thousand Christians But it may justly be suspected that these numbers were written first in figures and therefore at too much length when the adding of nothing may increase many thousands These wofull tidings brought into Europe so wrought on the good disposition of Lewis King of France that he resolved to make a second voyage into Palestine to succour the Christians He so fixed his mind on the journeys end that he saw not the dangers in the way His Counsel could not disswade though they did disswade him First they urged that he was old let younger men take their turns They recounted to him his former ill successe How lately had that hot countrey scorch'd the lilies of France not onely to the blasting of the leaves but almost withering of the root Besides the sinews of the Christians in Syria were so shrunk that though lifted up they could not stand That Nature decayed but not thus wholly destroyed was the subject of physick That the Turks had got a habit of conquering and riveted themselves into the possession of the countrey so that this voyage would but fleet the cream of the Kingdome to cast it into the fire But as a vehement flame maketh feuel of whatsoever it meeteth so this Kings earnest resolution turned bridles into spurres and hind rances into motives to his journey Was he old let him make the more speed lest envious death should prevent him of this occasion of honour Had he sped ill formerly he would seek his credit where he lost it Surely Fortunes lottery had not all blanks but that after long drawing he should light on a prize at last Were the Christians in so low a case the greater need they had of speedy help Thus was this good Kings judgement over-zealed And surely though Devotion be the naturall heat Discretion which wanted in him is the radicall moisture of an action keeping it healthfull prosperous and long-lived Well King Lewis will go and to this end provideth his navie and is accompanied with Philip and Tristram his Sonnes Theobald King of Navarre his sonne in law Alphonse his brother and Guido Earl of Flanders There went also Edward eldest sonne to Henry King of England It was a wonder he would now adventure his head when he was to receive a Crown his father being full-ripe to drop down without gathering having reigned longer then most men live fifty and five yeares But thirsty was this Edward of honour Longshanks was he called and as his strides were large so vast and wide was the extent of his desire As for his good Father he was content to let go the staff of his age for to be a prop to the Church And though King Lewis was undiscreet in going this journey he was wise in choosing this his companion to have this active Prince along with him it being good to eye a suspicious person and not to leave him behind With Edward went his brother Edmund Earl of Lancaster surnamed Crouch-back not that he was crook-shouldered or camel-backed From which our English Poet most zealously doth vindicate him Edmond like him the comeliest Prince alive Not crook-bac'd ne in no wise disfigured As some men write the right line to deprive Though great falsehood made it to be scriptured but from the Crosse anciently called a Crouch whence Crouched Friars which now he wore in his voyage to Jerusalem And yet it maketh it somewhat suspicious that in Latine records he is never read with any other epithet then Gibbosus But be he crooked or not let us on straight with our story Chap. 27. King Lewis besiegeth the city of Tunis His death and commendation LEwis now having hoised up sail it was concluded by the generall consent of his Counsell That to secure and clear the Christians passage to Palestine from pirates they should first take the city of Carthage in Africa by the way This Carthage long wrastled with Rome for the sovereignty and gave as many foils as she took till Scipio at last crushed out her bowels with one deadly fall Yet long after the city stood before wholly demolished to be a spurre to put metall into the Romanes and to be a forrain mark for their arrows lest otherwise they should shoot against themselves At last by the counsel of Cato it was quite destroyed who alledged That it was not safe to have a knife so near their throat and though good use might be made of an enemy at arms end yet it was dangerous to have him too close to ones side as Carthage was within a dayes sail from Rome Out of the ruines of this famous citie Tunis arose as often a stinking elder groweth out of the place where an oak hath been felled Thieving was their trading but then as yet they were Apprentices to pâ—racie whereof at this day they are grown Masters Yea not considerable was Tunis then in bignesse great onely in mischief But as a small scratch just upon the turning of a joynt is more troublesome then a bigger sore in another place so this paltry town the refuge of rogues and wanderers home seated in the passage betwixt Europe Asia and Africa was a worse annoyance to Christian traffick then a whole countrey of Saracens elsewhere Wherefore both to revenge the bloud of many Christians who passing this way to Palestine were either killed or taken captive as also to secure the way for the time to come Lewis with his whole fleet augmented with the navy of Charles King of Sicilie and Jerusalem his brother bent his course to besiege it It was concluded both unnecessary and unfitting first in a fair way to summon the city because like pernicious vermine they were to be rooted out of the world by any means nor was it meet to lavish the solemn ceremonies of warre on a company of thieves and murderers The siege was no sooner begun but the plague seised on the Christian armie whereof thousands died amongst others Tristram King Lewis his sonne And he himself of a flux followed after This Lewis was the French Josia both for the piety of his life and wofulnesse of his death ingaging himself in a needlesse warre Many good laws he made for his Kingdome that not the worst He first retrenched his Barons power to suffer parties to trie their intricate titles to land by duells He severely punished blasphemers fearing their lips with an hot iron And because by his command it was executed upon a great rich citizen of Paris some said he was a tyrant He hearing it said before many I would to God that with fearing my own lips I could banish out of my realm all abuse of oaths He loved more to heare Sermons then to be present at Masse whereas on the contrary our Henry the third said he had rather see his God then hear another speak of him though never so well His body was carried into France there to be buried and was most miserably tossed it being
and to gather the nation into a bundle to be cast into the fire of his anger Besides those who were slain ninety seven thousand were taken captives and they who had bought our Saviour for thirty pence were themselves sold thirty for a pennie The Generall of the Romanes in this action was Titus sonne to Vespasian the Emperour A Prince so good that he was styled the Darling of mankind for his sweet and loving nature and pity it was so good a stock had not been better grafted so virtuously disposed that he may justly be counted the glory of all Pagans and shame of most Christians He laboured what lay in his power to have saved the temple and many therein but the Jews by their obstinacy and desperateness made themselves uncapable of any mercy Then was the temple it self made a sacrifice and burnt to ashes and of that stately structure which drew the Apostles admiration not a stone left upon a stone The walls of the city more shaken with the sinnes of the Jews defending them then with the battering rammes of the Romanes assaulting them were levelled to the ground onely three towres left standing to witnesse the great strength of the place and greater valour of the Romanes who conquered it But whilest this storme fell on the unbelieving Jews it was calm amongst the Christians who warned by Christs predictions and many other prodigies fled betimes out of the city to Pella a private place beyond Jordan which served them in stead of a little Zoar to save them from the imminent destruction Chap. 2. How Iudea was dispeopled of Iews by Adrian the Emperour THreescore years after Adrian the Emperour rebuilt the city of Jerusalem changing the situation somewhat westward and the name thereof to Aelia To despite the Christians he built a temple over our Saviours grave with the images of Jupiter and Venus another at Bâ—thlâ—hâ—m to Adonis her minion and to enrage the Jews did engrave swine over the gates of the city Who storming at the profanation of their land brake into open rebellion but were subdued by Julius Severus the Emperours lieutenant an experienced captain and many thousands slain with Bencochab their counterfeit Messias for so he termed himself that is the sonne of a star usurping that prophesie Out of Iacob shall a star arise though he proved but a fading comet whose blazing portended the ruine of that nation The captives by order from Adrian were transported into Spain the countrey laid waste which parted with her people and fruitfulnesse both together Indeed pilgrims to this day here and there light on parcels of rich ground in Palestine which God may seem to have left that men may tast the former sweetnesse of the land before it was sowred for the peoples sinnes and that they may guesse the goodnesse of the cloth by the finenesse of the shreds But it is barren for the generality the streams of milk and hony wherewith once it flowed are now drained dry and the whole face of the land looketh sad not so much for want of dressing as because God hath frowned on it Yet great was the oversight of Adrian thus totally to unpeople a province and to bequeath it to foxes and leopards Though his memory was excellent yet here he forgot the old Romanes rule who to prevent desolations where they rooted out the natives planted in colonies of their own people And surely the countrey recovered not a competency of inhabitants for some hundred years after For though many pilgrimes came thither in after-ages yet they came rather to visit then to dwell and such as remained there most embracing single lives were no breeders for posterity If any say that Adrian did wilfully neglect this land and prostitute it to ruine for the rebellion of the people yet all account it small policy in him in punishing the Jews to hurt his own Empire and by this vastation to leave fair and clear footing for forrein enemies to fasten on this countrey and from thence to invade the neighbouring dominions as after the Persians and Saracens easily overran and dispeopled Palestine and no wonder if a thin medow were quickly mown But to return to the Jews Such straglers of them not considerable in number as escaped this banishment into Spain for few hands reap so clean as to leave no gleanings were forbidden to enter into Jerusalem or so much as to behold it from any rise or advantage of ground Yet they obtained of the after-Emperours once a year namely on the tenth of August whereon their citie was taken to go in and bewail the destruction of their temple and people bargaining with the souldiers who waited on them to give so much for so long abiding there and if they exceeded the time they conditioned for they must stretch their purses to a higher rate So that as S. Hierome noteth they who bought Christs bloud were then glad to buy their own tears Chap. 3. Of the present wofull condition of the Iews and of the small hope and great hinderances of their conversion THus the main body of the Jews was brought into Spain and yet they stretched their out-limbs into every countrey so that it was as hard to find a populous city without a common sink as without a company of Jews They grew fat on the barest pasture by usury and brokage though often squeezed by those Christians amongst whom they lived counting them dogs and therefore easily finding a stick to beat them And alwayes in any tumult when the fence of order was broken the Jews lay next harms as at the coronation of Richard the first when the English made great feasts but the pillaged Jews paid the shot At last for their many villanies as falsifying of coin poysoning of springs crucifying of Christian children they were slain in some places and finally banished out of others Out of England anno 1291 by Edward the first France 1307 by Philip the fair Spain 1492 by Ferdinand Portugall 1497 by Emmanuel But had these two latter Kings banished all Jewish bloud out of their countreys they must have emptied the veins of their best subjects as descended from them Still they are found in great numbers in Turkie chiefly in Salonichi where they enjoy the freest slavery and they who in our Saviours time so scorned Publicanes are now most employed in that office to be the Turks toll-gatherers Likewise in the Popish parts of Germany in Poland the Pantheon of all religions and Amsterdam may be forfeited to the King of Spain when she cannot shew a pattern of this as of all other sects Lastly they are thick in the Popes dominions where they are kept as a testimony of the truth of the Scriptures and foyl to Christianity but chiefly in pretence to convert them But his Holinesse his converting faculty worketh the strongest at the greatest distance for the Indians he turneth to his religion and these Jews he converteth to his
allowance little feared of his foes and as little loved of his friends The more martiall Christians sleighted him as a slug and neglected so lazy a leader that could not keep pace with those that were to follow him Yea they refused whilest he was Protectour at his command to fight with Saladine and out of distast to their Generall suffered their enemy freely to forrage which was never done before For the Christians never met any Turks wandring in the Holy land but on even terms they would examine their passe-port how sufficient it was and bid them battel Guy stormed at his displacing and though little valiant yet very sullen left the Court in discontent went home and fortified his cities of Joppa and Askelon What should King Baldwine do in this case Whom should he make Protectour Guy had too little Reimund too much spirit for the place He feared Guy's cowardlinesse lest he should lose the kingdome to the Turks and Reimunds treachery lest he should get it for himself Thus anguish of mind and weaknesse of body a doughtie conquest for their united strengths which single might suffice ended this Kings dayes dying young at five and twenty years of age But if by the morning we may guesse at the day he would have been no whit inferiour to any of his predecesssours sours especially if his body had been able but alas it spoiled the musick of his soul that the instrument was quite out of tune He reigned twelve years and was buried in the Temple of the Sepulchre a King happy in this that he died before the death of his Kingdome Chap. 43. The short life and wofull death of Baldwine the fifth an infant Guy his father in law succeedeth him IT is a rare happinesse of the family of S. Laurence Barons of Hoath in Ireland that the heirs for 400 years together alwayes have been of age before the death of their fathers For Minors have not onely baned families but ruined realms It is one of Gods threatnings I will give children to be their Princes and babes shall rule over them With this rod God strook the Kingdome of Jerusalem thrice in fourty years Baldwine the third fourth and fifth being all under age and this last but five years old He was the posthumus sonne of William Marquesse of Montferrat by Sibyll his wife sister to Baldwine the fourth daughter to King Almerick She afterwards was married to Guy Earl of Joppa and Askelon Now Reimund Earl of Tripoli challenged to be Protectour of this young King by the virtue of an Act of the former King so assigning him But Sibyll mother to this infant to defeat Reimund first murdered all natural affection in her self and then by poyson murdered her son that so the Crown in her right might come to her husband Guy This Baldwine reigned eight moneths eight dayes saith mistaken Munster and some mistake more who make him not to reign at all cruel to wrong his memory of his honour whom his mother had robbed both of his life and Kingdome His death was concealed till Guy his father in law had obtained by large bribes to the Templars and Heraclius the Patriarch to be crowned King One more ennobled with his descent from the ancient family of the Lusignans in Poictou then for any eminency in himself His gifts were better then his endowments Yet had he been more fortunate he would have been accounted more virtuous men commonly censuring that the fault of the King which is the fate of the Kingdome And now the Christian affairs here posted to their wofull period being spurred on by the discords of the Princes Chap. 44. Church-affairs Of Haymericus Patriarch of Antioch Of the Grecian Anti-Patriarchs and of the learned Theodorus Balsamon WHilest Heraclius did Patriarch it in Jerusalem one Haymericus had the same honour at Antioch He wrote to Henry the second King of England a bemoning letter of the Christians in the East and from him received another fraught with never performed fair promises This man must needs be different from that Haymericus who began his Patriarchship in Antioch anno 1143 and sate but twelve years say the Centuriatours But Baronius as different from them sometimes in Chronologie as Divinity maketh them the same Then must he be a through-old man enjoying his place above fourty years being probably before he wore the style of Patriarch well worn in years himself I must confesse it passeth my Chymistry to exact any agreement herein out of the contrariety of writers We must also take notice that besides the Latine Patriarchs in Jerusalem and Antioch there were also Grecian Anti-Patriarchs appointed by the Emperour of Constantinople who having no temporall power nor profit by Church-lands had onely jurisdiction over those of the Greek Church We find not the chain of their succession but here and there light on a link and at this time in Jerusalem on three successively 1. Athanasius whom though one out of his abundant charity is pleased to style a Schismatick yet was he both pious and learned as appeareth by his epistles 2. Leontius commended likewise to posterity for a good Clerk and an honest man 3. Dositheus inferiour to the former in both respects Isaac the Grecian Emperour sent to make him Patriarch of Constantinople and Dositheus catching at both held neither but betwixt two Patriarchs chairs fell to the ground Antioch also had her Greek Patriarchs As one Sotericus displaced for maintaining some unsound tenets about our Saviour After him Theodorus Balsamon the oracle of the learned Law in his age He compiled and commented on the ancient Canons and principally set forth the priviledges of Constantinople listening say the Romanists to the least noise that soundeth to the advancing of the Eastern Churches and knocking down Rome wheresoever it peepeth above Constantinople This maketh Bellarmine except against him as a partial writer because a true Historian should be neither party advocate nor judge but a bare witnesse By Isaac the Grecian Emperour this Balsamon was also deceived he pretended to remove him to Constantinople on condition he would prove the translation of the Patriarch to be legall which is forbidden by the Canons Balsamon took upon him to prove it and a Lawyers brains will beat to purpose when his own preferment is the fee. But herein he did but crack the nut for another to eat the kernel For the Emperour mutable in his mind changing his favourites as well as his cloâ—hes before they were old when the legality of the translation was avowed bestowed the Patriarchship of Constantinople on another and Theodorus was still staked down at Antioch in a true spirituall preferment affording him little bodily maintenance Chap. 45. The revolt of the Earl of Tripoli The Christians irrecoverably overthrown and their King taken prisoner THere was at this time a truce betwixt the Christians and Saladine broken on this occasion Saladines mother went from
themselves to rest and appointing a set watch they all lay in a manner Perdues no one slumbering all night but attending their enemies contrary to the rules of an armie which with Argus should never have all its eyes wake or sleep together Next morning when the Turks whose numbers were much in creased set upon them alas they being but few to many faint to fresh were not able to make any forcible resistance Yet what they could not pay in present they pawned their lives for that their arms being too weak for their hearts they were rather killed then conquered Earl Henry was slain Almerick taken prisoner the King of Navarre escaped by the swiftnesse of his Spanish gennet which race for their winged speed the Poets feigned to be begot of the wind Mean time the other Christians looked on and saw their brethren slaughtered before their eyes and yet though they were able to help them were not able to help them their hands being tied with the truce and Reinoldus charging them no way to infringe the peace concluded with the Sultan Hereupon many cursed him as the Christians cut-throat he as fast condemned the King of Navarre and his army for breaking the truce And though the Papall faction pleaded that the former peace concluded not these late adventurers and that it was onely made with Frederick the Emperour yet he representing the whole body of Christianity all the bundle of their shifts could not piece out a satisfactory answer but that they were guilty of faith-breaking Home hastened the King of Navarre with a small retinue clouding himself in privatenesse as that actour who cometh off with the dislike of the spectatours stealeth as invisibly as he may into the tiring-house Expectation that friendly foe did him much wrong and his performance fell the lower because men heightened their looking for great maters from him Chap. 8. Richard Earl of Cornwall saileth to the Holy land His performance there and the censure thereof FIfteen dayes after the departure of Theobald Richard Earl of Cornwall brother to Henry the third then King of England landed at Ptolemais This Prince was our English Crassus or Croesus Cornwall was his Indies where he turned tinne into gold and silver So well-moneyed he was that for ten years together he might for every day expend an hundred marks So that England never since had together a poorer King and a richer Subject Before he began his voyage he craved a subsidie of prayers from the Monks of S. Albanes Yea scarce was there any Covent appearing for piety to whose devotions he recommended not himself counting that ship to fail the surest which is driven with the breath of godly mens prayers Theodoricus Lord Prior of the English Hospitallers with many other Barons and brave souldiers attending him passed through France and was there honourably entertained by King Lewis Being come to the Mediterranean sea the Popes Legate brought him a flat countermand that he must go no further but instantly return Richard at first was astonished hereat but quickly his anger got the mastery of his amazement and he fell on fuming Was this Christ Vicar Unlike was he to him who was thus unlike to himself who would say and unsay solemnly summon then suddenly cashier his Holy souldiers This was deluding of peoples devotions with false alarms to make them put their armour on to put it off again As for his own self he had vowed this voyage his honour and treasure was ingaged therein and the Pope should not blast his settled resolutions with a breath his ships were manned victualled and sailing forward and in such great actions the setting forth is more then half the journey All know his Holinesse to be too wary an archer to shoot away his arrows at nothing He had a mark herein a plot in this restraint but that too deep for others to fathom It could not be this To make this rich Earl a fish worth angling for to commute his voyage into money and to buy a dispensation of his Holinesse to stay at home as formerly he had served many meaner Pilgrimes Surely though the Popes covetousnesse might have prompted his wisdome would have disswaded him from a project spunne with so course a threed On saileth Earl Richard and safely arriveth at Ptolemais where he is well welcomed especially by the Clergy solemnly singing Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. He proclaimed No Christian should depart for want of pay for he would entertain any and give them good wages that would do work in this warre But he found the Christians there shivered into severall factions and the two great Orders Hospitallers and Templars two great confusions of the Holy cause Of these the Hospitallers were the seniors in standing their originall being dated eighteen years before the Templars and therefore challenged superiority But that which made the younger brother so brisk was that he was his fathers darling The Templars in all their broils had support from the Pope because the others were suspected to have a smack of the Imperiall faction This made them active daring offering of affronts And what countrey-men soever the Templars were they were alwayes Italians that is true to the Triple Crown These being madded with ambition were the more outragious for their high fare their great revenues and deserved to be dieted with a poorer pittance except they would have used their strength better Our Earl knew to please one side would certainly displease the other and to please both would probably please neither Wherefore he managed his matters entirely to himself without relating to either of the parties taking no ground of their giving but bowling at the publick good by the aim of his own eye The Sultans in Syria for the Turkish power there was divided into severall Sultanies as those of Damascus Cracci Seisser but Babylon the chiefest hearing of Richards preparations profered peace unto him But whilest as yet the conditions were in suspense Richard fortified Askelon in all the bunch there was not a better key or harbour of more importance not onely to strength but state with marble pillars and statues though the silent ruines thereof at this day confesse not to the beholders that any such cost was ever bestowed there He also caused the corpses of the Christians killed at the late battel at Gaza and hitherto unburied decently to be interred and appointed an annuall salarie to a Priest to pray for their souls Hereby he had the happinesse with little cost to purchase much credit and the living being much taken with kindnesse to the dead this burying of those Christians with pious persons wonne him as much repute as if he killed so many Turks At last the truce for ten years was concluded with the Sultan all Christian captives were discharged and set free many forts of them restored and matters for the main reduced to the same estate they were at the first peace
