actions were persuaded that he acted most sincerely and loved the King with all his heart But the Bishop of Langress who was a Man of wonderful Prudence and who observed every thing with a curious eye easily perceived that all this was Artifice and that under all these affected Testimonies of a feigned Amity there lay hid some dangerous Treason which ought by some generous Resolution to be prevented by putting the Greeks the mortal Enemies of the French out of the capacity of doing them any mischief Upon the Debate therefore of the Council which was holden to deliberate concerning the March of the Army which the Emperor pressed with a great deal of Heat and Earnestness when it came to the Bishop's share to speak he gave advice which if it had been followed as warmly as it was slighted imprudently had in a few days put a period to the War to the immortal Glory of the French as well as to the universal Good of Christendom For he said that In his Opinion it was neither convenient for the King to stay there any long time to attend the coming up of the Troops which were expected from Italy nor yet according to the sense of others to be so hasty to pass the Strait to joyn with the Germans but that in his Judgment the King ought to lay hold on that fair Occasion which God Almighty seemed to present him and to strike the last and the great Blow to that Holy War by making himself Master of Constantinople This Sir added he is the only absolute and necessary way for Your Majesty happily to finish this War to assure the Conquests in the East and to make new ones by repulsing to the remotest Confines of Persia those Infidels who now dispute with us the Possession of Palestine and of Syria For most certainly so long as we leave Constantinople behind us in the hands of the perfidious Manuel we are assured there of a most potent and treacherous Enemy who will not fail to cut off from us all Re-inforcements of men and all Supplies of Provision without which it is impossible for Armies to subsist and
promising to furnish the King with three or four Greek Noblemen who had Skill to conduct his Army by good Ways and that he would furnish Magazines of Provisions for them during their March The French Lords who were ready to dye with the desire they had to make haste to have their share in the good Fortune and the Glory which they believed the German Army were now reaping made no sort of difficulty to make that Oath to the Emperor saying That they did the same every day in France to the Lords of Fieffs without any prejudice to the Sovereignty of the King But the Count de Dreux the King's Brother believing that he should dishonour the Blood of France if he should acknowledge for his Lord any one except the King his Brother took occasion to give them the slip taking along with him some of the most Generous as also the Princess his Cousin whom Manuel desired for a Wife for one of his Nephews And while they were hotly disputing about these two Articles which the Bishop of Langress ever most vigorously opposed he had Leisure enough to get as far as Nicomedia At the same time the King of Sicily who made War with Manuel with Success enough did whatever he was able by his Ambassadors to oblige the King to joyn with him in a League against that Emperor and to attack him both by Sea and Land in Europe and in Asia But the Scruple which the King had still in his Mind which made him fearful of violating his Vow if he should make never so little a Sally from this Holy War made him refuse all these fair Offers contrary to the Advice of the wise Bishop of Langress who clearly fore-saw and to no purpose fore-told the Misfortunes which would befall him and the Army by the Perfidiousness of the Grecian Emperor Thus the Treaty being concluded and the Emperor after an Interview with the King upon the Banks of the Propontis having sent over all the French that yet remained at Constantinople the whole Army marched in the beginning of November towards Nicomedia a City which at that time was in a manner wholly ruinous And now the Baseness and Treachery of the perfidious Manuel began plainly to appear for the Guides and Officers which he promised to send to conduct the Army through a good Country and to give Orders for Provisions were not to be found and in the Road wherein they now were there was very little Subsistence for the Army so that it was resolved to change it and quitting the lest Hand where the Provinces were very barren and desolate year 1147 to take the Right Hand way towards the South and to incamp upon the Lake of Ascanius near unto Nice There it was that in the Heat of those Desires which possessed the Army to advance and joyn as soon as possible with the Germans who were supposed to be so victorious they were extremely surprized with hearing of their Defeat At first the news came but by some whispering Rumors but it was in a little time confirmed by Frederick Duke of Suabia the Emperors Nephew whom that unfortunate Prince who with great difficulty had recovered Nice with the pittiful Remainder of his ruined Army who in their Extremity were very ill treated also by the Greeks had sent to the King to advertise him of his overthrow and to request of him that he might see him to the End that from his disaster he might give him Notice of some things of great Importance in this unhappy Conjuncture The King who certainly was a Prince the most Civil and Obliging in the World and had a Soul of the best Temper of any man of his time resolved instantly to prevent the Emperor in his Design of seeing him and to endeavour to sweeten his ill Fortune by all manner of Honors and good Offices which he was capable to do him he therefore immediately mounted to Horse accompanied with all the great Lords and Officers of his Army and went to find the Emperor in the Place where he was encamped expecting the Return of his Nephew Frederick Never was there any thing seen more Tender and Moving than this Enterview for no sooner did these two great Princes see each other but they ran into mutual Embraces wherein they held one the other for a long time without being able to speak any other Language but those Tears which the Joy the Grief and Compassion which moved so diversly in their Hearts drew at last into their Eyes The King was the first who broke the Silence and endeavouring to force a Joy into his Lips in Despite of the Sorrow which surrounded his Heart he said all that it was possible in the most Christian and obliging manner to comfort the Afflicted Emperor for his Loss he offered him all that he had his Forces and his Fortune and protested that he always would esteem it as great an Honor to be his Faithful Companion in this War as he should have done were he still at the Head of an Army as numerous and flourishing as that which he commanded before this Disaster The Emperor also on his part said all that was most capable to touch the Heart of a Christian Prince he acknowledged with great Humility the Heavy hand of God to be justly laid upon him for the Sins of his Army and for his own too great Presumption in relying so much upon the Strength of his own Arms to the Prejudice of that Confidence which he ought to have reposed in God alone in whose Almighty Hands is the Disposal of the Fortunes of Kings Nevertheless he said since God had been pleased still to give him the same Ardent Desire to accomplish his Vow and that he had in his Extremity found out for him such a Generous Protector he hoped that his Divine Majesty would be pleased yet to make use of him to combat the Infidels among the Arms of France which he hoped would be happier than his and that he was resolved never to part from them After which the two Princes having held a great Councel with the Principal Lords of the one and the other Nation it was resolved that the two Armies should march together following the Road which the King had already taken in drawing toward the lesser Asia between the Sea and Phrygia But this Resolution of the Emperor did not continue long for the German Lords some or other of them every day demanding of him leave to depart under Pretext that they had lost their Equipage when they were arrived at the City of Ephesus after having suffered much by the mischievous Greeks this poor Prince found himself so slenderly accompanied that he was ashamed of himself and believing that it was putting an Affront upon his own Character and the Empire which he governed to have it said that an Emperor of Germany without an Army should seem to serve under a King of France he therefore Excused himself in the best manner that he could to
Death of Amauri and the Troubles and Divisions which it caused in the Realm The Conquests of Saladin thereupon The Reign of Baldwin the Leprous The Ambassage to the Princes of the West to desire their Help against Saladin The Negotiation of the Ambassadors 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 Tiberias Division in the Councel of War held by the King The unfortunate Battle of Tiberias 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 year 1148 AFTER so fair a Victory the Greeks who could by no means indure the Glory and the Advantages of the French began more openly to declare themselves against them than before for now they plainly joyned with the Turks to whom they afforded not only a Retreat to Antioch in Pisidia but gave them also the Opportunity with Ease to Assemble and Re-unite their scattered Troops Whilest in the mean time the King was in great Straits for Subsistence and finding himself in no Condition to Attaque them in so strong a Place drew towards Laodicea a large City but not so well Fortified as to be in a Condition to Resist him and there he hoped to meet with some Refreshment for his Army He arrived there three or four days after the Battle but to his great Disappointment he found by the Baseness of him that Commanded there for the Emperor that there was no manner of Provision for the Army It was this wicked Villain who pretending to Convoy a party of the poor Germans who had saved themselves after their Defeat lead them into an Ambuscade of Turks who put them all to the Sword and with whom as it was before Agreed he divided their Spoil This Infamous Traitor fearing it seems that the French would be Revenged of him for his Treachery or else that imagining he should not be able to Betray them in the same manner he was resolved to do them a greater Mischief after having caused all the Inhabitants to Retire with their Goods and Provisions to the Woods and Mountains went himself to seek a Refuge among the Turks so that the King was obliged to stay there till those Fugitives could be found and perswaded to return year 1148 after which loading their Waggons and Sumpters with Provisions which the King who was for rendring Good for Evil would have them paid for the Army decamped and took the way of Pamphilia that so they might by Marching near the Sea have a more commodious Passage and meet with better Plenty of Forrage and Subsistence And tho they knew that both the Greeks and the Turks Coasted along with them tho at a great Distance yet they were esteemed such contemptible Enemies and the French were so Confident after the Victory they had gained that there was too little care taken to stand upon their Guard But this Presumption as it usually happens did not fail to be very Pernicious to this Army which was unfortunately beaten by the Turks by the Fault of one Man who neglected to observe the Orders which were wisely Established by Military Discipline the Army following the Custom of those Times was divided only into two Bodies one of which composed the Vanguard and the other the Rereguard To avoid Jealousies these two Bodies were every day Commanded by two of the Principal Lords who under the King took their several Turns the King sometimes Marching with one sometimes with the other Every Night they Assembled in Councel at which all the Lords Assisted where Orders were issued out concerning the Way of the next days March and the Place where the Army was to Encamp Now there happened to be in the Way which they must of necessity pass a mighty high Mountain extream difficult of Access by reason of the dangerous Narrowness and broken Craggs and Rocks where the Army must file off The King therefore following the Resolution which had been taken at the Councel gave Order that they should Encamp on the Top of the Mountain and that they should pass the Night there and the next Morning descend into the Plain in order of Battle He who led the Vanguard that Day was Geoffry Rancon of Poitiers Lord of Taillebourg who carried the Royal Standard according to the Custom next the Orislame at the Head of this Vanguard The Count de Morienne the King's Uncle with the Queen and all the Ladies of Quality were there also by very good Fortune going before that so they might come in better time to the Place where they were to Incamp The King who usually chose the Place where there was most Danger had put himself into the Rere that so he might make Head against the Enemies if they should attempt to Follow or Molest him as they had done at the Battle of Meander Geoffry Arrived at the Mountain in very good time and seeing the Sun yet of a great height and his Guides telling him that if he did but make a little the more Hast he might Incamp far more Commodiously in one of the fairest Plains of all Asia where he should meet with all sorts of Refreshments for the Army forgetting therefore the Orders of the King with extream Rashness he descended from the Mountain and Marched a great way to that agreeable Place which had been shewed him supposing that the Arrierguard not finding him upon the Mountain would certainly follow him But he took very false Measures and in deceiving himself in this manner occasioned the Loss of the other part of the Army which was more miserably deceived by him For the very same Reason which made him March forward from the Mountain to gain the Valley made the others also seeing the Sun so high to make no hast to get to the Mountain where they doubted not but to find him Encamped according to the King's Orders By this means the Turks who Coasted all
Loss One lamented his Father another his Son this his Brother that his Kinsman or his Friend some ran to Embrace those of their Acquaintance who were got off half Naked and without their Arms whilest others who conceived a like Hope for theirs in vain expected those who were never to Return However all of them Comforted themselves in this extream Grief by the Joy which they had at the Kings Escape after he had run such a fearful Danger of being Lost and had defended himself from it in that Heroick manner which hath been related and in short all of them in the midst of this Grief and Joy tumultuously and loudly demanded the Death of Geoffry who had most apparently been the only Cause of this horrible Loss by disobeying those Orders which had been prescribed him by the King and so furiously were they Incensed against him that nothing would satisfy them but to have him Hanged immediately And certainly it is impossible to deny but that he well deserved to have suffered Death but such was the Bounty and natural Goodness of the King and the Count de Morienne having also in a great Measure been Guilty of that Miscarriage for whom the King had a great Value he scaped with his Life The next Day when they were to Decamp the Army was reduced to very great Extremities For they discovered the Enemies upon the Tops of the Mountains ready to follow the remainder of the Army and to take all Advantages to Surprise them again upon their March The Provisions began to fail they had twelve days March to the Place whither they designed to go they wanted good Guides and must of necessity pass through Countries possessed by the Turks and the Greeks who were equally their Enemies All these Dangers and Difficulties how great soever did not yet abate the Courage of the French who are usually Reproached with loosing a great part of their Fire and their natural Confidence when they are under adverse Fortune however it did not happen so upon this Occasion which only made them more Wise and not less Valiant or Resolved The King to model this new Army divided it also into two Bodies one of which was the Rereguard He gave the Command of this to the Great Master of the Temple Everard de Barres a most valiant Gentleman who some days before was come to joyn the Army with a good Troop of the Knights of that Order The Conduct of the other he intrusted with an old Captain one Gilbert to whom all the others though in Quality much Superior to him yet made no Difficulty to submit themselves since the King himself protested that he would obey his Orders But he most humbly intreated the King to put himself between these two Bodies with a good Body of Horse and Foot that so he might be able from thence to send Assistance to either of them if they should happen to be much Pressed by the Enemy The Baggage marched in the Middle and a great part of the Horse were Ranged upon the Wings to the Right and Left to cover the Flanks of the Army In this manner it was that they Advanced and in this Order marched daily towards Pamphilia with so much Conduct that the Enemies who Coasted along with them and Attacked them four several times year 1148 were continually Repulsed and particularly one time the King seeing them Ingaged between two little Rivers Charged them so smartly that he took a sufficient Revenge upon them for the Defeat of his Rereguard cutting in pieces the greatest part of those Barbarians and putting the rest to a shameful Flight The most troublesom Enemy which he had to Combat was Want for all the Country was either Desert or ruined by the Enemies who laid all wast where-ever the Army was to pass so that they were reduced to that Extremity to Eat their Horses which they were also constrained to kill for want of Forrage for so great a Number But that which supported them still was the Example of the King who indured all these Inconveniences as if he had been one of the meanest Soldiers Some he commended others he incouraged and liberally bestowed what he had among them to Comfort the poor Creatures his Care was every where and he took his Share in all the Troubles of the War having his Curiass on almost Night and Day and performing all the Functions of a Great Captain and a Soldier with all the Vigor imaginable And to all this he added a Piety towards God so constant and regular that in all the time of this laborious Voyage he never failed to attend the Divine Offices of publick Prayers In Conclusion the Enemies after their last Defeat not daring to appear or to molest the Army they performed this long March with the greater Ease and about the twentieth of January Arrived near the City of Attalia Situate upon a Bay on the Coast of Pamphylia near the Mouth of the River Cestrius The Governor of that City which was under the Dominion of the Greek Emperor fearing that he was not able to Resist so great an Army if he declared himself their Enemy offered the King Provisions and Ships to Transport his Army into Syria which was the Thing he most ardently Desired thinking himself in no Condition to accomplish so long a March by Land for the King who had no Engines for a Siege and was willing to satisfy his Army by shortning the Voyage was very ready to accept of his Offer But there was no manner of Mischief which this Perfidious and true Greek who held Intelligence with the Turks did not do to Incommode and Ruine as far as he was able this whole Army during five Weeks which they lay there in Expectation of a Wind. And then he would find such a small number of Ships and those at such excessive Rates that the King was at last constrained to Imbarque himself without his Infantry He then treated with the Greeks who obliged themselves for a large sum of Mony which was paid in Hand to receive the Sick into the Town till they should be able to indure the Sea and to Convoy the rest who chose to go by Land through the midst of the Turks than to trust to these Treacherous Greeks who notwithstanding failed not to Sell and Betray them For so soon as the King was gone the Infidels who received Advertisement from these Traitors came pouring down from all Parts upon these who were to venture by Land and for those who were received into the Town the Greeks either Starved them or inhumanly Delivered them into the Hands of the Turks insomuch that of all those brave Men there was but a very few who Escaped by Land with the Earl of Flanders and Archambald de Bourbon who generously offered themselves to be their Conductors And now it was that it appeared too late to be a vain Scruple which was to so ill Purpose opposed against the wise Council of the Bishop of Langres
who advised the Seising upon Constantinople and which occasioned the Loss of such a fair Army as if it had begun with that Enterprise so just so easy and so necessary might gloriously have Triumphed over the whole East and absolutely assured the Christians of the Possession of the Holy Land But it is the common Weakness of the greatest part of Mankind not to know what they ought to do till for want of doing it all is so far lost that when they would they want the Power proportionate to the Will But as for this persidious City it was afterwards equally Punished both by God and the Greek Emperor though for very different Reasons For God to revenge the Inhumane Treachery with which they had treated the French sent such a Pestilence amongst the Inhabitants a short time after as swept away the greatest part of them and the Emperor out of Madness that they had assisted the French with Provisions and Shipping laid such a Mulât upon them as drained them of all their ill gotten Gold and Silver year 1148 and reduced the Remainder to extream Poverty An Instance from whence we may learn that Injustice Oppression and Cruelty in the Conclusion prove more mischievous to the Actors than to the Sufferers In the mean time the King who had taken the Sea with all the great Lords and the remainder of the Cavalry which might yet compose a considerable Army came happily to an Anchor at the Port of St. Simeon upon the Mouth of the Orontes about four or five Leagues from Antioch into which place he made his Entry upon the 19th Day of March and was received with all manner of Magnificence by Prince Raymond who was Uncle by the Mother to Queen Eleoner Now this Prince passionately desiring that the King should immediately enter upon a War in Syria to conquer for him Aleppo and the other places belonging to the Principality of Antioch which were yet possessed by the Turks there was no sort of Artifice which he did not put in practice to oblige him to undertake it He had Recourse to all manner of Submissions and Prayers he made use of the Solicitations of the Queen his Niece he made magnificent Presents to all the French Lords and in short he omitted no kind of Reasons but pressed them with his utmost force both privately and in Council to persuâde the King that it must be not only for his own Interest and Glory but for that of all that part of Christendom in the East But at length he perceived that he laboured but in vain The King whether it were that he feared to engage himself in so long and so daâgerous a War for the particular Interest of Prince Raymond or whether it were that some certain Intrigues which the Queen had in Antioch which no doubt did not please him obliged him to leave that City he always answered Raymond that he was fully resolved in the first place to go and pay his Vows at the holy Sepulchre So that as it commonly happens that one violent Passion easily passeth to another Extream this Prince being insinitely exasperated by that Refusal and it may be not a little animated by another Passion in his Niece to which he joyned his he entertained such a mortal Hatred against the King that there was nothing which he did not resolve to do to revenge himself For this reason the King who knew he was to apprehend all things from a Spirit so furiously transported that he valued not what he did secretly conveyed himself by Night out of the City in a manner not very well becoming the Majesty of so great a Monarch and taking the Queen along with him not much to her Satisfaction he went and joyned his Troops which were encamped under the Walls and marched directly towards Jerusalem where the Emperor Conrade was already arrived from Constantinople where he had passed the Winter For that Prince who was resolved to accomplish his Vow and who by reason of the small Remainder of his Troops which were left after his Misfortune gave no Jealousie to Manuel easily obtained from him Shipping to transport himself and his Troops in the Spring by Sea as he did to Ptolemais or Acon from whence he passed by Land to Jerusalem Alphonsus Earl of Tholose and Son to the brave Raymond who had so great a Part in the first Crusade coming at the same time to the same Port took another Way all along by the Sea-Coast but he was stopped in his Journey by a deplorable Death as he passed by Cesarea being unfortunately poysoned one Evening at his Supper without ever being known either for what Reason or by what Person that execrable Fact was committed It was no sooner known at Jerusalem that the King who it was feared would have stayed at Antioch according to the earnest Desires and Sollicitations of Raymond was parted from thence and that he took the Way of Tripolis but that King Baldwin who feared lest the Earl of Tripolis should also press him strongly to stay there sent immediately to him Fulcherius the Patriarch to propound to him such Reasons as he believed would oblige him to make what haste he could to Jerusalem where the Emperor had now been for some time that so there they might take some good and solid Resolution for the common and publick Advantage of Affairs To this the King who desired nothing more easily accorded and therefore kept on his way without staying any where till he arrived at the Holy City There he was received with most extraordinary Honours year 1148 all the Princes the Prelates and Clergy in Procession followed by a Multitude of the People met him with great Acclamations singing as they did to the Son of God Blessed be he that cometh in the Name of the Lord whilst he made his Entry into the City as it were in Triumph After which all the Princes and Prelates accompanied him to visit the Holy Places which he did with a great Piety and Devotion This being done it was resolved that there should be a General Assembly held at Ptolemais whither all the Bishops and the Lords of Palestine and Syria might easily come by Sea where by common Consent the last Resolution was to be taken upon what was to be undertaken for the Security of the Christians in the East There never was a more illustrious Assembly seen in Palestine than this which was honoured with the Presence of so many great Princes There was the Emperor Conrade accompanied with the Cardinal Theodin Bishop of Porto and the Great Men of the Empire who stayed with him among whom the principal were Otho of Fribourg his Brother by the Mother Frederick Duke of Suabia his Nephew the Bishops of Metz and Toul as Princes of the Holy Empire as also the Bishop of Basle Henry his Brother Duke of Austria Berthold afterwards Duke of Bavaria William Marquis of Montferat Guy Earl of Blandras and Herman Marquis of Verona The King came attended with