   12 42 15 4     13 43 16 5   60000 crowns bequeathed by the K. of Fr. to the Hospit and Templars  14 44 17 6  XIIII GERALDUS XIIII GUARENUS de Monte acuto OLIVER 15 45 18 7     16 TAHER S. 1 19 8  A bitter enemy he was to Frederick the Emperour and sided with the Pope and Templars against him   17 2 20 9     The 〈◊〉 Kâ—ighâ—s under Hermannus their Master come into Prussia yet so as many of them still remained in Syria 18 3 21 10     19 4 22 11    An inveterate enemie to Frederick whom he most spitefully and treacherously used 20  23 12 The Pr. of Antioch dieth without lawfull issue    21  24 13   XVI BERTRANDUS de Campis  22  25 14 FREDERICK base S. to Fred. the Emp. is by Reinoldus Vice-â—oy of Jerurusalem made Pr. of Antioch in spite of Henr. K. of Cyprus who claimed that place 1    23  26 15 2    24  27 16 3    25 MUSTENATZER 28 17 Anno Dom. Popes Emper. of the East Emper. of the West Kings of England Kings of France Holy Warre and Kings of Ierusalem 1235 9 8 24 19 9 9 6 10 9 25 20 10 10 7 11 10 26 21 11 11 8 12 11 27 22 12 The former ten-ten-years Truce expired Reinold concludeth another of the same term 12 9 13 12 28 23 13 10. VOYAGE under Theobald King of Navarre 13 1240 14 13 29 24 14 He is unfortunately overthrown in battel at Gaza 14 1 M. 5. CELESTINE the â—ouâ—th 14 30 25 15 11. VOYAGE under Richard Earl of Cornwall 15 2 D. 17. The See void 15 31 26 16 16 3 INNOCEâ—TIUS the fourth 1 16 32 27 17 17 4 2 17 33 28 18 The Corasines conquer the Christians and sack Jerusalem 18 5 3 18 34 29 19 19 6 4 19 35 30 20 20 7 5 20 36 31 21 12. VOYAGE under S. Lewis King of France 21 8 6 21 37 32 22 He arriveth in Cyprus and there wintereth 22 9 7 22 38 33 23 taketh Damiata beateth the Saracens 23 1250 8 23 INTERRâ—GNUM of 23 years wherein there were many Competiours for the Empire 1 34 24 Robert Earl of Artois slain Lewis taken prisoner INTERREGNUM of 14 years 1 1 9 24 2 35 25 The Pastorells overthrown in France 2 2 10 25 3 36 26 King Lewis being ransomed cometh into Palestine recovereth and fortifieth Sidon 3 3 11 26 4 37 27 returneth into France 4 4 M. 5. D. 14. 27 5 38 28 5 Princes of Antioch Patriarchs of Ierusalem Mrs of Kn. Hospitallers Mrs of Kn. Templars Mrs of Dutch Kn. Caliphs of Syria  Turkish Kâ— of Egypt 4    26   29 18 5    27   30 19 6    28   31 20 7    29   32 21 8    30   33 22 9    31   34 23 10 X V. ROBERTUS  HERMANNUS Peâ—ragorinus M. Pariâ— pag. 726. V. CONRADE Landâ—grave of Hassia 1   35 24 11  XVII PETRUS de Villebride  2   36 25 12    3   37 26 13 He was in the battel against the Corasines as appeareth in M. Paris where he writeth a bemoning letter taken captive by the Corasines M. Paris pag. 833. All the Templars slain to eighteen the Hospitallers to nineteen the Dutch Knights to three 4   38 27 14    5   39 28 15    6   40 29 The Antiochians fighting unadvisedly with the Turks are overthrown 16    7   he dieth at Damiata's taking 30     8   MELECHSALA 1     9   Mammaluke Sultans of Egypt 2  The Paâ—â—iarch of Jeâ—usalem was taken prisoner with the King of France Magdeburg Ceâ— 13. Col. 697. All the Hospitallers with their Master slain to one All the Templars with their Master slain to two 10   TARQUEMINUS 1 CONRADE â— to Frederick Prince of Antioch  XIX HUGO REVEL He made a stature whereby women were admitted into this Order  11   2     12  Great ChaÌ„s of Tartary 3     VI. POPPO 1  MANGO perswaded by Haito K. of Armenia to turn Christian. 1 4     2  2 Anno Dom. Popes Emper. of the East Emper. of the West Kings of England Kings of France Holy Warre and Kings of Ierusalem 1255 ALEXANDER the fourth 2 28 6 39 29 6 6 3 29 7 40 30 7 7 4 30 8 41 31 8 8 5 31 9 42 32 These 10 yeares following the Genoans fighting against the Venetians and Pisans baâ—â—en the ruine of the Christians in Paleâ—tine 9 9 6 32 10 43 33 10 1260 M. 5. D. 5. MICHAEL Palaeologus 1 11 44 34 11 1 URBANE the fourth 1 2 12 45 35 12 2 2 3 13 46 36 13 3 3 4 14 47 37 14 4 M. 1. D. 4. 5 15 48 38 CHARLES Earl of Anjou by the Pope made King of Jerusalem and Sicilie 1 5 CLEMENT the fourth 1 6 16 49 39 2 6 2 7 17 50 40 3 7 3 8 18 51 41 4 8 M. 9. D. 25. 9 19 52 42 1 HUGH King of Cyprus 1â— VOYAGE under St Lewis King of France 5 9 The See void 10 20 53 43 6 1270  11 21 54 44 2 Charles of Sicilie and our Prince Edward Tunis taken Lewis dieth 7 1 GREGORY the tenth 1 12 22 55 PHILIP the Bold 1 3 Prince Edward cometh to Pâ—olemais 8 2 2 13 23 56 2 4 is desperately wounded yet recovereth 9 3 3 14 RODULPHUS ab Haspurg 1 EDWARD the first 1 3 5 10 4 4 15 2 2 4 6 11 Princes of Antioch Patriarchs of Ierusalem Mrs of Kn. Hospitallers Masters of Dutch Kn. Caliphs of Syria Great Chaâ—s of Tatary Mammaluke Sultuns of Egypt  XVI PANTALEON a Frenchman  3  3     4 MUSTEAZEM the last Caliph of Syria a covetous miser conquered by the Tartarians 2 4 MELECH otherwise called CLOTHES    5  5     6  Haalach Brâ—o Mango taketh the citie of Babylon 6     7  7  Haalach the Tartarian cometh to Antioch is there kindly entertained by Prince Conrade   8  8 BENDOCDAR 1  He is made Pope by the name of Urbane the fourth Platina  9  HAALAâ—H succeedeth his Br. Mango 1 2    10  2 3    11  3 4 Conrade cometh into Europe to succour Contadine his kinsman   12  ABAGA Cham his S. 1 He winneth the kingdome
all other people most to worship the sunne setting Chap. 6. Godfreys death and buriall AUthours differ on the death of this noble King some making him to die of that long-wasting sicknesse others of the plague It may be the plague took him out of the hands of that lingring disease and quickly cut off what that had been long in fretting He died July 18. having reigned one yeare wanting five dayes A Prince valiant pious bountifull to the Church for besides what he gave to the Patriarch he founded Canons in the temple of the Sepulchre and a monastery in the vale of Jehoshaphat We would say his death was very unseasonable leaving the orphane State not onely in its minority but its infancy but that that fruit which to mans apprehension is blown down green and untimely is gathered full-ripe in Gods providence He was buried in the temple of the Sepulchre where his tombe is inviolated at this day whether out of a religion the Turks bear to the place or out of honour to his memory or out of a valiant scorn to fight against dead bones or perchance the Turks are minded as John King of England was who being wished by a Courtier to untombe the bones of one who whilest he was living had been his great enemy Oh no said King John would all mine enemies were as honourably buried Chap. 7. Baldwine chosen King He keepeth Ierusalem in despite of the Patriarch GOdfrey being dead the Christians with a joynt consent dispatched an embassie to Baldwine his Brother Count of Edessa a city in Arabia the lord whereof had adopted this Baldwine to be his heir entreated him to accept of the Kingdome which honourable offer he courteously embraced A Prince whose body Nature cut of the largest size being like Saul higher by the head then his subjects And though the Goths had a law alwayes to choose a short thick man for their King yet surely a goodly stature is most majesticall His hair and beard brown face fair with an eagles nose which in the Persian Kings was anciently observed as a mark of magnanimity Bred he was a scholar entred into Orders and was Prebendary in the churches of Rhemes Liege and Cambray but afterwards turned secular Prince as our Athelwulphus who exchanged the mitre of Winchester for the crown of England Yet Bald wine put not off his scholarship with his habit but made good use thereof in his reign For though bookishnesse may unactive yet learning doth accomplish a Prince and maketh him sway his sceptre the steadier He was properly the first King of Jerusalem his brother Godfrey never accounted more then a Duke and was crowned on Christmas-day The reason that made him assume the name of a King was thereby to strike the greater terrour into the Pagans Thus our Kings of England from the dayes of King John were styled but Lords of Ireland till Henry the 8. first entituled himself King because Lord was sleighted by the seditious rebells As for that religious scruple which Godfrey made to wear a crown of gold where Christ wore one of thorns Baldwine easily dispensed therewith And surely in these things the mind is all A crown might be refused with pride and worn with humility But before his Coronation there was a tough bickering about the city of Jerusalem Dabert the Patriarch on the death of Godfrey devoured Jerusalem and the tower of David in his hope but coming to take possession found the place too hot for him For Garnier Earl of Gretz in the behalf of King Baldwine who was not yet returned from Edessa manned it against him But so it happened that this valiant Earl died three dayes after which by Dabert was counted a just judgement of God upon him for his sacriledge Now though it be piety to impute all events to Gods hand yet to say that this mans death was for such a sinne sheweth too much presumption towards God and too little charity towards our neighbour Indeed if sudden death had singled out this Earl alone it had somewhat favoured their censure but there was then a generall mortality in the city which swept away â— thousands and which is most materiall what this Patriarch interpreted sacriledge others accounted loyalty to his Sovereign As for that donation of the city of Jerusalem and tower of David which Godfrey gave to the Patriarch some thought that this gift overthrew it self with its own greatnesse being so immoderately large others supposed it was but a personall act of Godfrey and therefore died with the giver as conceiving his successours not obliged to perform it because it was unreasonable that a Prince should in such sort fetter and restrain those which should come after him Sure it is that Baldwine having both the stronger sword and possession of the citie kept it perforce whilest the Patriarch took that leave which is allowed to loosers to talk chafe and complain sending his bemoaning letters to Boemund Prince of Antioch inviting him to take arms and by violence to recover the Churches right but from him received the uselesse assistance of his pity and that was all Chap. 8. The Church-story during this Kings reigne A chain of successive Patriarchs Dabert Ebremare Gibelline and Arnulphus Their severall characters AFterwards this breach betwixt the King and Patriarch was made up by the mediation of some friends but the skinne onely was drawn over not dead flesh drawn out of the wound and Arnulphus whom we mentioned before discontented for his losse of the Patriarchs place still kept the sore raw betwixt them At last Dabertus the Patriarch was fain to flee to Antioch where he had plentifull maintenance allowed him by Bernard Patriarch of that See But he was too high in the instep to wear another mans shoes and conceived himself to be but in a charitable prison whilest he lived on anothers benevolence Wherefore hence he hasted to Rome complained to the Pope and received from his Holinesse a command to King Baldwine to be reestablished in the Patriarchs place but returning home died by the way at Messana in Sicily being accounted seven years Patriarch four at home and three in banishment Whilest Dabert was thrust out one Ebremarus was made Patriarch against his will by King Baldwine An holy and devout man but he had more of the dove then the serpent and was none of the deepest reach He hearing that he was complained of to the Pope for his irregular election posted to Rome to excuse himself shewing he was chosen against his will and though preferment may not be snatched it needs not be thrust away But all would not do It was enough to put him out because the King put him in Wherefore he was commanded to return home and to wait the definitive sentence which Gibellinus Archbishop of Arles and the Popes Legate should pronounce in the matter Gibellinus coming to Jerusalem concluded the election
of Ebremarus to be illegall and void and was himself chosen Patriarch in his place and the other in reverence of his piety made Archbishop of Cesarea And though Arnulphus the firebrand of this Church desired the Patriarchs place for himself yet was he better content with Gibellinus his election because he was a through-old man and hoped that candle would quickly go out that was in the socket To this Gibellinus King Baldwine granted that all places which he or his successours should winne should be subject to his jurisdiction and this also was confirmed by Pope Paschall the 2. But Bernard Patriarch of Antioch found himself much aggrieved hereat because many of these cities by the ancient canon of the Council of Nice were subject to his Church At last the Pope took the matter into his hand and stroked the angry Patriarch of Antioch into gentlenesse with good language He shewed how since the Council of Nice the countrey had got a new face ancient mountains were buried rivers drowned in oblivion and they new christened with other names Yea the deluge of the Saracens tyranny had washed away the bounds of the Churches jurisdictions that now they knew not their own severals where Mahometanisme so long had made all common and waste He desired him therefore to be contented with this new division of their jurisdictions especially because it was reasonable that the King of Jerusalem and his successours should dispose of those places which they should winne with their own swords Bernard perceiving hereby how his Holinesse stood affected in the businesse contented his conscience that he had set his title on foot and then quietly let it fall to the ground as counting it no policy to shew his teeth where he durst not bite Gibellinus never laid claim to the city of Jerusalem whether it was in thankfulnesse for this large ecclesiasticall power which King Baldwine had bestowed upon him or that his old age was too weak to strive with so strong an adversary He sate four years in his chair and Arnulphus thinking he went too slow to the grave is suspected to have given him something to have mended his pace and was himself substituted in his room by the especiall favour of K. Baldwine This Arnulphus was called mala corona as if all vices met in him to dance a round And no wonder if the King being himself wantonly disposed advanced such a man for generally loose Patrons cannot abide to be pinched and pent with over-strict Chaplains Besides it was policy in him to choose such a Patriarch as was liable to exceptions for his vitious life that so if he began to bark against the King his mouth might be quickly stopped Arnulphus was as quiet as a lamb and durst never challenge his interest in Jerusalem from Godfreys donation as fearing to wrastle with the King who had him on the hip and could out him at pleasure for his bad manners Amongst other vices he was a great church-robber who to make Emmelor his niece a Princesse and to marry Eustace Prince of Sidon gave her the city of Jericho for her dowrie and lands belonging to his See worth five thousand crowns yearly And though Papists may pretend that marriage causeth covetousnesse in the Clergy yet we shall find when the Prelacy were constrained to a single life that their nephews are more church-bread then now the children of married Ministers Yea some Popes not onely fed their bastards with church-milk but even cut off the churches breasts for their pompous and magnificent maintenance And thus having dispatched the story of the Church in this Kings reigne we come now to handle the businesse of the Common-wealth entirely by it self Chap. 9. A mountain-like army of new adventurers after long and hard travail delivered of a mouse Alexius his treachery THe fame of the good successe in Palestine summoned a new supply of other Pilgrimes out of Christendome Germany and other places which were sparing at the first voyage made now amends with double liberality The chief adventurers were Guelpho Duke of Bavaria who formerly had been a great champion of the Popes against Henry the Emperour and from him they of the Papall faction were denominated Guelphes in distinction from the Imperiall party which were called Gibellines Hugh brother to the King of France and Stephen Earl of Blois both which had much suffered in their reputation for deserting their fellows in the former expedition and therefore they sought to unstain their credits by going again Stephen Earl of Burgundy William Duke of Aquitain Frederick Count of Bogen Hugh brother to the Earl of Tholose besides many great Prelates Diemo Archbishop of Saltzburg the Bishops of Millain and Pavie which led 50000 out of Lombardy the totall summe amounting to 250000. All stood on the tiptoes of expectation to see what so great an army would atchieve men commonly measuring victories by the multitudes of the souldiers But they did nothing memorable save onely that so many went so farre to do nothing Their sufferings are more famous then their deeds being so consumed with plague famine and the sword that Conrade Abbot of Urspurg who went and wrote this voyage believeth that not a thousand of all these came into Palestine and those so poore that their bones would scarce hold together so that they were fitter to be sent into an hospitall then to march into the field having nothing about them wherewith to affright their enemies except it were the ghost-like ghastlinesse of their famished faces The army that came out of Lombardy were so eaten up by the swords of the Turks that no fragments of them were left nor news to be heard what was become of them And no wonder being led by Prelates unexperienced in martiall affairs which though perchance great Clerks were now to turn over a new leaf which they had no skill to reade Luther was wont to say that he would be unwilling to be a souldier in that army where Priests were Captains because the Church and not the Camp was their proper place whereas going to warre they willingly outed themselves of Gods protection being out of their vocation But the main matter which made this whole voyage miscarry in her travail was the treachery of the midwife through whose hands it was to passe For Alexius the Grecian Emperour feared lest betwixt the Latines in the East in Palestine and West in Europe as betwixt two milstones his Empire lying in the midst should be ground to powder Whereupon as these Pilgrims went through his countrey he did them all possible mischief still under pretence of kindnesse What hinderer to a false helper calling the chief Captains of the army his sonnes but they found it true The more courtesie the more craft Yea this deep disâ—embler would put off his vizard in private and professe to his friends that he delighted as much to see the Turks and these Christians in battel as to see
the other besieged in vain by Baldwine SIdon is the most ancient citie of Phenicia And though the proud Grecians counted all Barbarians besides themselves yet Phenicia was the schoolmistress of Grecia and first taught her her alphabet For Cadmus a Phenician born first invented and brought letters to Thebes Sidon had her name from the eldest sonne of Canaan and was famous for the finest crystall-glasses which here were made The glassie sand was fetched 40 miles off from the river Belus but it could not be made fusile till it was brought hither whether for want of tools or from some secret sullen humour therein we will not dispute This city anciently was of great renown but her fortune being as brittle as her glasses she was fain to find neck for every one of the Monarchs yokes and now at last by the assistance of the Danish and Norvegian fleet was subdued by the Christians Fleshed with this conquest they next besieged Tyre Sea and land nature and art consented together to make this city strong for it was seated in an island save that it was tacked to the continent with a small neck of land which was fortified with many walls and towers It is questionable whether the strength or wealth of this city was greater but out of question that the pride was greater then either Here the best purples were died a colour even from the beginning destined to Courts and Magistracy and here the richest clothes were embroidered and curiously wrought And though generally those who are best with their fingers are worst with their arms yet the Tyrians were also stout men able mariners and the planters of the noblest colonies in the world As their city was the daughter of Sidon so was it mother to Romes rivall Carthage Leptis Utica Cadiz and Nola. The most plentifull proof they gave of their valour was when for three years they defended themselves against Nebuchadnezzar and afterwards stopped the full career of Alexanders conquests so that his victorious army which did flie into other countreys was glad to creep into this city Yet after seven moneths siege such is the omnipotency of industry he forced it and stripped this lady of the sea naked beyond modesty and mercy putting all therein to the sword that resisted and hanged up 2000 of the prime citizens in a rank along the sea-shore Yet afterwards Tyre out-grew these her miseries and attained though not to her first giant-like yet to a competent proportion of greatnesse At this time wherein King Baldwine besieged it it was of great strength and importance insomuch that finding it a weight too heavy for his shoulders he was fain to break off his siege and depart With worse successe he afterwards did rashly give battel to the vast army of the Persian Generall wherein he lost many men all his baggage and escaped himself with great difficulty Chap. 13. The pleasurable voyages of King Baldwine and his death AFter the tempest of a long warre a calm came at last and King Baldwine had a five years vacation of peace in his old age In which time he disported himself with many voyages for pleasure as one to the Red-sea not so called from the rednesse of the water or sand as some without any colour have conceited but from the neighbouring Edomites whom the Grecians called Erytheans or re◠men truly translating the Hebrew name of Edomites they had their name of rednesse from their father Edom. And here Baldwine surveyed the countrey with the nature and strength thereof Another journey he took afterwards into Egypt as conceiving himself ingaged in honour to make one inrod◠into that countrey in part of paiment of those many excursions the Egyptians had made into his Kingdome He took the city of Pharamia anciently called Rameses and gave the spoil thereof to his souldiers This work being done he began his play and entertained the time with viewing that riddle of Nature the river of Nilus whose stream is the confluence of so many wonders first for its indiscoverable fountain though some late Geographers because they would be held more intelligent then others have found the head of Nilus in their own brains and make it to flow from a fountain they fansie in the mountains of the moon in the south of Africa then for the strange creatures bred therein as river-bulls horses and crocodiles But the chiefest wonder is the yearly increasing thereof from the 17. of June to the midst of September overflowing all Egypt and the banks of all humane judgement to give the true reason thereof Much time Baldwine spent in beholding this river wherein he took many fishes and his death in eating them for a new surfet revived the grief of an old wound which he many years before received at the siege of Ptolemais His sicknesse put him in mind of his sinnes conscience speaking loudest when men begin to grow speechlesse And especially he grieved that having another wife alive he had married the Countesse of Sicilie the relict of Earl Roger But now heartily sorrowfull for his fault he sent away this his last wife yet we reade not that he received his former again Other faults he would have amended but was prevented by death And no doubt where the deed could not be present the desire was a sufficient proxy He died at Laris a city in the road from Egypt and was brought to Jerusalem and buried on Palm-sunday in the temple of the Sepulchre in the 18 year of his reign A Prince superiour to his brother Godfrey in learning equall in valour inferiour in judgement rash precipitate greedy of honour but swallowing more then he could digest and undertaking what he was not able to perform little affected to the Clergy or rather to their temporall greatnesse especially when it came in competition with his own much given to women besides the three wives he had first marrying Gutrera an English-woman after her death Tafror an Armenian Lady and whilest she yet survived the Countesse of Sicilie yet he had no child God commonly punishing wantonnesse with barrennesse For the rest we referre the reader to the dull Epitaph written on his tomb which like the verses of that age runneth in a kind of rythme though it can scarce stand on true feet Rex Baldwinus Iudas alter Maccabaus Spes patriae vigor Ecolesiae virtus utriusque Quem formidabant cui dona tributa ferebant Cedar Aegypti Dan ac homicida Damascus Proh dolor in modico clauditur hoc tumulo Baldwine another Maccabee for might Hope help of State of Church and boths delight Cedar with Egypts Dan of him afraid Bloudy Damascus to him tribute paid Alas here in this tomb is laid Let him whô pleaseth play the critick on the divers readings and whether by Dan be meant the Souldan or whether it relateth to the conceit that Antichrist shall come of the tribe of Dan. But perchance the text
whereof they gave for their Seal Two men riding on one horse And hence it was that if the Turks took any of them prisoners their constant â—ansome was a Sword and a Belt it being conceived that their poor state could stretch to no higher price But after their order was confirmed by Pope Honorius by the intreaty of Stephen the Patriarch of Jerusalem who appointed them to wear a White garment to which Eugeâ—ius the third added a Red crosse on their breast they grew wonderfully rich by the bounty of severall Patrons Yea the King and Patriarch of Jerusalem 〈◊〉 this infant-order so long in their laps till it brake their knees it grew so heavie at last and these ungratefull Templars did pluck out the feathers of those wings which hatched and brooded them From Alms-men they turned Lords and though very valiant at first for they were sworn rather to dye then to flie afterwards lazinesse withered their arms and swelled their bellies They laughed at the rules of their first Institution as at the swadling-clothes of their infancie neglecting the Patriarch and counting themselves too old to be whipped with the rod of his discipline till partly their vitiousnesse and partly their wealth caused their finall extirpation as God willing shall be shewed hereafter At the same time began the Teutonick order consisting onely of Dutch-men well descended living at Jerusalem in an house which one of that nation bequeathed to his countreymen that came thither on pilgrimage In the yeare 1190 their order was honoured with a great Master whereof the first was Henry a-Walpot and they had an habit assigned them to wear Black Crosses on White robes They were to fight in the defence of Christianity against Pagans But we shall meet with them more largely in the following story Chap. 17. The Christians variety of successe Tyre taken by the assistance of the Venetians IT is worth the Readers marking how this Kings reign was checquered with variety of fortune For first Roger Prince of Antioch or rather guardian in the minority of young Boemund went forth with greater courage then discretion whereunto his successe was answerable being conquered and killed by the Turks But Baldwine on the 14 of August following forced the Turks to a restitution of their victory and with a small army gave them a great overthrow in spite of Gazi their boasting Generall To qualifie the Christians joy for this good successe Joceline unadvisedly fighting with Balak a petty King of the Turks was conquered and taken prisoner and King Baldwine coming to deliver him was also taken himself for which he might thank his own rashnesse For it had been his best work to have done nothing for a while till the Venetian succours which were not farre off had come to him and not presently to adventure all to the hazard of a battel Yet the Christians hands were not bound in the Kings captivity For Eustace Grenier chosen Vice-roy whilest the King was in durance stoutly defended the countrey and Count Joceline which had escaped out of prison fighting again with Balak at Hircapolis routed his army and killed him with his own hands But the main piece of service was the taking of Tyre which was done under the conduct of Guarimund the Patriarch of Jerusalem but chiefly by the help of the Venetian navie which Michael their Duke brought who for their pains were to have a third part of the city to themselves Tyre had in it store of men and munition but famine increasing against whose arrows there is no armour of proof it was yielded on honourable terms And though perhaps hunger shortly would have made the Turks digest courser conditions yet the Christians were loth to anger their enemies valour into desperatenesse Next year the King returned home having been eighteen moneths a prisoner being to pay for his ransome an hundred thousand Michaelets and for security he left his daughter in pawn But he payed the Turks with their own money or which was as good coin with the money of the Saracens vanquishing Borsâ—quin their Captain at Antiochia and not long after he conquered Dordequin another great Commander of them at Damascus To correct the ranknesse of the Christians pride for this good successe Damascus was afterward by them unfortunately besieged Heaven discharged against them thunder-ordinance arrows of lightning small shot of hail whereby they being miserably wasted were forced to depart And this affliction was increased when Boemund the young Prince of Antioch one of great hope and much lamented was defeated and slain Authours impute these mishaps to the Christians pride and relying on their own strength which never is more untrusty then when most trusted True it was God often gave them great victories when they defended themselves in great straits Hereupon they turned their thankfulnesse into presumption grew at last from defending themselves to dare their enemies on disadvantages to their often overthrow for God will not unmake his miracles by making them common And may not this also be counted some cause of their ill successe That they alwayes imputed their victories to the materiall Crosse which was carried before them So that Christ his glory after his ascension suffered again on the Crosse by their superstition Chap. 18. The death of Baldwine the second KIng Baldwine a little before his death renounced the world and took on him a religious habit This was the fashion of many Princes in that age though they did it for divers ends Some thought to make amends for their disordered lives by entring into some holy order at their deaths Others having surfeited of the worlds vanity fasted from it when they could eat no more because of the impotency of their bodies Others being crossed by the world by some misfortune sought to crosse the world again in renouncing of it These like furious gamesters threw up their cards not out of dislike of gaming but of their game and they were rather discontented to live then contented to dye But we must believe that Baldwine did it out of true devotion to ripen himself for heaven because he was piously affected from his youth so that all his life was religiously tuned though it made the sweetest musick in the close He died not long after on the 22 of August in the 13 year of his reign and was buried with his predecessours in the temple of the Sepulchre By Morphe a Grecian Lady his wife he had four daughters whereof Millesent was the eldest the second Alice married to young Boemund Prince of Antioch the third Hodiern wife to Reimund Prince of Tripoli and Mete the youngest Abbesse of Bethanie Chap. 19. Of Fulco the fourth King of Ierusalem FUlco Earl of Tours Main and Anjou coming some three years before on pilgrimage to Jerusalem there took in marriage Millesent the Kings daughter He had assigned to him the city of Tyre and some other princely accommodations for his present
maintenance and the Kingdome after the death of his father in law which he received accordingly He was welnigh 60 years old And by his first wife he had a sonne Geffrey Plantagenet Earl of Anjou to whom he left his lands in France and from whom our Kings of England are descended This Fulco was a very valiant man able both of body and mind His greatest defect was a weak memory though not so bad as that of Messala Corvinus who forgot his own name insomuch that he knew not his own servants and those whom he even now preferred were presently after strangers unto him Yet though he had a bad memory whilest he lived he hath a good one now he is dead and his virtues are famous to posterity Chap. 20. The Church-story during this Kings reigne The remarkable ruine of Rodolphus Patriarch of Antioch THe Church of Jerusalem yielded no alterations in the reign of Fulco But in Antioch there was much stirre who should succeed Bernard that peaceable long-lived man who fate 36 years and survived eight Patriarchs of Jerusalem Now whilest the Clergie were tedious in their choice the Laity was too nimble for them and they thinking it equall to have an hand in making who must have their arms in defending a Patriarch clapped one Rodolphus of noble parentage into the chair He presently took his pall off from the altar of S. Peter thereby sparing both his purse and pains to go to Rome and acknowledging no other superiour then that Apostle for his patrone This man was the darling of the Gentry and no wonder if they loved him who was of their cloth and making but hated of the Clergy Wherefore knowing himself to need strong arms who was to swim against the stream he wrought himself into the favour of the Princesse of Antioch the widow of young Boemund so that he commanded all her command and beat down his enemies with her strength He promised to make a marriage betwixt her and Reimund Earl of Poictou a Frenchman of great fame who was coming into these parts but he deceived her and caused the Earl to marry Constantia the daughter of this Lady by whom he had the principality of Antioch Indeed this Constantia was but a child for age but they never want years to marry who have a Kingdome for their portion The Patriarch to make sure work bound Prince Reimund by an oath to be true to him But friends unjustly gotten are seldome comfortably enjoyed Of his sworn friend he proved his sworn enemy and forced him to go up to Rome there to answer many accusations laid to his charge wherein the ground-work perchance was true though malice might set the varnish on it The main matter was that he made odious comparisons betwixt Antioch and Rome and counted himself equal to his Holinesse Rodolphus coming to Rome found the Popes dores shut against him but he opened them with a golden key Money he sowed plentifully and reaped it when he came to be tried for he found their hands very soft towards him whom formerly he had greased in the fist He also resigned his old pall and took a new one from the Pope As for his other crimes it was concluded that Albericus Bishop of Ostia should be sent into Syria the 〈…〉 to examine 〈◊〉 and to proceed accordingly with the â—atriarch as things there should be found alledged and proved Whereat his adversaries much stormed who expected that he should instantly have been deposed Yet afterwards they prevailed mightily with Albericus the Legaâ—e and bowed him on their side He coming to Antioch cited the Patriarch to appear who bâ—ing thrice called came not On his absence all were present with their conjectures what should cause it Some impuâ—ing it to his guiltinesse others to his contempt others to his fear of his enemies potency or judges partiality for indeed the Legate came not with a virgin judgement but ravished with prejudice being prepossessed with this intent to dispossesse him of his place Some thought he relied on his peace formerly made at Rome where the illegality of his election was rectified by his laying down his first pall and assuming a new one from the Pope Here was it worth the beholding in what severall streams mens affections ran All wished that the tree might be felled who had hopes to gather chips by his fall and especially one Arnulphus and Dean Lambert the promoters against the Patriarch Others pitied him and though perchance content that his roof might be taken down were loth he should be razed to the ground Some reserved their affections till they were counselled by the event which side to favour and would not be engaged by any manifest declaration but so that they might fairly retreat if need required Amongst other Prelates which were present Serlo Archbishop of Apamea was one who formerly had been a great enemy to the Patriarch but had lately taken himself off from that course The Legate demanded of him why he proceeded not to accuse the Patriarch as he was wont To whom he answered What formerly I did was done out of unadvised heat against the health of my soul discovering the nakednesse of my father like to cursed Cham and now God hath recalled me from mine errour so that I will neither accuse nor presumptuously judge him but am ready to die for his safety Hereupon the Legate immediately such was the martiall law in a Church-man deposed him from his Archbishoprick Little hope then had the Patriarch who saw himself condemned in his friend and he himself followed not long after being thrust out by violence cast into prison and there long kept in chains till at last he made an escape to Rome intending there to traverse his cause again had not death occasioned by poison as is thought prevented him Chap. 21. Calo-Iohannes the Grecian Emperour demandeth Antiochia Reimund the Prince thereof doeth homage to him for it CAlo-Johannes the Grecian Emperour came up with a vast army of horse and foot and demanded of Reimund Prince of Antioch to resigne unto him that whole Signorie according to the composition which the Christian Princes made with Alexius his father Hereat Reimund and all the Latines stormed out of measure Had they purchased the inheritance of the land with their own bloud now to turn tenants at will to another Some pleaded That the ill usage of Alexius extorted from Godfrey and the rest of the Pilgrimes that agreement and an oath made by force is of no force but may freely be broken because not freely made Others alledged That when Antiochia was first wonne it was offered to Alexius and he refused it so fair a tender was a paiment Others argued That that generation which made this contract was wholly dead and that the debt descended not on them to make it good But most insisted on this That Alexius kept not his covenants and assisted them not according to the agreement
Indeed he called these Princes his sonnes but he disinherited them of their hopes and all their portion was in promises never payed No reason then that the knot of the agreement should hold them fast and let him loose The worst of these answers had been good enough if their swords had been as strong as the Grecian Emperours But he coming with a numerous army in few dayes overcame all Cilicia which for fourty years had belonged to the Prince of Antioch and then besieged the city of Antioch it self Force is the body and resolution the soul of an action both these were well tempered together in the Emperours army and the city brought to great distresse Whereupon Fulk King of Jerusalem with some other Princes fearing what wofull conclusion would follow so violent premisses made a composition between them So that Reimund did homage to the Emperour and held his principality as a vassall from him And though four years after the Emperour came again into these parts yet he did not much harm pillaging was all his conquest Some years after he died being accidentally poisoned by one of his own arrows which he intended for the wild boar A Prince so much better to the Latines then his father Alexius as an honourable foe is above a treacherous friend His Empire he disposed to Emmanuel his sonne Chap. 22 The succession of the Turkish Kings and the Saracen Caliphs Of the unlimited power of a Souldan Some resemblance thereof anciently in the Kingdome of France NO great service of moment was performed in the reigne of King Fulk because he was molested with domesticall discords and intestine warres against Paulinus Count of Tripoli and Hugh Earl of Joppa Onely Beersheba was fortified and some forts built about Askelon as an introduction to besiege it Also skirmishes were now and then fought with variety of successe against Sanguin one of the Turks great Princes And here let the reader take notice that though we have mentioned many Commanders as Auxianus Corboran Ammiravissus Tenduc Gazi Balak Dordequin Borscquin Sanguin some Turkish some Saracen yet none of these were absolute Kings though perchance in courtesie sometimes so styled by writers but were onely Generals and Lieutenants accountable to their superiours the Caliphs either of Babylon or Egypt Who what they were we referre the reader to our Chronology Caliph was the Pope as I may say of the Saracens a mixture of Priest and Prince But we need not now trouble our selves with curiosity of their successions these Caliphs being but obscure men who confined themselves to pleasures making play their work and having their constant diet on the sawce of recreation We are rather to take notice of their Generalls and Captains which were the men of action For a Souldan which was but a Vice-roy with his borrowed light shineth brighter in history then the Caliph himself Yet may we justly wonder that these slothfull Calipâ—s should do nothing themselves and commit such unlimited power to their Souldaâ—â— especially seeing too much â—â—ust is a strong tentation to make ambitious flesh and bloud diâ—loyall Yet something may be said for the Caliph of Egypt besides that the pleasures of that countrey were sufficient to invite him to a voluptuous life First the awfull regard which the Egyptians had of their Princes gave them security to trust their officers with ample commission Secondly herein they followed an ancient custome practised by the Pharaohs anciently who gave unto Joseph so large authority as we may reade in Genesis Some example also we have hereof in France about nine hundred years ago Childerick Theodorick Clovis Childebert Dagobert c. a chain of idle Kings well linked together gave themselves over to pleasures privately never coming abroad but onely on May-day they shewed themselves to the people riding in a chariot adoâ—ned with flowers and drawn with oxen â—low cattel but good enough for so lazy luggage whilest Charles Martell and Pipin Maiours of the palace opened packets gave audience to Embassadours made warre or peace enacted and repealed laws at pleasure till afterwards from controllers of the Kings houshold they became controllers of the Kings and at last Kings themselves To return to Egypt Let none be troubled pardon a charitable digression to satisfie some scrupulous in a point of Chronologie if they find anciently more Kings of the Egyptians and longer reigning then the consent of times will allow room for for no doubt that which hath swelled the number is the counting Deputies for Kings Yea we find the holy Spirit in the same breath 1. Reg. 22. 47. speak a Vice-roy to be a King and no King There was no King in Edom a Deputy was King Chap. 23. The lamentable death of King Fulk WHen Fulco had now eleven years with much industry and care though with little enlarging of his dominions governed the land he was slain in earnest as following his sport in hunting to the great grief of his subjects And we may hear him thus speaking his Epitaph A â—are I hunted and death hunted me The more my speed was was the worse my speed For as well-mounted I away did flee Death caught and kill'd me falling from my steed Yet this mishap an happy misse I count That fell from horse that I to heaven might mount A Prince of a sweet nature and though one would have read him to be very furious by his high-coloured countenance yet his face was a good hypocrite and contra leges istius coloris saith Tyrius he was affable courteous and pitifull to all in distresse He was buried with his predecessours in the temple of the Sepulchre leaving two sonnes Baldwine who was 13 and Almerick 7 years old Chap. 24. The disposition of Baldwine the third The care of Queen Millesent in her sonnes minority BAldwine succeeded his father who quickly grew up as to age so in all royall accomplishments and became a most complete Prince well-learned especially in history liberall very witty and very pleasant in discourse He would often give a smart jest which would make the place both blush and bleed where it lighted Yet this was the better taken at his hands because he cherished not a cowardly wit in himself to wound men behind their backs but played on them freely to their faces yea and never refused the coin he payed them in but would be contented though a King to be the subject of a good jest and sometimes he was well-favouredly met with as the best fencer in wits school hath now and then an unhappy blow dealt him Some thought he descended beneath himself in too much familiarity to his subjects for he would commonly call and salute mean persons by their names But the vulgar sort in whose judgements the lowest starres are ever the greatest conceived him to surpasse all his predecessours because he was so fellow-like with them But whilest yet he was in minority his mother Millesent made up his want of