once most gloriously vanquished him But at length the Wise Conduct and the good Fortune of this Turkish Prince overcame all the Attempts that were made to stop the Course of his Victorious Arms. He pushed on his great Designs afterwards with more Ease by the Taking of Paneas after the deplorable Death of this unfortunate King who was poysoned by his Physician and died in the two and thirtieth Year of his Life year 1163 and the one and twentieth of his Reign year 1163 He was a Prince who by his admirable Qualities had gained so great an Esteem and the Hearts not only of his Subjects but of Noradin himself Insomuch that the generous Sultan openly protested that he would never draw any Advantage from the Grief and Consternation into which his unexpected Death had put the Kingdom saying with as much magnanimity of Soul as Modesty That he thought it decent to have a Share himself in the Grief and Respect which was due to that Prince who ought by all Men to be Lamented as having not left another like himself in the whole Earth Baldwin dying without Issue his Brother Amauri Succeeded him a young Prince of about twenty seven Years of Age who with a great many admirable Qualities had also a great number of no less Vices and above all his Avarice was the most Predominant and which after he had with Success enough made War against Egypt in the Beginning in the Conclusion occasioned the Loss of Jerusalem and the intire Ruine of the Christians in the East Egypt had for a long time been under the Dominion of the Sarasins of the Sect of Ali and the Soveraign Monarch was called the Caliph who led an easy and voluptuous Life in his magnificent Palace of Grand Cairo leaving the Administration of his Affairs to one who under his Authority Commanded all his Subjects and was called the Sultan of Egypt He who had been Sultan was one Sanar and he being thrown out by his Rival Dorgan went to implore the Assistance of Noradin then the most Powerful among the Turks who besides that he Possessed all Syria and Mesopotamia had also extended his Conquests even into Cilicia as far as Iconium having vanquished that Sultan in Battle Now this Conquering Prince who believed that Fortune pleased with his Ambition presented him a fair Offer to Seise also upon Egypt failed not to send a great Army under his General Syracon a little Man but a great Captain whose Merit and the Justice of his Master notwithstanding the lowness of his Birth had from a Slave advanced to the greatest Charge in his Kingdom Dorgan who perceived the Tempest coming that he might get Shelter had Recourse to the young King who dazled with the Promise of a great Tribute Marched into Egypt with all the Troops he could raise but something with the latest for Dorgan who after he had had the better of his Enemies was unfortunately slain by a Traitor leaving his Place to his Rival Sanar who instantly went to take Possession of it at Grand Cairo In the mean time the dextrous Syracon who was resolved to make his Advantage of this Alteration Seised upon Pelusium now called Belbeis fully Resolving if it were possible to make himself Master of all Egypt But Sanar inlarging the Promises which Dorgan had made to King Amauri was so Iucky as to gain him to his Party and joyning their Forces against Syracon who had not had time sufficiently to Fortify Pelusium year 1164 they constrained him to Deliver up the Town upon honorable Terms and Liberty to Retire to Damascus year 1165 Nevertheless the next Year he returned with a more powerful Army and the King also re-entred Egypt and for a Sum of Mony undertook the War against Syracon The Success was much to his Advantage at that time also for Syracon was Defeated in a great Battle and despairing to Defend Alexandria which he had taken year 1167 against the Arms of two Kings he was constrained a second time to come to an Accommodation and to quit the Realm of Egypt This did not however hinder but that at length he made himself Master of it by the Avarice and Infidelity of that same King whose Arms had twice with so much Glory chased him out of it For Amauri blinded with the ardent Desire which he had to possess the Treasures of Egypt after he had treated upon this Design with the Emperor Manuel whose Niece he had married contrary to his solemn Faith given broke the Peace which he had made with the Sultan year 1168 and upon the sudden taking Pelusium by Storm and giving the Plunder of it to his Soldiers he went and presented his Victorious Army before Grand Cairo which doubtless in the Consternation and Confusion wherein the Surprise had put the Egyptians must have fallen into his Hands if the same Avarice which made him undertake this unjust War had not also together with his Honor made him lose all the Profit of it For fearing if he took the Town by Force the Soldiers would have all the Booty as they had at Pelusium he thought it his wisest Course to treat of a Composition with the Sultan and he knowing the Covetous Disposition of the King year 1168 amused him so long with the pretence of gathering up for him two millions of Gold which he had promised him that the Army of Noradin which he expected had time to Arrive to his Succour conducted by the same Syracon who before had been his Enemy Amauri Surprized at this unexpected News marched imediately to give him Battle before he should joyn with the Egyptians But he found that this Captain as Politick as himself had wheeled off and taken another Way than he expected and was joyned with the Egyptians who now assembled from all Quarters against him And therefore finding that he had nothing to say to two such potent Enemies he was forced to return without the Money into his own Kingdom having lost his Labour his Honour and the yearly Tribute which the Egyptians paid him But it was quite otherwise with Syracon who by his Retreat finding himself in a Condition to Execute his first Design made Sanar be Assassinated as he came to do him the Honour of a Visit after which forcing the Caliph to Establish him in that Place he easily possessed himself of all Egypt where Noradin whose Creature he was willingly permitted him to Reign But it was not long that he rejoyced in his Crimes for he died the very same Year leaving for his Successor his Nephew the mighty Saladin who besides his Age which was pretty well advanced and the great Experience which under his Uncle he had gained in War possessed all the great Qualities and all the Accomplishments of Body and Mind which could be wished in a Captain to render him as they did the greatest and the most glorious Conqueror of his Age. But Ambition which especially among Infidels does think nothing Criminal that may advance their
this Reason therefore passing from one Extreme to another he Disrobed himself of all his Authority and made the little Baldwin the Fifth his Nephew year 1182 be crowned King an Infant of about five Years of Age the Son of his Sister Sybilla by the Marquis of Montferrat her first Husband leaving the Government of the Kingdom to the Earl of Tripolis the Man whom he had before most disgraced and who was the declared Enemy of Earl Guy against whom he was so incensed year 1182 that he had recourse to Arms to be Revenged on him But these Matters were composed by the Prudence of William Archbishop of Tyre great Chancellor of the Realm year 1183 who found out Expedients to patch up a kind of Accord between these two quarrelling Lords Then it was Resolved to send with all speed a great Ambassage into the West to desire a quick and powerful Assistance against Saladin who now began to push his Conquests even into Palestine For this Purpose Choice was made of Heraclius the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the two great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who were then the two most considerable Men of the Holy Land both in regard of the Number and the Valor of the Knights of these two Orders who were now become most Powerful and most Famous throughout all Christendom These Ambassadors Arrived happily at the Port of Brindes but their Negotiation was not answerably happy to that of their Voyage For the different Interests of the Christian Princes at that time were such as would not permit them to ingage in an Enterprise of such Difficulty as was the Leading of an Army of Crusades into Palestine as the Ambassadors desired William King of Sicily was ingaged in a War against the Cruel Andronicus to take Vengeance upon that Tyrant who had horribly Massacred all the Latins that were at Constantinople that so he might with greater Facility usurp the Imperial Throne by putting to Death the young Alexis the Son of Manuel Having therefore been able to procure nothing more from this Prince besides great Promises for the future they crossed through Italy to Verona where Pope Lucius and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held a great Assembly of Princes and Prelates to determine the Differences between them and to settle the Affairs of Italy The Emperor who was absolutely resolved to re-settle his Authority which the Wars during the Schism which had been made with the Papal See had so much weakned gave them nothing but fair Words and great Hopes and for the Pope as he ever distrusted the Romans who not long before had Revolted from him he was able to do no more than to give the Ambassadors his Letters to the Kings of England and France wherein he exhorted them to this Enterprise as Alexander the Third his Predecessor had before to little Purpose done The Patriarch therefore and the great Masters of the Hospitallers after having performed their last Duty to the Master of the Temple who Died at Verona passed into France There they were most magnificently Received and Treated by the Order of the King Philip Augustus at Paris to whom they presented the Keys of the Holy City of the Tower of David and the Holy Sepulchre with the Royal Standard in token that they put themselves under his Protection and to oblige him to Succor the Holy Land as if it were his own Kingdom now that it was reduced to such extreme Danger by the Infidels Whereupon a general Assembly of all the Prelates and great Men of the Realm was called at Paris to Debate this great Affair and they considering that the King was not above eight and twenty Years of Age and had no Issue were of Opinion That he ought not in Person to undertake such a dangerous Voyage only Philip promised the Ambassadors that he would move his Subjects throughout the whole Realm to inrowl themselves for this War and that he would at his own Cost furnish all those liberally for their Maintenance who would take up Arms for so Just and Holy a War This Answer was not at all to the Satisfaction of the Patriarch however he contented himself as well as he could upon the Hopes which he had that the King of England upon whom they did particularly rely in Syria would make himself the Head of the Enterprise That King was Henry the Second the Son of Geoffry Earl of Anjou who had married Maud the Empress the Widow of the Emperor Henry the Fourth she was Daughter to Henry the First King of England so that this Henry the Second was Grand-child both to Henry the First and to Fowk d' Anjou King of Jerusalem who was the Father to Geoffry Earl of Anjou and to Amauri King of Jerusalem and by reason thereof he was Cousin German to Baldwin the Fourth who was the late King of Palestine so that doubtless he was more particularly Obliged than any other Prince to Defend that Realm which might one Day descend to him by Inheritance He was also more especially Obliged to it for the Expitation of the Crime which he had Committed year 1183 in permitting the Assassins of St Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury to Murder him in his own Church and he had accepted it as a Penance from the Pope within three Years to lead an Army in Person to the Holy Land More than ten Years were already slip'd away since the Term prefixed and he had not done any thing towards the Accomplishment of his Promise of which he was by a Letter from Pope Lucius reminded in Terms sharp enough who told him plainly that it was impessible for him to escape the severe Judgments of God who would not permit himself to be mocked and whose Vengeance he would have cause to Fear if he persisted willfully in the breach of his Promise All these Considerations made the Patriarch hope for more happy Success to his Negotiation in England in regard that in this pressing Necessity it was probable either that the King would go in Person into Palestine for the satisfaction of his Promise or at least that he would send one of his three Sons to command the Army and bigg with these Expectations he crossed the Sea with his Colleague and in the beginning of the Year following came to London year 1185 Henry who was beforehand resolved not to grant what the Ambassadours came to desire would nevertheless save his Reputation and therefore he did them all the Honour imaginable and took the most plausible Courses to justify his Conduct He therefore sent for them to Reading where the Court then was and gave them a most favourable Audience He very graciously and with great marks of Goodness and Compassion heard the Patriarch Heraclius who in a most passionate Discourse after he had presented him with the Keys of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre represented the piteous Condition to which the Affairs of the Christians in the East were reduced who he said stretched out their beseeching Hands
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
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
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
his Army than either all the Want they had endured or all the Combats they had undergone since their parting from Constantinople for the Soldiers passing suddenly from one Extream into another there followed so much Sickness such a Mortality and at last the Plague among them in such a furious manner that of a numerous and flourishing Army which it was when it entred into Asia there remained not more than seven thousand Foot and five or six hundred Horse with which notwithstanding the valiant Frederick marched over the Bellies of all that durst oppose him and happily arrived at the City of Tyre There it was that he payed the last Duties to his Father whom he caused to be interred in the great Church with all the Magnificence and Ceremonies of a Funeral Pomp worthy of so great an Emperor the Archbishop of Tyre from whom he received the Cross making his Elegy in a most admirable Funeral Oration After which Duke Frederick went to joyn the Christian Army which for two years had undertaken and pursued the famous Siege of Ptolemais in the manner which I am about to relate When Saladin after a Years Imprisonment at Damascus gave Liberty to King Guy of Lusignan he exacted from him among other hard Conditions that he should renounce all manner of Claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem and to engage himself by a soremn Oath to repass the Sea as soon as it was possible But after he was at liberty the Bishops declared that this Oath was in no sort obliging in regard it was forced from him by Compulsion and in his Restraint and also because Saladin himself had first violated his Faith in not delivering his Prisoner so soon as Ascalon was rendred to him as he had promised And for this Reason the King who was retired to Tripolis began to renew the War after he had assembled a considerable number of Troops of those of his own Realm who before durst not appear but flocked in to him upon the Arrival of the Crusades who seeing the French and English engaged in War came along with Geoffrey de Lusignan his Brother Having gained some Advantages of the Turks in the beginning he after went and presented himself before Tyre where the Marquis of Montferrat who pretended he had justly acquired the Principality of that City refusing him Entrance he was so enraged that although he had not half Forces enough for such an Enterprise yet he encamped before the place and put himself into a posture of besieging it year 1190 But the Patriarch Heraclius and the great Master of the Templers wisely representing to him that it was impossible for him to attempt a matter of this nature without absolutely ruining not only himself but all the Hopes that yet remained to the Christians in Palestine he desisted from it and thereupon desperate to see that he had not one place left to him in all his Kingdom for Tripolis appertained of Right to Raymond Prince of Antioch he took Counsel of his Dispair and turning short to the Left Hand he lead his little Army directly to Ptolemais in hopes to take it either by Assault or by Surprise Ptolemais by some called Accon or Acre derives its Name from one of the Kings of Egypt who was its Restorer and was at that time a fair and large City lying upon the Coast of the Phoenician Sea It was of a Triangular Figure the Base of it being towards the East the two Sides towards the North and South and the Point ended in a Rock which advanced it self a good space into the Sea upon the West where the Town becoming the narrowest abutted upon a great high and strong Tower which was called the Fly-Tower because that formerly in that place stood a Temple dedicated to Beelzebub which signifies the God of Flies It also served for a Watch-Tower or Light-House to discover the Entry of the Haven which lay towards the South in a certain Bay which the Sea made in that place which was very commodious and capable of receiving great numbers of Ships It was incompassed with very strong Walls and Barbicans or Out-Walls with large and deep Ditches and Graffs as also with very good Towers placed at convenient distances to defend each other The principal of these which served as a Castle and Fortress to the City was called the Wicked Tower by reason that the People by an old sottish Fable which according to Custom was held for an Authentick Tradition among them had a Belief that it was built with those thirty Pieces of Money for which Judas sold our Saviour The Country adjacent was very pleasant being a fair and rich Champaign which upon the North was bounded by Mount Saron distant about two Leagues from the City and upon Mount Carmel on the South much about the same distance towards the East it was extended to the Mountains of Galilee from whence there arose two small Rivers one whereof passing through the City emptied it self into the Sea at the Haven The other called Belus flows about two hundred and fifty Paces from the City Southwards and is famous for having been the occasion of the Invention of Glass by furnishing the Materials of which it was first made For about the middle of its Course it forms a kind of a Lake or Marish which Pliny calls the Lake of Cyndevia of a round Figure which may be some hundred Cubits in Compass the Bottom whereof is full of a certain Sand which by the Winds is driven into it from the Tops of the adjacent Hills where it obtains a Disposition which inclines it easily to be turned into Glass for being boiled and purisied in a Furnace it turns into a transparent Mass white and clear almost like Crystal And that which is most wondrous any small piece of this Crystal being thrown upon the Banks of this Lake in little time regains its former Nature and is converted into the same common Sand which it was before it was blown by the Winds into this Lake But though this Champaign about Ptolemais be very equal and level towards the Foot of the Mountains which inviron it yet there are two Hills near the Town the one of which is called Turon which some have confounded with the famous Castle of Thoron situate some three or four Leagues from thence upon the Extremity of the Mountains of Tyre which extend themselves to the upper Galilee The other is called the Hill of the Mosquee on the other side the River Belus upon which besides that Mosquee of the Sarasins is to be seen an ancient Sepulchre which they say is that of Memnon though without giving us precisely any Foundation whereupon to establish that Belief This was the nature of this place which proved the Theatre of so many brave Actions as were performed at this Siege of Ptolemais which one may well say was one of the most memorable which is related in any History year 1190 This City was taken from the Christians about the
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
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
to the Camp which with the Forces of the Levant and other Succours come from Europe made more than three hundred thousand men that they were reduced into a worse Condition than before by this fatal Discord which divided all the Christian Lords and armed them one against the other The Knights of the Temple the Duke of Burgundy all the Party of the Marquis Conrade and the Germans declared themselves for Philip. Richard had of his Party besides his own Subjects the Hospitallers the Pisans and those among the Levantine Princes who favoured Guy de Lusignan the Flemings who were for the Young Baldwin the Nephew of their deceased Earl and who some twelve Years after obtained the Empire of Constantinople as also some French men among others Henry Earl of Champagne whom Richard had gained by his excessive Liberalities so that the Camp seemed more dangerously besieged than the City being attacked from without by the Army of Saladin and more miserably within by this fearful Division which had ruined all unless God who was resolved to crown the Zeal of these two great Princes notwithstanding all the disorders of their Passions had appeased this Tempest and unexpectedly brought a Calm among them by the undertaking of some of the Wisest and most prudent Persons of both Armies who made a Composure of all Differences between the two Kings on this manner It was ordained That they should confirm their former Treaty and most inviolable and exactly keep it on one side and the other That they should devide between them whatsoever they should take from the Infidels That when one of the two Kings should give an Assault to the City the other should oppose Saladin in defending the Lines and for the difference between Guy de Lusignan and the Marquis de Montferrat it should be referred to the Determination of certain Judges equally chosen on both sides And not long after a solemn Judgement was rendred thereupon by which it was decreed That Guy de Lusignan should for the remainder of his Life continue King of Jerusalem but that his Children if he should marry again should have no sort of Pretentions to that Crown the Reversion and Succession whereof should remain to the Marquis and those Children he should have by the Princess Isabella his Lady Sister to the late Queen Sybilla That in the Interim he should have the Moity of the Revenues of the Realm together with the Principalities of Tyre of Sydon and Baruth by holding them of the Crown and that Geoffry de Lusignan should upon the same Conditions hold the Counties of Jaffa and Caesarea This being done and the Peace in this manner confirmed at least in Appearance between the two Kings nothing was now thought upon but how to press forward the Siege and it was done with so much Vigor by continual battering the Walls both Night and Day and redoubling the Attacks that the Besieged Sarasins now dispairing to be able long to defend the Place against so great Forces as were now become unanimous offered to surrender provided they might be assured of their Lives and Liberty to retire whither they pleased without carrying any thing away with them more than their wearing Apparel The Kings who were assured they could carry the Place thought to make a considerable Advantage of that dispair to which so many Brave men were reduced whom they believed Saladin would not suffer to perish and therefore would hearken to no Terms unless Saladin would restore the true Cross Jerusalem and all the Cities which he had taken after the Battle of Tyberias Saladin who was obliged to turn his Arms against the Son of Noradin who attempted to take from him Mesopotamia was willing to consent to these very Terms provided that the Kings should assist him against his Enemies in Person with thirty thousand Men nay he was contented that it should be done by their Lieutenants and with fewer Troops to which he would join his provided they would serve him one Year But whether the two Kings judged it unworthy of their Majesty which they thought must suffer an Abasement in serving an Infidel or that the Son of Noradin on the other side solliciting them to joyn with him against Saladin They believed that by such a favourable diversion they should be able with Ease to take from him all those Cities they absolutely refused these Conditions And therefore they began now more furiously than ever to attack the City in one of which Assaults Alberic Clement Mareschal of France after he had already gained the Walls was slain in the City year 1191 That which was of mighty Service to the Besiegers was that a disguised Christian who was in the Town and who was one of the Council gave them frequent Advertisement by Letters which he threw into the Camp of all the Resolutions which were taken by the Sarasins so that all their Enterprises being discovered were rendred ineffectual but this Important Service was never recompensed in regard the Intelligencer could never be known after the taking of the City which was at last constrained to surrender For on the one hand Saladin who was obliged to retire had sent to them to make the best Terms they could on the other there was no more Expectation of Succour for them by the Sea where the Christians were absolute Masters and the French who by prodigious Labour had drawn their Mines to the very Foundations of the Wicked Tower and the eleventh of July had overthrown all the Walls and were just now ready to set Fire to the Wooden Pillars which supported it therefore the sive Admirals or Emirs who commanded the Garrisons Caracos Mesiock Helsedin Limathos and Jordic hung out a Flag of Parley and after having treated with the Commissioners of the two Kings the next morning the Agreement was perfected in these Articles That they should immediately surrender the place with all the Gold Silver and Moveables the Ammunition Arms and Provisions which were in it without retaining any thing to themselves more than their wearing Apparel That they should procure from Saladin the true Cross together with all the Christians which he detained Captives and that he should pay to the two Kings one hundred thousand of those pieces of Gold which were called Besans from the Name of Constantinople otherwise called Bysance where they were minted with the Effigies of the Greek Emperor that in Expectation of the Performance of the Treaty they with the whole Garrison should remain Prisoners at War and that if Saladin did not in forty days accomplish these Articles they should be wholly at the Discretion of the two Kings who should dispose of their Lives and Liberties as they should judge convenient Thus was the City of Ptolemais or Acre taken at the last by the Christians after one of the longest and most memorable Sieges which have been ever seen and with the loss of as many brave men as might have conquered all Asia for besides an Infinite Number of
Soldiers Gentlemen and great Lords Germans English Italians Flemings and Levantines who perished during the Siege either by the Malady or by the frequent Combats which happened The French lost there a-among the Persons of the greatest Quality the Counts Thibaud de Chartres and de Blois Stephen de Sancerre John de Vendome Rotrou de Perche Erard de Brienne Raoul de Clermont Gilbert de Tilieres the Count de Ponthieu the Viscounts de Turenne and de Castillane Alberic Clement Mareschal of France Adam the Great Chamberlain the Lords jocelin de Montmorency Guy de Chastillon Florem de Augest Bernard de St. Valery Enguerand de Fiennes Gautier de Moy Geoffry de la Briere Anselm de Montreal Guy de Dane Hugh de Hoiry Raoul de Fougeres Eudes de Goness Raoul de Hauterive and Renaud de Magni all whose Names I have found among the Writers of those times and which I thought my self obliged by no means to suppress but that in this History the Reader may receive the Pleasure of finding among his Ancestors by consulting the Pedigree some of these Illustrious men whose glorious Memory ought to be an Eternal Honor to those Houses who have descended from them The City being taken the Kings according to their Treaty divided all the Booty equally between them as also the Prisoners and the Houses The Cardinal Bishop of Verona Legat of the Holy See the Archbishop of Tyre and Pisa the Bishops of Beavais Chartres d' Eureux Bayonne Salisbury and Tripolis solemnly re-dedicated the Churches which the Sarasins had turned into Mosches There were also assigned to the Venetians Genoeses Pisans to the Knights of the Temple and those of the Hospital the Quarters and Rights which they were to possess in the City of Acre and in truth every thing passed peaceably and in good Order except that King Richard who too easily suffered himself to be transported by his Natural Violence and Choler committed two Actions of surious Madness one of which proved afterwards very dangerous to himself and the other presently to the poor Christians which happened thus at the same time that the French had overthrown the Walls adjoyning to the Wicked Tower year 1191 and were ready to force the Place and that the Besieged found themselves necessitated to capitulate before the surrender Leopold Duke of Austria who attacked a quarter on the opposite part had seized upon another Tower and had there planted his Standard which stood there after the Reduction of the City Richard who for other Matters was exasperated against Leopold in regard that as well as the rest of the Germans he had been of Philip's Party took this occasion to be revenged of him as if he had usurped upon the Authority of the two Kings and therefore caused the Standard to be taken down by plain Force and being torn in pieces and trampled under Foot he caused it to be thrown into the Kennel by the most insupportable of all Affronts that could be given to a Prince who loved Glory The Germans who were naturally jealous of the Honor of their Nation and incapable of bearing I do not say such a horrible Injury as this was but even the Shadow of being contemned had not failed instantly to do themselves reason by their Arms which they presently took against the English but Leopold who was altogether as brave but something a better Dissembler than King Richard chose rather for a time to respite his Vengeance which he hoped to find a more fit occasion for where he should not be blamed by induring the pain of this Affront for doing greater Mischiefs to the Christian Affairs which must needs suffer much by a Civil War and which in a few days following did suffer extremely by another cruel Effect of the Violent Nature of this Prince For seeing that Saladin persisted in refusing to satisfie the Articles of the Capitulation which the Besieged had on his Behalf ratified he conceived such a Despight that he Inhumanly caused the Heads of above five thousand Prisoners which fell to his Share to be cut off Nor could he be diswaded from it by the Consideration of so many Christian Captives to whom Saladin as he had menaced caused the same measure to be given by a kind of cruel Reprisal the blame of which is always laid upon him who begins And certainly it hath always been seen that these dangerous Examples which are given to an Enemy in the time of War which he always believes he hath a Right to render the like measure for the Security of his own People have always been condemned by others who have had the Occasion to suffer by it and that those who give it are at last constrained to abstain the first from it though something with the latest and after it hath caused the Lives of so many unfortunates as have perished either by the transports of the one or the Vengeance of the other As for King Philip who was more moderate he used his with more humanity and contented himself to leave the Prisoners in the Hands of Marquis Conrade as he Passed by Tyre in his return from the Holy Land into France This Prince who was extreme Wise perceived on the one hand that Richard become now more Fierce and Violent than ever after the taking of Acre kept no sort of Measures and that it was impossible for them long time to keep in any Terms of Accord and on the other perceiving that he was daily infeebled by the Distemper into which he was again relapsed he might run the Hazard of dying in Palestine without being able to do any Service to Christendom and that in the mean time Advantage might be taken of his Absence by invading the Earldom of Flanders which ought to return to the Crown of France by the Death of Count Philip. He made this to be most civilly represented to the King of England that finding by the increase of his Distemper he was like to be rendred incapable to serve the Affairs of the Christians in the Holy Land he judged it more to their Advantage that one single Commander should finish the War and for this purpose that he would resign all wholly to his Conduct together with a good party of his Army under the Command of the Duke of Burgundy He added also that to take from him all manner of Pretext which he might have to complain of his Departure or the Fear that he might entertain that he did not return into France but to fall upon his Dominions there during his Absence he assured him that if he had occasion to make War upon him it should not be till the Expiration of fourty days after his Return After which having left five hundred Men at Armes and ten thousand Foot with the Duke of Burgundy and some Troops which he lent for a Year to the Prince of Antioch he imbarcked the first day of August upon thirty Gallies year 1191 with the remainder of his Army and after
having coasted along by Syria the leâser Asia Greece Epirus and Calabria from time to time making such Stays by the Way as were necessary for the regaining of his Strength and Health he went to pay his Devotions at Rome There he was received with all imaginable Honour by Pope Celestin the III. who approving of his Return according to the Custom bestowed upon him and his Followers the Palmes and the Crosses in token that they had accomplished their Vow From thence passing by Land into France in the Month of December he arrived at Fountainbleau and from thence he repaired to St. Dennis where prostrating himself before the Altar of the Holy Martyrs he offered his Royal Robe and gave solemn Thanks to Almighty God who had delivered him from so many Dangers as he had run by Sea and Land and had at last happily reconducted him into his own Kingdom This was the Conclusion of this holy Enterprise of Philip the August and as one may say absolutely that it was very Fortunate by the Reduction of the City of Acre so it is most certain that it had been much greater if it had been performed by his single Forces for being composed of the very Flower of the Nobility and Gentry of France and conducted by the most Wise and Valiant King of that time they might without Difficulty have Triumphed over Saladin if the Conjunction of a most potent Rival had not infeebled them by than unhappy Division which his haughty jealous and ambitious Humour occasioned among them But in short this is generally the Fatality which accompanies such kind of Unions which being made among differing States and Princes for some common End usually by the growing of Discords among themselves terminate in the intire Ruin of those united Sentiments and Designs there being nothing so Improsperous especially in the Affairs of War as want of a good Understanding and Concord among Confederates which in reallity is seldom if ever to be expected from the multitude of Coordinate Captains which must needs produce Differences and Oppositions first in point of Opinion and afterwards by necessary Consequence in the very Union it self But in this time King Richard who was now the sole Commander of the Christian Army in Syria and Palestine proved not much more Fortunate in the end of his Enterprise by reason that he was so continually agitated by the Tempests of his own violent and tumultuous Passions that he was difficultly at any Agreement with himself but was become even his own Rival For on the one hand his Ambition and love of Glory mingled with some Remains of Piety and Religion transported him vigorously towards the pushing forward his Conquests against Saladin and above all to take Jerusalem which was the main End of this Crusade on the other the Jealousie of State and the Fear of the Armes of Philip whom in his Conscience he knew to be most justly Exasperated against him the Distrust which he had of the French which were left behind under the Command of the Duke of Burgundy the great Friend of the Marquis the Prince of Tyre his mortal Enemy and above all his Avarice which was his ruling Passion and the Covetousness of drawing immense summs of Money from the Sarasin Nobility whom he detained Prisoners and from Saladin himself who continualy sollicited him for a Peace all these Passions put him into great Discomposures of Mind and he was under very strong Temptations of making some Truce with the Sarasins and passing immediately into Europe But it must be said to the Glory of this King who doubtless was one of the bravest of his Age that at length his most noââe Passion which was the Love of Glory and it may be also that which he had for the good of Religion prevailed over the rest and in Conclusion carried him to the War which he recommenced in the most glorious manner in the World He employed some six Weeks in repairing the Breaches of Acre and in refreshing his Army which after the Retreat of Marquis Conrade and almost all the Italians and many other Crusades whom either Poverty or Weariness or Discontent caused to forsake this lingring War yet consisted in above one hundred thousand Men. After which towards the latter end of August he began to move and took the right hand along the Sea Coast to selve upon such maritim Places as Saladin had caused to be dismantled The Fleet constantly plyed along the Coast with them year 1190 to furnish them with Provisions but he had also on his left hand the Army of Saladin who coasted along the Mountains to molest him by continual Skirmishes in his March and to watch some favourable Opportunity to give him Battle upon any notable Advantage and upon the seventh of September the Infidel thought he had found the lucky Moment at the Pass of a River which dischargeth it self into the Sea near Antipatris For Saladin who had above three hundred thousand Men in his Army had divided them into three Bodies one of which was posted on this side the River to oppose the Passage of the Christians another was ranged on the further Bank to the intent that if the first Body should be broaken they might be ready to charge such as should attempt to pass the River Saladin himself with the third which was by much the greatest and composed of the choicest of all his Troops kept himself in the Coverture of the Mountains on the left of the Christian Army ready to fall upon the Rereguard at such time as the Van should be ingaged with his other Troops in disputing the Pass of the River King Richard who had stayed some days at Cesarea as well to refresh his Army as to repair the Ruines of that Place no sooner came within View of the River but that he saw it on both sides imbanked with his Enemies he resolved therefore to give them Battle both in regard there was no stopping to loose the Pass nor no retreating without manifest Danger of being surrounded and put into some Disorder by retireing Now as he marched always in Battalia for fear of being surprized his Army was instantly drawn into such Order as was convenient The Valiant James d' Avesnes that day commanded the Van with what remained of the Danes Brabanters Flemings and Hollanders The King led the Body of the Battle where were the English the Normans the Poiteuins the Gascons and the Levantine Troops near his Person was the Young Henry Count of Champagne his Nephew who to the Prejudice of what he owed to King Philip his Soveraign who was also his Uncle this young Prince being born of the Sister of the King the Daughter of Queen Eleonor and Lewis the Young was intirely devoted to King Richard The Rereguard was commanded by the Duke of Burgundy General of the French Army who was accompanied by the Templers and the German Troops who followed Leopold the Archduke of Austria who never abandoned the French but were most
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
had made War against the Holy See ought to be humbled employed all his pontifical Authority to maintain Otho against Philip so that this unhappy Division disturbed the whole West and in consequence ruined all the Hopes of the Christians in the East For so soon as the Princes of the Crusade who were in Palestine received an Account of this News although after the Defeat of the Sarasins before Jaffa they were upon the point of turning their victorious Arms against Jerusalem they instantly changed that Resolution and by common Consent agreed to return into Germany without any Delay although the Pope writ to them in most pressing Terms conjuring them not to abandon the Holy Land to the Infidels but the particular Luterest which every one of them had in one Party or the other in the Affairs of Europe prevailed above that of Christ Jesus and re-established the Affairs of the Sarasins who failed not to make Advantage of their Absence and in a short time after their Departure to recover Jaffa and Baruth and all the other Places which they had taken Thus this Crusade which was composed wholly of the German Nation some few Italians only excepted served to no other Purpose but to manifest what hath in all Ages been too apparent and what we do too plainly know at this very day that the Mahometan Empire which hath robbed Christianity of the greatest part of the World had hardly grown to that prodigious and unweildy Bulk or even been able to subfist had it not been for those fatal Divisions which support and strengthen them by enfeebling the Christians and that all their Power would not be able to resist one of our Monarchs year 1198 had he nothing to fear either from the Ambition or the Jealousy of his Neighbours But to comfort Christendom for this Loss Providence raised up almost at the same time a new Pope to unite all Europe in another general Crusade one part whereof made it most evidently apparent that a few Christians well united and who have no occasion to distrust among themselves might easily make themselves Masters of the Capital City of the Ottoman Monarchy and consequently recover the Empire of the East This great Pope was Innocent the III. who by an unanimous Consent and which is not commonly known in the Conclave was chosen the same day that his Predecessor Celestin died being the 8th day of January and that which increased the Wonder was that he was the youngest of all the Cardinals having not yet seen more than thirty Years and although the more Antient had taken mighty Pains to make their Parties during the Indisposition of the deceased Pope yet the Succession fell upon one least expected This Pope was of noble Extraction being descended from the illustrious House of the Counts de Signie he was of just Proportion and very well made having an agreeable Aspect the Air of a great and generous Man he had a Spirit subtle and clear a prodigious Memory a most solid Judgment and a marvellous Vivacity joyned with an indefatigable Diligence which in a short time rendred him one of the most knowing Men that the Church ever had in all sort of Sciences both Divine and Humane all which he chiefly gained in the famous and learned University of Paris where he soon made himself be known and admired as the Honor and Ornament of the Age. And besides all this he had a Soul truly Great and Noble naturally inclined to all those Vertues which concur to the making one of the first Rank among Mankind and particularly great in the Church for he was extreme Zealous Vigilant and Active always upon his Guard for the Defence of the Catholick Faith and maintaining the Purity of its Principle which is the Word of God against the Attempts of Hereticks which he made appear in a manner which possibly will not be disagreeable to be known that so the Conduct of the Church at that time in Affairs of that Importance may be the better observed The Bishop of Metz a knowing Prelate and who carefully watched over his Flock writ to him That there ran about in his Diocess a French Version of the New Testament and of some Books of the Old very Dangerous and which occasioned great Disorders that those who favoured and supported them were Laicks and Women of whom the Number was very great and who were so besotted and blinded that with the greatest Obstinacy they held their Erronious Opinions and would by no means hearken to such as indeavoured to reduce them to their Reason And then he adds These People are arrived to those Degrees of Insolence as openly to deride their Pastors who go about to prohibit the Reading of those ill Translations pretending to prove the Lawfulness of them by the Holy Scriptures and that they impudently protested with an incredible Confidence that they would neither obey Bishop Archbishop nor the Pope himself though he should by a solemn Decree condemn this Translation which they were resolved never to forsake and that strangely despised and with the utmost Contempt treated all those as simple and Ignorant even the Priests as well as others who would not receive it as they did Innocent for the Remedy of this Disorder the dangerous Consequences whereof he plainly saw did not only Authorize what the Bishop of Metz had done against this Translation but also nominated certain Commissaries whom he associated with him to inform against the Authors and Favourers of this Disorder to cite them Canonically before their Tribunal and there to Correct and pass Sentence upon them without Appeal commanding these Commissaries with great Care and Diligence to put in Execution the Commands which they had received from the Holy See Because saith he in the Decretal Herein the Vniversal Church is deeply Concern'd and the Cause of the Catholick Faith lies at the Stake This wondrous Pope being such as I have described burning with a mighty Zeal for the good of the Christian Religion was no sooner setled in the Chair but he began seriously to think of establishing it in the City of Jerusalem where it took its first Original For this purpose he did all that possibly could be done by his Letters to stay the Princes of the German Crusade in Palestine But when he saw the Revolution which had happened in the Empire had recalled them all from thence year 1198 he endeavoured to make another general Crusade in Despight of the Devisions and Troubles which those of the Empire had raised throughout all Europe For this purpose therefore he dispatched his Legates to all places with most pressing Letters by which he exhorted the Kings the Princes the Prelates the Nobility and the People to take upon them the Cross according to their Power for the carrying on this Holy War and to excite the whole World by his Example and that of the Ecclesiasticks and above all the Sacred College he ordained that all the Clergy who possessed the Goods of the
Church should give the fortieth penny of their Revenue and the Cardinals the tenth for the carrying on of this Holy War Obliging himself in particular to send considerable Summs of Money and store of Provisions for that purpose and to raise Money for those Expences he caused all his Plate both Gold and Silver to be melted down and would be served in nothing but earthen Wooden or Vessels made of Glass At the same time he sent Cardinals to Venice Genoa and Pisa to exhort those potent Republicks to rigg out their Shipping as well to transport the Crusades into Palestine as to attack the Sarasins by Sea He also took great care to pacifie the Troubles of Hungary which hindred the Effect of the Crusade there and which Duke Andrew the Youngest Son of the deceased King Bela had raised in that Realm against Henry his Brother who succeeded to the Crown But in regard the happy Success of this Crusade depended more especially upon the Kings of England and France the two most potent Monarchies of Christendom who were now engaged in a cruel War he sent the Cardinal Peter of Capua his Legate who negotiated so skilfully and with such Success between them that at length at a Conference which they had at Andeli they consented to a Truce of five Years in which time it was supposed the Enterprise of the Holy War might be happily concluded And in the mean time the Crusade was published in all Places but especially in France where that Devout man Fouques de Nevilli preached it by order from the Pope This so famous man who without Dispute was one of the greatest and most admirable Preachers that ever was was Curate of Nevilli upon the Marne not far from Paris a man of a great temporal Estate but most Zealous for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls which he endeavoured after by exercising with an incredible Fervency that extraordinary Talent which he had received from God to preach his Holy word This he did with all the Force imaginable not only in his own Parish Church but in all the adjacent Places and especially in Paris where he declared himself the Implacable Enemy of all Vices but above all of Usury and Impudicity which occasioned such horrible disorders in that time which he reproved boldly without fearing any person and with all the Heat and Zeal which his Temperament ardent and billious could furnish him with God who at the Beginning of his Ministry to elevate him by the Way of Humiliation permitted him for two Years to toil and labour without any Fruit whilest preaching with all his Power against those two Vices some mocking him others wholly abandoning him whilest a third sort took occasion outrageously to abuse his Sermons not any one seeming to reform or be converted by all his preaching insomuch that he was just upon the point of quitting and giving over his preaching despairing ever to do any good by it But God who was resolved to make use of him did so suddenly Change their Hearts and gave such Power to his words that piercing like flaming Darts into the most obdurate Hearts they made such a Prodigious Change upon the Manners of Men that to astonishment all France seemed to be reformed by him For he did not only abolish that Extravagant Extortion and unjust Usury which had so prevailed that neither the Ordinances of the King nor the Censures of the Church had been able to repress but he touched the Hearts of the Usurers so to the quick that publickly detesting their Crime they made restitution of what they had gotten by this kind of Robbery unto those whom they had oppressed by those horrid Extortions and where they could not sind those to whom they ought to make Reparation they came drowned in Tears throwing themselves at his Feet year 1198 and intreating him to take that unlawful Gain and destribute it among the Poor That which added still more Force and Efficacy to his Discourses was that it pleased God to bestow upon him the Gift of Miracles which he wrought in the Presence of the whole World either before or after his Preaching curing all sorts of Maladies and Infirmities by the sole Imposition of his Hands The Writers of those times tell us of great Wonders which he did and one among the rest assures us that he durst not recount all that he knew in regard of the great Incredulity of Mankind as for my own particular I believe that the greatest Miracle which he did was the clearing of Paris of those Infamous Places and the converting of so many lewd and debauched Women some of which making the Vow of Chastity silled the new Nunnery of St. Antonina whic'h he sounded for so pious a Design others of them publickly promised for the Future to lead a most austere and penitent Life and among the Young Women many who distrusted their Courage and their Power accepted the Favour which he offered which was a handsome Portion by the help whereof they easily passed from that danderous Condition wherein they were into that of an honest and lawful Marriage For this Purpose he procured mighty Contributions even the Schollars of the University raising for him five hundred Livres in Silver and the Burgers of Paris in a Body not reckoning the Particular Benefactions adding above a thousand more which was a very extraordinary Summ for those times So many Wonders which his Renown published of this admirable Preacher caused the Bishops to invite him into their Diocesses where he was received with extraordinary respect the People and Clergy flocking to him as if he had been an Angel sent from Heaven The good man did not hereupon grow proud and vain or distinguished himself by any foolish Affectation for he always went according to his Custom on Horseback decently habited like a man of his Profession he kept his Beard shavenaccording to the Custom of that Age his Diet which he always received with Benediction and giving of Thanks was indifferently what was offered him neither did there appear any thing singular either in his Person or in his manner of Living so that his preaching and his Miracles always produced good Effects wherever he came excepting in two Places in Normandy where he was very ill treated For coming to Lizieux and taking upon him with his usual Liberty and Vehemence to reprove the Disorders of the Ecclesiasticks who were very irregular they made him Prisoner but without being able to abridge him even in his Fetters of the Fredom which he took to reprehend them so that being ashamed to detain him after they were a little recovered from the Brutal Transport they set him again at Liberty After which as he preached at Caen doing his usual Wonders before the People The Governor of the Castle thinking he should do the King of England a great pleasure the good man having been very liberal in reproving his Debauches committed him to Prison from whence being in a marvellous way
done an insinite deal of Mischief in the World And after this there is nothing that thou canst do to me which I fear And since I am assured of thy Death I shall with Joy be ready to receive my own though it comes accompanied with all the Terrors and cruel Torments that can be inslicted on me And I replied the King immediately will for the Love of God that thou shalt live And thereupon he caused him presently to be set at liberty commanding that an hundred Pounds Sterling should be bestowed upon him and straitly prohibiting all his People to do him any Injury But presently after the death of the King the Lieutenant General of his Army causing him to be seized made him be hanged and roasted alive in a most barbarous and horrible manner At his Death the King commanded a good part of his Treasure to be distributed among his Domesticks and the Poor He ordered that his Body should be interred at Fontevraud at the Feet of his Father as it were to make some honourable Reparation by this little Humility at his Death for the ill Treatment which he had given him during his Life He bequeathed his Heart to the Church of our Lady at Roan which he had always particularly cherished And for his Soul he entirely submitted it to the Divine Justice offering himself after such an exemplary Repentance to suffer the Pains of Purgatory even till the Day of Judgment for the Expiation of his Crimes It is not my Province to judge of what it pleaseth God to determine and ordain but this is certain that three and thirty Years after his Death Henry Bishop of Rochester in England preaching after he had given holy Orders the Saturday before the Passion-Sunday on which Day the Church begins the Service with those words of Isaiah Ho! Every one that thirsteth come to the Waters saith the Lord Come and drink with Joy In the midst of his Sermon as if it had been by a suddain Enthusiasm he cried out Rejoyce my Brethren the Soul of the glorious King Richard after having till this time been purified like Gold in the Furnace is now passed into Heaven And he affirmed it with such an assured Air exposing to every Person all the Circumstances of the Revelation which he pretended to have had that the Authority of a Prelate who was known to be a most vertuous and learned Man and who was never accused for a Visionary made very many wise People believe that without Weakness they might give Credit to it However it be it is not so much upon these sort of Revelations which are liable to be doubted as upon the manner of the Death of this great Prince that one may reasonably found a Belief of his Salvation However I thought fit to recount these edifying Particularities of the Death of this King who had so great a Share in these Crusades that so Princes may understand that when they have had the happiness to render unto God any considerable Service by any Heroick Action as did this King Richard in being the first that took upon him the Cross in this Holy War where he performed so many brave things they have great reason to hope that the Divine Goodness which is never slow in rewarding the meanest Services will recompense them by the greatest of all Favours in permitting those to die well who have employed their Lives in his Service and for his Glory year 1199 In this time Fouques de Nevilli continued his preaching the Crusade with a most wonderful Success and after he had run through abundance of Provinces distributing an infinite number of Crosses among the People he at last happily sinished his Enterprise by the Engagement of two great Princes in his Design who could not but by their Example draw after them a great number of considerable Persons These two Princes were Theobald IV. Count de Champagne Brother to Henry II. King of Jerusalem who died by the unfortunate Accident at Ptolemais and Lewis his Consin-german Count de Blois and Chartres both of them nearly related to I hilip the August both by the Father and the Mother They were both young and both passionate of Glory And Theobald who was a magnificent Prince that he might declare himself with more Splendor and draw after him more Persons of Quality published a Tournament to be held at his Castle of Escri upon the River Aisne in Advent of that Year 1199. whither the principal Gentry of the Neighbouring Provinces assembled themselves to be Sharers in those Manly Exercises There it was that the brave Count Theobald amidst those noble Exercises of Chivalry which the French and particularly the Counts de Champagne have always so much delighted in resolving to pass magnificently from that gallant Representation of War to that true and holy War which he was about to undertake in most solemn manner took upon him the Cross together with the Count de Blois his Cousin They were immediately followed by two Lords of extraordinary Merit and high Reputation the famous Simon de Montfort and the valiant Renaud de Montmirail the Cousin of Count Lewis After which all those who were under any particular Obligation to these two Counts and many other Gentlemen and Barons especially of the Isle of France and of Picardy also followed their Example and took upon them the Cross The principal among these new Champions of Jesus Christ whose Names are most known and which I mention in this place reserving my self to speak of the others upon occasion of their brave Actions were Geoffry de Joinville Steward and Geoffry de Ville Hardouin Mareshal of Champagne who like a frank and generous Cavalier hath obliged Posterity with the History of this War the Counts Gautier and John de Brienne Gautier de Vignori William and Villain de Neully Erard de Montigni Manasses de l' Isle Guy de Chappes Renard de Dampierre Oliver de Rochefort Ives de Laval Anselme de Courselles Henry de Montreil Paien d'Orleans Matthew de Montmorenci Guy de Couci Robert de Malvoisin Enguerrand Hugh and Robert de Boves Counts d' Amiens to whom the Year following joyned the Counts Hugh de St. Paul Renand de Bologne and Geoffry de Perche and Stephen his Brother with divers other Lords which followed them And to take care of the spiritual Militia of this Army designed for a Holy War Garnier Bishop of Troies who had taken the Cross the Year before and Nevelon Bishop of Soissons resolved to accompany this Crusade Such a famous Action which could not fail of making a mighty noise in the World was the Parent of others great Examples being commonly very prolisick which were produced thereby in generous Minds and Hearts which were amorous of Glory The young Baldwin Earl of Flanders and Henault Nephew to the late Count Philip who died at the Siege of Acre seeing himself at liberty by the Peace of Peronne which he had concluded with Philip the August was resolved