colour which nature doth die simple and therefore fittest for religion But Melexala King of Egypt who formerly was very bountifull to the Carmelites knew not his Alms-men in their new coats but changed his love as they their livery and persecuted them out of all Egypt It seemeth afterwards by the complaint of Mantuan that they wore some black again over their white For he playeth on them as if their bad manners had blacked and altered their clothes Now though Palestine was their mother England was their best nurse Ralph Fresburg about the year 1240 first brought them hither and they were first seated at Newenden in Kent An hundred and fourty English writers have been of this order And here they flourished in great pomp till at last King Henry the 8 as they came out of the wildernesse so turned their houses into a wildernesse not onely breaking the necks of all Abbeys in England but also scattering abroad their very bones past possibility of recounting them Chap. 27. Edessa lost The hopefull voyage of Conrade the Emperour and Lewis King of France to the Holy land blasted by the perfidiousnesse of Emmanuel the Grecian Emperour EMpires have their set bounds whither when they come they stand still go back fall down This we may see in the Kingdome of Jerusalem which under Godfrey and the two first Baldwines was a gainer under Fulk a saver under the succeeding Kings a constant loser till all was gone For now Sanguin Prince of the Turks as bloudy as his name wrested from the Christians the countrey and city of Edessa one of the four Tetrarchies of the Kingdome of Jerusalem And though Sanguin shortly after was stabbed at a feast yet Noradine his sonne succeeded and exceeded him in cruelty against the Christians The losse of Edessa wherein our religion had flourished ever since the Apostles time moved Conrade Emperour of the West and Lewis the 7. surnamed the Young King of France to undertake a voyage to the Holy-land Pope Eugenius the 3. bestirred himself in the matter and made S. Bernard his soliciter to advance the design For never could so much steel have been drawn into the east had not this good mans perswasion been the loadstone The Emperours army contained two hundred thousand foot besides fifty thousand horse Nor was the army of King Lewis much inferiour in number In France they sent a distaff and a spindle to all those able men that went not with them as upbraiding their effeminatenesse And no wonder when women themselves went in armour having a brave lasse like another Penthesilea for their leader so befringed with gold that they called her Golden-foot riding astride like men which I should count more strange but that I find all women in England in the same posture on their horses till Anna wife to King Richard the second some 200 years since taught them a more modest behaviour The Turks did quake hearing of these preparations which to them were reported farre greater then they were fame contrary to all other painters making those things the greatest which are presented the farthest off Conrade with his army took his way through Grecia where Emmanuel the Emperour possessed with an hereditary fear of the Latines fortified his cities in the way as knowing there needed strong banks where such a stream of people was to passe And suspecting that if these Pilgrimes often made his Empire their high-way into Palestine little grasse would grow in so trodden a path and his countrey thereby be much endamaged he used them most treacherously giving them bad welcome that he might no more have such guests To increase their miseries as the Dutch encamped by the river Melas if that may be called a river which is all mud in summer all sea in winter deserving his name from this black and dismall accident it drowned many with its sudden overflowings as if it had conspired with the Grecians and learned treachery from them They that survived this sudden mishap were reserved for lingring misery For the Grecian Emperour did them all possible mischief by mingling lime with their meal by killing of stragglers by holding intelligence with the Turks their enemies by corrupting his coyn making his silver as base as himself so that the Dutch sold good wares for bad money and bought bad wares with good money by giving them false Conductours which trained them into danger so that there was more fear of the guides then of the way All which his unfaithfull dealings are recorded by that faithfull historian †Nicetas Choniates who though a Grecian born affirmeth these things the truth of his love to his countrey-men no whit prejudicing his love to the truth Chap. 28. The Turks conquered at Meander The Dutch and French arrive in Palestine SCarce had the Dutch escaped the treachery of the Greeks when they were encountred with the hostility of the Turks who waited for them on the other side of Meander The river was not fordable ship or bridge the Christians had none when behold Conrade the Emperour adventured on an action which because it was successefull shall be accounted valiant otherwise we should term it desperate After an exhortation to his army he commanded them all at once to flownce into the river Meander was plunged by their plunging into it his water stood amazed as unresolved whether to retreat to the fountain or proceed to the sea and in this extasie afforded them a dry passage over the stream An act which like that of Horatius Cocles his leaping into Tiber plus famae ad posteros habiturum quà m fidei will find more admirers then believers with posterity The affrighted Turks on the other side thinking there was no contending with them that did teach nature it self obedience offered their throats to the Christians swords and were killed in such number that whole piles of dead bones remain there for a monument like those heaps of the Cimbrians slain by Marius near Marseils where afterwards the inhabitants walled their vineyards with sculls and guarded their grapes with dead men Hence Conrade made forward to Iconium now called Cogni which he besieged in vain to the great losse of his army The King of France followed after with great multitudes and drank of the same cup at the Grecians hands though not so deeply till at last finding that those who marched through the continent met with an ocean of misery he thought better to trust the wind and sea then the Greeks and taking shipping safely arrived in Palestine where he was highly welcomed by Reimund Prince of Antioch Some weeks were spent in complying entertainments and visiting holy places till at last Elianor wife to the King of France who accompanied her husband made religion her pander and played bankrupt of her honour under pretence of pilgrimage keeping company with a base Saracen jester whom she preferred before a King Thus love may blindfold the eyes
reader To conclude The devotion of this man was out of question so neglecting this world that he even did spit out that preferment which was dropped into his mouth But as for his judgement it was not alwayes the best which gave occasion to the proverb Bernardus non videt omnia Chap. 31. Vnseasonable discords betwixt King Baldwine and his mother Her strength in yielding to her sonne UPon the departure of Emperour Conrade and K. Lewis Noradine the Turk much prevailed in Palestine Nor was he little advantaged by the discords betwixt Milleâ—ent Queen-mother and the Nobility thus occasioned There was a Noble-man called Manasses whom the Queen governing all in her sonnes minority made Constable of the Kingdome This man unable to manage his own happinesse grew so insolent that he could not go but either spurning his equals or trampling on his inferiours No wonder then if envy the shadow of greatnesse waited upon him The Nobility highly distasted him but in all oppositions the Queens favour was his sanctuary who to shew her own absolutenesse and that her affection should not be controlled nor that thrown down which she set up still preserved the creature she had made His enemies perceiving him so fast rooted in her favour and seeing they could not remove him from his foundation sought to remove him with his foundation instigating young King Baldwine against his mother and especially against her favourite They complained how the State groaned under his insolency He was the bridge by which all offices must passe and there pay toll He alone sifted all matters and then no wonder if much bran passed He under pretence of opening the Queens eyes did lead her by the nose captivating her judgement in stead of directing it He like a by-gulf devoured her affection which should flow to her children They perswaded the King he was ripe for government and needed none to hold his hand to hold the sceptre Let him therefore either un tie or cut himself loose from this slavery and not be in subjection to a subject Liberty needeth no hard-pressing on youth a touch on that stamp maketh an impression on that waxen age Young Baldwine is apprehensive of this motion and prosecuteth the matter so eagerly that at length he coopeth up this Manasses in a castle and forceth him to abjure the Kingdome Much stirre afterwards was betwixt him and his mother till at last to end divisions the Kingdome was divided betwixt them She had the city of Jerusalem and the land-locked part he the maritime half of the land But the widest throne is too narrow for two to sit on together He not content with this partition marcheth furiously to Jerusalem there to besiege his mother and to take all from her Out of the city cometh Fulcher the good Patriarch his age was a patent for his boldnesse and freely reproveth the King Why should he go on in such an action wherein every step he stirred his legs must needs grate and crash both against nature and religion Did he thus requite his mothers care in stewarding the State thus to affright her age to take arms against her Was it not her goodnesse to be content with a moyety when the whole Kingdome in right belonged unto her But ambition had so inchanted Baldwine that he was penetrable with no reasons which crossed his designes so that by the advice of her friends she was content to resign up all lest the Christian cause should suffer in these dissensions She retired her self to Sebaste and abridged her train from State to necessity And now the lesse room she had to build upon the higher she raised her soul with heavenly meditations and lived as more private so more pious till the day of her death Chap. 32. Reimund Prince of Antioch overcome and killed Askelon taken by the Christians The death of King Baldwine THese discords betwixt mother and son were harmonie in the ears of Noradine the Turk Who coming with a great army wasted all about Antioch and Prince Reimund going out to bid him battel was slain himself and his army overthrown nor long after Joceline Count of Edessa was intercepted by the Turks and taken prisoner As for Constantia the relict of Reimund Prince of Antioch she lived a good while a widow refusing the affections which many princely suiters proffered unto her till at last she descended beneath her self to marry a plain man Reinold of Castile Yet why should we say so when as a Castilian Gentleman if that be not a needlesse tautologie as he maketh the inventory of his own worth prizeth himself any Princes fellow And the proverb is Each lay-man of Castile may make a King each clergy-man a Pope Yea we had best take heed how we speak against this match for Almericus Patriarch of Antioch for inveighing against it was by this Prince Reinold set in the heat of the sunne with his bare head besmeared with honey a sweet bitter torment that so bees might sting him to death But King Baldwine mediated for him and obtained his liberty that he might come to Jerusalem where he lived many years in good esteem And Gods judgements are said to have overtaken the Prince of Antioch for besides the famine which followed in his countrey he himself afterwards fighting unfortunately with the Turks was taken prisoner But let us step over to Jerusalem where we shall find King Baldwine making preparation for the siege of Askelon Which citie after it had been long locked up had at last an assaultable breach made in the walls thereof The Templars to whom the King promised the spoil if they took it entred through this breach into the citie and conceiving they had enow to wield the work and master the place set a guard at the breach that no more of their fellow-Christians should come in to be sharers with them in the booty But their covetousnesse cost them their lives for the Turks contemning their few number put them every one to the sword Yet at last the city was taken though with much difficulty Other considerable victories Baldwine got of the Turks especially one at the river Jordan where he vanquished Noradine And twice he relieved Cesarea-Philippi which the Turks had straitly besieged But death at last put a period to his earthly happinesse being poisoned as it was supposed by a Jewish physician for the rest of the potion killed a dog to whom it was given This Kings youth was stained with unnaturall discords with his mother and other vices which in his settled age he reformed Let the witnesse of Noradine his enemy be believed who honourably refused to invade the Kingdome whilest the funerall solemnities of Baldwine were performing and professed the Christians had a just cause of sorrow having lost such a King whose equall for justice and valour the world did not afford He died without issue having reigned one and twenty years So that sure it is the
of them till at last they conquered the whole Kingdome partly under this Syracon and wholly under Saladine his nephew And here my discourse by the leave of the reader must a little sally forth to treat of the danger of entertaining mercenary souldiers They may perchance be called in with a whistle but scarce cast out with a whip If they be slugs they indanger a State by their slothfulnesse if spirited men by their activity Cesar Borgia Machiavils idol whose practice he maketh the pattern of policy saith That he had rather be conquâ—red with his own men then be conquerour with an army of others because he counted that conquest to be none at all Yet good physick may be made of poyson well corrected They may sometimes be necessary evils yea good and serviceable to defend a land if thus qualified First if they have no command of castles or place near about the Princes person for then they have a compendious way to treason if they intend it Secondly if they be not entertained in too great numbers but in such refracted degrees that the natives may still have the predominancy for a surfeit of forrein supplies is a disease incurable Thirdly if the Prince who imployeth them hath their wives children and estates in his own hands which will be both a caution and pawn for their fidelity and will also interest their affections more cordially in the cause Lastly if they be of the same religion with them and fight against the enemy of the religion of both for then they are not purely hirelings but parties in part and the cause doth at least mediately concern them I believe that it will scarcely be shown that the Protestants have turned tails and betrayed them they came to assist We may observe the Low-countreys have best thrived by setting this trade of journey-men souldiers on work Let them thank God and the good English for if Francies Duke of Anjou with his Frenchmen had well succeeded no doubt he would have spread his bread with their butter Next them the Venetians have sped best for they have the trick when they find it equally dangerous to cashier their mercenary Generall or to entertain him any longer fairly to kill him as they served Carmignola England hath best thrived without them under Gods protection we stand on our own legs The last I find are an handfull of Almains used against Kett in Norfolk in the dayes of King Edward the sixth And let it be our prayers That as for those hirelings which are to be last tried and least trusted we never have want of their help and never have too much of it Chap. 36. Sanar imploreth the aid of King Almerick A solemn agreement made betwixt them and ratified by the magnificent Caliph SUltan Sanat perceiving himself pressed and overlayed by these Turks who with Syracon their Captain refused to return and of assistants turned invaders borrowed the help of Almerick King of Jerusalem to avoid them out of Egypt Whilest Almerick marched thither an unfortunate battel was fought betwixt Boemund the third of that name Prince of Antioch Reimund Count of Tripoli Calaman Grecian governour of Cilicia and Joceline the third the tiâ—ular Count of Edessa on the one side and Noradine King of the Turks on the other The Turks got the victory and these four Christian Princes were taken prisoners and their army lost so much good bloud that day that cast it into an irrecoverable consumption and hastened the ruine of this Kingdome Noradine following his blow wonne Cesarea-Philippi Neverthelesse Almerick went on effectually in Egypt and for a time expulsed the Turks out of this Land But Syracon would not so quickly quit the countrey but goeth to the Caliph of Babylon who was opposite to him of Egypt each of them claiming as heir to Mahomet the false prophet the soveraignty over all that were of the Saracen law and offereth him his means for the exstirpation of this schismaticall Caliph and the reduction of all Egypt to the subjection of the Babylonian The motion was joyfully entertained and Syracon with a mighty power descendeth into Egypt Sanar affrighted hereat maketh new and larger profers to King Almerick to stop this deluge of his enemies and profereth him a pension of fourty thousand ducates yearly for his behooffull assistance But the King understanding that the Sultan how much soever he took upon him was subject to a higher Lord would make no such bargain with him but with the Caliph himself and therefore sent his Embassadours Hugh Earl of Cesarea and a Knight-Templar along with the Sultan to Caliph Elhadach then resident at Cairo Arriving at his palace they passed through dark passages well guarded with armed Ethiopians Hence they were conducted into goodly open courts of such beauty and riches that they could not retain the gravity of Embassadours but were enforced to admire the rarities they beheld The farther they went the greater the state till at last they were brought to the Caliphs own lodging Where entring the presence the Sultan thrice prostrated himself to the ground before the curtain behind which the Caliph sat Presently the traverse wrought with pearls was opened and the Caliph himself discovered sitting with great majesty on a throne of gold having few of his most inward eunuchs about him The Sultan humbly kissed his masters feet and briefly told him the cause of their coming the danger wherein the land stood the profers he had made to King Almerick desiring him now to ratifie them and in demonstration thereof to give his hand to the Kings Embassadours The Caliph demurred hereat as counting such a gesture a diminution to his State and at no hand would give him his hand bare but gave it in his glove To whom the resolute Earl of Cesarea Sir said he Truth seeketh no holes to hide it self Princes that will hold covenant must deal openly and nakedly give us therefore your bare hand we will make no bargain with your glove He was loth to do it but necessity a more imperious Caliph then himself at this time commanded it and he did it at last dismissing the Christian Embassadours with such gifts as testified his greatnesse According to this agreement King Almerick cordially prosecuted his businesse improving his utmost might to expell Syracon with his Turks out of Egypt whom he bade battel and got the day though he lost all his baggage So that the conquest in a manner was divided the Turks gaining the wealth the Christians the honour of the victory Following his blow he pinned up the Turks afterward in the city of Alexandria and forced them to receive of him conditions of peace and then returned himself with honour to Askelon Chap. 37. Almerick against his promise invadeth Egypt His perjury punished with the future ruine of the Kingdome of Ierusalem His death WHen a Crown is the prize of the game we must never expect fair play of
the gamesters King Almerick having looked on the beauty of the Kingdome of Egypt he longed for it and sought no longer to drive out the relicks of the Turks but to get Egypt to himself And the next year against the solemn league with the Caliph invaded it with a great army He falsly pretended that the Caliph would make a private peace with Noradine King of the Turks and hence created his quarrel For he hath a barren brain who cannot fit himself with an occasion if he hath a desire to fall out But Gilbert master of the Hospitallers chiefly stirred up the King to this warre upon promise that the city and countrey of Pelusium if conquered should be given to his order The Templars were much against the design one of their order was Embassadour at the ratifying of the peace and with much zeal protested against it as undertaken against oath and fidelity An oath being the highest appeal perjury must needs be an hainous sinne whereby God is solemnly invited to be witnesse of his own dishonour And as bad is a God-mocking equivocation For he that surpriseth truth with an ambush is as bad an enemy as he that fighteth against her with a flat lie in open field I know what is pleaded for King Almerick namely That Christians are not bound to keep faith with idolaters the worshippers of a false god as the Egyptian Caliph was on the matter But open so wide a window and it will be in vain to shut any doores All contracts with Pagans may easily be avoided if this evasion be allowed But what saith S. Hierome It matters not to whom but by whom we swear And God to acquit himself knowing the Christians prosperity could not stand with his justice after their perjury frowned upon them And from hence authours date the constant ill successe of the Holy warre For though this expedition sped well at the first and Almerick wonne the city of Belbis or Pelusium yet see what a cloud of miseries ensued First Noradine in his absence wasted and wonne places near Antiochia at pleasure Secondly Meller Prince of Armenia a Christian made a covenant with Noradine and kept it most constantly to the inestimable disadvantage of the King of Jerusalem This act of Meller must be condemned but withall Gods justice admired Christians break their covenant with Saracens in Egypt whilest other Christians to punish them make and keep covenant with Turks in Asia Thirdly the Saracens grew good souldiers on a sudden who were naked at first and onely had bows but now learned from the Christians to use all offensive and defensive weapons Thus rude nations alwayes better themselves in fighting with a skilful enemy How good mark-men are the Irish now-a-dayes which some seventy years ago at the beginning of their rebellions had three men to discharge a hand-gun Fourthly Almericks hopes of conquering Egypt were frustrated for after some victories he was driven out and that whole Kingdome conquered by Saladine nephew to Syracon who killed the Caliph with his horse-mace as he came to do him reverence and made himself the absolutest Turkish King of Egypt And presently after the death of Noradine the Kingdome of the Turks at Damascus was by their consent bestowed upon him Indeed Noradine left a sonne Meleâ—ala who commanded in part of his fathers dominions but Saladine after his death got all for himself Thus rising men shall still meet with more stairs to raise them as those falling with stumbling-blocks to ruine them Mean time Jerusalem was a poor weather-beaten Kingdome bleak and open to the storm of enemies on all sides having no covert or shelter of any good friend near it lying in the lions mouth betwixt his upper and neather jaw Damascus on the North and Egypt on the South two potent Turkish Kingdoms united under a puissant Prince Saladine This made Almerick send for succours into Europe for now few voluntaries came to this service souldiers must be pressed with importunity Our Western Princes were prodigall of their pity but niggardly of their help The heat of the warre in Palestine had cooled their desires to go thither which made these Embassadours to return without supplies having gone farre to fetch home nothing but discomfort and despair Lastly King Almerick himself wearied with whole volleys of miseries ended his life of a bloudy flux having reigned eleven full years and was buried with his predecessours Leaving two children Baldwine and Sibyll by Agnes his first wife and by Mary his second wife daughter to John Proto-Sebastus a Grecian Prince one daughter Isabell married afterwards to Hemphred the third Prince of Thorone Chap. 38. Baldwine the fourth succeedeth His education under William the reverend Aâ—rchbishop of Tyre BAldwine his sonne the fourth of that name succeeded his father so like unto him that we report the reader to the character of King Almerick and will spare the repeating his description Onely he differed in the temper of his body being enclined to the leproâ—ie called Elephanâ—iasis noysome to the patient but not infectious to the company not like King Uzziahs but Naamans leprosie which had it been contagious no doubt the King of Assyria when he went into the house of Rimmon would have chosen another supporter Mean time the Kingdome was as sick as the King he of a leprosie that of an incurable consumption This Baldwine had the benefit of excellent education under William Archbishop of Tyre a pious man and excellent scholar skilled in all the learned Orientall tongues besides the Dutch and French his native language a moderate and faithfull writer For in the latter part of his history of the Holy warre his eye guided his hand till at last the taking of the city of Jerusalem so shook his hand that his penne fell out and he wrote no more Treasurer he was of all the money contributed to the Holy war Chancellour of this Kingdome imployed in severall Embassies in the West present at the Lateran Council the acts whereof he did record Cardinall he might have been but refused it In a word unhappy onely that he lived in that age though that age was happy he lived in it Chap. 39. The vitiousnesse of Heraclius the Patriarch of Ierusalem His Embassie to Henry the second King of England with the successe The Maronites reconciled to the Romane Church AFter the death of Almerick Patriarch of Jerusalem Heraclius was by the Queen-mother Mary second wife to King Almerick for his handsomenesse preferred to be Patriarch William Archbishop of Tyre was violent against his election because of a prophesie That as Heraclius King of Persia wonne so an Heraclius should lose the Crosse. But others excepted that this exception was nothing worth For let God give the man and let the devil set the name As for those blind prophesies they misse the truth ofter then hit it so that no wise man will lean his belief on so slender a prop. But