was made with this Condition that after the Taking of Zara the Venetians should joyn their Forces with them in order to the attacking of Egypt the Conquest whereof they hoped would not be difficult which by reason of the Famine and the Pestilence had been extreamly desolated for five Years in which it had wanted the Inundation of the River Nilus Dandolo ravished with Joy to have obtained what he so earnestly desired upon this Occasion did an Action which was wholly unexpected from him and by which he most justly acquired immortal Fame For notwithstanding his extream Old Age and the Weakness and in a manner entire Loss of his Sight which might well have dispensed him from going to the Wars yet one Day in a great Assembly of the Senate the Lords of the Crusade and the People being in the Church of St. Mark he unexpectedly mounted the Tribunal and earnestly intreated the Republick to give him permission to take upon him the Cross and in Person to conduct the Venetian Army and that leaving his Son to supply his place after the Taking of Zara he might accompany the brave and generous Princes of France either to partake with them in the Glory of delivering the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ or to die with them in the pursuit of such a glorious Enterprise These Words were received both by the Crusades and Venetians with mighty Applause and with such great Acclamations mingled with Tears and Cries of Joy that the venerable old Prince more encouraged by the general Consent and the glorious Testimonies which were rendred to his Vertue descending instantly from the Tribunal made himself be conducted to the Foot of the Altar where prostrating himself to offer his Life as a Sacrifice to Almighty God to whose Service he now dââoted the Remainder of his Days he caused the Cross to be affixed to his Ducaâ Bonnet that so it might be the more conspicuous and visible to all the Beholders An Example so illustrious was presently followed by several of the principal Persons of the Republick And that which augmented the Joy was that at the same time there was seen to arrive a noble Troop of brave German Lords and Brabamers who had taken upon them the Cross with Conrade Bishop of Halberstad and Berthold Count de Catzenelbogen So that by the favour of these Reinforcements the Army found it self compleat and being all imbarked in the Month of October they parted from the Port of Venice upon the gallantest Fleet which had ever spread Canvas upon those Seas and which consisted in three hundred Vessels charged with all manner of Warlike Engines and Munitions Upon the Eve of St. Martin they came within view of Zara and though considering the heighth and thickness of the Walls and the strength of its Towers which were defended by a strong Garrison many of those who beheld it at a distance judged it impregnable yet the next Day they attacked the Port with so much Fury that having dispersed those who defended it with the mighty force of Stones and Darts from the Engines and having broken the Chain which defended it they gained it by main Force and landed on the other Shoar year 1202 there to attack the City so soon as they had made their Lodgments and taken up their several Posts This vigorous Attempt did so terrify the Besieged that the next Day they sent out Deputies to make Offers of Surrendring the City upon Condition of only having their Lives saved And they had most infallibly done it if those of the Cabal who before had indeavoured to break up the Army had not by a most base Perfidiousness altered their Resolution by assuring them that they had none to deal with but the Venetians for that the French in Obedience to the Pope were resolved to undertake nothing against them At the same time Guy Abbot du Val de Sernay the same Person who had done such great Things against the Albigenses and who was afterwards Bishop of Carcassone went to speak with the Doge and the rest of the Princes and by a Zeal which had like to have caused great Disorders certainly a Zeal which made him act very unseasonably by unnecessarily exposing to Contempt the Authority of the Holy See he forbad them in behalf of the Pope to proceed any further or to enterprise any thing against Zara declaring those who should disobey this Order to be Excommunicate by Virtue of the Apostolical Letters which he there presented to them An Action so Surprizing did so Exasperate the Venetians that they had certainly cut this indiscreet Abbot in a thousand Pieces if Simon Earl of Montfort who was of his Party had not stoutly opposed it declaring himself his Protector and protesting that he would obey the Holy See and never employ those Arms against Christians which in taking upon him the Cross he had taken up to make War against the Infidels But the Princes and other French Lords to let the Venetians see that they did not only condemn this Action but that they were resolved like Men of Honor and in despite of all those who opposed it to perform what they had not promised but that notwithstanding their Vow they might well both in point of Conscience and for very considerable Reasons do gave such a furious Assault to the City both by Sea and Land without Intermission for five days successively that the Besieged were compelled to Surrender upon Discretion their Lives only saved After this the Season of the Year being too far declined to think of making War in Egypt it was resolved to pass the Winter at Zara where the Marquis Boniface came about fifteen days after the Reduction of the Place for he would not imbark with the rest upon pretence of giving some necessary Orders concerning the pressing Affairs of his Marquisate but in reallity that he might dexterously avoid appearing at the Siege of Zara and prevent the Displeasure of the Pope tho not long after the Pope received the Excuses which the French made him by their Deputies and granted them the Pardon which they demanded for the greater Satisfaction of their Consciences He also permitted them for the removing of all Scruples the Liberty of Treating at all times with the Venetians who could not be persuaded to believe themselves obliged to desire from him the Absolution from those Censures which they thought they had not at all deserved for which Reason some time after he denounced them Excommunicated by a Decree which the Princes thought convenient to suppress fearing that otherwise it might give occasion intirely to ruine the Enterprise of the Holy War as undoubtedly it would have done It was for this Reason that this sage Pope to whom the French Princes gave an account of their Proceedings by Letters respectful but very resolute after having throughly weighed the Matter approved the Prudence of their Conduct and some time after their Spirits being sweetned by a more propitious Conjuncture a Reconciliation easily ensued
great Estate and Interest who came along with the Marquis de Montferrat together with several other Abbots of his Party did what was possible to confute all the Reasons of the Abbot du Val de Sernay and endeavoured to persuade the whole Army that the only Means to make the Enterprise upon the Holy Land succeed was this of Constantinople and to close with the Conditions proposed by Alexis and the Ambassadors Whereupon before any thing was concluded the Cardinal of Capua one of the Legates at the Request of the Princes and the Confederates went immediately to consult the Pope who put the Matter under the Deliberation of the Sacred College at the same time when by an odd Adventure the Ambassadors of the Usurper Alexis Comnenius who came to justifie the Proceedings of their Master arrived at Rome year 1202 The Pope presently gave them Audience and they according to their Instructions and the Emperor's Letters remonstrated to him That Isaac having been lawfully deposed for his apparent Insufficiency the Empire could not by Right of Succession appertain to the young Alexis by reason that he was born before his Father was Emperor and that therefore of consequence it must necessarily belong to his Unkle Alexis Comnenius who was legally chosen Emperor That he therefore made it his Request to the Pope that he would not favour his Nephew who was supported in his unjust Pretences by Philip Duke of Suabia the declared Enemy of the Holy See as his Father and Grandfather had been who had raised so many Wars against the Popes his Predecessors And further they desired that he would prohibit the Crusades from going to attack Constantinople contrary to the Vow which they had made to endeavour the Conquest of the Holy Land And then following the Custom of the Greek Emperors who when they have any need of the Assistance of the Popes always promise the Re-union of the Church they made a thousand Protestations of the sincere Intentions of their Master and that he would cause that Obedience to be rendred to the Pope throughout the whole Eastern Empire which was due unto him But whether the Pope hoped for that Re-union from Comnenius who was in Possession of the Empire rather than from the young Alexis who was a banished despoiled Prince and that he apprehended that the Success of this War would not prove fortunate or that he could not upon this Occasion persuade himself to favour the Pretensions of Philip of Suabia whom he did not love and whose Competitor to the Empire he openly protected or whether it was the earnest desire which he had that the Expedition to the Holy Land should be more vigorously prosecuted which made him disapprove these kind of Diversions which were made of the Christian Arms against Christians it is certain that he received the Ambassadors of old Alexis very favourably acknowledging their Master as an Emperor And further He was so far from protecting the Prince as many of the Cardinals advised that he sent back the Legate to the Army of the Confederates with Letters by which he command them in most peremptory Terms to march immediately to the War against the Infidels for the Deliverance of the Holy Land and to give over the Enterprise of Constaminople as apparently contrary to their first Design But in this time the French Princes and the Venetians who were of another Opinion and believed this to be the readiest Way to obtain that End as also considering that the Pope had said nothing in his Letters to oppose that Reason they believed that he had been misinformed of their Intentions of making Constantinople the Way to Jerusalem And therefore notwithstanding his Letters they proceeded in the Treaty and at length finished it by accepting of the Conditions offered by the Ambassadors of Philip and the young Alexis they reciprocally engaging to establish him upon the Throne and in order thereto fifteen Days after Easter to march with the Army and Navy to his Assistance The Articles of which Treaty were on each side ratified by mutual Oaths and signed by the Doge Marquis Boniface the Counts of Flanders Blois and St. Paul and eight of the principal Lords of their Party which without Comparison was much the strongest The Division however still continued and was so far from being quieted by these Letters of the Pope that on the contrary it was more angmented by them and there being such a fair Colour for a Separation after this plain Declaration of a Soveraign Pope many thereupon took occasion to abandon the Army some to return into their Native Country which notwithstanding they never did but miserably perished either by Shipwracks upon the Sea or by Thieves and the Peasants at Land who fell upon them in their Passage and robbed them of all they had even to their very Lives Others left the Army to go directly into Palestine as did Simon and Guy Earls of Montfort with their Abbot du Val de Sernay who were followed by the three Brothers Enguerrand Robert and Hugh de Boves and all those whom they could draw along with them either by their Example their Persuasions or the Authority they had upon their Dependants The Abbot de la Trappe who from the Beginning fell in with that Party did not fail to follow it to the End and accompanied them to joyn in Pavia year 1202 with Renard Count de Dampierre with whom being passed into Syria he there soon learnt as well as his Companions by the unfortunate Success of that Voyage that it is always dangerous to joyn with those who under the pretext of Piety and Religion cause Divisions by separating from the main Body Thus the Christian Army remained much weakned by the Retreat of so many brave Men who had they been firmly united to their Head might have done considerable Services and avoided those Misfortunes which by their Separation fell upon them As for the Pope he took it so heinously that the Confederates had not obeyed his Orders and Advice that he commanded his two Legates the Cardinals of Capua and St. Praxede to withdraw from the Army and sent them express Order to sail to Cyprus and after into Syria there on his Behalf to negotiate with the Crusades who were gone from Hungary and had imbarked in the Ports of Italy and Marseilles The Princes notwithstanding this Defection pursued their Enterprise with more Courage and Resolution and they had the Comfort presently after to understand that the Pope as they had hoped being better informed had at last consented to their Design So that the Venetians after they had demolished Zara to prevent its Revolt for the future caused the whole Army consisting in about forty thousand Combatants to imbark immediately after Easter The Earls of Flanders Blois and St. Paul sailed first steering for the Isle of Corfu at that time belonging to the Eastern Empire where the whole Navy was appointed to rendezvous The Doge and the Marquis de Montferrat stayed
the Greeks to defend their Liberty with a stern and menacing tone reproaching the Great men of the Empire with their Effeminate and Voluptuous way of living and obliged them more by the fear of his Savage Humour than by the hopes of Victory or his Example to betake themselves to their Arms. And as he imagined that the Latins intended to storm the City he forgot nothing that might contribute to its Defence he fortified the Walls and Towers he raised them where they were low with Parapets made of strong Timber and floored with boards two or three Stories high that so his men might under Shelter discharge upon the Assailants All the Curtain and the Platforms of the Towers were stored with such a great number of all kinds of Engines that one could scarcely believe there was in the whole World a City so well fortified and provided or which could be more difficult to be taken But the Princes who were not much concerned at these Preparations knowing they signified nothing unless they were defended by men of Courage after they had laboured in making all things ready till Thursday the Week after mid-lent upon that day being the eighth of April they caused all the Army to be imbarked upon the Ships which were ranged into two Lines extending half a League in their Front The Great Ships were in the first with their long Ladders in manner of a Draw-Bridge which were fastned to the Masts and the Wooden Towers of an extraordinary Height The Gallies and Flat Bottoms were in the Second and were to advance through the Intervals which were left between Ship and Ship Early in the next Morning all the Fleet weighed and with the Help of Sails and Oars crossing the Gulph in good Order they presented themselves before the Walls They had all the Success they could have hoped for in Despight of the Discharge of the Enemies Engines and the Infinite number of Darts and Arrows which were powered upon them from the Curtain and the Towers those who were aboard the Gallies and the flat Bottoms observing their order of passing between the great Ships got safely ashoar and planting their Engines all along the Key they clapt their Ladders to the Walls and then the great Ships coming up close the Venetians throwing out their Bridges made of Masts and Yards placed them against the Towers and both the one and the other mounting Courageously went to the Assault with their Swords in their Hands The Combat was maintained on both sides with an Incredible Fury the Assaillants animated by the Ardent Desire which they had and the certain hope they entertained that they should that day take the richest City in the World And the Defendants forced by the Necessity whereto they were reduced either to Vanquish or lose all But in Conclusion the number of these Desperate Defendants being Infinite in Comparison of the Assailants and the Emperor who had pitched his Tents in a spacious place upon a rising Ground in the City near the Walls continually sending fresh Supplies to refresh those who were weary and the Towers which he had raised upon the Walls surpassing those Wooden ones to which they had applyed the scaling Ladders so that the Greeks fought with all manner of Advantage in discharging their Darts Arrows and stones from the higher place the Assailants were every where repulsed and about three of the Clock in the Afternoon they were forced to retreat with the loss of many Soldiers and a great many Engines of Battery This ill success did a little trouble the Princes but it was so far from abating their Courage that it raised it much higher by inflaming it with a generous Despight to find themselves obliged to yield to those whom they had so often beaten And the same Night they held a Councel of War where it was resolved that all things should be disposed within two days to give a second Assault upon the same side and not on that of the Propontis as the French proposed in regard that part of the City was not so well fortified for the Venetians who better understood the Sea made them apprehend that if they once went out of the Port the Current would undoutedly carry them into the Chanal of the Bosphorus year 1204 and that it was impossible to stem the Course of the Sea or to bring the Ships near to the Walls They therefore only added to the order which had been formerly observed in the Assault that there should not now be one Ship alotted to each Tower but two tied together that thereby they might be able to attack the great numbers which defended the Towers with greater Force than could be expected from the Soldiers of one single Ship It was also resolved that the French should be intermixed with the Venetians both by Sea and Land that so the two Nations might not lay the Blame of a Miscarriage if any should happen upon one another Upon Munday therefore the twelth of April they came to the Assault with greater Vigor resolution and sierceness than before notwithstanding that they saw all the Towers and the Walls covered with an Infinite of Soldiers This consident Approach struck a Terror into the Greeks who believed they should have terrified the Assailants with that number or men and little expected the Latins would so suddainly make another Attempt of which they so assured themselves that they had spent the two days with great rejoycings and abundance of Bonsires for the Joy of the Victory The Assault was extremely furious and continued a long time without the French and Venetians advancing any thing more than in the first Assault or giving it over for the obstinate resistance with which they met they sought on both sides every where with an equal desire and resolution of being the Victors and the advantage seemed till noon to continue with the Greeks but then a Gale arising from the Norward proved mighty favourable to the Assailants by driving the Ships close up to the very Walls Whereupon two great Ships one called the Pilgrim the other the Paradise being tied together by a good Omen for the Crusades having on board of them among other French Lords the Bishops of Soissons and Troyes were carried so near to a Tower adjoyning to the Hill where the Tyrant was posted that they applied their Bridges and Ladders without any difficulty immediately then two of the most Valiant Knights one a French man whose name was Andrew d' Vrboise a Domestick of the Bishop of Soissons the other a Venetian who was called Peter Alberti mounted courageously well covered with their Shields and with their Scimiters in their Hands they both leaped down together into the Tower and were upon a signal immediately followed by John de Choisy and all the brave men which were aboard those two Ships It some times happens in War that there is but one single Moment and one brave Action of some Valiant man to decide a day those who defended
the whole Realm the Germans not daring to appear in the Field But after so many Victories as he besieged their General Diepold in a certain Castle to which he had driven him the Contempt which he had of his Enemies was the occasion of his falling into their Hands for in the Night the General surprized him in his Tent and carried him Prisoner to the Castle all covered in Blood where he shortly after died more of Grief than of his Wounds so much nearer than their Swords had done did the Trouble and Affliction go to his heart to see himself in the power of those whom he had so despised complaining that he had so ill guarded himself against the Cowardly Germans who he said by Day-light though in compleat Armour durst not venture to attack the French stark naked and unarmed Thus by his Presumption he lost that in a Moment which by his Valour and great Abilities he had acquired by abundance of gallant Actions which he had performed in four Years before As for his Brother John de Brienne who among all the great Lords of France was chosen by King Philip the August to marry the young Queen of Jerusalem he received that Honour with all the marks of a profound Acknowledgment and promised the Ambassadors before their Parting that he would with all the Forces he could raise come for Palestine before the Expiration of the Truce Now Saphadin who apprehended there would be a new Crusade to accompany this King who was sent for from France offered the Christians to prolong the Truce but the Templers rejecting his Proposition the War was broke out afresh when John de Brienne arrived there which was the 3d of September in the Year 1210. year 1210 And whereas Saphadin believed that this new King would bring a great Army with him he found that he had only brought a few Troops together with about three hundred Knights who had imbarked with him at Marseilles to serve at their own Charges against the Infidels For the Troubles of Germany and Italy by occasion of the new Schism in the Empire and the War which was breaking out between Philip the August year 1210 and the Emperor Otho who was excommunicated by the Pope together with the famous Crusade which then began to be set on foot in France against the Albigenses hindred the raising of one to accompany King John de Brienne into the Holy Land So that he was able to raise no greater Fond of Mony than forty thousand Livres which he had from the French King and as many more which the Pope procured him from the Romans upon his Estate the Earldom of Brienne which he was forced to mortgage for it He did not however fail with his small Power to do all that could be expected from a Prince equally wise and valiant for presently after his Coronation which was celebrated at Tyre he took the Field and entring upon the Territories of the Infidels he took divers places from them and returned without Loss bringing a considerable Booty from them to Ptolemais But so soon as the Sarasins understood what a small number of Men he had brought with him out of Europe they joyned all their Forces and came to encamp about that City with a mighty Army commanded by Coradin so that the Christians durst not stir out but were in a manner besieged especially after the Sultan had seized upon all the neighbouring Places principally the Mountain of Thabor upon which he built a Fortress from whence they made continual Incursions year 1211 even to the very Gates of Ptolemais Hereupon the Knights and Persons of Quality who came along with the King seeing they were too weak to sally and sight their Enemies in the plain Field and being unable to suffer themselves to be lock'd in the City without doing any thing they returned before the Winter into France so that this poor Prince remained almost all alone in danger to have taken Possession of a Kingdom only to have the Displeasure and the Shame to see himself driven out of it unless he received some seasonable Assistance year 1212 This News gave a mighty trouble to the Pope who now began to apprehend that his principal Design which was the Relief of the Holy Land would be wholly ruined by being so long delayed he resolved therefore after the Example of Pope Vrban II. the first Author of the Crusades to employ his utmost power to procure one by calling a General Council that thereby he might engage all the Christian States and Kingdoms in it But in regard that considering the present posture of Affairs in Europe year 1213 this great Assembly could not be so soon held and that besides the pressing Evil required a more speedy Remedy he writ his Circular Letters to all faithful People to excite them to march with all possible haste to the Relief of their oppressed Brethren in Palestine And after having renewed the Prohibitions which he had so often made before That upon pain of Excommunication none should presume to sell any Merchandise more especially any Arms to the Sarasins he commanded certain Prayers with Fasting and Alms to be used in the Church for the imploring the Mercy and Pity of God and his Blessing upon the Council which was to be held for the taking care of the Necessities of the Church and above all other things the Relief of the Holy Land He also resolved to try other Ways since he saw those which had before been made use of did not prosper and addressed himself to Saphadin Sultan of Babylon and Damascus who was now become almost as potent as his Brother the great Saladin had been who took Jerusalem He writ to him to exhort him to restore that holy City to the Christians which besides that of it self it brought no considerable Advantage to him put him to vast Expences to be always in a Condition to resist the whole Powers of Christendom who would eternally arm themselves to take it from him He remonstrated to him That it was much better for him as a wise Politician freely and by Reason to do that which he must one day be constrained to do whether he would or not with the loss of his Honour and possibly all that he might upon the Surrender of that City quietly and peaceably be permitted to possess in the East That it was impossible but he must at last fall under those Arms whose invincible Force he was sufficiently sensible of already and whose Courage and Valour were above all fear of Danger That they esteemed it not only a point of Honour but of Religion to re-conquer that holy City which their Ancestors had taken by Force with not above twenty thousand Men from forty thousand Defendants and in the very sight of an Army incomparably greater than theirs That in restoring to the Christians that City which he could not long defend against them he would thereby assure himself of the rest of his Dominions by the
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
Sail for Ptolemais by the Straits of Gibraltar The King of Hungary arrived first at Cyprus about the Feast of the Nativity of our Lady and those who imbarked at the Ports of Brindes Messina and Genoa coming up within a few days he parted from thence accompanied with Hugh de Lusignan King of Cyprus and the Archbishop of Nicosia who had taken upon them the Cross and all together came happily to an Anchor in the Port of Acre After the Army had for some time refreshed themselves about the City where the Bavarians by an ill Beginning and an unlucky Presage of this War committed fearful Disorders upon the Lands of the Christians whom they treated most inhumanely King John de Brienne joyned himself with the Kings of Hungary and Cyprus with those few Troops which he had accompanied with the Knights of the Temple the Hospital and the Teutonick Order And the Truce which had been made with the Sarasins being expired they went and incamped in a convenient Place near the Brook Kison there to take a general Review of their Troops and then to march directly to find out Coradin who had already passed the River Jordan with a powerful Army and made a shew as if he would give the Christians Battle The Patriarch of Jerusalem whose Residence was now in the City of Acre believing that upon this Occasion he ought to imitate his Predecessors who were used to carry the sacred Cross in their Wars before the Kings therefore in the beginning of November being followed by all the Clergy in Procession went to the Camp carrying a part of that sacred Wood which the Christians had preserved For James de Vitri who was afterwards a Cardinal and who before had been Curate of Argentucil near Paris and then of Ogniez in the Diocess of Liege where he was made Canon Regular and at this time was Bishop of Acre and accompanied the Kings in this War assures us that he had heard it of some antient People in Palestine that before the Battle of Tiberias where they fought so unfortunately against Saladin they being according to custom year 1217 to carry the Cross before King Guy de Lusignan he was advised by a certain Presage of the future Loss to cause the sacred Wood to be cut and one part of it to be kept that such a precious Treasure in case it should be taken in the Battle as it happened might not be wholly lost Upon the Approach of the Patriarch the Kings and Princes came out of the Camp and walked barefooted to meet him to receive that sacred Pledge the Instrument whereupon our Salvation was wrought with a marvellous Devotion and perfect Confidence in Jesus Christ who they hoped would in that Sign give them Power to overcome all the Enemies of his holy Name as he had upon it overcome all the Enemies of our Salvation The next Morning the Army being drawn up in Battalia passed the Torrent marching Eastward towards the great Valley of Esdrelon anciently called Megiddo now called the Plain of Faba and that Day advanced as far as the Fountain of Tubany in old time called Jesreel near the City of that Name There the Couriers who were sent to discover the Enemy brought word that they had seen great Clouds of Dust so that it was believed Coradin was advancing to give them Battle That was then the thing which the Army most desired so that very early the next Morning the Army marched to meet the Enemy and entred into the great Valley of Jesreel having the Mountains of Gilboa on the right Hand and the Mount Hermon upon the left with a great Morass at the Foot of it This was a very commodious Post where they might advantageously make the Field of Battle but no Enemy appearing they advanced as far as Bethshan otherwise called Sythopolis a great City lying in a Plain very convenient for the giving Battle between the Mountain of Gilboa and the River Jordan Coradin had been there and incamped in the Plain boasting that there he would fight the Christian Army but when he understood that the Kings were there in Person and that their Army was stronger than his he durst not tempt Fortune by a decisive Blow and therefore following the Orders and the Example of his Father Saphadin who kept himself at Babylon expecting till the Christians should have weakned themselves he was already retired beyond the River the Day before which was the Occasion of the Dust which the Scouts had discovered and thought he had been therefore approaching to meet the Christians But it was the quite contrary for he was then retreating leaving the Country to the Kings who after they had with the whole Army with great Devotion washed themselves in the Waters of Jordan and coasted along the Sea of Tiberias or the great Lake of Genasareth to visit the Places consecrated by the Presence and the Miracles of Jesus Christ they returned about the end of the Month to Ptolemais with a very rich Booty and abundance of Prisoners which they had taken in the Country of the Sarasins But this not being what was expected from so great an Army and there appearing no Enemy to combat with in the Field they resolved to besiege the Fortress which Coradin had built upon the top of Mount Tabor which did extremely inconvenience the City of Acre This Tabor which is so famous in both the old and new Testament is one of the fairest and most pleasant Mountains of the World It raiseth its lofty Head in the middle of a fair Plain in Galilee about some thirty Furlongs in height which is near a League and half of our Measure so that like a Pharus or watch Tower it may be seen at a great Distance by those who sail upon the Sea and also from the top of this Mountain one may discover a great part of the Holy Land especially all the Champion of Galilee the main Ocean the Sea of Tiberias and the Course of the River Jordan All this Prospect lay so exactly round about it that Nature seemed to have pleased herself in forming this pleasant round Circle from the Base whereof Mount Tabor raiseth it self by small Degrees lessening the new Circles with an equal Roundness to the very Top which by reason of its Height looks like a mighty Pyramid to those who are at the Bottom of it It is on all sides very steep and on the North side wholly inaccessible and there is no coming up to it on the other sides but by very strait and difficult Passages And tho it be thus steep and high yet receiving continually the most pure Due of Heaven which falls sweetly from its Top and expands it self downwards it is cloathed particularly towards the West and South with abundance of Trees which are continually Green year 1217 loaden with pleasant Fruits and where the Birds who inhabit in these agreeable Thickets sill the Air with their melodious Songs the Earth which at the Foot of
in the Morning the eleventh Day of September with an incredible Heat on both Sides the Christians trusting in the Aid of Heaven which the Cross they had seen seemed to promise them and the Sarasins in their Multitude and besides being ranged in Battalia towards the East they had the Sun upon their Backs and the Christians full in their Eyes Thus the Combat was very obstinate on both sides Victory continuing in Suspence for a long time to which side she would incline till at last the Sarasins struck with a pannick Fear as if new Enemies had fallen upon them began to stagger and recoil and in a short time to throw down their Arms and betake themselves to Flight with all the Hast the desire of Safety could lend them It is said that in the heat of the Battle there appeared new Squadrons of Cavaleers in white Armor who advanced at the Head of the Christians and charged upon the Sarasins with an infinite Storm of Darts and Lances and that the brightness of their glittering Arms and Shields so dazled the Infidels that they were not able to indure the shining Beams or the furious Shock they gave them but that they instantly threw away their Arms and fled However it happened it is most certain that their whole Army was intirely defeated and that there remained above fourteen thousand Sarasins dead upon the Place with two of their Kings that they pursued the Fugitives for three Leagues gleaning up abundance of Straglers who all fell by the Daughter of the Sword They lost all their Tents and Baggage together with a number of Prisoners who all inquired who those white Horsemen were who with the Lustre of their Bucklers had so blinded them and put them into Disorder And it is said that Pope Honorius seemed by one of his Letters to give credit to this miraculous Event For my own particular as I do not pretend to give all these sorts of Apparitions for Truths which I find in some credulous Authors which is a great though too frequent Weakness So I think myself obliged to take care not to suppress such as have any probability of Establishment upon Truth and are related by such credible Authors to whom a Man of Sense and Prudence may give some Faith After this great Victory the Crusades returned to the Siege of Alcazar which defended it self still for a Month longer but at last it was constrained to surrender upon Descretion upon the one and twentieth Day of October There were made above two thousand Slaves of the Sarasins which remained in the Garrison and the Place was put into the Hands of the Knights of Palmela to whom it belonged the great Master of which Order had signalised his Courage in an extraordinary manner both in the Battle and the Siege They also gave Liberty to the Sarasin Governor of the Place and a hundred of his Officers and several of his Soldiers who with him received holy Baptism and renounced the Superstition of Mahomet The Pope to whom the Earl of Holland and the Portuguese sent the Relation of this great Success caused publick Thanks to be given to God in all Places exhorting all faithful Christians to imitate this glorious Example and to take Arms to fight against the Sarasins who Possessed the Holy Land But he would never consent that the Hollanders and those of Cologne who had gained this important Victory should thereby be dispensed with from their Vow as the Portuguese desired that so these brave Men might finish what they had so happily begun in Spain by chasing the Moors from thence For this Reason therefore William Earl of Holland General of the Crusades who had assured the Pope that he would inviolably observe his Orders after he had passed the Winter at Lisbon set Sail in the beginning of April Having passed the Straits of Gibraltar he was surprized by a Tempest which lasted for three days which so dispersed his Fleet that without being able to unite again some of them were forced into Barcelona others into Marseilles Genoa Pisa and Messina from whence they continued their Voyage to Ptolemais where they arrived one after another year 1218 Those who arrived first were the Frisons who had wintred in Italy The Hollanders and those of Cologne came up presently after and whilest they expected the rest it was resolved by King John de Brienne the Duke of Austria the Bishops and great Masters of the Orders for the future to change the manner of the War and instead of amusing themselves about Palestine as they had done hitherto to fall directly upon Egypt and indeavour to take away the Cause and cut up the Root of the War It was remonstrated That from thence came all the great Armies which the Sultans sent to the Holy Land to oppose those of the Crusade and that therefore if they could once make themselves Masters of the Source from whence those terrible Inundations of Barbarians came which did so often deluge Palestine there would be nothing then capable of resisting the Forces of the Christians That the Sarasins being in no manner of Apprehensions of Danger on that side would be without difficulty surprized That there was nothing in all Egypt considerably fortified except Damiata and that after the Taking of that City which might easily be stormed by such a potent Army which would daily be re-inforced by the Arrival of other Crusades which were expected they might without difficulty march and attack the Sultan in Babylon which was in no condition to resist them having no Fortifications and being only crouded with People incapable to defend it And in short That this was the Opinion of Pope Innocent in the Council of Lateran and seemed as if he had a Divine Inspiration and that therefore it was to be hoped that God would assist them in the happy Execution of the great Design which himself had inspired This Resolution being taken all the Fleet rendezvouzed at the Pilgrims Castle from whence the Frisons and Cologners who were the first that were in readiness having chosen the Count de Sarpont to command them set Sail and with the favour of a Stern-Wind which blew a lusty Gale from the Northward they came in three Days upon the 30th of May before Damiata and by a lucky beginning of the War made their Descent without Resistance and retrenched themselves before the City expecting the coming up of the rest of the Christian Army Damiata was at that time one of the fairest and richest Cities of Egypt and without dispute the strongest as being the Key of the Kingdom situate upon the Nile about a Mile from one of its Mouths This great River whose Spring was for so long time unknown is now discovered to rise from five or six Fountains at the Foot of the Mountains of the Moon in thirteen or fourteen Degrees of Southern Latitude and so to cross the great Lake of Zembr and after having wandred from the South to the North quite through
the Princess Jolante the daughter of King John de Brienne Heiress of the Realm of Jerusalem John de Brienne is dispoiled of his Crown by his new Son-in-Law He puts himself under the Protection of the Pope Honorius The good Offices of the Pope to pacifie the Princes The death of Lewis the eight King of France He is succeeded by his Son Lewis the ninth The death of Pope Honorius He is succeeded by Gregory the ninth The Portraict of this new Pope The Army of the Crusades much diminished by diseases The Emperor takes shipping He stays at Otranto where the Lantgrave of Thuringia dies A great rupture between the Pope and the Emperor The Pope excommunicates him Their Manifests The Revenge which Frederick takes He passes at last into Syria His differences with the Patriarch and the Templers His Treaty with the Sultan his Coronation at Jerusalem his return and accord with the Pope The Conference of Spolata for the Continuation of the Crusade The History of Theobald the fifth Earl of Champagne and King of Navarr His Voyage to the Holy Land with the other Princes of the Crusade His description and his Elogy A Crusade published for the Succour of Constantinople An Abridgement of the History of the Latin Emperors there The Causes of the little Success of the King of Navarr's Enterprise A new Rupture between the Pope and the Emperor The Occasions thereof The deplorable effects of that breach which ruins the Affairs of the Holy Land The Jealousie among the Princes occasions their loss Their defeat at the Battle of Gaza The unsuccessful Voyage of Richard Earl of Cornwall The death of the Constable Amauri de Montfort His Elogy his Burial and that of his Ancestors and of Simon de Montfort in the Monastery of Hautebruiere A Council called at Rome The Pope's Fleet defeated by the Emperor's and the taking of the Legates and Prelates going to the Council The death of Pope Gregory The election of Celestin the fourth and of Innocent the fourth He breaks with the Emperor and retires into France year 1220 THe report of the Victory which the Crusades of the West had obtained against the Sultans of Egypt and Damascus being spread all over Asia raised the Courage and hopes of the Christians in the East and more particularly of the Georgians who then were and are at this day the bravest among all those Nations These People to whom that name was given either from their particular Veneration of St. George upon whom they call in their Combats or by Corruption of the word Gurges their Country being called Gurgiston inhabit those Regions which extend themselves from the West to the East between the Euxine and the Caspian Sea the Countries which anciently were called Colchis Iberia a part of Albania and also of the great Armenia as far as Derbent They were at this time under the Obeisance of one King who governed the whole Nation united into one Monarchy and not divided as they are now among many small Princes who are not able to free themselves from paying tribute either to the Turk or Persian They have been Christians ever since they were converted by a young Maid a Christian Slave in the Reign of Constantine the Great and followed the belief and Cerimonies of the Greeks although in some things they differ from them much and especially in this That they have nothing of that Aversion for the Church of Rome which the Greeks have They all shave the middle of their heads in form of a Crown but with this difference among them That the Ecclesiasticks have it round like that of the Roman Churchmen the other square with great Mustaches year 1220 and a long Beard which reaches down to their very Girdle They are in the main People well proportioned and of a good Mind kind and obliging to Strangers terrible to their Enemies great Soldiers extremely brave even to the very Women who like Amazons will go to the Wars and sight most valiantly and they are so taken notice off for this Valour above all other of the Eastern Christians that the Sarasins either out of Fear or respect permit them to enter with their Colours flying like Soldiers into Jerusalem and without paying any thing when they come to visit the Holy Sepulchre But they have this great Blemish that they are most intolerable Drinkers and make little account of such People as will not debauch with them having entertained a brutish persuasion that it is impossible for any persons to be truely valiant who are not excessive Lovers of drinking So that they never go to the Combat till they have well drunk for which purpose they always carry to the field a Bottle of Wine tied to their Girdles and before they begin the Battle they presently and with Chearfulness toss it off to the last drop and then furiously charge the Enemies being elevated with the Wine and half drunk This was the Temper of these Georgians who were now most highly incensed against Coradin because without consulting them he had caused the Walls of the Holy City to be demolished during the Siege of Damiata for which as a common Injury done to all Christians in General they loudly threatned to be avenged on him For this purpose so soon as they heard the news of the taking of Damiata their King writ to the Princes of the Crusade to give them joy of their Victory and to exhort them to follow their good Fortune assuring them that for his own particular as he should esteem it a dishonour to him not to follow the glorious Example which they had given him so he was resolved in favour of them to make a powerful diversion in Syria and to attack Coradin even in his Capital City of Damascus But all these fair hopes of chasing the Insidels out of the Holy Land quickly vanished by two unhappy Accidents which ruined all the Affairs of the Christians in the East The first was that as the King of the Georgians was preparing for this Holy War he received advice that the Tartars who began to make diverse Conquests in Asia were ready to fall into his Dominions and this hindred this Valiant Prince from executing what he had so generously resolved against Coradin The second was the deplorable misfortune which befel the Christian Army which having lost a great deal of time had at last took the field to endeavour to finish in conquering the rest of Aegypt what they had so happily begun by taking the strongest of all the Cities of that Realm and it is this which I am now to treat of and in few words to give an Account of the Causes of this sad event After that the Army had passed the Winter at Damiata and the Country about it to recover themselves from so many Fatigues they were so far from being in a Condition to pursue their Conquests in the Beginning of the Spring that they found themselves more weak than at the end of the Siege for
profession a Benedictine Monk a man of Spirit and great Abilities but of a Nature extremely fierce and so mightily Opinionatretive that Pope Innocent the Third who had made him Cardinal had at one time thoughts of depriving him of that Dignity for opposing himself singly and pertinaciously against a Bulla which the whole Sacred College had signed in favour of the Cistercian Monks But that which at this time rendered him more conceited and obstinate in his own Opinion was that he had the weakness too common in all times to abundance of people which made him give strange credit to certain Predictions which still discovered his Vanity and Folly and with which he continually permitted himself to be abused For having heard it said in his Country that there was an old Prophecy which gave assurance that at that time there should a man go out of Spain who should ruin and overthrow the Sect and Empire of Mahomet in the East He had an imagination that he might be that glorious man who was designed by the Oracle for that mighty Action and consequently that he ought to attempt all things to finish that admirable Adventure And this ridiculous Fancy was the reason that by obstinately refusing the Peace which the Sultan offered upon conditions so advantageous to the Christians whilest he coveted all he lost all So much doth it import Princes not to trust the manage of their Affairs year 1221 but to such Persons who govern themselves by no other Rules but those of Conscience Reason Honour the Publick Good and the true Interest of their Masters The Sultan who then perceived that he had to do with people whose presumption had so far blinded them that they never once perceived the danger into which by an extreme imprudence they had thrown themselves now had no other thoughts but how to oppose their passage with all his Forces in expectation of executing the design which he had formed of destroying the Christian Army without ever drawing his Sword And in truth he guarded the other Bank of the Nile so well as it was easie for him to do with those innumerable Troops which he had disposed in all places where there was any possbility of landing that they could never come to lay a Bridge so that they were constrained to stay between the two Chanals of that great River near a Month wasting the time in little Combats and Skirmishes with their Arrows cross the River and in this time the Army was lessened by ten thousand men who weary of this slow and foolish way of fighting or doubting what would be the Event and fearing that which happened retired in good time to Damiata For the Nile which at this time continually increases being now risen to that height which the Sultan expected he caused the Sluces to be opened and filled all the great Canals which cross all the lower Egypt from the Western Arm of the Nile which anciently was called Canopus and afterwards Rossetta about two miles from Alexandria to the Pelusian Branch and having filled these Canals he brought his Ships in which passing over to the Tanitique below Damiata surprized the Christian Fleet which expected nothing less for they did not believe they could come thither but by the Tanitique Chanal and by Damiata which shut up that passage and in this surprise the Christians not being upon any Guard the Sarasins who were for the purpose provided of store of Greek wild-fire set the Ships on fire at their pleasure and the Christians being unfurnished of Materials to extinguish it the greatest part of the Ships were burnt and they hindred the rest without any difficulty from carrying Provisions to the Army The Commanders finding now too late that it was impossible for them either long to subsist there or to pass further thought of retreating towards Damiata marching at a good distance from the River and the Enemies Fleet which they kept upon their left hand but they had marched but a little way when the Sultan causing the other Sluces to be opened all the little Ditches which cross the Fields were presently filled and the water continually increasing all the Country was so drowned in a few hours that the whole Army found themselves under an inevitable danger of perishing insomuch that they were forced to do that which nothing but extream necessity could excuse by constraining them to accept what Meledin by a most surprizing adventure offered them at the same time to draw them out of that terrible danger to which they were reduced For whether it were that this Sultan who naturally had abundance of humanity could not see so many Princes and Lords of the highest Quality perish in this miserable manner or that God who disposeth absolutely of all hearts did upon this occasion mollifie that of this Egyptian to save this poor Army or at last that this Prince who was Wise and Politick chose rather presently to draw Damiata out of the hands of the Christians than to put it to the hazard not to take it at all though this Army should be lost it is certain that he offered them a Truce for eight years which was instantly accepted upon condition that Damiata should be presently surrendred to him and that he should reciprocally restore the true Cross which had been taken by his Uncle Saladin and that all the Prisoners which had been taken on both sides as well in Egypt as in Syria should be set at liberty Those who were in Garrison at Damiata made some difficulty of surrendring the place but as on the one part they were not provided to maintain a long Siege and that on the other the Sultan that he might be secure of it would have the King himself the Legate and the Duke of Bavaria for Hostages there was a necessity of yielding it so that the Treaty was with great sidelity performed on both sides and Meledin himself did such things as could not be reasonably expected from a Sarasin year 1221 and which at this time would be thought no dishonour to a Christian Prince to do them For after he had caused the Sluces to be shut up and the water to be let out to leave the Christians a free passage he also furnished them with plenty of Provisions for five dayes and upon the rendition of Damiata the tenth of September he sent his Son to attend the King and Princes and to furnish them magnificently with whatever was necessary for their return either by Sea or Land into Phoenicia This was the unhappy Effect which was produced by that Division which always continued during the whole War between the King of Jerusalem and the Legate Pelagius who assuredly had done much better if according to his Profession and the Intention of him from whom he was sent he had not gone beyond his Commission but had applied himself wholly to maintain a perfect Union among the Crusades and to exhort them to do bravely leaving the management of the War to the King
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
according to the differing Prospects which his Interest gives him in which he finds himself ingaged in what he writes year 1245 So that in making use of this Author who hath very good things I have endeavoured to make a just difference betwixt what he writes as himself and those authentick Pieces which he produceth which give great insight into the true History such as are the Relations sent by those who had a share in the Affairs then transacted the Letters of the Popes and Princes as also those of the Emperor which contain what I have now related and which the continuator of Baronius hath inserted into his Annals printed at Rome where the Reader may find this and much more to the same purpose that I have recounted But Frederick did not satisfie himself with Writings but pushing on his Sentiments to all things which his Vindicative Nature and his Anger furiously inflamed could transport him there was nothing which he did not attempt or which he did not put in Execution to revenge himself of the Pope persecuting and ruining his Relations banishing and dispoiling them of all their Estates as he did all the Priests and Bishops who refused to celebrate the Divine Offices in those places where he was constraining all the Ecclesiasticks to pay the third part of their Revenues to maintain the War against the Pope Making use of Fire and Sword and all those Violent Ways by himself and his Gibelins against all those who were of the Pope's Party So that the Pope was obliged in his own defence against such a Potent Enemy to cause a Crusade to be preached by his Cordeliers against him and his Sons who on their side acted with as much Violence and Ardour as their Father Thus the Succours designed for Constaminople against Vatacus the Greek Emperor and those for Hungary against the Tartars were frustrated and the Troubles of Germany and Italy which insued upon the Condemnation of Frederick and the Crusade which was published against that Prince were so many diversions which weakned the Principal Crusade in such a manner that notwithstanding that it was resolved in the Council against the Sarasins Of all the Kings of Europe there was none except St. Lewis who with the French only undertook the Holy War he having taken upon him the Cross even before the Council of Lyons For as in the Year before after his return from the War of Poitu where he had so gloriously vanquished the Earl of Marche and the English at the Battle of Tailebourg he fell sick in the Month of December and by the Violence of the Distemper he was reduced to that Extremity that he was believed to be dead remaining without pulse and without Sense for one whole day insomuch that they were consulting of his Funerals when suddainly comming as it were out of an Ecstasie and blessing God who had drawn him from the Gates of Death and looking upon the Standers by he made choice among all the Bishops who where assembled in his Chamber of the Bishop of Paris who was at that time the famous William d' Avergne whom his learned Writings and the eminent Sanctity of his life have rendred so much celebrated He presently called him to him and desired him to fasten a Cross to his Right Shoulder as a mark of the immoveable Resolution which he had taken after the example of his Grandfather Philip the August and his great Grandfather Lewis the young to undertake the Holy War for the deliverance of the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ and he spoke to him in a manner so resolute either because in that Extremity wherein he was he had made a Vow to take upon him the Cross if it should please God to deliver him or else as an ancient Writer assures us that during this long Swoon which Nanges calls an Ecstasy he had a Vision in which he thought he saw the Christian Army vanquish by the Sarasins as it was before Gaza and heard a Voice from Heaven which said to him King of France Go and revenge this irreparable Loss Let it be how it will it is certain that notwithstanding the Prayers and the Tears of the two Queens his Mother and his Wife who conjured him upon their Knees to deferr the taking of such a Resolution till he was in a better condition he protested that he would neither take any nourishment nor Medicin till such time as he had received the Cross Insomuch that in conclusion the Bishop of Paris all in Tears fastned the Cross upon him whilest the Queens the Princes his Bothers and all those who were present began afresh to weep as if he had again been at the point of death but he on the contrary with a pleasant Countenance and a perfect assurance notwithstanding his extreme weakness year 1245 protested that God would restore him to his health for the accomplishment of his Vow And in short in a little time he recovered and whilest he staid till the condition of his Affairs would permit him to pass the Sea with a powerful Army he continually sent great Succours of men and money into Palestine with many Knights of the Temple and Hospital to encourage the Christians of Syria to defend themselves vigourously against the Forces of Egypt in Expectation of his comming in person to their assistance Hereupon Pope Innocent in Execution of the Decree of the Council of Lyons touching the Crusades sent Cardinal Eudes of Castle Roax Bishop of Tusculum his Legate into France to publish it in that Realm The King received him at Paris with all kind of magnificence and to give the greater weight to the Publication of the Crusade he called to meet in the Month of October in the Octaves of St. Dennis a great assembly of the Princes Prelates and Barons where he spoke so powerfully to animate them to the Holy War taking upon him the Office of a Preacher after the Legate that the greatest part of the Assembly following his example took upon them the Cross The most Illustrious and signal among them were the three Princes the Brothers of the King Alphonsus Count de Poitiers Robert Count d' Artois and Charles Count d' Anjou The Princesses their Ladies imitating the example of the Queen who resolved to go along with the King also took upon them the Cross So much Piety and Courage so much love had they for these three brave Princes their Husbands that they would also pertake with them the pains and the dangers of this War leaving to them all the Glory to which their Sex would not permit them to pretend Also Hugh Duke of Burgundy Peter Duke of Bretany William Earl of Flanders Hugh de Chastillon Count de St. Paul and Gautier de Chastillon his Nephew Hugh de Lusignan Earl of March and his Son Hugh the Brown followed them together with the Counts de Dreux de Bar de Soissons de Blois de Retel de Montfort and de Vendosme The Lords John de Beajeu