Heraclius had a worse name then his name the bad report of his vitious life keeping a Vintners wife whom he maintained in all state like an Empresse and owned the children he had by her Her name Pascha de Rivera and she was generally saluted The Patriarchesse His example infected the inferiour clergie whose corruption was a sad presage of the ruine of the realm For when Prelates the Seers when once those eye-strings begin to break the heart-strings hold not long after In his time the Maronites were reconciled to the Romane Church Their main errour was the heresie of the Monothelites touching one onely will and action in Christ. For after that the heresie of Nestorius about two persons in our Saviour was detested in the Eastern Churches some thought not themselves safe enough from the heresie of two persons till they were fallen with the opposite extremity of one nature in Christ violence making men reel from one extreme to another The errour once broched found many embracers As no opinion so monstrous but if it hath had a mother it will get a nurse But now these Maronites renouncing their ten ents received the Catholick faith though soon after when Saladine had conquered their countrey they relapsed to their old errours wherein they continued till the late times of Pope Gregory the thirteenth and Clement the eighth when they again renewed their communion with the Romane Church They live at this day on mount Libanus not exceeding twelve thousand house-holds and pay to the great Turk for every one above twelve years old seventeen sultanines by the year and for every space of ground sixteen span square one sultanine yearly to keep themselves free from the mixture of Mahometanes A sultanine is about seven shillings six pence of our money To return to Heraclius Soon after he was sent Embassadour to Henry the second King of England to crave his personall assistance in the Holy warre delivering unto him the Royall standard with the keyes of our Saviours Sepulchre the tower of David and the city of Jerusalem sent him by King Baldwine King Henry was singled out for this service before other Princes because the world justly reported him valiant wise rich powerfull and fortunate And which was the main hereby he might expiate his murder and gather up again the innocent bloud which he had shed of Thomas Becket Besides Heraclius entituled our Henry to the Kingdome of Jerusalem because Geoffrey Plantagenet his father was sonne some say brother to Fulk the fourth King of Jerusalem But King Henry was too wise to bite at such a bait wherein was onely the husk of title without the kernel of profit Yet he pretended he would go into Palestine and got hereby a masse of money towards his voyage making every one as well Clerk as Lay saving such as went to pay that year the tenth of all their revenues moveables and chattells as well in gold as in silver Of every city in England he chose the richest men as in London two hundred in York an hundred and so in proportion and took the tenth of all their moveables by the estimation of credible men who knew their estates imprisonâ—ing those which refused to pay sub eleemosynae titulo vitium rapacitatis includens saith Walsingham But now when he had filled his purse all expected he should fulfill his promise when all his voyage into Palestine turned into a journey into France Heraclius whilest he stayed in England consecrated the Temple-church in the suburbs of London and the house adjoyning belonging to the Templars since turned to a better use for the students of our municipall Law these new Templars defending one Christian from another as the old ones Christians from Pagans Chap. 40. Saladine fitteth himself with forrein forces The originall and great power of the Mammalukes with their first service IN the minority of King Baldwine who was but thirteen years old Milo de Planci a Noble-man was Protectour of the Realm Whose pride and insolence could not be brooked and therefore he was stabbed at Ptolemais and Reimund Count of Tripoli chosen to succeed him Now Saladine seriously intendeth to set on the Kingdome of Jerusalem and seeketh to furnish himself with souldiers for that service But he perceived that the ancient nation of the Egyptians had lasted so long that now it ran dregs their spirits being as low as the countrey they lived in and they fitter to make merchants and mechanicks then military men For they were bred in such soft imployments that they were presently foundred with any hard labour Wherefore he sent to the Circassians by the lake of Meotis near Taurica Chersonesus and thence bought many slaves of able and active bodies For it was a people born in a hard countrey no fewel for pleasure grew there nor was brought thither and bred harder so that war was almost their nature with custome of continuall skirmishing with the neighbouring Tartars These slaves he trained up in military discipline most of them being Christians once baptized but afterwards untaught Christ they learned Mahomet and so became the worse foes to religion for once being her friends These proved excellent souldiers and speciall horsemen and are called Mammalukes And surely the greatnesse of Saladine and his successours stood not so much on the legs of their native Egyptians as it leaned on the staffe of these strangers Saladine and especially the Turkish Kings after him gave great power and placed much trust in these Mammalukes who lived a long time in ignorance of their own strength till at last they took notice of it and scorning any longer to be factours for another they would set up for themselves and got the sovereignty from the Turkish Kings Thus Princes who make their subjects over-great whet a knife for their own throats And posterity may chance to see the insolent Janizaries give the grand Seignor such a trip on the heel as may tumble him on his back But more largely of these Mammalukes usurping the Kingdome of Egypt God willing in its proper place Thus Saladine having furnished himself with new souldiers went to handsel their valour upon the Christians invaded the Holy land burning all the countrey before him and raging in the bloud of poor Christians till he came and encamped about Askelon Mean time whilest Reimund Count of Tripoli Protectour of the Kingdome with Philip Earl of Flanders the chief strength of the Kingdome were absent in Celosyria wasting the countrey about Emissa and Cesarea young King Baldwine lay close in Askelon not daring to adventure on so strong an enemy With whose fear Saladine encouraged dispersed his army some one way some another to forrage the countrey King Baldwine courted with this opportunity marched out privately not having past four hundred horse with some few footmen and assaulted his secure enemies being six and twenty thousand But victory standeth as little in the number of souldiers as verity in
the plurality of voices The Christians got the conquest and in great triumph returned to Jerusalem This overthrow rather madded then daunted Saladine Who therefore to recover his credit some moneths after with his Mammalukes fell like a mighty tempest upon the Christians as they were parting the spoil of a band of Turks whom they had vanquished put many to the sword the rest to flight Otto grand Master of the Templars and Hugh sonne in law to the Count of Tripoli were taken prisoners and the King himself had much ado to escape And thus both sides being well wearied with warre they were glad to refresh themselves with a short slumber of a truce solemnly concluded and their troubled estates breathed almost for the space of two years Which truce Saladine the more willingly embraced because of a famine in the Kingdome of Damascus where it had scarce rained for five years together Chap. 41. The fatall jealousies betwixt the King and Reimund Earl of Tripoli BUt this so welcome a calm was troubled with domesticall discords For the Kings mother a woman of a turbulent spirit and her brother his steward accused Reimund Count of Tripoli governour of the Realm in the Kings minority as if he affected the Crown for himself which accusation this Earl could never wholly wipe off For slender and lean slanders quickly consume themselves but he that is branded with an hainous crime though false when the wound is cured his credit will be killed with the scarre Before we go further let us view this Earl Reimunds disposition and we shall find him marked to do mischief and to ruine this Realm He was sonne to Reimund grandchild to Pontius Earl of Tripoli by Cecilie the daughter of Philip King of France great-grandchild to Bertram first Earl of Tripoli great-great-grandchild to Reimund Earl of Tholose one of speciall note among the primitive adventurers in the Holy warre His mother was Hodiern third daughter to Baldwine the second King of Jerusalem A man whose stomach was as high as his birth and very serviceable to this State whilest the sharpnesse of his parts were used against the Turks which at last turned edge against the Christians Proud not able to digest the least wrong and though long in captivity amongst the Turks yet a very truant in the school of affliction who never learned the lesson of patience So revengefull that he would strike his enemy though it were through the sides of religion and the Christian cause For this present accusation of treason good authours seem to be his compurgatours for this at this time though afterwards he discovered his treacherous intents And because he could not rise by his service he made his service fall by him and undid what he had done for the publick good because thereby he could not attain his private ends He commanded over the 〈◊〉 of Tripoli which was a territory of large extent wherein he was absolute Lord. And by the way we may take notice of this as one of the banes of the Kingdome of Jerusalem That the principalities of Antioch Tripoli and Edessa whilest it was Christian were branches of this Kingdome but too big for the body For the Princes thereof on each petty distast would stand on their guard as if they had been subjects out of courtesie not conscience and though they confessed they owed the King allegeance yet they would pay no more then they thought fitting themselves To return to King Baldwine This suspicion of Earl Reimund though at first but a buzze soon got a sting in the Kings head and he violently apprehended it Whereupon Reimund coming to Jerusalem was by the way commanded to stay to his great disgrace But some of the Nobility foreseeing what danger this discord might bring reconciled them with much labour However Baldwine ever after looked on this Earl with a jealous eye Jealousie if it be fire in private persons is wild-fire in Princes who seldome rase out their names whom once they have written in their black bills And as the Italian proverb is Suspicion giveth a passe-port to faith to set it on packing so this Earl finding himself suspected was never after cordially loyall smothering his treachery in this Kings life which afterwards broke forth into an open flame Chap. 42. Saladine is conquered by King Baldwine and conquereth Mesopotamia Discords about the Protectourship of Ierusalem The death and praise of Baldwine the fourth THe Kingdome of Damascus being recovered of the famine Saladine having gotten his ends by the truce would now have the truce to end and breaking it as not standing with his haughty designes marched with a great army out of Egypt through Palestine to Damascus much spoiling the countrey And now having joyned the Egyptian with the Damascene forces re-entred the Holy land But young King Baldwine meeting him though but with seven hundred to twenty thousand at the village Frobolt overthrew him in a great battel and Saladine himself was glad with speedy flight to escape the danger and by long marches to get him again to Damascus Afterward he besieged Berytus both by sea and land but the vigilancie and valour of King Baldwine defeated his taking of it Saladine finding such tough resistance in the Holy land thought to make a better purchase by laying out his time in Mesopotamia Wherefore passing Euphrates he wonne Charran and divers other cities and then returning in Syria besieged Aleppo the strongest place the Christians had in that countrey so fortified by nature that he had little hope to force it But treason will runne up the steepest ascent where valour it self can scarce creep and Saladine with the battery of bribes made such a breach in the loyalty of the governour that he betrayed it unto him Thus he cometh again into the Holy land more formidable then ever before carrying an army of terrour in the mentioning of his name which drove the poore Christians all into their fensed cities As for King Baldwine the leprosie had arrested him prisoner and kept him at home Long had this Kings spirit endured this infirmity swallowing many a bitter pang with a smiling face and going upright with patient shoulders under the weight of his disease It made him put all his might to it because when he yielded to his sicknesse he must leave off the managing of the State and he was loth to put off his royall robes before he went to bed a Crown being too good a companion for one to part with willingly But at last he was made to stoop and retired himself to a private life appointing Baldwine his nephew a child of five years old his successour and Guy Earl of Joppa and Askelon this childs father in law to be Protectour of the Realm in his minority But soon after he revoked this latter act and designed Reimund Earl of Tripoli for the Protectour He displaced Guy because he found him of no over-weight worth scarce passable without favourable
miseries of the Christians in Syria being reported in Europe made Richard the first King of England and Philip the second surnamed Augustus King of France to make up all private dissensions betwixt them and to unite their forces against the Turks Richard was well stored with men the bones and quickly got money the sinews of warre by a thousand Princely skills gathering so much coin as if he meant not to return because looking back would unbow his resolution To Hugh Bishop of Duresme for his life he sold the County of Northumberland jesting he had made a new Earl of an old Bishop He sold Barwick and Roxburgh to the Scottish King for ten thousand pounds Yea he protested he would sell his city of London if any were able to buy it rather then he would be burthen some to his subjects for money But take this as he spake it for a flourish for pretending he had lost his old he made a new seal wherewith he squeezed his subjects and left a deep impression in their purses forcing them to have all their instruments new-sealed which any way concerned the Crown Having now provided for himself he forgot not his younger brother John Earl of Morton who was to stay behind him an active man who if he misliked the maintenance was cut for him would make bold to carve for himself Lest therefore straitned for means he should swell into discontent King Richard gave him many Earldomes and honours to the yearly value of four thousand marks Thus he received the golden saddle but none of the bridle of the Common-wealth honour and riches were heaped upon him but no place of trust and command For the King deputed William Bishop of Ely his Viceroy choosing him for that place rather then any lay-Earl because a Coronet perchance may swell into a Crown but never a Mitre For a Clergie-mans calling made him uncapable of usurpation in his own person Thus having settled matters at home he set forth with many of our nation which either ushered or followed him Of these the prime were Baldwine Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Bishop of Salisbury Robert Earl of Leicester Ralph de Glanvile late chief Justice of England Richard de Clare Walter de Kime c. The Bishops of Duresâ—e and Norwich though they had vowed this voyage were dispensed with by the court of Rome quae nulli deest pecuniam largienti to stay at home His navie he sent about by Spain and with a competent number took his own journey through France At Tours he took his Pilgrimes scrip and staff from the Archbishop His staff at the same time casually brake in pieces which some whose dexterity lay in sinister interpreting all accidents construed a token of ill successe Likewise when he and the French King with their trains passed over the bridge of Lyons on the fall of the bridge this conceit was built That there would be a falling out betwixt these two Kings which accordingly came to passe their intercourse and familiarity breeding hatred and discontent betwixt them Yea the interviews of equall Princes have ever been observed dangerous Now Princes measure their equality not by the extent of their dominions but by the absoluteness of their power so that he that is supreme and independent in his own countrey counteth himself equall to any other Prince how great soever Perchance some youthfull Kings may disport and solace themselves one in anothers company whilest as yet pleasure is all the elevation of their souls But when once they grow sensible of their own greatnesse a lesson they will quickly learn and shall never want teachers then emulation will be betwixt them because at their meeting they cannot so go in equipage but one will still be the foremost Either his person will be more proper or carriage more courtlike or attendance more accomplished or attire more fashionable or something will either be or conceived to be more majesticall in one then the other And corrivalls in honour count themselves eclipsed by every beam of state which shineth from their competitour Wherefore the best way to keep great Princes together is to keep them asunder accommodating their businesse by Embassadours lest the meeting of their own persons part their affections Chap. 7. King Richard conquereth Sicilie and Cyprus in his passage to the Holy land AT Lyons these two Kings parted their trains and went severall wayes into Sicilie King Richard in his passage though within fifteen miles of Rome wanting forsooth either devotion or manners vouchsafed not to give his Holinesse a visit yea plainly told Octavian Bishop of Ostia the Popes Confessour that having better objects to bestow his eyes on he would not stirre a step to see the Pope Because lately without mercy he had simoniacally extorted a masse of money from the Prelates of England At Messana in Sicilie these two Kings met again where to complete King Richards joy behold his Navie there safely arriving which with much difficulty and danger had fetched a compasse about Spain And now King Richard by his own experience grew sensible of the miseries which merchants and mariners at sea underwent being alwayes within few inches often within an hairs breadth of death Wherefore now touched with remorse of their pitifull case he resolved to revoke the law of Wracks as a law so just that it was even unjust For formerly both in England and Normandie the Crown was intituled to shipwrackt goods and the King jure gentium made heir unto them which otherwise jure naturali were conceived to be in bonis nullius pertaining to no owner But now our Richard refused to make advantage of such pitifull accidents and to strip poore mariners out of those rags of their estates which the mercy and modesty of the waves and winds had left them And therefore on the moneth of October at Messana in the presence of many Archbishops and Bishops he for ever quitted the claim to Wracks So that if any man out of the ship cometh alive to the shore the property of the shipwrackt goods is still preserved to the owner Yea this grant was so enlarged by our succeeding Kings that if a dog or a cat escaped alive to land the goods still remained the owners if he claimed them within a yeare and a day Tancred at this time was King of Sicilie a bastard born and no wonder if climbing up the throne the wrong way he shaked when he sate down Besides he was a Tyrant both detaining the dowrie and imprisoning the person of Joan wife to William late King of Sicilie and sister to King Richard But in what a case was he now having two such mighty Monarchs come unto him To keep them out was above his power to let them in against his will Well he knew it was wofull to lie in the rode where great armies were to passe For power knoweth no inferiour friend and the land-lord commonly loseth his rent