Constable of France John de Beaumont Admiral and great Chamberlain of France Philip de Courtenay Guion de Flanders Archambald de Bourbon the Younger Raoul de Couci John de Barres Gaubert and John de Apremont Giles de Mailli Robert de Bethune of Arras Oliver de Termes and Simon Count de Sarbruc and Lord de Comerci Companion in Arms with the famous Seneschal de Champagne John Sire de Joinville so celebrated for the gallant Actions which he performed in this Voyage for seven years and for the History which he writ of the great Actions of St. Lewis and for the extraordinary Esteem in which he was to this great Prince for one of the most Wise and most Valiant Knights of his time insomuch that he thought him worthy to be honoured with being his particular Confident There were also many great Prelates who resolved to be of this Crusade as Jubellus de Mathfellons Arch-Bishop of Rheims the Holy Man Philip Berruier Arch-Bishop of Bourges most Illustrious by his Vertues by his Doctrine and by his Miracles Robert de Cressonsart Bishop of Beauvais Garnier Bishop of Laon William de Bussy Bishop of Orleance and lastly the Cardinal Legate whom the Pope had designed not only to publish the Crusade in France as he did in many Provinces but also to accompany the King in this War It was with this magnificent and fair train of Lords of the Crusade that Lewis accompanied with the Queen Blanch his Mother came about the end of November to the Famous Abby of Cluny where the Pope who was arrived there from Lyons met him with twelve Cardinals the Patriarch of Constantinople and a great number of Prelates to conferr with the King where in Person he celebrated the Mass in his Pontificalibus upon St. Andrew's day It is said that this Famous Abby was then of so great extent and had so many appartments that the Pope the King the Queen the Cardinals the Princes Prelates and Lords were all lodged most commodiously there with their Domesticks without giving any disturbance to the Religious or obliging them to quit their Chambers or any places in the Monastry which were designed either for their Service or for the performance of their Functions The Pope the King and Queen Blanch were there for seven days in continual secret Conferences which as it was believed were principally to treat of a Reconciliation year 1245 between the Emperor and the Pope lest that unhappy difference might either retard or weaken the effect of this Crusade but all came to nothing although this did not hinder King Lewis who was equally Wise and Religious and who would not enter further into that Affair than became him from living perfectly well with the Pope and yet without breaking with Frederick who at the same time did what lay in his Power to preserve himself in Amity with the King And truely not contenting himself only to have writ in his own defence as he did to other Kings presently after the Council of Lyons he sent to him the year following the famous Peter de Vignes his Councellour and William d' Ocre one of the principal Ministers with Letters addressed to all the French by which after having complained of the Enterprises which he pretended the Pope's abusing their Power made upon the temporal Rights both of Princes and private Persons in many differing ways which he exposed he protested that provided this abuse were reformed he was ready to submit to the Judgment of the King and his Barons all the differences which were betwixt him and the Pope and moreover provided that either the Lombards were obliged to give him that Obedience which was due to him or in case of their refusal that whilest he endeavoured to compel them to it the Pope should not support them in their Rebellion he promised to go to the Conquest of the Holy Land either by himself or with the King of the Romans or to send thither the King his Son as King Lewis should judge to be most convenient and not to give over the Enterprise until the Christians were put into possession of the whole Realm of Jerusalem And if this Peace could not be had upon these reasonable Conditions yet he offered the King to furnish him with Provisions for his whole Army with shipping and all the Assistances which he could wish from him either by Sea or Land And to make it appear that he would perform what he had promised he writ to all his Officers in the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily giving them Orders to furnish the King liberally at the price Currant during the whole time of the War in the East with Arms Horses Victual and all manner of Provisions forbidding all manner of Persons to hinder the transportation of them upon any pretext whatsoever These Letters which were sealed with the Golden Bulla of Frederick and dated in the Months of Sptember and November in the year 1246 year 1246 are kept in the Kings Treasury at Chartres and are inserted at large in the learned observations of Monsieur du Cange upon the History of St. Lewis written by the sire Joinville And certainly it must be said that this Prince did not make only vain and Verbal Offers of his Service either to amuse the King or to acquit himself of a pure piece of Civility without any other effects For he gave such orders in all his Ports and especially in Sicily for the transporting of Wines Corn and all kind of refreshments into the Isle of Cyprus where the King erected his Magazins that the Army found there a prodigious abundance of all things necessary for their subsistence so that the King held himself mightily obliged to this Prince and the Queen Mother writ to him Letters full of acknowledgments testifying her real sense of his kindness by magnificent presents which she sent him adding that which without doubt was most agreable to him by confessing that all France was obliged to him for the Conservation of the Kings whole Army In the meanâhtime St. Lewis who owed the first of his Care to his Dominions made no great haste of his departure by reason that he was resolved first to finish what remained to be done before he engaged in so long and dangerous a Voyage And indeed it must be said that such persons as speak not very favourably of this expedition of St. Lewis either are no great Politicians or else most unreasonable and unjust For it is impossible that there could be taken a more favourable Conjuncture more just Measures or more safe Precautions than those which he took upon this occasion to make an Enterprise of this nature successful to the Honour of France without running any manifest hazard an Enterprise wherein in those times the greatest Princes of the World thought the greatest of their Glory did consist For all his Kingdom injoyed a profound Peace after the glorious Victories which this Prince who was one of the most valiant and wisest that ever
having understood that a King so renowned throughout the World was come to make War upon Egypt he had sent them to inform his Majesty that he was marching to besiege the Calife in Baldac in the beginning of the Summer and therefore requested him at the same time to attack Egypt and that the Sultan and the Calife being thereby hindered from mutually assisting the one the other they might both of them with more ease come to the ends which they had proposed All this which these Ambassadors had related and the account which they gave of the puissance of the Tartars was exactly conformable to the Letters which the Constable of Armenia who had made a Great Voyage into Tartaria had before written to the King of Cyprus so that St. Lewis received them with an incredible joy year 1249 and himself conducted them upon the Holy Days of the Nativity and Epiphany to the Divine Offices caused them to be entertained at his own Table and kept them there till the beginning of February that so he might treat with them with more deliberation After which he dispatched them loaden with Noble Presents together with Father Andrew and two other Religious of his Order two Cordeliers two Secular Ecclesiasticks and Gentlemen Attendants whom he sent Ambassadors some to the Prince Ercalthay and others to the Great Cham with most Magnificent Presents both for the one and the other There was sent to the Great Cham among other Rarities and curious Pieces of great value a most Sumptuous Tent of Scarlet in form of a Chappel where was to be seen in rich Embroidery all the Mysteries of the Life and Passion of Jesus Christ admirably represented in Silk raised with Gold there was also belonging to the Chappel sent all the necessary Ornaments and Furniture for the Celebration of the Divine Offices as also to each of them a small piece of the Wood of the Holy Cross and the King writ to them Letters full of the Spirit of Religion with which his Soul abounded in which he exhorted them to persevere in the love of God who by his Grace had been pleased to illuminate their Minds and had called them to the happy knowledge of himself The Legate also on his part did the same writing to the Mother of the Great Cham and to all the Christians of that huge Empire exhorting them to take great care to preserve themselves in the true Faith and the Unity of the Catholick Church under the Obedience of the Vicar of Jesus Christ upon Earth After this the King spent the rest of the Winter in pacifying some troubles among the Christians especially those of Syria and Palestine and in according the differences which were between the King of Armenia and the Princes of Antioch who were continually in some quarrel or other He caused also a great number of slat bottomed Boats to be built in order to the landing of his men and at last after he had assembled all his Troops who were with part of his Ships in the neighbouring Islands and had received a reinforcement from Europe of about two hundred English Gentlemen conducted by William Longsword Earl of Salisbury who were resolved to have a share in this War and after he had escaped the Treachery of certain Sarasins who were come disguised into Cyprus with intention to poyson him he imbarqued the Week before Whit sunday together with Henry King of Cyprus and set sail for Egypt But being by ill weather which separated his Fleet driven into Limisso he parted the day after the Feast from that Port and with a fair gale of Wind arrived in four days before Damiata which place he resolved to besiege Damiata of which I have formerly given the description both as to its Situation and Strength was at this time nothing so well fortified as it was when about thirty Years before it was taken by the Christians after a Siege of eighteen Months neither was it defended by such gallant men as those who sustained that long Siege and the Sultan of Egypt Melech-Salah although he was a great Soldier yet was much declined from his first Vigor being in a weak and languishing condition by reason of the great Sickness which he had had during the Winter at Damascus Nevertheless as he did expect that the King would make his first attempt against the City of Damascus which was the Key of Egypt he brought thither all the Army which came with him from Syria and so soon as the Signal was given from the Tower of Pharus that the Christian Fleet appeared he ranged his Army along the Shoar and caused his Ships and Gallies to descend to the Mouth of the Nile year 1249 so that the first object that appeared before the Eyes of the French were two great Armies one by Sea to oppose their Entry into the River the other by Land upon the Brink of the Shoar to hinder their descent from which two Armies they heard the terrible noise of their Instruments of War and the dreadful shouts of so many millions of Sarasins as made the Arched Roof of Heaven resound again the Sultan himself as ill as he was would put himself at the head of them armed completely from head to foot in his fairest Arms all of fine Gold and sparkling with precious Stones which receiving a marvellous reduplication from the shining Beams of the Sun cast such glittering Rayes as made him seem all on fire Hereupon the King held a Council with the King of Cyprus the Duke of Burgundy and William Hardoum Prince of Achaia who came from Morea John d' Ybelin Count de Jaffa who was come from Palestine and with the rest of the Princes and Great Lords They were all in the Opinion that they ought not to endeavour a descent in View of two such great Armies they having not the third part of the number of their Enemies and that they ought rather to expect the arrival of those who had been separated by the Tempest among whom there were above twelve hundred Knights who were the choice men of the Army But the King maintained the contrary opinion and made it clearly appear that if they deferred it any longer they might put themselves in evident danger of losing all in regard that they had no Port to which they might retire and secure themselves from a suddain Tempest which as it had done before might chance to overtake them and either separate them or force them ashoar upon the Enemies Coasts And that besides this delay would not only give the Enemies an increase of Courage but the time to retrench themselves with greater advantage This resolution of the King and the Power of his reasonings having dissipated the Fear which they had That they should not succeed in their attempt with so small a number it was ordered that the next morning they should move directly against the Enemies if they should again appear to dispute the descent the day following accordingly being the Friday after
greatest number of the French who concluded That he ought with all convenient Expedition to return into France First to give the necessary Orders for the Affairs of his Realm which stood in great necessity of his presence Secondly in regard that having but a very few Knights and Souldiers and who having nothing to subsist upon nor being Master so much as of any one place in the Realm of Jerusalem he could not remain there either with safety Honour or Advantage to himself or the Affairs of the Christians in the East And that he might serve them much more effectually if after having been sometime in France to raise Money and Levy new Troops he should have a desire to return into Egypt to take Vengeance upon these perfidious Enemies of God who had so barbarously violated their Faith and Treaty But all the Knights of the Temple and the Hospital the Patriarch the Prelates and all the Lords of Palestine Cyprus and Syria and even divers of the French Lords among which was the High Steward of Champagne the brave Lord Joinville declared themselves of the contrary opinion and strongly urged That the Honour of the King and welfare of all Christendom in the East obliged him to stay some time longer in the Holy Land That it would be most shameful to abandon so many brave Men as had so faithfully served him in Egypt and also to expose them to the fury of their Enemies who would find them after his retreat much weaker than they were at his coming thither That it was most certain that in the condition wherein things were the Christians of Palestine would not stay there year 1250 but so soon as they should see the King depart they would also abandon the Country and retire to Places of safety and therefore his suddain Retreat must of necessity occasion the loss of all the Realm of Jerusalem for the Conquest whereof the Christians of Europe and especially those of France had spent so much of their Blood and undertaken so many Crusades and that so many thousands of poor Captives who sighed in the Prisons of Caire whereof many were the Relations the Allies or the Friends of those who were in the opinion for the King's return would be reduced to the utmost dispair having once lost all hope of even a possibility of their deliverance since the Infidels would have nothing either to hope or fear from the Christians after having once chased them out of Palestine And in conclusion they added That the stay of the King in the Holy Land for some time longer would without doubt produce the quite contrary Effects to all these Misfortunes which would infallibly be consequent upon his return That it was well known that the King notwithstanding all his losses sustained in Egypt was in a condition to repair one part of them and to strike a terror into his Enemies in regard that all the Money which he had yet expended he had drawn out of the Purses of his Receivers who had gained it unjustly from him That he had still his whole Treasure intire with which he might raise store of good Troops and that so soon as it was known that he would pay well he could not want Souldiers but that men at Arms and Knights would resort to him from all places with which he might serve himself upon the present occasion to very good purpose there being in reality so great a Division among the Infidels that the Sultan of Alepo the most potent of the Sarasins of Syria made War against those of Egypt That he had already taken Damascus from them And that he was resolved in Person to lead his Army into Egypt to revenge the Death of the Sultan his Cousin whom those infamous Mamalukes had so barbarously murdered That the least advantage which the King could draw from this War would be to oblige these perfidious Wretches by the fear which they would have lest he should joyn with their Enemy to set all the Prisoners at liberty That however hereby he would hinder the Infidels from invading the Lands of the Christians And that in the mean time he might fortifie the places which were demolished and thereby leave the Country in a Condition to defend it self whensoever at last he should be obliged to return and leave the Holy Land After he had patiently heard all these Reasons the King took eight days more to consider of what Resolution he ought to make after which having again caused his Lords to be assembled and imploring before them the Light and the Grace of God's Holy Spirit he spoke to them in these Terms That he gave all of them hearty thanks for the Counsel which they had on both parts given him That if any worldly consideration could oblige him to return into France most assuredly it was the Interest of his Realm to which he owed his Principal Applications and his greatest Care But in regard that he was sufficiently satisfied that France had nothing to fear so long as it was under the wise Government of the Queen his Mother who had Forces Courage and Conduct enough to defend it against all those who should in his absence have any designs against it he was resolved not to abandon the Interests of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in Syria but that he would stay there some time longer to put them into a posture of safety That nevertheless he left all Persons who had a desire to it at liberty to return if they so pleased but withal he promised also on the other side to all those who were resolved to run his Fortune that he would make their choice so advantageous that they should have sufficient reason to be satisfied with it This Discourse of the King moved the whole Assembly though with very different Sentiments in some it excited tenderness and Devotion so that they devoted themselves most heartily with this amiable Prince to the Service of Jesus Christ in others it occasioned Grief and Sadness by understanding the King's Resolution which was so unexpected to them and by seeing that their honour obliged them against their Inclinations still to remain in Palestine But hereupon St. Lewis did not fail presently to give out Commissions and Money for making of Levies however for the satisfaction of the Queen his Mother he sent home the two Princes his Brothers into France whither he writ to all the orders of the Realm that admirable Letter by which after he had given them a full account of all the transactions which till then had happened he exhorted them by all the considerations both Divine and Humane year 1250 to come and share with him in the Glory which was to be acquired by generously sacrificing their Lives and Fortunes to the Service of Jesus Christ Whilest these things were doing the King who made his preparations with so much diligence received the Ambassadors which came to him from Europe and from Asia Pope Innocent sent to give him consolation by
of the two hundred thousand Livres which were yet unpaid which the King resolved before he would treat with them in regard that they had broken the Truce by not observing the Conditions of their former Treaty and thereupon as the Admirals gave him all the Satisfaction which he demanded he appointed them a day to meet him at Jaffa where a new Treaty was to be made by which the Admirals obliged themselves to put into his hands all the Places of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to which they should for the Future make no more pretensions and the King reciprocally promised to assist them with all his Forces against the Sultan of Damascus their Enemy So soon as the Sultan who was a man of Courage and Conduct understood that the King had accorded with the Egyptians he sent twenty thousand men to seize upon the Passes between Egypt and Palestine but this did not hinder the King from leading his Army to Jaffa the Castle whereof was very strong though the Town was wholly ruinous and fell to rebuilding and fortifyng of it at great charges and with incredible diligence although the Enemies gave continual Alarms to his Camp and daily made a shew as if they would attack it This made the Mamaluke Admirals who had not yet set their Army on foot and therefore durst not repair to Jaffa request the King to deferr their Interview and to appoint another day when they might be in a condition to attend him and in the mean time the Sultan of Damascus having assembled all his best Troops took a review of them about Gadres which was anciently called Gadara a strong City on the other side the Sea of Galilee and from thence passing over the Jordan he went and joined with thirty thousand Horse which he had sent before him to the Frontier of Egypt into which he entred to revenge upon the Admirals the death of his Cousin And they who had had leisure to prepare for his coming did not fail to give him a welcome like men of Courage year 1251 and who understood War It came presently to a Battle and at first the Sultan had the advantage breaking in upon one of their Wings so vigorously that he put it into disorder and wholly routed it But the Egyptians understanding that their Army was Victorious in the other Wing rallied and came to the charge more furiously than before against their Vanquishers and then those also who had been Victorious on the other side falling upon their Rere cut them in pieces and made the Victory so complete that all the Sultan could do was to save himself and retreat to Gadres sorely wounded with two thousand men which only escaped in that Bloody Battle After this great Victory the Admirals made a suddain turn like able Politicians For now perceiving that they had no more need of the Arms of the King they believed that to preserve to themselves the Kingdom of Jerusalem which by Treaty they were obliged to surrender unto him it was much better for them to make Peace with the Sultan who seing himself abandoned by the King would without doubt be very glad to revenge himself and for fear of having both Armies upon his Hands year 1252 to accomodate matters with them They sent therefore to him to Gadres offering him Peace and at the same time desiring it from him They excused themselves for the death of the Sultan of Egypt his Cousin by the necessity which they had to prevent their own by giving him his and remonstrated to him that it was for their Common Interests rather to unite against the Christians who were their Common Enemies than by their divisions to give them the opportunity to make use of their Arms to the mutual destruction one of another The Sultan who desired nothing so much willingly harkned to the Proposition so that without any difficulty a Peace was presently concluded betwixt them and the King by too long deferring to conclude with the one or the other of them was miserably deceived by them both and lost not only the noblest opportunity of recovering the Kingdom of Jerusalem by an honourable Treaty but on the suddain found he had two puissant Enemies to encounter who would now no more hear either of a Peace or a Truce and who might easily have both been ruined by keeping up the Quarrel between them and uniting with the one against the other as they both desired But though the King was a great Saint we must not believe that Saintships render men infallible especially in Policy and above all not in matters of War which is the remotest thing from Religion whose Principles are those of Love and Peace All the advantage which the King gained by this Rencontre was to quit himself of the two hundred thousand Livres to the Admirals which yet in reality he was no ways obliged to pay after they had so perfidiously broken their first Treaty Sometime after they had made this Peace with the Sultan of Damascus although they saw they had nothing to fear either from this Prince their Allie or from the Christians who were in too weak a condition to attack them yet considering that it was impossible for their Empire to subsist any considerable time without a Head they resolved at last to create one of their own Body to the exclusion of the Arabians Egyptians and all the Descendants of the Great Saladin and Saphadin And being well assured that there were none able to oppose them they accordingly chose for their Sultan one of the Mamaluke Admirals whom they named Azzadin Aibec or Elmahec For there is not one of these Sultans but who have different names in diverse Authors who have writ concerning them This Sultan was a Turcoman by Nation and from thence it is that many Historians call him Turquemin However from this time the Mamalukes held the Empire of Egypt not by Succession but Election till the Year one thousand five hundred and seventeen when Selim the Emperor of the Turks conquered it after he had in a great Battle overthrown and near Grand Caire taken Tomombey their last Sultan Mean time the Sultan of Damascus under the Favour of this Peace having assembled his Army came with thirty thousand men to discharge his Indignation upon the Territories of the Christians He presented himself before Acre and threatned to fire the Suburbs if they would not redeem them from that danger with fifty thousand Bysances of Gold but the Lord of Assur the Constable of the Realm thought fit to pay him in another Metal year 1252 and sent him away loaden with Blows instead of the Money he demanded And from thence therefore having understood that the King who had rebuilded Jaffa was about to repair Sidon or Sajetta had but a few Troops with him by reason that he had sent the greatest part of his Souldiers to seize upon Belinas formerly called Cesarea Philippi he marched with a design to surprize him The King who was advertised
fell upon it in his absence by the deadly division which had he been there he would have prevented and which was the last cause of the loss of the Holy Land The Venetians the Genoese and the Pisans who had most advantageously served in all the Crusades by their shipping had in Acre their quarter and their Jurisdiction assigned them and their Magistrate who was Independant of any other though the Church of the fair Monastery of St. Sabas was common to the three Nations for the celebration of the Divine Offices The Venetians and the Genoese who in those times rarely agreed had abundance of quarrels under diverse pretences which served to cover the true cause of all these Embroilments which in truth was the Jealousie of State and the Ambition which they had to be the sole Masters of the Sea and every one of them equally pretended that this Church appertained solely to their Republick And whereas Alexander the fourth who succeeded to Pope Innocent had declared that the Church ought to be in common to the three Nations the Genoese who first received this declaration nevertheless being supported by the Authority and the Forces of Count Philip de Montfort who was then the Governour of Ptolemais chased the Venetians from the City and seized upon the Church and the Monastery which they fortified in the form of a Cittadel They took for their Pretext a great violence which a Venetian had offered to a Genoese whom he used very scurvily and which had been sufficiently revenged by the Genoeses upon the Venetians who would never receive the excuses which had been offered to them in the name of the Republick which constantly disavowed these actions of private Persons The War then being declared in this manner by the Way of Fact year 1256 the Venetians assisted by the Pisans who declared for them in renouncing the Amity of the Genoese with whom they were confederated before rigged out a potent Navy year 1257 with which they seized upon the Port of Ptolemais burnt the Genoese ships entred the City and there fought gaining by Inches the quarter of the Enemy besieging and forcing the Monastery year 1258 the Church of St. Sabas and chasing from Ptolemais Count Philip and the Genoese who retreated to Tyre from whence coming the year following with nine and forty Gallies and four great men of War they came to a great Battle which they lost between Ptolemais and Caiphas So that the Cities the Princes the Lords and all the Knights of the Country being divided upon this quarrel some declaring for the Venetians and others for the Genoese their happened between these two Potent Republicks a most cruel War which being from time to time suspended by Feeble Treaties which were quickly broken continued for a whole Age to the great prejudice of all Christendom and especially to the Affairs of the East being the principal Cause of the irreparable loss of all And certainly the Sarasins of Syria and Mesopotamia had not failed upon such a deplorable opportunity as was this miserable division to have ruined the Christians of the Holy Land if God had not at the same time raised other Enemies against those Infidels to destroy them For the Tartars having subdued all Persia passed over the Tygris under the Conduct of Halon the Brother of Mangon the Great Cham of Tartary That Prince who is reported to have been a Christian and a great Enemy to the Mahometans having endeavoured to push his Conquests to the Mediterranean Sea was now going to lay Siege to the City of Bagdad which is not as hath been believed the ancient Babylon of the Chaldeans which was situate upon the River Euphrates and of which there are now not so much as the ruins remaining For this which still carries something of the Name is above fifty miles from Euphrates and stands upon the Tygris near the place where was anciently the Famous City of Seleucia There was the principal Seat of the Mahometan Empire in those times where the Caliph whom all the other Sultans acknowledged at least in appearance for their Head and the cheif Priest of their Law kept his Court. Now the Caliph then in being as he was not at all martially inclined so was so extremely covetous that though he was prodigiously rich yet would he not be at any Charge either to fortifie the City or to maintain a good Garrison so that the City was instantly taken by the Tartar who after he had put to the Sword all the Sarasins which he found there caused the miserable Caliph to be locked up in one of the Chambers where his Treasure lay amongst an infinite quantity of Rich Furniture Plate Money and Jewels telling him with a terrible and Bloody Rallery that since he so delighted in Riches and was so passionately in Love with Gold and Silver he should be treated according to his Inclinations and eat nothing less delicate than Gold Thus this Unfortunate Miser who was the last of the Caliphs the Successors of Mahomet died with hunger in the midst of a most incredible abundance of Gold Silver Pearls and Gemms the sight whereof would not content nature or satisfie her necessities and with which if he had known how to use them he might have avoided this miserable Destiny and at least have died nobly at the head of an Army sighting for his Life and Liberty with this Treasure which would have raised and paid them and have possibly secured him from this insolent Tartar A great but most just punishment of a Covetous Wretch who having all his Life made Idols of his Riches without daring to touch them more than if they had been most Sacred things deservedly learnt at his death that these false Divinities had not the Power either to save his Soul or his Body and that Gold and Silver are no further valuable than by the good use which is made of them year 1259 After this Victory the Tartar Prince entred into Mesopotamia which yielded to the Conqueror without resistance took Edessa passed the Euphrates made himself Master of Samothracia Emessa Haman Harenc and all the places which the Sultan had taken from the Christians in Syria besieged and by storm took Alepo which is thought to have been the Ancient Berea and there he took the Sultan Prisoner whom he carried in Irons to Damascus constraining the Inhabitants to yield after they had seen their Captive Sultan put to death before their Eyes And from thence returning with a small retinue into Tartary upon the news which arrived of his Brother's death to whom he was to succeed year 1260 he left the Command of the Army to his Lieutenant Cathogoba And he who was imbroiled with the Christians whom before he seemed to favour entred into the Realm of Jerusalem and there took Cesarea and Sidon and began to threaten Ptolemais when the Christians received a suddain assistance from Egypt from whence they least expected it The first of the Mamaluke Sultans Atbec or
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
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
his Navy year 1270 All things being thus disposed for so great an Enterprise the King declared Matthew de Vendosme Abbot of St. Dennis and Simon de Clermont Count de Neele Regents of the Realm during his Absence and after that having taken the Standard of St. Dennis according to the custom of his Ancestors as also the Scarf and the Pilgrim's Staff he parted the first day of March in the year one thousand two hundred and seventy accompanied with the Cardinal d' Albano whom Pope Clement had nominated his Legate for this Crusade and came to Aigues-Mort where he did not imbark till the beginning of July at the same time that the other part of his Fleet sailed from Marseilles and at last all of them after having been soundly beaten by a furious Tempest arrived at Cagliari There it was that the King held a great Council of War to which all the Princes the Lords and principal Officers of the Army were called He then proposed to them the Enterprise of Tunis and after it had passed by plurality of Voices in the affirmative although there were many who had much rather have gone directly to the Holy Land they set sail and steered away directly for Africa and within two days about the twentieth of July came within view of Tunis and Carthage Upon the Coast of Africa over against Sicily there is a Peninsula whose circumference is about three hundred and forty Stadia or two and forty miles which advanceth it self into the Sea between two Gulphs which it there makes That which is upon the West forms it self into a most commodious Port and the other turning a little between the East and South joyns it self to a very narrow Chanal by which there is an Entrance into a great Lake which Extends it self three or four Leagues within the Land and which hath since been called by the name of the Lake of Guletta It was in this fair Peninsula that the famous Rival of Rome year 1270 the Ancient City of Carthage stood in the place between these two Seas But since its last destruction by the Arabian Sarasins about the seventh Age there remained nothing at the time of this Crusade amidst the Ruins of that Magnificent City but a little Burrough upon the Port which was called Marsa and a Tower upon the point of the Cape with a strong Castle upon the Hill of Byrsa where anciently stood the Fortress of Carthage About some five Leagues from this great City drawing towards the South East a little below the Gulph and the Lake of Guletta there stood a little City called Tynis or Tynissa and at present Tunis of which the Great Scipio made himself Master before he besieged Carthage and which afterwards grew so great by the Ruins of Carthage that it was in the time of St. Lewis one of the greatest fairest and strongest Cities of all Africa For the Walls which the Turks afterwards demolished were forty Cubits high with very good Ramparts and Fortresses to support them and with divers Towers to flank them for their mutual defence It had eight Gates with their Portcullisses a very deep Ditch which environed it on the Land side and all manner of Fortifications which were used in those Times with large Suburbs which contained about ten thousand Houses But it was still become much greater since the greatest part of the Moors of Granada who had been driven out of Spain retired thither and applied themselves to all manner of Arts and Trades It is at present a kind of Republick under the Protection and Domination of the Grand Seignior ever since it was taken by Sinan Bassa from the Spaniards in the year one thousand five hundred seventy four It had before been twice taken by the Spaniards once by Charles the Fifth in the year one thousand five hundred thirty five and a second time by Don John of Austria after the Battle of Lepanto But formerly it had been under particular Kings since a certain Person one Abraham Aben Ferez who commanded there for the King of Morocco usurped this Realm from him about sixty years before this Crusade and it was his third Successor Muley Otmen Ostensa who reigned at Tunis then when St. Lewis whom he had made to hope his conversion undertook this Voyage At first this Holy King had reason to believe that this Prince had an Intention to accomplish his Promise by reason that there was not found any who opposed his landing and that he had opportunity to seize the Port of Carthage and after that the Tower almost without any resistance But he was quickly disabused by seeing a great Army sally out of Tunis to relieve the Castle of Carthage but that did not hinder but that it was taken by the Seamen only with the assistance of five hundred Cross-bows which they desired of the King assuring him that they would carry the place by Scalade which they accordingly did with so much Courage and Success that they made themselves Masters of it in an instant without any other loss than only one of their Companions whose Death they revenged by that of all the Sarasins who defended the place who were partly cut in pieces and partly smothered in the Vaults whither they retreated to save themselves and to the Entries of which the Seamen put fire The King who was advanced and drawn up in Battalia between the Castle and the Enemies to hinder their relieving the place stopped them so well by the brave Countenance which he made that the Sarasins durst never quit their Post they retired at Night towards Tunis and satisfied themselves with returning every day in greater numbers giving continual alarms and pickeering on all sides according to their manner without staying in one place either regularly to attack one Quarter or to march in Battalia and combat foot to foot with their Enemy This was what was done in this last Enterprise of St. Lewis in nine or ten days towards the end of July For in regard the King of Tunis had an Army composed of an infinite multitude of Arabs and Moors who had always a safe retreat under the Walls of Tunis which was extraordinarily provided with all sorts of Machins of War it was not thought convenient by his Council to attack them or to undertake the Siege of the City before the arrival of the King of Sicily who was daily expected In the mean time the King retrenched himself and fortified his Camp in a Vally below Carthage whither the Enemies came continually to Skirmishes in which they constantly had the worse but without ever coming to a General Battle year 1270 But the King of Sicily whom St Lewis daily pressed to hasten thither and who notwithstanding did not arrive till a Month after him was the Cause by his long delay of the unfortunate Success of this Voyage which he had with such earnestness advised for his private Interest For it being high Summer which is a season very improper for making
of War in Africa and that they wanted refreshments and above all fresh Water which is very scarce in that Country Diseases and especially the Flux and Fevers fell into the Army and in a short time made a most fearful destruction The greatest part of the bravest and youngest men of the Army were unable to resist the violence of this terrible Enemy which daily carried off abundance of them And among the rest John Tristan Count de Nevers a Young Prince of about twenty years of Age died upon the third of August and the King his Father who loved him most tenderly although it was a most sensible Affiction to him yet sacrificed it to the Will of Heaven with the resignation and constancy of a Christian Hero The Cardinal Legate did not survive the Young Prince above four or five days and Philip the eldest Son of St. Lewis was also seized with a quartan Ague of which by the Strength of his Age and the heat of the season he was quickly delivered But the King his Father who had already fallen into the Flux being shortly after seized with a continual Fever left the whole Army languishing with extreme Grief for his death which happened the five and twentieth day of August after he had received the Sacrament with an admirable Presence of Mind an incomparable Piety and Sedateness of Spirit having nothing in his heart or upon his lips but the Glory of God for which only he had undertaken this Voyage He was constantly saying with a dying but Intelligible Voice to those who applyed their Ear to his Mouth to receive his last words For the Love of God let us indeavour some way to have our Holy Faith preached and received at Tunis Ah! My God whom shall we find to send thither to declare thy Gospel It must be such a one would be say naming a certain Religious of the Order of St. Dominick who was known to the King of Tunis and with these Zealous Ejaculations and this Apostolick fervency which he had for the conversion and salvation of Tunis he rendred his pious Soul into the hands of Almighty God precisely at the same hour that Jesus Christ gave up his to his Father making the same wishes for the Salvation of the whole world I have believed that in the quality of an Historian of the Crusades I was obliged in giving an account of the death of St. Lewis to recount this admirable circumstance which is so essential to my Subject since it shews so well what was the end which he proposed to himself in forming this Enterprise of Tunis and for the other particularities which in such a wonderful manner appeared in his death and all that which is so precious before God in the death of the greatest Saints as they do not properly began to my Crusades I leave them as well as the other admirable and Holy Actions of his miraculous life to those able Writers who so many years ago have promised us and who as I hope will write it exactly after so many Originals and so many Copies as the Writers of his own and the following times have left us I shall only add to give some Idea of his Body and of his Mind that he was then about the Age of five and fifty years of a middle Stature and a delicate Complexion but which he had greatly weakned by his great Austerities His Visage was something long but full his Forehead large and Majestick his head a little inclining to one side his Eyes extreme sweet his Mouth little and pleasing his Speech easie and very agreable and in his whole Person an Air of Goodness so winning and so charming especially in a King that it was impossible to look upon him without loving him or to love him without paying him that respect which was due to the Majesty of so great a Prince And for the Qualities of his Soul whether Natural or acquired one may say That there are few Princes who have possessed them in those high Degrees of Perfection as he did for he had an admirable composure of Spirit quick and clear and which he had cultivated by the Study of polite Learning and a solid Judgement so that he was always the most able Person of his Council always penetrating further than any of them when any difficult matter was under consideration having very easie conceptions of things and expressing himself extempore with much Gracefulness and Ingenuity year 1270 whatever he had to deliver governing much by himself especially after his return from the Holy Land but yet never acting but with the advice of his Council except in the Treaty which he made with the English to whom to oblige them to quit the rest he surrendred Guienne and Gascony not out of any scruple as Nangis writes since he himself acknowldged in Council that the Kings of England could not pretend any Right to them but for Peace sake although herein his Policy was much mistaken by reason that this Treaty having brought a Stranger into France brought a War upon it which lasted above two hundred years before he could again be expelled out of it This indeed is the only blemish with which St. Lewis can be reproached for having in this occasion contrary to the advice of his Council suffered himself to be too far misled by the Goodness of his Nature For as for any thing else there was nothing to be found in his Life but an admirable composure of all Royal and Christian Vertues in a most exact Temperament For he was the most valiant courageous fearless firm and immoveable in the midst of the greatest dangers and withal the most sweet pacifick kind and most easie of Mankind Austere humble modest devout respectful to the Holy See zealous for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls retired patient and mortified above all that is admired in the most Apostolick Men and the most Renowned among Recluses for their penitent Life and yet nowithstanding at the same time he was obliging affable complaisant and of an agreable humour in his Conversation familiar with his Confidents easie in his Domestick Affairs an admirable Husband an indulgent Father a sure Friend a good Master and a most excellent King loving his Subjects and reciprocally beloved by them firm and inexorable in causing Justice to be done his Ordinances and Laws to be observed Jealous of the Rights of his Crown and those of the Gallican Church conformable to the Common Law against all the abuses all the Novelties and the indeavours of such as would shock them he was liberal and magnificent in the ordinary expences of his Houshold in Ceremonies and publick entertainments which upon certain occasions he made very much to the Honour of France with a Splendor and Majestick Pomp far surpassing all his Predecessors which made him be equally admired both by the French and strangers In short there was never seen a more perfect accord than what appeared in this admirable Monarch
of Royal Majesty mingled with true Sanctity of Christianity without Illusion without Weakness and without Defaults And I cannot tell whether one can find another of whom may be said with so much Justice what I have said of this Christian Hero to finish in one word his Character and his Elogy That he Was the greatest King of a Saint and the greatest Saint of a King that ever any age hath known The Army of France was under an extreme consternation for the death of the Holy King and for the Indisposition of Philip his Successor and their was great probability that they should in that very moment abandon this unlucky Enterprise if the King of Sicily who was in a great measure by his long delay the Cause of this ill Success had not by a strange adventure arrived with a fair Fleet at the very same time that his Brother the King breathed out his last As he was a great Captain and that his Army which was composed of Neapolitans Sicilians and Provencals was very fresh and he having still in his head his first design to assure himself of the Kingdom of Tunis in at least making the Sarasin King become his Tributary he easily persuaded the French that it was for their Honour to finish the War which they had begun with so much Courage and which they might bring to a happy period being strengthened by the Conjunction of such a Potent Army as desired nothing so much as to be led to the Combat against the Sarasins Hereupon the Army advanced towards Tunis to block it up more closely and for three Months there were every day some little Encounters with the Moors who always went off with disadvantage And it is also reported that they were once overthrown in a set Battle that their Camp was taken and plundered and that such of them as fled thinking to save themselves in the City blindly precipitated themselves into those trenches which they had digged in the Fields with a design to have the Christians fall into them but in regard those of our Historians who writ in those times say nothing of any such matters I dare not be confident of the truth of them year 1268 That which is very certain is That the King of Tunis seeing that the Christians daily gained upon him and that he was always beaten fearing that in conclusion he should lose his Kingdom he sent to desire a Peace or at least a Truce offering to submit to such conditions as the two Kings themselves should judge to be fair and reasonable This matter was long debated in the Council of War in which many were of opinion that the Siege ought to be vigorously pressed on without hearkning at all to the Proposition of the Sarasin King who they said after the losses which he had sustained was in no Condition for any long time to defend the City But the King of Sicily remonstrated to them That if they should take the Town of which they were not to be too confident yet it was impossible for them to keep it in regard That though the whole Army might be commodiously quartered there it being now very near Winter they could not receive either from Italy or Sicily so much provision as was necessary for the subsistence of the Troops and that if they left there only a Garrison it would not be able to defend it against all the Forces of Africa which would most certainly attack it And therefore he concluded that the way for them to come off with Honor and safety in this Affair was rather to treat with the King of Tunis in an honourable and advantageous manner and like Conquerors rather to give him Law than to put themselves into the manifest danger of losing all Thus in regard that King Philip was also very willing to go as soon as he could to take possession of his Kingdom a Truce of ten years was concluded with this Insidel Prince upon these following Conditions That he should presently pay a round sum of Money upon which they were agreed to defray the Charges of the War That he should deliver all the Christian Slaves which were in his whole Realm That he should permit the Religious of the Orders of St. Dominick and St. Francis to preach the Gospel and to build Monasteries there and to all his Subjects Liberty to receive Baptism And that he should yearly pay to King Charles a Tribute of forty thousand Crowns which was the sum that the King paid to the Pope for the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily See what were the aims of Charles for his private Interest and what it was which made many honest People murmur against him as beleiving that he had no mind to take Tunis because he could not hope to dispose of it as he pleased and that he had not advised this War but for his own Ends to make this Sarasin King his Tributary Prince Edward of England also who arrived before Tunis with his Fleet at the same time that this Treaty was concluded could not hinder himself from making the extreme displeasure which he had at it appear publickly especially when he saw that the Fleets of France and Sicily without thinking any further of their principal design which was the Holy War were upon the point of returning home And indeed so soon as the King of Tunis who was very desirous to quit himself of these People who had put him into the fear of losing his Capital City and his Kingdom had delivered the Captives and paid the Money which was agreed upon by the Treaty the two Kings imbarked Philip with the Bones of his Father which according to the Custom of those times were separated from the Flesh and Charles with the Flesh and Entrals of that Holy King which he caused afterwards to be magnificently interred in the Church of the Abby of Montreal near Palermo And certainly it was very advantageous to these two Kings that they carried with them in their Ships the Sacred Remains of that Saint which preserved them from that Lamentable Wreck which the greatest part of the others suffered in View of the Port of Trepano in Sicily eighteen of the biggest men of War and a great number of smaller Vessels with all the Money which was received of the King of Tunis and above four thousand men were cast away in this Tempest and it was not without great difficulty that the Kings were able to make the Port of Trepano where Thibald King of Navarr who was sick before when he came from Tunis in a few days after his landing died Queen Isabella his Wife the Daughter of St. Lewis did not survive him long for about four Months after she died at Yeres in Provence And for King Philip having taken his way by Land as far as Messina he passed over into Italy and so crossing quite through it and France he came to St. Dennis year 1270 whither he brought the Relicks of the King St. Lewis his Father
They were received at Naples at Rome and at Viterbum where the Cardinals were assembled upon the Election of a Pope and at all other Cities in their passage with honours of a different Nature from those which are accustomed to be given to Kings and which sufficiently shewed that they were esteemed to be in a Rank much Superior to them the Voice of the People which is said to be the Voice of God being a forerunner of that of the Church which six and twenty years after solemnly canonized him for a Saint year 1271 Mean time Edward Prince of England who had renewed his Vow during the Tempest and which he weathered so well that he lost not one of his ships sailed towards Ptolemais where he arrived in the Month of May having only three hundred Knights English and French with John Duke of Bretany It was with these few Troops strengthened with five hundred Frisons and another small Reinforcement which Prince Edmond his Brother brought to him from England that he hindred Bendocdar who had taken diverse Castles about Ptolemais from besieging that City He also prevailed with the Tartars the Enemies of this Sultan to enter into Palestine to oppose the Progress of that Conqueror But as on one part these Barbarians after having according to their manner ravaged the Country marched home again and on the other that Hugh King of Cyprus and Jerusalem not being strong enough to do any great matters obtained a Truce of Bendocdar who concluded it with him only to amuse him he was able to do nothing of Moment And therefore as soon as he was recovered of a dangerous Wound which he had received from an Assassin whom he trusted and whom he himself killed with the same poisoned Dagger with which the Traitor had struck him he returned opportunely to take possession of the Kingdom of England which Henry his Father dying left unto him year 1272 Thus this Crusade from which there was reason to expect such great things produced no manner of Effects for the deliverance of the Holy Land And since that time there could never any more be raised although the Pope's had frequently made great attempts to excite the Zeal of Christians therein to imitate that of their Ancestors For first of all Gregory the tenth who from being only Archdeacon of Leige was chosen Pope after the See had been vacant for three Months then when he was at Ptolemais with the Prince of England did more than any of his Predecessors to unite all the Christian Princes and even the Greeks and Tartars in a Holy League to chase the Sarasins out of Palestins and Syria year 1274 And it was he who particularly for this design about two years after held the second Council of Lyons which was one of the greatest and most numerous Assemblies which the Church had ever seen for there were present at it above a thousand Prelates with the Ambassadours of two Emperors of the East and West of the Kings of France Cyprus and all the Christian Princes beyond the Sea together with those of all Europe besides that James King of Arragon and the great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital were there in Person There a Decree was made for the prosecuting the Holy War and an Alliance was made for this purpose with Abagas the King of the Tartars who had sent his Ambassadors thither There Michael Paleologus was recognised for Emperor of Constantinople upon condition That he should join with the Latins in the War against the Sultan of Egypt and there the Election of the Emperor Rodolph was confirmed upon Condition That he should march at the head of the Crusades into Palestine which he also promised to the Pope with an Oath receiving from his hands the Cross at Lausanna whither he followed the Pope after the Council in his return to Italy year 1275 But in conclusion all this produced just nothing either because People were disgusted with this War and such a dangerous Voyage or that having been so long accustomed to hear of this War they were not at all moved with what was no Novelty Insomuch that the Cordeliers and the Jacobins whom the Pope sent all over Europe to preach up the Cross could not meet with so much as one man who would take it Michael Paleologus who had made a Re-union of short continuance between the Greek and the Latin Churches had never any other intention but thereby to hinder the Latins from uniting again to recover Constantinople and to restore Baldwin who did what lay in his Power to that purpose year 1275 especially with Charles King of Naples and Sicily Rodolph who from a bare Count of Habsbourg near Bale issued from a younger Brother of the House of Alsatia was come to be raised to the Empire thought of nothing but how most powerfully to establish his own House in Germany and herein he succeeded so well that it is since become so great and August under the Illustrious name of Austria which this Emperor bestowed upon it in giving that Dutchy to his Son Albert who afterwards also came to be Emperor as well as his Father So that this Emperor Rodolph never accomplished the Vow which he had made between the hands of the Pope who himself gave the Cross to him and to his whole Court and yet nevertheless he was not excommunicated for it as Frederick the Second had been Abagas singly was not strong enough to stop the Course of Bendocdar's Conquests who insolently laughed at all the vain attempts of the Princes of the West and openly threatned to make all the whole East the Trophee of his Arms and oblige it to submit to his Empire And as for the poor Christians of Palestine who most pressingly implored the succours of Europe they every day themselves advanced their own ruin by the fatal Effects of their division which became still greater by the Quarrel which arose among them at this time concerning the succession of a Kingdom which thereby they made all the haste they could to lose The Subject of this Quarrel is one of the points of History which Writers have made the least clear and which in fews words I will endeavour to explain Isabella the Daughter of Amauri King of Jerusalem and Heiress of that Realm had four Husbands The first was Aufrey de Thoron by whom she had no Children The Second was Marquis Conrade de Momferrat Prince of Tyre by whom she had the Marchioness Mary who married John de Brienne and made him King of Jerusalem Of this Marriage issued Jolanta the Wife to the Emperor Frederick the Second Mother to the Emperor Conrade who was Heir to this Realm and consequently without contradiction left it as of right to the Unfortunate Young Conradin The third Husband of Queen Isabella was Henry Count de Champagne whose Daughter Alice married Hugh de Lusignan the first of that name King of Cyprus by whom she had the Princess Isabella who was married to