sometimes his land where the tenant is too potent for him At last he resolved how wisely or honestly let others judge openly to poise himself indifferent betwixt these two Kings secretly applying himself to the French which King Richard quickly discovered as dissembling goeth not long invisible before a judicious eye Mean time the citizens of Messana did the English much wrong if not by the command with the consent of the King For though it be unjust to father the base actions of unruly people on their Prince yet Tancred not punishing his people for injuring the English when he might and was required thereunto did in effect justifie their insolencies and adopt their deeds to be his Wherefore King Richard to avenge himself took Messana by assault seized on most forts in the Island demanding satisfaction for all wrongs done to him and his sister Tancred though dull at first now pricked with the sword came off roundly with many thousand ounces of gold and seeing as the case stood his best thrift was to be prodigall gave to our King what rich conditions soever he demanded Worse discords daily encreased betwixt the King of France and England King Richard slighting the King of France his sister whom he had promised to marry and expressing more affection to Beringaria daughter to the King of Navarre Some Princes interposing themselves in this breach rather asswaged the pain then removed the malady So dangerous are ruptures betwixt great ones whose affections perchance by the mediation of friends may be brought again to meet but never to unite and incorporate King Philip thinking to forestall the market of honour and take up all for himself hasted presently to Ptolemais Richard followed at his leisure and took Cyprus in his way Isaac or Cursac reigned then in Cyprus who under Andronicus the Grecian Emperour when every factious Noble-man snatched a plank out of that shipwracked Empire seized on this Island and there tyrannized as a reputed King Some falsely conceived him a Pagan and his faith is suspected because his charity was so bad killing the English that landed there not having so much man as to pity a woman and to suffer the sea-sick Lady Beringaria to come on shore But King Richard speedily overran the Island honoured Isaac with the magnificent captivity of silver fetters yet giving his daughter liberty and princely usage The Island he pawned to the Templars for ready money And because Cyprus by antiquity was celebrated as the seat of Venus that so it might prove to him in the joyous moneth of May he solemnly took to wife his beloved Lady Beringaria Chap. 8. The taking of the city Ptolemais VVHilest King Richard stayed in Cyprus the siege of Ptolemais went on and though the French King thought with a running pull to bear the city away yet he found it staked down too fast for all his strength to stirre Mean time the plague and famine raged in the Christians camp which the last year swept away fifty Princes and Prelates of note Who no doubt went hence to a happy place though it was before Pope Clement the sixth commanded the angels who durst not but obey him presently to convey all their souls into Paradise which should die in their pilgrimage This mortality notwithstanding the siege still continued And now the Christians and Turks like two fencers long playing together were so well acquainted with the blows and guards each of other that what advantage was taken betwixt them was meerly casuall never for want of skill care or valour on either side It helped the Christians not a little that a concealed Christian within the citie with letters unsubscribed with any name gave them constant and faithfull intelligence of the remarkable passages amongst the Turks No Prince in this siege deserved more then Leopoldus Duke of Austria who fought so long in assaulting this city till his armour was all over gore bloud save the place covered with his belt Whereupon he and his successours the Dukes of Austria renouncing the six Golden larks their ancient arms had assigned them by the Emperour a fesse Argent in a field Gules as the paternall coat of their family By this time King Richard was arrived taking as he came a dromond or Saracen ship wherein were fifteen hundred souldiers and two hundred and fifty scorpions which were to be imployed in the poysoning of Christians and now the siege of Ptolemais more fiercely prosecuted But all their engines made not so wide a breach in that cities walls as envie made betwixt the French and English Kings Yet at last the Turks despairing of succour their victuals wholly spent yielded up the city by Saladines consent on condition to be themselves safely guarded out of it all Christian prisoners Saladine had were to be set free and the Crosse to be again restored The houses which were left with the spoil and prisoners were equally divided betwixt Philip and Richard Whereat many Noble-men partners in the pains no sharers in the gains departed in discontent Some Turks for fear embraced the Christian faith but quickly returned to their vomit as religion died in fear never long keepeth colour but this dayes converâ—s will be to morrows apostates Hereupon it was commanded that none hereafter should be baptized against their wills Here the English cast down the ensignes of Leopoldus Duke of Austria which he had advanced in a principall tower in Ptolemais and as some say threw them into the jakes The Duke though angry at heart forgot this injury till he could remember it with advantage and afterwards made King Richard pay soundly for this affront It is not good to exasperate any though farre inferiour for as the fable telleth us the beetle may annoy the eagle and the mouse befriend the lion When the city was taken it grieved the Christians not a little that their faithfull correspondent who advised them by his letters could no where be found Pity it was that Rahabs red lace was not tied at his window But indeed it was probable that he was dead before the surrendring of the city Greater was the grief that the Crosse did no where appear either carelessely lost or enviously concealed by the Turks Whilest the Christians stormed hereat Saladine required a longer respite for the performance of the conditions But King Richard would not enlarge him from the strictnesse of what was concluded conceiving that was in effect to forfeit the victory back again Besides he knew he did it onely to gain time to fetch new breath and if he yielded to him his bounty had not been thanked but his fear upbraided as if he durst not deny him Yea in anger King Richard commanded all the Turkish captives which were in his hands seven thousand in number to be put to death except some choice persons on that day whereon the articles should have been but were not performed For which fact he suffered much in his repute
branded with rashnesse and cruelty as the murderer of many Christians For Saladine in revenge put as many of our captives to death On the other side the moderation of the French King was much commended who reserving his prisoners alive exchanged them to ransome so many Christians Chap. 9. The unseasonable return of the King of France MEan time the Christians were rent asunder with faction Philip the French King Odo Duke of Burgundy Leopold Duke of Austria most of the Dutch all the Genoans and Templars siding with King Conrade King Richard Henry Count of Champaigne the Hospitallers Venetians and Pisans taking part with King Guy But King Conrades side was much weakened with the sudden departure of the French King who eighteen dayes after the taking of Ptolemais returned home pretending want of necessaries indisposition of body distemper of the climate though the greatest distemper was in his own passions The true cause of his departure was partly envie because the sound of King Richards fame was of so deep a note that it drowned his partly covetousnesse to seize on the dominions of the Earl of Flanders lately dead Flanders lying fitly to make a stable for the fair palace of France If it be true what some report that Saladine bribed him to return let him for ever forfeit the surname of Augustus and the style of the most Christian Prince His own souldiers disswaded him from returning beseeching him not to stop in so glorious a race wherein he was newly started Saladine was already on his knees and would probably be brought on his face if pursued If he played the unthrift with this golden occasion let him not hope for another to play the good husband with If poverty forced his departure King Richard profered him the half of all his provisions All would not do Philip persisted in his old plea How the life of him absent would be more advantagious to the cause then the death of him present and by importunity got leave to depart solemnly swearing not to molest the King of Englands dominions Thus the King of France returned in person but remained still behind in his instructions which he left with his army to the Duke of Burgundy to whom he prescribed both his path and his pace where and how he should go And that Duke moved slowly having no desire to advance the work where King Richard would carry all the honour For in those actions wherein severall undertakers are compounded together commonly the first figure for matter of credit maketh ciphres of all the rest As for King Philip being returned home such was the itch of his ambition he must be fingering of the King of Englands territories though his hands were bound by oath to the contrary Chap. 10. Conrade King of Ierusalem slain Guy exchangeth his Kingdome for the Island of Cyprus ABout the time of the King of France his departure Conrade King of Jerusalem was murdered in the market-place of Tyre and his death is variously reported Some charged our King Richard for procuring it And though the beams of his innocency cleared his own heart yet could they not dispell the clouds of suspicions from other mens eyes Some say Humphred Prince of Thoron killed him for taking Isabella his wife away from him But the generall voice giveth it out that two Assasines stabbed him whose quarrell to him was onely this That he was a Christian. These murderers being instantly put to death gloried in the meritoriousnesse of their suffering and surely were it the punishment not the cause made martyrdome we should be best stored with Confessours from gaols and Martyrs from the gallows Conrade reigned five years and left one daughter Maria Iole on whom the Knight-Templars bestowed princely education and this may serve for his Epitaph The Crown I never did enjoy alone Of half a Kingdome I was half a King Scarce was I on when I was off the throne Slain by two slaves me basely murdering And thus the best mans life at mercy lies Of vilest varlets that their own despise His faction survived after his death affronting Guy the antient King and striving to depose him They pleaded that the Crown was tyed on Guy's head with a womans fillet which being broken by the death of his wife Queen Sibyll who deceased of the plague with her children at the siege of Ptolemais he had no longer right to the Kingdome they objected he was a worthlesse man and unfortunate On the other side it was alledged for him that to measure a mans worth by his successe is a â—quare often false alwayes uncertain Besides the courtesie of the world would allow him this favour That a King should be semel semper once and ever Whilest Guy stood on these ticklish terms King Richard made a seasonable motion which well relished to the palate of this hungry Prince To exchange his Kingdome of Jerusalem for the Island of Cyprus which he had redeemed from the Templars to whom he had pawned it And this was done accordingly to the content of both sides And King Richard with some of his succeeding English Kings wore the title of Jerusalem in their style for many years after We then dismisse King Guy hearing him thus taking his farewell I steer'd a state warre-tost against my will Blame then the storm not th' Pilots want of skill That I the Kingdome lost whose empty style I sold to Englands King for Cyprus Isle I pass'd away the land I could not hold Good ground I bought but onely air I sold. Then as a happy Merchant may I sing Though I must sigh as an unhappy King Soon after Guy made a second change of this world for another But the family of the Lusignans have enjoyed Cyprus some hundred years and since by some transactions it fell to the state of Venice and lately by conquest to the Turks Chap. 11. Henry of Champaigne chosen King The noble atchievements and victories of King Richard COnrade being killed and Guy gone away Henry Earl of Champaigne was chosen King of Jerusalem by the especiall procuring of King Richard his uncle To corroborate his election by some right of succession he married Isabella the widow of King Conrade and daughter to Almerick King of Jerusalem A Prince as writers report having a sufficient stock of valour in himself but little happy in expressing it whether for want of opportunity or shortnesse of his reign being most spent in a truce He more pleased himself in the style of Prince of Tyre then King of Jerusalem as counting it more honour to be Prince of what he had then King of what he had not And now the Christians began every where to build The Templars fortified Gaza King Richard repaired and walled Ptolemais Porphyria Joppa and Askelon But alas this short prosperity like an Autumne-spring came too late and was gone too soon to bring any fruit to maturity It was now determined they should march towards
Jerusalem for all this while they had but hit the but that Holy City was the mark they shot at Richard led the vantguard of English Duke Odo commanded in the main battel over his French James of Auvergne brought on the Flemings and Brabanters in the rere Saladine serpent-like biting the heel assaulted the rere not far from Bethlehem when the French and English wheeling about charged the Turks most furiously Emulation formerly poyson was here a cordiall each Christian nation striving not onely to conquer their enemies but to overcome their friends in the honour of the conquest King Richard seeking to put his courage out of doubt brought his judgement into question being more prodigall of his person then beseemed a Generall One wound he received but by losiâ—g his bloud he found his spirits and laid about him like a mad-man The Christians got the victory without the losse of any of number or note save James of Auvergne who here died in the bed of honour But more of the Turks were slain then in any battel for fourty years before Had the Christians presently gone to Jerusalem probably they might have surprised it whilest the Turks eyes were muffled and blindfolded in the amazement of this great overthrow But this opportunity was lost by the backwardnesse and unwillingnesse of King Richard and the English say the French writers To cry quits with them our English authours impute it to the envie of the French who would have so glorious an action rather left undone then done by the English They complain likewise of the treachery of Odo Duke of Burgundie who more carefull of his credit then his conscience was choked with the shame of the sinne he had swallowed and died for grief when his intelligence with the Turks was made known This cannot be denyed that Saladine sent term them bribes or presents both to our King and the French Duke and they received them no wonder then if neither of them herein had a good name when they traded with such familiars But most hold King Richard attempted not Jerusalem because as a wise architect he would build his victories so as they might stand securing the countrey as he went it being senselesse to besiege Jerusalem a straggling city whilest the Turks as yet were in possession of all the sea-ports and strong forts thereabout About this time he intercepted many camels loaded with rich commodity those Eastern wares containing much in a little And yet of all this and of all the treasures of England Sicilie and Cyprus which he brought hither King Richard carried home nothing but one gold-ring all the rest of his wealth melted away in this hot service He wintered in Askelon intending next spring to have at Jerusalem Chap. 12. The little-honourable peace King Richard made with Saladine Of the value of Reliques BUt bad news out of Europe shaked his steadiest resolutions hearing how William Bishop of Ely his Vice-roy in England used unsufferable insolencies over his subjects So hard it is for one of base parentage to personate a King without over-acting his part Also he heard how the King of France and John Earl of Morton his own brother invaded his dominions ambition the Pope in their belly dispensing with their oath to the contrary Besides he saw this warre was not a subject capable of valour to any purpose the Venetians Genoans Pisans and Florentines being gone away with their fleets wisely shrinking themselves out of the collar when they found their necks wrung with the hard imployment Hereupon he was forced first to make the motion of in plain terms to begge peace of Saladine Let Saladine now alone to winne having all the game in his own hand Well knew he how to shoot at his own ends and to take aim by the exigencies wherein he knew King Richard was plunged For he had those cunning gypsies about him who could read in King Richards face what grieved his heart and by his intelligencers was certified of every note-worthy passage in the English army Upon these terms therefore or none beggers of peace shall never be choosers of their conditions a truce for three some say five years might be concluded That the Christians should demolish all places they had walled since the taking of Ptolemais which was in effect to undo what with much charge they had done But such was the tyranny of King Richards occasions forcing him to return that he was glad to embrace those conditions he hated at his heart Thus the voyage of these two Kings begun with as great confidence of the undertakers as expectation of the beholders continued with as much courage as interchangeablenesse of successe baned with mutuall discord and emulation was ended with some honour to the undertakers no Profit either to them or the Christian cause Some farre-fetched dear-bought honour they got especially King Richard who eternized his memory in Asia whom if men forget horses will remember the Turks using to say to their horses when they started for fear Dost thou think King Richard is here Profit they got none losing both of them the hair of their heads in an acute disease which was more saith one then both of them got by the voyage They left the Christians in Syria in worse case then they found them as he doeth the benighted traveller a discourtesie rather then a kindnesse who lendeth a lantern to take it away leaving him more masked then he was before And now a little to solace my self and the reader with a merry digression after much sorrow and sad stories King Richard did one thing in Palestine which was worth all the cost and pains of his journey namely He redeemed from the Turks a chest full of holy Reliques which they had gotten at the taking of Jerusalem so great as four men could scarce carry any way And though some know no more then Esops cock how to prize these pearls let them learn the true value of them from the Romane jewellers First they must carefully distinguish between publick and private Reliques In private ones some forgery may be suspected lest quid be put for quo which made S. Augustine put in that wary parenthesis Si tamen Martyrum If so be they be the Reliques of Martyrs But as for publick ones approved by the Pope and kept in Churches such no doubt as these of King Richards were oh let no Christian be such an infidel as to stagger at the truth thereof If any object That the head of the same Saint is shewed at severall places the whole answer is by a Synecdoche That a part is put for the whole As for the common exception against the Crosse That so many severall pieces thereof are shown which put together would break the back of Simon of Cyrene to bear them it is answered Distrahitur non diminuitur and like the loaves in the Gospel it is miraculously multiplied in the dividing If all these
fail Baronius hath a rasour shaveth all scruple clear away For saith he Quidquid sit fides purgat facinus So that he worshipeth the false Reliques of a true Saint God taketh his good intention in good worth though he adore the hand of Esau for the hand of Jacob. But enough of thesefooleries Chap. 13. King Richard taken prisoner in Austria sold and sent to the Emperour dearly ransomed returneth home KIng Richard setting sail from Syria the sea and wind favoured him till he came into the Adriatick and on the coasts of Istria he suffered shipwrack Wherefore he intended to pierce through Germany by land the next way home But the nearnesse of the way is to be measured not by the shortnesse but the safenesse of it He disguised himself to be one Hugo a merchant whose onely commodity was himself whereof he made but a bad bargain For he was discovered in an Inne in Austria because he disguised his person not his expenses so that the very policy of an hostesse finding his purse so farre above his clothes did detect him Yea saith mine Authour Facies orbiterrarum nota ignorari non potuit The rude people flocking together used him with insolencies unworthy him worthy themselves and they who would shake at the tail of this loose Lion durst laugh at his face now they saw him in a grate Yet all the weight of their cruelty did not bow him beneath a Princely carriage Leopoldus Duke of Austria hearing hereof as being Lord of the soil seised on this Royall stray meaning now to get his penny-worths out of him for the affront done unto him in Palestine Not long after the Duke sold him to Henry the Emperour for his harsh nature surnamed Asper and it might have been Saevus being but one degree from a tyrant He kept King Richard in bands charging him with a thousand faults committed by him in Sicilie Cyprus and Palestine The proofs were as slender as the crimes grosse and Richard having an eloquent tongue innocent heart and bold spirit acquitted himself in the judgement of all the hearers At last he was ransomed for an hundred and fourty thousand marks Colein weight A summe so vast in that age before the Indies had overflowed all Europe with their gold and silver that to raise it in England they were forced to sell their Church-plate to their very chalices Whereupon out of most deep Divinity it was concluded That they should not celebrate the Sacrament in glasse for the brittlenesse of it nor in wood for the sponginesse of it which would suck up the bloud nor in alchymie because it was subject to rusting nor in copper because that would provoke vomiting but in chalices of latine which belike was a metall without exception And such were used in England for some hundred years after untill at last John Stafford Archbishop of Canterbury when the land was more replenished with silver inknotteth that Priest in the greater excommunication that should consecrate Poculum stanneum After this money Peter of Blois who had drunk as deep of Helicon as any of that age sendeth this good prayer making an apostrophe to the Emperour or to the Duke of Austria or to both together Bibe nunc avaritia Dum puteos argenteos Larga diffundit Anglia Tua tecum pecunia Sit in perditionem And now thou basest avarice Drink till thy belly burst Whil'st England poures large silver showre To satisfie thy thirst And this we pray Thy money may And thou be like accurst The ransome partly payed the rest secured by hostages King Richard much befriended by the Dutch Prelacy after eighteen moneths imprisonment returned into England The Archbishop of Colein in the presence of King Richard as he passed by brought in these words in saying masse Now I know that God hath sent his angel and hath delivered thee out of the hand of Herod and from the expectation of the people c. But his soul was more healthfull for this bitter physick and he amended his manners better loving his Queen Beringaria whom he slighted before As souldiers too often love women better then wives Leave we him now in England where his presence fixed the loyalty of many of his unsetled subjects whilest in Austria the Duke with his money built the walls of Vienna So that the best stones and morter of that bulwark of Christendome are beholden to the English coin We must not forget how Gods judgements overtook this Duke punishing his dominions with fire and water which two elements cannot be Kings but they must be tyrants by famine the ears of wheat turned into worms by a gangrene seising on the Dukes body who cut off his leg with his own hand and died thereof Who by his testament if not by his will caused some thousand crowns to be restored again to King Richard Chap. 14. The death of Saladine His commendation even with truth but almost above belief SOn after Saladine the terrour of the East ended his life having reigned sixteen years Consider him as a man or a Prince he was both wayes admirable Many Historians like some painters which rather shew their skill in drawing a curious face then in making it like to him whom it should resemble describe Princes rather what they should be then what they were not shewing so much their goodnesse as their own wits But finding this Saladine so generally commended of all writers we have no cause to distrust this his true character His wisdome was great in that he was able to advise and greater in that he was willing to be advised Never so wedded to his own resolves but on good ground he would be divorced from them His valour was not over-free but would well answer the spurre when need required In his victories he was much beholden to the advantage of season place and number and seldome wrested the garland of honour from an arm as strong as his own He ever marched in person into the field remembring that his predecessours the Caliphs of Egypt brake themselves by using Factours and imploying of Souldans His temperance was great diet sparing sleep moderate not to pamper nature but to keep it in repair His greatest recreation was variety and exchange of work Pleasures he rather sipped then drank off sometimes more to content others then please himself Wives he might have kept sans number but stinted himself to one or two using them rather for posterity then wantonnesse His justice to his own people was remarkable his promise with his enemies generally well kept Much he did triumph in mercy Fierce in fighting mild in conquering and having his enemies in his hand pleased himself more in the power then act of revenge His liberality would have drained his treasure had it not had a great and quick spring those Eastern parts being very rich Serviceable men he would purchase on any rate and sometimes his gifts bare better proportion to his own greatnesse then
the receivers deserts Vast bribes he would give to have places betrayed unto him and often effected that with his gold which he could not do with his steel Zealous he was in his own religion yet not violent â—gainst Christians quà Christians Scholarship cannot be exspected in him who was a Turk by his birth amongst whom it is a sinne to be learned and a souldier by breeding His humility was admirable as being neither ignorant of his greatnesse nor over-knowing it He provided to have no solemnities at his funerals and ordered that before his corpse a black cloth should be carried on the top of a spear and this proclaimed Saladine Conquerour of the East had nothing left him but this black shirt to attend him to the grave Some entitle him as descended from the Royall Turkish bloud Which flattering Heralds he will little thank for their pains counting it most honour that he being of mean parentage was the first founder of his own Nobility His stature for one of that nation was tall His person rather cut out to strike fear then winne love yet could he put on amiablenesse when occasion required and make it beseem him To conclude I will not be so bold to do with him as an Eastern Bishop doth with Plato and Plutarch whom he commendeth in a Greek hymn to Christ as those that came nearest to holinesse of all untaught Gentiles Belike he would be our Saviours remembrancer and put him in mind to take more especiall notice of them at the day of judgement But I will take my farewell of Saladine with that commendation I find of him He wanted nothing to his eternall happinesse but the knowledge of Christ. Chap. 15. Discords amongst the Turks The miserable death of Henry King of Ierusalem SAladine left nine some say twelve sonnes making Saphradine his brother overseer of his will Who of a tutour turned a traitour and murdered them all excepting one called also Saphradine Sultan of Aleppo who not by his uncles pity but by the favour and support of his fathers good friends was preserved Hence arose much intestine discord amongst the Turks all which time the Christians enjoyed their truce with much quiet and security Not long after Henry King of Jerusalem as he was walking in his palace to solace himself fell down out of a window and brake his neck He reigned three years But as for the particular time he died on I find it not specified in any Authour Chap. 16. Almerick the second King of Ierusalem The great armie of the Dutch adventurers doth little in Syria AFter his death Almerick Lusignan brother to King Guy was in the right of his wife crowned King of Jerusalem For he married Isabella the Relict of Henry the last King This Lady was four times married first to Humphred Prince of Thorone then to the three successive Kings of Jerusalem Conrade Henry and this Almerick He was also King of Cyprus and the Christians in Syria promised themselves much aid from the vicinity of that Island But though he was near to them he was far from helping them making pleasure all his work being an idle lazy worthlesse Prince But I trespasse on that politick rule Of Princes we must speak the best or the least if that be not intended when the truth is so late that danger is entailed upon it In his time Henry Emperour of Germany indicted by his conscience for his cruelty against King Richard seeking to perfume his name in the nostrils of the world which began to be unsavourie set on foot another voyage to the Holy land Pope Celestine the third sent his Legates about to promote this service shewing how God himself had sounded the alarm by the dissention of the Turks Jerusalem now might be wonne with the blows of her enemies onely an army must be sent not so much to conquer as to receive it Generall of the Pilgrimes was Henry Duke of Saxony next him Frederick Duke of Austria Herman Landtgrave of Thuringia Henry Palatine of Rhene Conrade Archbishop of Mentz Conrade Archbishop of Wurtzburg the Bishops of Breme Halberstadt and Regenspurg with many more Prelates so that here was an Episcopall army which might have served for a nationall Synod Insomuch that one truly might here have seen the Church Militant We have no ambition saith one of their countrey-men to reckon them up for they were plurimi nulli many in number none in their actions Some of these souldiers were imployed by Henry the Emperour who knew well to bake his cake with the Churches fuel to subdue his rebells in Apulia This done they passed through Grecia and found there better entertainment then some of their predecessours Hence by shipping they were conveyed into Syria Here they brake the truce made by King Richard it seemeth by this it was the last five years the Pope dispensing therewith who can make a peace nets to hold others but a cobweb for himself to break through The city Berytus they quickly wanne and as quickly lost For Henry the Emperour suddenly died the root which nourished this voyage and then the branches withered Henry also Duke of Saxony Generall of this army was slain And Conrade Archbishop of Mentz one of the Electours would needs return home to the choice of a new Emperour knowing he could more profitably use his voice in Germany then his arms in Syria Other Captains secretly stole home and when the souldiers would have fought their Captains ran away And whereas in other Expeditions we find vestigia pauca retrorsum making such clean work that they left little or no reversions of this voyage many safely returned home with whole bodies and wounded credits The rest that remained fortified themselves in Joppa And now the feast of S. Martin was come the Dutch their Arch-Saint This man being a Germane by birth and Bishop of Tours in France was eminent for his hospitality and the Dutch badly imitating their countrey-man turn his charity to the poor into riot on themselves keeping the eleventh of November I will not say holy-day but feast-day At this time the spring-tide of their mirth so drowned their souls that the Turks coming in upon them cut every one of their throats to the number of twenty thousand and quickly they were stabbed with the sword that were cup-shot before A day which the Dutch may well write in their Kalendars in red letters died with their own bloud when their camp was their shambles the Turks their butchers and themselves the Martinmasse-beeves from which the beastly drunkards differ but a little The citie of Joppa the Turks rased to the ground and of this victory they became so proud that they had thought without stop to have driven the Christians quite out of Syria But by the coming of Simon Count of Montford a most valiant and expert Captain â—ent thither by Philip the French King with a regiment of
not be content with their arms full they might perchance return with their hands empty But the Legate would no wayes consent alledging this voyage was undertaken not onely for the recovery of Palestine but for the exstirpation of the Mahometane superstition And herein no doubt he followed the instructions of his master whose end in this warre was That this warre should have no end but be alwayes in doing though never done He knew it was dangerous to stop an issue which had been long open and would in no case close up this vent of people by concluding a finall peace Besides an old prophesie â— That a Spaniard should win Jerusalem and work wonders in those parts made Pelagius that countrey-man more zealous herein Coradine angry his profer was refused beat down the walls of Jerusalem and all the beautiful buildings therein save the tower of David and the temple of the Sepulchre Not long after Damiata having been besieged one year and seven moneths was taken without resistance a plague and famine had made such a vastation therein The Christians entred with an intent to kill all but their anger soon melted into pity beholding the city all bestrawed with corpses The sight was bad and the sent was worse for the dead killed the living Yea Gods sword had left their sword no work Of â— three-score and ten thousand but three thousand remained who had their lives pardoned on condition to cleanse the city which imployed them a quarter of a year Hence the Christians marched and took the city of Tanis and soon after the Pope substituted â— John de Columna a Cardinall Legate in the place of Pelagius Chap. 26. New discords betwixt the King and the Legate They march up to besiege Cairo GReat was the spoil they found in Damiata wherein as in strong barred chests the merchants of Egypt and India had locked up their treasure A full yeare the Christians stayed here contented to make this Inne their home Here arose new discords betwixt the King and the new Legate who by virtue of his Legation challenged Damiata for his Holinesse which by publik agreement was formerly assigned to the King Bren in anger returned to Ptolemais both to puff out his discontents in private and to teach the Christians his worth by wanting him For presently they found themselves at a losse neither could they stand still without disgrace nor go on without danger The Legate commanded them to march up but they had too much spirit to be ruled by a Spirituall man and swore not to stirâ—e a step except the King was with them Messengers therefore were sent to Ptolemais to fetch him They found him of a steelie nature once through hot long in cooling yet by promising him he should have his own desires they over-perswaded him not to strave an armie by feeding his own humours Scarce after eight moneths absence was he returned to Damiata but new divisions were betwixt them the Legate perswaded the armie to march up and besiege Cairo he promised if they would obey him they should quickly command all Egypt by present invading it Let defenders lie at a close game and offer no play Delayes are a safe shield to save but celerity the best I word to winne a countrey Thus Alexander conquered the world before it could bethink it self to make resistance And thus God now opened them a doore of victorie except they would barre it up with their own idlenesse But the King advised to return into Syria That Cairo was difficult to take and impossible to keep That the ground whereon they went was as treacherous as the people against whom they fought That better now to retire with honour then hereafter flie with shame That none but an empirick in warre will deny but that more true valour is in an orderly well grounded retreat then in a furious rash invasion But the Legate used an inartificiall argument drawn from the authority of his place thundering excommunication against those that would not march forward And now needs must they go when he driveth them The crafty Egyptians of whom it is true what is said of the Parthians Their flight is more to be feared then their fight ran away counterfeiting cowardlinesse The Christians triumphed hereat as if the silly fish should rejoyce that he had caught the fisherman when he had swallowed his bait The Legate hugged himself in his own happinesse that he had given so successefull advice And now see how the garland of their victory proved the halter to strangle them Chap. 27. The miserable case of the drowned Christians in Egypt Damiata surrendred in ransome of their lives EGypt is a low level countrey except some few advantages which the Egyptians had fortified for themselves Through the midst of the land ran the river Nilus whose stream they had so bridled with banks and sluces that they could keep it to be their own servant and make it their enemies master at pleasure The Christians confidently marched on and the Turks perceiving the game was come within the toil pierced their banks and unmuzzling the river let it runne open mouth upon them yet so that at first they drowned them up but to the middle reserving their lives for a further purpose thereby in exchange to recover Damiata and their countreys liberty See here the land of Egypt turned in an instant into the Egyptian sea See an army of sixty thousand as the neck of one man stretched on the block and waiting the fatall stroke Many cursed the Legate and their own rashnesse that they should follow the counsel of a gowned man all whose experience was clasped in a book rather then the advice of experienced captains But too late repentance because it soweth not in season reapeth nothing but unavoidable miserie Meladine King of Egypt seeing the constancy and patience of the Christians was moved with compassion towards them He had of himself strong inclinations to Christianity wearie of Mahometanisme and willing to break that prison but for watchfull jaylers about him He proferred the Christians their lives on condition they would quit the countrey and restore Damiata They accepted the conditions and sent messengers to Damiata to prepare them for the surrendring of it But they within the citie being themselves safe on shore tyrannized on their poore brethren in shipwrack pretending That this armie of Pilgrimes deserved no pity who had invited this misfortune on themselves by their own rashnesse That if they yielded up this citie for nothing which cost so many lives they should betray themselves to the derision of the whole world That if these perished more men might be had but no more Damiata's being a place of such importance it would alwayes be a snaffle in the mouth of the Egyptian King On the other side the friends of the distressed Christians confessed That indeed their voyage was unadvised and justly to be blamed yet worse and more inconsiderate projects have armies oft
reduction of the Greeks to the truth as to his own obedience Besides the hatred they have against the Popes pride another great hindrance of the union is the small intercourse the Eastern Christians have or desire to have with the Western They live amongst the Turks and are grown to be contented slaves and having long since parted with their hopes now almost have lost their desire of liberty We must not forget how some fifty years ago solemn news was reported in Rome that the Patriarch of Alexandria with all the Greek Church in Africa by their Embassadours had submitted and reconciled themselves to the Pope and from him received Absolution and Benediction All which was a politick lie perchance therefore reported that it might make impression in the minds and raise and confirm the spirits of the vulgar who easily believe all that their betters tell them And though afterwards this report was controlled to be false yet mens spirits then being cold were not so sensible of it as before and the former news came to many mens ears who never heard afterwards of the check and confutation thereof Nor is there any State in the world that maketh such use and advantage as the Papall doth of false news To conclude As it is a maxime in Philosophy Ex quibus constamus ex iisdem nutrimur so a great part of their religion consisting of errours and falshoods it is suitable that accordingly it should be kept up and maintained with forgeries and deceits To return to Palestine This rent not in the seam but whole cloth betwixt these Churches was no mean hindrance to the Holy warre Formerly the Greeks in Syria were not so clearly cut asunder from the Latines but that they hung together by one great sinew in the common cause agreeing against the Turk the enemy to both But since this last breach the Greeks did in their desires propend and incline to the Turks being better contented they should conquer from whom they should have fair quarter free exercise of their religion and secure dwelling in any citie paying a set tribute then the Latines who they feared would force their consciences and bring their souls in subjection to the Popes supremacie Expect we then never hereafter that either their hearts or hands should afford any assistance to our Pilgrimes in their designes Some conceive that at this day if the Western Christians should stoutly invade Turkie with any likelihood to prevail the Greeks therein would runne to aid them But others are of a contrary judgement considering First the inveterate and inlaid hatred not to be washed off they bear the Latines Secondly the jealousie they have that they will never keep promise with them who have alwayes a warrant dormant from the Pope to break all contracts prejudiciall to the Romish Church Thirdly that custome and long continuance in slavery have so hardened and brawned their shoulders the yoke doth not wring them so much yea they had rather suffer the Turks being old full flies to suck them then to hazard their galled backs to new hungry ones finding by experience That they themselves live on better terms of servitude under the Turk lesse grated and grinded with exactions then some of their countrey-men do under the Latines for instance in Zante and Candie under the Venetians Chap. 7. Theobald King of Navarre maketh an unsuccessefull voyage into Palestine THe ten years truce by this time was expired which Frederick made with the Turks and Reinold Vice-roy of Palestine by instructions from him concluded another truce of the same term with them He saw that this young Christian Kingdome of Jerusalem like an infant would thrive best with sleeping with peace and quietnesse Nor was it any policie for him to move at all where there was more danger to hurt then hope to help their present estate But though this peace was honourable and profitable having no fault but that Frederick made it yet the Templars who did not relish the father must needs distast the child They complained that this peace was not used as a slumber to refresh the souldiers spirit but as a lethargie to benumme their valour and chiefly snarled at this indignity That the Turks had accesse to the temple of the Sepulchre and that Goats had free-commonage in the Sheeps pasture Wherefore Pope Gregory to despite the Emperour Frederick caused the Dominicans and Franciscans his trumpeters to incite people to the Holy warre These were two twin-orders but the Dominican the eldest which now were no sooner hatched in the world but presently chirped in the pulpits In that age Sermons were news and meat for Princes not common men Yea the Albingenses with their preaching had drowned the voices of secular Priests if these two Orders had not helped to out-noise those supposed hereticks These amplified with their rhetorick the calamity of the Christians tyrannie of the Turks merit of the cause probability of successe performing their parts with such gravity shew of devotion accents of passion not glued on for the present purpose but so naturall as from true affection that many were wooed to undertake the voyage Principally Theobald King of Navarre Almerick Earl of Montfort Henry of Champaigne Peter Earl of Bretaigne with many others of inferiour rank Ships they had none wherefore they were fain to shape their passage by land through Grecia where they were entertained with treachery famine and all the miseries which wait on distressed armies These came last that way and I may say shut the door For no Christian army ever after went that tedious journey by land Having passed the Bosporus they marched into Bithynia thence through Galatia they came unto the mountain Taurus where they were much damnified by the Turks who fell on and off upon them as they were advised by their own advantages The Christians desired no other gift but that a set battel might be given them which the Turks would not grant but played at distance and would never close But with much ado the Christians recovered to Antioch having scarce a third part of them left their horses all dead and themselves scarce mounted on their legs miserably weak as what the mercy of sword plague and famine had pleased to spare Hence the Templars conducted them to Gaza where they fell on forraging the countrey of the Sultan assaulting no places which were of strength or honour to subdue but onely spoiled poore villages which counted themselves walled with the truce as yet in force Abundance of wealth they got and were now late returning home when after their plentifull supper a dear and â—harp reckoning was called for Behold the Turks in great numbers fell upon them near unto Gaza and the Christians down with their bundles of spoil and out with their swords bravely defending themselves till such time as the night parted the fray Here they committed a great errour and as one may say a neglect in over-diligence for in stead of reposing
errour and cause of their overthrow For though those souldiers who mean to be false will never be made faithfull in what place soever they be bestowed yet may they be made lesse dangerous if cast into the body or main battel of the army whence they have no such scope to fling out and to take advantage of place to do mischief as they have either in the front or wings thereof Thus in Cesars time Crassus an experienced Generall under him being to bid the Gauls battel auxiliares copias quibus ad pugnam non multùm confidebat in mediam aciem collocavit that so being hemmend in before and behind they might be ingaged to fight manfully without starting away And to instance in later times our Richard the third who though he usurped the Crown had as none will deny a true title both to prowesse and martiall policie marching to Bosworth placed suspected persons whose bodies were with him and hearts with Earl Henry in the midst and those whom he most trusted before behind and on every side The battel being joyned the Turks ranne over to the other side though some braved them onely with cowardlinesse not treachery and that they fled from the battel but not fell to the enemies The Christians manfully stood to it and though over-powred in number made a great slaughter of their enemies till at last they were quite overthrown Of the Teutonick Order escaped but three of three hundred Templars but eighteen of two hundred Hospitallers but nineteen The patriarch to use his own words whom God reputed unworthy of martyrdome saved himself by flight with a few others And this great overthrow to omit lesse partner-causes is chiefly imputed to the Templars former so often breaking the truce with the Sultan of Babylon Thus were the Christians conquered by the Corasines and beaten by a beaten nation Palestine being wonne by those who could not keep their own countrey Improving this victorie they left nothing to the Christians but Tyre Ptolemais and Antioch with some few forts Soon after these Corasines elated herewith fell out with the Sultan himself who in anger rooted out their nation so that none of their name remained Yea all writers are silent of them both before this time and ever after as if God at this very instant had created this people to punish Christians which service performed they were annihilated again Chap. 11. Lewis the ninth setteth forward against the Turks The occasion of his journey and his attendants SOme two years after Lewis the ninth of that name King of France came to assist the Christians The occasion of his voyage this He had been visited with a desperate sicknesse insomuch that all art cried craven as unable to help him and the Physicians resigned him to Divines to begin with him where they ended They also gave him over and for a while he lay in a trance not the least breath brought news of any life left in him Then Blanch the Queen-mother and Queen of mothers for her care of her sonne and his Kingdome applied a piece of the Crosse unto him Thereat whether thereby let others dispute he revived and recovered and thereupon was Croised and in thankfulnesse bound himself with a vow to sail to the Holy land But his Nobility disswaded him from that designe The dangers were certain the successe would be doubtfull of so long a journey his own Kingdome would be left desolate and many mischiefs unseen as yet would appear in his absence Besides his vow was made in his sicknesse whilest reason was scarce as yet in the peaceable possession of his mind because of the remnant-dregs of his disease It might also be dispensed with by the Pope yea his deserts did challenge so much from his Holinesse King Lewis as perswaded hereat laid down the Crosse to the great comfort and contentment of all the beholders But then altering his countenance he required the Crosse should be restored to him again and vowed to eat no bread untill he was recognized with the Pilgrimes badge And because his vow should suffer no diminution or abatement from his disease now no longer Lewis the sick but Lewis the sound undertook the holy Warre His Nobles seeing him too stiff to be unbent and counting it a kind of sacrilegious counsel to disswade him from so pious a work left him to his own resolutions There went along with him his two brothers Charles Earl of Anjou Robert Earl of Artois his own Queen and their Ladies Odo the Popes Legate Hugh Duke of Burgundie William Earl of Flanders Hugh Earl of St. Paul and William Longspath Earl of Sarisbury with a band of valiant English men who went without licence from Henry King of England For in those dayes this doctrine went currant That their Princes leave was rather of complement then essentiall to their voyage as if the band of this holy Warre was an acquitance from all others Our Henry displeased at this Earls departure for his disobedience deprived him of his Earldome and castle of Sarisbury not suffering that sheep to grase in his pasture which would not own him for his shepherd William also sonne to this Earl smarting for his fathers fault never enjoyed that honour And though King Henry himself being a Prince of more devotion then policie did most affectionately tender this Holy cause yet he used this necessary severity towards this Earl at this time first because it would weaken his land thus to be dispeopled of martiall men secondly his subjects forwardnesse might be interpreted a secret check of his own backwardnesse in that warre thirdly the sucking in of forrein aire did wean people from their naturall Prince and did insensibly usher into their hearts an alienation from their own Sovereigne and a dependence on the King of France lastly he had some thoughts on that voyage himself and reserved such prime Peers to attend on his own person thither The Pope gave to this King Lewis his charges the tenth of the Clergies revenues through France for three years and the King imployed the Popes collectours to gather it knowing those leaches were the best suckers Hereupon the states of the Clergy were shaved as bare as their crowns and a poore Priest who had but twenty shillings annuall pension was forced to pay two yearly to the King And this by my Authour is made the cause of his following ill successe there being much extortion used by his under-officers No wonder then if the wings of that army did quickly flag having so heavy a weight of curses hanging upon them And though money be the sinews of warre yet ill-gotten money like gouty sinews rather paineth then strengtheneth True it is that this pious King was no way guilty thereof but such as were under him and oftentimes the head doth ach for the ill vapours of the stomach He himself most princely caused to be proclaimed through his realm If any merchant