wicked is no more at present but a miserable remnant of ruins the greatness whereof make apparent both that of the City when it was in its flourishing estate and that of the terrible punishment which it drew upon it self by its Enormous Crimes This sad news of so great and unexpected a loss did wonderfully surprize Pope Nicholas the fourth who for above a year last past had used all imaginable industry to form a general Crusade of all the Christians of the West against the Mamalukes who continually threatned Palestine He had with powerful Sollicitations invited all the Kings of Europe into it and had prevailed so well that Edward King of England had declared himself chief thereof and had made great preparations throughout his whole Kingdom to put himself into a Condition to march at the time which this good Pope had named which was at the Feast of St. John Baptist in the year one thousand two hundred and ninety three When in the mean time he understood that the Christians had lost all in Syria in the Month of May one thousand two hundred ninety one This was like a mighty clap of thunder which did mightily amaze him but which nevertheless did not hinder him from redoubling his endeavours by his Letters by his Legates and by his Preachers whom he dispatched to all places to excite the Christians to take upon them the Cross and to unite the Princes of the East and West and even the Kings of the Tartars the Iberians Georgians and Armenians with their forces in the design to recover together from their Common Enemy what had been lost for want of this Union But the Evil being now believed to be desperate and without Remedy all that this Pope did and all that his Successors endeavoured to do afterwards upon this Subject was never able to produce one Crusade to procure the recovery of the Holy Land year 1296 Boniface the eighth upon the desire of Cassan King of the Tartars in Persia that the Princes of Europe would join with him in a War against the Sultan of Egypt writ indeed to them but in terms so high and lofty that there were not any who would take notice of them year 1311 Clement the fifth following the Example of his Predecessors acted in the Council of Vienna by the way of powerful exhortation and caused it to be ordained by a particular Decree that the Cross should be preached in all places for the recovery of the Holy Land and there were many of all Nations who took it upon them But as it was only a confused Multitude without any head of Reputation the Princes of those times having other interests than that of the Holy Land he gave them all absolution from their Vow and sent them back into their own Countries year 1328 That which was done upon the same Subject under Pope John the two and twentieth made a far greater Noise but produced no more effect This Pope who with a mighty passion desired the reestablishment of the Empire of the Christians in Palestine acted by Agreement for this noble end with King Philip de Valois who was then the most potent and renowned King of France especially after that glorious Victory which he obtained against the Flemmings at Cassel For this purpose he created Patriarch of Jerusalem the famous Doctor of Paris year 1330 Peter de la Palu a noble Burgundian or Brescian of the Illustrious House of the Lords of Varembon a Religious of the Order of St. Dominick and the King who had procured this Dignity for him in honour of his extraordinary Merit sent him presently after into Egypt with order to treat with the Sultan about the restitution of Jerusalem upon reasonable terms before he went to compel him to it by making War upon him with all the Forces of Europe And in the mean time Philip taking the opportunity of a Pilgrimage which he made to Marseilles to do honour to the sacred Relicks of St. Lewis Bishop of Tolouse his Kinsman went also to Avignion to conferr with the Pope concerning this great Affair where the Pope gave him the tenths of all the Ecclesiastical estates in France to be employed in the Holy War year 1334 But as this great Enterprise could not be so quickly put in Execution by reason of the troubles year 1334 which the fatal Schism of Lewis of Bavaria had raised in the Church Philip to whom the Patriarch of Jerusalem who was returned from his Ambassy had given an account of the Obstinacy of the Sultan of Egypt sent some time after to Avignion Peter de Roger Arch-Bishop of Roan a Prelate of consummate Wisdom and learning where at length a Pope was chosen to the throne of St. Peter by the name of Clement the sixth This great man very strongly harangued the Council upon the necessity of a general Crusade and upon the means which the King his Master had taken to make it successful to the glory of the Church provided that she would contribute her Authority to it He promised also with an Oath that this generous Prince should march within less than two years at the head of the Crusades so that the Pope declared him General of the Holy League and confirmed to him the Grant of the Tenths for six years and sent to him the Arch-Bishop with a most ample Commission to bestow the Cross and all the privileges and perogatives which the former Popes had granted to the other Crusades Thereupon the King in Ceremony received the Cross from the hands of the Prelate in his Chappel at Paris with John King of Bohemia and Philip King of Navarr who were then at his Court and so did the greatest part of the Barons of the Realm He also made his preparations with extreme application and excessive cost surpassing all that any of the Kings his Predecessors had done upon the like occasions causing to be rigged in several Ports the fairest Fleet that ever France had seen which was able to transport forty thousand men at Arms with their Horses and which was furnished with all sorts of Provisions in prodigious abundance He had also taken great care to publish this Crusade throughout Europe and had engaged the Kings of Arragon Majorca Sicily Cyprus and Hungary the Republicks of Venice and Genoa to joyn their Arms with his that they might all march together under his Conduct against the Sultan So that it was thought this mighty Army of Crusades would consist in three hundred thousand Combatants which already made the whole East to tremble and filled the whole Earth with the Glory of the name of France and the noise of such formidable preparations But as there is nothing more required to the fixing a mighty Engine and rendring it immoveable but to stop the secret Springs which give it that violent Impression which draws upon it the Eyes and admiration of the Spectators by its prodigious movement so the War which in the midst of these transactions Edward King
Jerusalem for whom they performed many notable Services in their Wars And for this Reason the Hospitallers divided their Community into three different Ranks of which the first was that of Knights who went to the Wars the second of Friers or Brothers Servitors who had the Charge of the Sick and the Pilgrims and the third was that of Ecclesiasticks and Chaplains who administred the Sacraments and this Company which was thus advanced into a Military Order was also confirmed by Pope Paschal the second It was in Imitation of these Armed Hospitallers that many others also much about the same time taking up the Profession of Arms at Jerusalem began to establish other new Military Orders The first were those who had the Guard of the Holy Sepulchre for many Ages and that King Baldwin the First of Canons which they were before changed them into Knights of the Holy Sepulchre They retired after the loss of the Holy Land into Italy where they setled at Perouse and continued there till such time as Pope Innocent the eighth sent them to the Knights of the Rhodes the Fathers Cordeliers succeeded them in keeping the Holy Sepulchre and to this day retain the Power of giving the Honor of Knight-hood to such noble Persons as resort thither to visit the Holy Places Some time after about the Year 1118. nine French Gentlemen of whom the Principal were Hugh de Payn and Geffry de Saint Omer going to present themselves before Guarimond the Patriarch of Jerusalem he perswaded them so Effectually that between his Hands they took upon them a Vow of Chastity and Obedience year 1118 and to employ their Lives in defending the Passes and keeping the Ways clear and free for the Pilgrims who came to the Holy Land King Baldwin gave them Lodgings in his Palace near the Temple and from thence they came to be called Templers or Knights of the Temple They continued nine Years in this manner their Number not at all Increasing and without all distinction of Habits until the Year 1128 when Pope Honorius the Second bestowed upon them at the Council of Troyes a Rule with a white Habit to which Eugenius the Third added a red Cross And after that time as they acquired a mighty Reputation by their Virtue Courage and admirable Things which they did against the Infidels so their Order grew mightily and became so Puissant by the great Estates which were every where Conferred upon them that they became equal in their Fortune to the greatest Princes But in Conclusion these great Revenues which at first were the Recompences and the Testimonies of their Merit became the Occasion of their Misfortune for from thence sprung those Disorders with which they are but too justly Reproached though possibly the Hatred into which they fell by reason of their Pride and Arrogance may have represented those Disorders greater than they were in Reality yet it is certain that they gave an Occasion to the Fathers of the Council of Vienna under Clement the Fifth utterly to Extinguish their Order the greatest part of their fair Revenues being given to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem year 1119 who about this time Conquered the Isle of Rhodes Immediately after the Establishment of this Order of the Templers that of the Knights of the Teutonick Order began being Founded by the Charity of a Rich German Lord who having had his Part in the taking of Jerusalem had resolved there to pass the remainder of his Days with his Family in the Exercises of Piety He observing that many Pilgrims and poor Soldiers of his Nation suffered extreamly in a Country where no body understood them built a Hospital at Jerusalem to receive them and some time after an Oratory in Honor of the Blessed Virgin many Germans drawn by the Example of his so great Charity joyned with him and quitting their Estates to the Use of this Hospital devoted themselves to the Service of the Poor of their Nation and there being among them many Gentlemen who had undertaken this Voyage principally with a Design to make War against the Infidels they added to this Vow that of Fighting unto Death against the Enemies of Jesus Christ herein following the Conduct Manner of Living and the Rule of the Templers until that about seventy Years after Pope Celestin the third Erected it into a military Order under the Rule of St. Augustin for those of the German Nation only giving them a white Habit with a black Cross to distinguish them from the Templers Nevertheless they could after that do no manner of great Services to Christendom in Syria by reason that the Affairs of the Christians were then become altogether Desperate about thirty eight years after the Emperor Frederick the Second Returning from his unfortunate Voyage to the Holy Land brought them all into Germany under their fourth Great Master Herman Psaltza to whom he proposed the Conquest of Prussia from the barbarous People and Pagans who at that time Inhabited there This Valiant Man entred the Country with his Knights and two thousand others who took upon them the Habit after the Example of Conrade Marquess of Thuringia who accompanied him with twenty thousand Soldiers In three Years time they made themselves Masters of all the Country Reducing the People to Christianity and Built Marienburg to be the chief Seat of their Order giving it the Name of the Holy Virgin their Protectress After which their Successors Possessed themselves of the greatest part of the Northern Countries which are on both sides of the Vistula Extending themselves and their Catholick Religion into Lithuania continually Augmenting their Power and Dominion till after a long War which they had undertaken against the King of Poland that King Jagelon Defeated them in that famous Battle wherein they lost the greatest part of their Knights who were accompanied with the Slaughter of fifty thousand of their Soldiers who remained dead upon the Place So that all Prussia being almost Revolted the Great Master to preserve his remaining Interest was obliged to do Homage for it to Casimire King of Poland Afterwards Frederick Duke of Saxony coming to be Great Master year 1118 refused to do that Homage and after that the Knights had for a long time under that Prince used their utmost Efforts to maintain their Soveraign Authority at length Albert Marquis of Brandenburgh who was chosen Great Master abandoning the Interests of the Order to Establish his own particular Designs submitted himself to King Sigismond his Uncle who of Great Master of the Order made him Duke of one part of Prussia under the Soveraignty of Poland After which this new Duke Renouncing the Catholique Religion and Violating his Vow of Knighthood Married the Princess of Denmark and in Conclusion left to his Posterity the Ducal Prussia So that after this time this Order sometimes so Celebrated and powerful having Flourished more than three hundred Years was in a manner quite Extinguished It is nevertheless still kept up in Germany where
side in Regard it was impossible to transport so many Troops but at several times which would too much protract the Business and on the other that they could not believe that all the East was able to oppose such a flourishing Army as was then on Foot the Resolution was taken to sollow the same way which Godfrey of Bullen had done and to march by Land to Constantinople but withal to follow the Emperor at some distance that so they might with more Ease have the Convenience of Provisions for the two Armies Upon the third day by Express Order from the King the Debate was handled concerning the Person who was most proper to be intrusted by the Government of the Realm during the Kings Absence in so long and dangerous a Voyage And therein the Opinion which all men had of the extraordinary Abilities of Sugerius Abbot of St. Dennis year 1146 and which was so well known by his Management of the greatest Affairs of France in the time of Lewis the Gross was so general that without any Diversity of Opinions they unanimously sollicited the King already of himself inclined to it to conferr that Trust and Honor upon him This Great Man who without all doubt was one of the most able Ministers which ever served any of our Kings was about the Age of fifty five Years of a Shape and Stature something surpassing the middle of a Meagre Countenance and a Constitution Weak and Tender of a Birth no ways Eminent but a man of a mighty Soul and of a Mind raised as high as ever any man possessed a Spirit lively Subtile Penetrating and of a Prodigious Understanding which he had also Cultivated and polished with all manner of admirable Learning and which was accompanied with a most happy Memory and a most solid Judgment Upon the matter he was Politick Dextrous Insinuating Perswasive Civil Obliging Liberal and Courteous to all Persons but on the other Hand he was a most admirable Justiciary Magnanimous Fearless Firm and Inexorable and continually opposite to those who went about to shock the Royal Authority or to abuse their own by oppressing the Weak and Poor And that which Infinitely heightned the Lustre of all these Excellent Qualities was that after he had by the Advice of St. Bernard reformed both his Monastery and himself for during the Reign of Lewis the Gross who was none of the best bred men of the World he learnt so well to accommodate all the Imploys of his Ministry with those Duties which became him as a Religious and an Abbot that he lived at the Court as if he had been in his Monastery and when he lived in his Monastrey he forgot nothing which was owing to the Court or to the Publick The King therefore following the Counsel of the Estates of France declared him Regent of the Kingdom during his Absence giving him for an Assistant to command the Military Affairs Raoul Earl of Vermandois who though he was a Prince of the Blood being Cousin to Lewis the Gross yet submitted to the Authority of the Regent without the least Jealousie or murmuring so much was that of the King reverenced even in those times though the Royal Power was not then in any measure arrived to that high Elevation and Supreme Greatness to which for the Advantage and Glory of this August Monarchy we see it raised at this day And that which was yet more extraordinary in this Choice was that this Wise Minister whose foresight was more piercing and reached further than others did not only not advise the King to undertake this Voyage but from the Beginning did all that possibly he could to oppose that Resolution foreseeing without doubt the Pernicious Consequences which according to all Appearances in his Opinion it was like to have So that it was out of pure Respect and Necessity that he was at last obliged to cease opposing it knowing that he should gain nothing but to be blamed for endeavouring to no purpose to hinder the Execution of a Design which coming from the King his Master had been approved by the General Vote of four Assemblies of all the Great Men of the Realm Notwithstanding all this Lewis without taking it amiss that he was almost the only Person in his Kingdom that did not seem to approve of this Enterprise did not fail in this occasion to do him the greatest Honor that a King can possibly do to a Subject conferring upon him the Regency that is all the Royal Power and Authority during his Absence Which makes it evident to Kings and Princes that though their Sovereign Power dispenses with them from any Obligation always to follow those Counsels which according to the Rules of Prudence they require from their Subjects and which ought to be given them with all Faithful Sincerity yet it is great Wisdom in them to leave their Counsellors at intire Liberty to give their Advice lest otherwise they give it rather according to the Inclinations of their Prince than the Sentiments of their own Reason Judgment and Conscience which ought to be the Rules of all Faithful and Wise Councellors whereas the other though they may have been Grateful to their Masters and sometimes advantagious to their Private Interests yet have too frequently proved Fatal to those who have received and followed them As for the Abbot he having at last submitted out of Respect and Duty to the Pleasure of his Master in Reference to his Voyage to the Holy Land year 1147 he made a most obstinate Resistance to that of the Honor of so great a Charge nor would he ever have accepted it had not the King as it were to compel him in a manner wholly sweet and obliging had the Goodness to have Recourse to the good Offices and even the Commands of Pope Eugenius to prevail with him to accept it for it was in this Year some time after the Convention of the Estates at Estampes that the Pope came into France both to secure himself from the Persecution of the Revolted Arnaldists as also there to determine the Differences which were very hot concerning certain new and Dangerous Propositions which were maintained by Gibert de Porea Bishop of Poitiers Eugenius was most honourably received by the King and was by the Pope reciprocally received with the Pontifical Benediction in the Church of St. Dennis where the Marks of his Pilgrimage to the Holy Land were bestowed upon him Lewis there desired the Pope to do him the Honor during his Absence to take the Realm into his Protection and the Pope to answer that Mark of Piety and Affection towards the Holy See solemnly Excommunicated all those who during the Kings Voyage should attempt any thing against the Royal Authority After which when the King had made all his Preparations and had amassed great Sums of Mony for the Subsistence of his Army even to the coining of several Sacred Vessel belonging to diverse Churches and borrowing considerable Summs of many Monasteries with
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
Council and the fourth of Lateran and one of the greatest which the Church had ever had for besides the Pope who presided in Person the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem and the Deputies of those of Antioch and Alexandria were present at it together with seventy one Archbishops four hundred and twelve Bishops with the Proxies of divers others above eight hundred Abbots and Priors and the Ambassadors of the Emperor Frederick II. Henry the Emperor of Constantinople of the Kings of England France Hungary Jerusalem Cyprus and Aragon The Pope who was a Man very learned and eloquent opened the Session by a Speech which is verbatim inserted into the Acts of the Council as he spoke it and therein after he had acquainted them that the principal Reason why he had assembled them was to consider how they might relieve the Holy Land he brought in Jerusalem addressing her self to the Christians of the West and to implore their Assistance in the Language of the holy Scripture representing in a manner so pathetick and moving the piteous Estate to which she was reduced under the Tyrannick Dominion of the Sarasins to the shame of the Christian Name that it was impossible but the whole Assembly should be moved with it or refuse taking the generous Resolution of employing all things for the Deliverance of the holy City from that cruel Servitude So that after they had established the Doctrines of the Faith against the Heresies of Berengarius Amauri de Chartres the Albigenses and the Abbot Joachim without meddling with his Person by reason that he submitted himself to the Judgment of the Holy See and after they had regulated such Matters as concerned Discipline and the Reformation of Manners the Fathers with the Consent of the Ambassadors of the Princes made these following Orders for the Crusade That the Bishops should cause it to be preached in their respective Diocesses above all enjoyning the Preachers to press it as a thing necessary for all those who took it upon them to put themselves by true Repentance into a State of Grace thereby to preserve themselves in the Favour of God year 1215 and to procure his Blessings upon them and the Vndertaking That they themselves should exhort the Kings the Princes and Persons of the greatest Quality to take upon them the Cross and to contribute to the Expences of the Holy War That the Bishops the Abbots the Priors and all other Ecclesiasticks should give the twentieth part of their Revenues and the Pope and Cardinals the tenth towards the carrying on the Crusade And to excite others by his Example to this Liberality the Pope promised that besides this Tax he would provide Shipping and great Sums of Money for the particular Maintenance of such of the Romans as should take upon them the Cross That the Crusades should have all the same Privileges Spiritual and Temporal which the former Popes had indulged to the first Crusades That they should all be in readiness to pass into Palestine by the 1st Day of June in the following Year That in the Interim those who resolved to be of the Land-Army should come to the Rendezvouz which should be appointed whither the Pope would send his Legate and that those who chose rather to go by Sea should repair to the Port of Brindes in Pavia or to Messina in Sicily where he himself would be present to take care and give Orders for what should be needful since he was not as he passionately desired permitted to pass beyond the Seas and take the Voyage with the Crusades That there should be either a Peace or a Truce among the Christian Princes for four Years and that during that time all publick Sports and Turnaments should be straitly prohibited That those who aided the Crusades or furnished them with Equipage should enjoy the Benefits of the Indulgences And on the contrary that such as favoured the Pyrates and such Christian Merchants as betrayed their Brethren by selling Arms and Ammunition to the Sarasins should as impious Traytors to God and Religion be exposed to all the Censures of the Church It must be avowed that our Ancestors who acted as exactly and prudently but with far fewer Intrigues of Nicity and Ceremony than we do at this Day were far more expeditious in the concluding of their greatest Affairs than in the succeeding Ages This great Council wherein so many and such important Matters were debated both in relation to Faith and Manners so many things of a differing Nature as the Policy and the Discipline of the Church the Peace among the Christian Princes and the War against the Insidels and almost the general Interests of all Europe was terminated in less than three Weeks continuing only between the Feast of St. Martin and that of St. Andrew a time which now would scarcely be thought sufficient for the regulating of one single Preliminary Article in an Assembly of far less importance than this was And that which is still more admirable the Execution immediately succeeded the Debates and Determinations no manner of Considerations Passions or Interests being capable of stopping or even so much as retarding it every one gladly contributing what was his part towards the Performance and Accomplishment of the whole Design The Bishops preached the Crusade in all places year 1216 with mighty Zeal and great Success and the Pope to give the greater Authority to it after he had published it in Rome went to preach it himself in Tuscany where there was an insinite of Crusades every one desiring to have the Honour to receive the Cross from his own Hands But as he was going to Pisa to accord the Differences between that Republick and the other of Genoa which did something hinder the Effect of the Crusade in his Passage by Perusa he was seized with a violent Fever occasioned by his great Pains and the excessive Heats of the Season which in a few days carried him out of the World He died the 6th Day of July in the 19th Year of his Pontificate and the 49th of his Life after having performed all the Duties of a Soveraign Pope in such perfection that there have been few of his Successors I do not say that have surpassed him but that have been equal to him and if we may give Credit to the unanimous Consent of all the Authors that write of him none greater either in Learning in Prudence in Firmness of Resolution in Authority over all the Powers of the Earth for the maintaining the Discipline of the Church in its Force and Vigour or any more zealous for the Purity of the Faith or more conversant than himself in all manner of vertuous Actions which as they are the Effects so they are upon Earth the most certain Marks of a most eminent Sanctity And from hence doubtless we may conclude year 1216 that there is nothing more Unjust or more Weak than the giving Credit to the Fable of the Apparition of this Pope being pursued by a