or other had been at any time injured by the Kings exactours either by oppression or borrowing of money let him bring forth his bill shewing how and wherein and he should be recompensed How this was performed we find not but it was a good lenitive plaister to asswage the peoples pain for the present Having at Lyons took his leave of the Pope and a blessing from him he marched towards Avignon Where some of the city wronged his souldiers especially with foul language Wherefore his Nobles desired him that he would besiege the citie the rather because it was suspected that therein his father was poysoned To whom Lewis most Christianly I come not out of France to revenge my own quarrels or those of my father or mother but injuries offered to Jesus Christ. Hence he went without delay to his navie and committed himself to the sea Chap. 12. Lewis arriveth in Cyprus The conversion of the Tartarians hindred The treachery of the Templars SAiling forward with a prosperous wind he safely arrived in Cyprus where Alexius Lusignan King of the Island entertained him according to the stateliest hospitality Here the pestilence one of the ready attendants on great armies began to rage And though a French writer saith it was minax magâ—s quà m funesta yet we find in others that two hundred and fourty Gentlemen of note died by force of the infection Hither came the Embassadours from a great Tartarian Prince but surely not from Cham himself invited by the fame of King Lewis his piety professing to him That he had renounced his Paganisme and embraced Christianity and that he intended to send messengers to Pope Innocent to be further instructed in his religion But some Christians which were in Tartary disswaded him from so doing lest the Tartarians coming to Rome should behold the dissolutenesse of mens lives there and so refuse to suck the milk of sweet doctrine from so sowre and bitter nipples besmeared about with bad and scandalous conversation Yea never could the Christian religion be shewed to Pagans at any time on more disadvantages Grecians and Latines were at deadly feud amongst the Latines Guelfes and Gibellines sought to ruine each other Humility was every-where preached and pride practised They perswaded others to labour for heaven and fell out about earth themselves Their lives were contrary to their doctrines and their doctrines one to another But as for these Embassadours King Lewis received them very courteously dismissing them with bounteous gifts And by them he sent to their master a Tenâ— wherein the history of the Bible was as richly as curiously dâ—picted in needle-work hoping thus to catch his soul in his eyes and both in that glorious present Pictures being then accounted lay-mens books though since of many condemned as full of errata's and never set forth by authority from the King of heaven to be means or workers of faith Whilest Lewis stayed in Cyprus the Templars in the Holy land began to have his greatnesse in suspicion This Order as both the other of Hospitallers and Teutonicks though mown down to the bare roots at the last unfortunate battel yet now in three years space sprung up as populous as ever before their other brethren which lived in their severall Covents and Commandries over all Europe having now refurnished the houses in Palestine Now these Templars were loth King Lewis should come to Ptolemais though they counterfeited he should be very welcome there They formerly there had commanded in chief without controll and were unwilling having long sat in the saddle now to dismount and hold the stirrup to another Besides they would not have so neat and cleanly a guest see their slutrish houses fearing Lewis his piety would shame their dissolutenesse being one so godly in his conversation that by the preaching in his life he had converted many Saracens yea perchance he being a strict Disciplinarian would punish their vicious manners Wherefore they wrote to him out of Syria to accept of a peace with the Sultan of Egypt now offered and to proceed no further in warre against him The French King whose heart was ever open to any fair agreement and shut against any dishonourable suspicions had entertained the motion had not the King of Cyprus being more studied in the Templars treacheries better instructed him For he told him this was but a trick of their great Master who under-hand had sent to the Sultan and procured him to profer this peace onely for their own private ends for to divert the King from coming amongst them Lewis though the mildest and most patient of Princes yet not a drone which wanted the sting of anger commanded the Master of the Templars upon the price of his head thenceforward to receive no Embassage nor keep any intelligence with their enemy and resolved with himself to invade Egypt Chap. 13. The wise preparations of the Egyptians The valour of the French at their landing Damiata wonnâ— BUt he stood so long in aiming that the bird saw him and had leisure to flie away and Meladine the Egyptian King to provide himself to make resistance Last time some thirty years before when the Christians under John Bren invaded Egypt they were not impeached in their arrivall but suffered to land without any opposition But Meladine now was sensible of the discommodity in permitting his â—oes safely to come on shore For first they wasted and spoiled the countrey the provision about them Secondly opportunity was given to male contents and ill-disposed persons to flie to the enemy Lastly he found it most policy to keep the enemy off at arms end and to close at the last and not to adventure his Kingdome on the single die of a battel but rather to set it on a chance that so he might have the more play for it Wherefore he resolved to strengthen his maritime places and not suffer them to land though also herein he met with many difficulties For as nothing was more certain then that Lewis would set on Egypt so nothing more uncertain and because it was unknown at what time or place he would come all times and places were provided for This exhausted a masse of treasure to keep in pay so many souldiers for many moneths together But it is no time to dispute about unnecessary thirft when a whole Kingdome is brought into question to be subdued And because the landing-places in Egypt are of great disadvantage to the defendants yielding them no shelter from the fury of their enemies artillery being all open places and plain the shores there being not shod against the sea with huge high rocks as they are in some other countreys because the land is low and level Meladine was forced to fortifie welnigh an hundred and eighty miles along the sea-side and what Nature had left bare Art put the more clothes on and by using of great industry such as by Tully is fitly termed horribilis industria in
nation being most punctuall and criticall in their military postures But being come near it was plain for any to read Turk in their beards and complexions so that they departed without having what they deâ—ired Chap. 17. The wofull impression which the ill successe of the French wrought on the Christians in Europe SOme made more hast then good speed bad news being the worst ware a ship can be fraught with to sail into France with the sad tidings of this overthrow These intelligencers Blanch the Queen-mother and Regent of France rewarded with the gallows and my Authour doubteth not to pronounce them all Martyrs But let them be contented with the coroneâ— of their own innocence though without the crown of Martyrdome that honour alone belonging to such as suffer death for fundamentall points of religion But so great an eclipse could not long be kept from the eyes of the world and this doleful and dismall news was sounded and seconded from every side Then was there a generall lamentation over all Christendome chiefly in France where all were so sorrowfull that any mirth was counted profanenesse Many bounded not themselves within the banks of grief but brake out into blasphemy both in France and elsewhere taxing Justice it self of being unjust and not content to admire what they could not conceive condemned Gods proceedings herein to be against right because above their reason Fools because they could not conquer on earth did quarrel with heaven This bad breath though it came but from the teeth of some yet proceeded from the corrupted lungs of others some spake but out of present passion but others even out of inbred Atheisme Many who before were but luke warme in religion now turned stark cold In Venice and some others cities of Italy the inhâ—bitants whereof Matthew Paris calleth semichristianâ—s but half-Christians though this his harsh appellation wanteth three parts of charity began wholly to tend to apostasie And now for a crutch to stay their reeling faith it was high time for the Clergy to ply the pulpits They perswaded those Rachels who in this voyage had lost any children and would not be comforted that their children were in a most blessed condition They emptied all their boxes of their colours of rhetotorick there with to paint out the happinesse of their estate which they enjoyed in heaven They pieced out their Sermons with reporting of Miracles How William Earl of Sarisbury appeared to his mother and assured her that he reigned most glorious in heaven She presently forgot her grief for losing her sonne for joy that she had found a Saint yea a Martyr This was their constant custome When any in Europe wept for the losse of their friends in this warre their tears were instantly dried up with some hot miracle that was reported them Wherewith the silly people were well pleased as babes of clouts are good enough to keep children from crying About this time many thousands of the English were resolved for the Holy warre and would needs have been gone had not the King strictly guarded his ports and kept his Kingdome from running away out of doores The King promised he would go with them and hereupon got a masse of mony from them for this journey Some say that he never intended it and that this onely was a trick to stroke the skittish cow to get down her milk His stubborn subjects said that they would tarry for his company till midsummer and no longer Thus they weighed out their obedience with their own scales and the King stood to their allowance But hearing of this sorrowfull accident both Prince and people altered their resolution who had come too late to help the French in their distresse and too soon to bring themselves into the same misery Chap. 18. King Lewis exchanged for Damiata stayeth some years at Ptolemais BUt to return to Egypt where King Lewis was kept prisoner by Melechsala who often felt his disposition about the resigning of Damiata but found that to hear of death was more welcome musick unto him But see here a sudden alteration One Tarqueminus a sturdy Mammaluke with another of that society killed Melechsala in the very heighth of his victorious happinesse and succeeded him in the Egyptian Kingdome This Tarquemine came in with an intent to send Lewis the same way Which poor Prince was onely armed with innocence and Majestie and yet his bare person defended his person from that cruel attempt such an awfull impression did his very presence saith my Authour strike into him who would have stricken him But we may rather think that the city of Damiata was King Lewis his corslet and that all the towres and walls of that place fenced him Tarquemnius reserving his person as an equivalent ransome thereby to redeem that royall citie Now Lewis had changed his Lord but not his lamentable condition continuing still a prisoner At last he was restored to his liberty on condition that the Christians should surrender Damiata and he also pay back to the Turks many thousand pounds both for ransome of Christian captives and in satisfaction of the vastations they had committed in Egypt Lewis for security of this money pawned to the Turk the Pyx and Host that is the body of Christ transsubstantiated in the Eucharist as his chiefest jewel which he should be most carefull to redeem Hence in perpetuall memory of this conquest we may see a Wafer-cake and a box alwayes wrought in the borders of that tapestry which is brought out of Egypt Note by the way That the Turks were most unreasonable in their rates of ransoming souldiers and in all other their pecuniary demands For their own countrey being near to the fountain of gold and silver they made as if it flowed as plentifully in other places measuring the wealth of other lands by their own and asking as much for a private mans ransome as would drain a Princes purse in these Western parts Thus was Damiata restored again to the Turks and the Christians punctually performed their promises though the false Miscreant on the other side set not half the captives free killed all the sick persons whom by promise he should relieve and contrary to the agreement suffered not any Christian to transport any of his goods out of Egypt Hence Lewis sailed to Ptolemais where he lived in a miserable case being forsaken of his brothers subjects friends and the Pope himself His brothers Alphonse and Charles though sent into France to solicite his suit and to advance his ransome with speed yet being arrived forgot the affliction of Joseph and the King was as farre from their mind as their sight Wherefore God justly visited Alphonse with an incurable disease His subjects though furious at first in bemoning him yet the fit past complained not so much for him as on him charging him for ill managing the matters in Egypt by his cowardlinesse and indiscretion His friends the Pisans and Genoans reviled him
not out in the election of their Prince being in a manner all equall amongst themselves We see elective States in Christendome though bound with the straitest laws often sagge aside into schismes and factions whereas this strange Empire in their choice had no dangerous discords but such as were quenched in the kindling Lastly who ever knew a wall that had no better cement to stand so sure and so long Two hundred sixty and seven years this State endured and yet had it to do with strong and puissant enemies Some Kingdomes ow their greatnesse not so much to their own valour and wisdome as to the weaknesse of their neighbours but it fared not thus with the Mammalukes To omit Prester John who neighboured them on the south on all other sides they were encompassed with potent opposers From whom right valiantly they defended themselves till in the yeare 1517 they were overcome by Selimus the great Turkish Emperour To conclude As for the Amazons and their brave atchievements with much valour and no manhood they and their State had onely being in the brains of fabulous writers As for the Assasines or regiment of rogues it never spread to the breadth of any great countrey nor grew to the height of a Kingdome but being the jakes of the world was cast out in a place betwixt barren hills But this Empire of vassals was every way wonderfull stretching so farre over all Egypt and most of Syria and lasting so long A strange State wherein slavery was the first step to their throne and apostasle the first article in their religion Chap 20. The manner of the death of Frederick King of Ierusalem His Will and posterity after him An interregnum both in Germanie and the Kingdome of Ierusalem IN this same yeare Frederick King of Jerusalem and Emperour of Germanie ended his troublesome dayes A Prince who in the race of his life met with many rubs some stumbles no dangerous fall Besides the Turk he had to do with the Pope the Pope immortall in his succession And though his Holinesse was unfit for warre as being alwayes old and never ripe for that place till almost rotten yet he used his own head and commanded the hands of others whereby he kept Frederick in a continuall warre Yet never could he have beaten him with fair play had he not used a weapon if not against the law of Arms against the law of God and against which no guard Arming his subjects against him and Dispensing with the oath of allegeance But he gave Frederick the mortall wound in setting himself against himself I mean Henry his eldest sonne And though Frederick easily conquered that rebellious youth and made him fast enough keeping him in prison in Apulia where he died yet he carried the grief hereof to his grave For now he knew not where or in whom to place any confidence as suspecting the single cord of Loyalty would not hold in others which brake in his own sonne though twisted with Naturall affection The greatnesse of his spirit was a great hastening of his death and being of a keen eager and active nature the sharpnesse of the sword cut the scabbard the sooner asunder Bow he could not break he must What-ever is reported he died of no other poison then sorrow which ushered him into a wasting ague grief being a burden whereof the strongest shoulders can bear the least As for the same that Maufred his base son should stifle him with a pillow though I must confesse he might be taken on suspicion as likely enough to play such a devilish prank yet it is unreasonable that he who is acquitted by the Authours of the same time should be condemned on the evidence of the writers of after-ages He died at Florence in an obscure castle on S. Lucies day having reigned King of Jerusalem three and twenty years By his Will he bequeathed many ounces of gold to the Knights Templars and Hospitallers in recompence of the wrongs they had received by him He left a great summe of money for the recovery of the Holy land to be disposed at the discretion of the foresaid knights He forbad any stately funerall for himself though in his life immoderately excessive in pomp as if he would do penance for his pride after death A Prince who had he not been hindred with domesticall discords would have equallized Caesar himself For if thus bravely he â—aid about him his hands being tied at home with continuall dissentions what would he have done if at liberty A scandal is raised since his death That he was but a millers sonne but he would have ground them to powder who in his life-time durst have averred it Indeed he was very happy in mechanicall matters such as we may term Liberall handicrafts as casting founding carving in iron and brasse Nether did this argue a low soul to dabble in such mean imployments but rather proved the amplitude and largenesse thereof of so generall acquaintance that no Art was a stranger to him But the suspicion of his birth rose from the almost miraculous manner of it Constantia his mother bearing him when welnigh sixty years of age But both in Scripture and other writers we may see the sonnes of long barren-mothers to have been fruitfull in famous atchievements Pity it was that he had some faults yea pity it had been if he had not had some But his vices indeed were notorious and unexcusable Many wives and concubines he had and by them many children His wives His legitimate children Their preferment 1. Constantia Queen of Aragon Henry who rebelled against him King of the Romanâ—s 2. Iole daughter to John Bren. Conrade Duke of Suevia 3. Agnes daughter to the Marquesse of Moravia childlesse divorced 4. Rutina 5. Isabella of Bavaria Agnes Married to Conrade Landâ—grave of Hessen 6. Mawd daughter to John King of England Constance Wife to Lewis Landâ—grave of Hessen  His base sonnes His concubine Blanch. 1. Henzius King of Sardinâ—a 2. Maufred Usurper of Sicily 3. Frederick Prince of Antioch It is much that succession adventured in so many severall bottoms should miscarry Yet these foure sonnes dying left no lasting issue and in the third generation Fredericks stock and that whole raâ—e of Suevian Princes was extinct Which in the judgement of some men was a judgement of God on him for his lasciviousnesse We must not forget a memorable passage which happened more then twenty yeares after Fredericks death One Tylo Colupp a notable juggler sometime brought up at the Court cunningly sowing together all the old shreds of his Courtship and stretching them out with impudency pretended to be Frederick the Emperour long detained in captivity in Palestine The difference betwixt their aâ—pects was easily reconciled for few Physâ—ognomy marks are so deeply fixed in any face but that age and misery will alter them The credulity of the vulgar sort presently betrayed them to be couzened by him yea some
Princes took this brasse for gold without touching it But the best engine which gave this puppet his motion was a bruit constantly buzzed That Frederick was not dead For Princes the manner of whole deaths hath been private and obscure fame commonly conjureth again out of their graves and they walk abroad in the tongues and brains of many who affirm and believe them to be still alive But the world soon suifeted of this cheaters forgerie and this glow-worm when brought into the light shined no more but at Nantes was burnt to ashes by Rodulphus the Emperour After Fredericks death there was an interregnum for three and twenty yeares in the Empire of Germany True it is that of some William Earl of Holland one without a beard not valour was nominated Emperour The Spirituall electours chose Richard brother to our King Henry the third And as in Cornwall he got much coin so Germany gave him a bottomlesse bag to put it in A third party named Alphonse King of Castile an admirable Mathematician But the ointment of his name is marred with the dead flie of his Atheisticall speech That if he had been in Gods stead he could have framed the world better then now it is Notwithstanding the best Dutch writers make an interregnum as counting the Empire still a widdow and all these rather her suiters then any her husband In like manner also in Palestine there was not any King for fourteen years after Fredericks death The right indeed lay in Conrade Duke of Suevia Fredericks sonne by Iole daughter to John Bren King of Jerusalem But he was so imployed in defending himself in Sicily against Mauâ—ted his base brother who soon after dispatched him out of the way that he had no leisure to prosecute his title to the fragments of his Kingdome of Jerusalem Chap. 21. The Pastorells killed in France King Lewis returned home GO we back to King Lewis who all this while stayed in Palestine busying himself partly in building and fencing of Sidon and Cesarea partly in composing discords betwixt the Pisans and Genoans even proceeding to threaten them into agreement But these armed men little cared for his naked menacing He being also an excellent religious Antiquary and Critick on holy monuments much employed himself in redeeming of old sacred places from the tyranny of time and oblivion Mean time in his Kingdome of France happened this strange accident An Hungarian pesant who is said to have been an apostate to Mahomet and well learned gathered together many thousands of people pretending they had intelligence from heaven to march to the Holy land These took on them the name and habit of Pastorelli poore shepherds in imitation belike as the Devil is Gods ape of those in the Gospel who were warned by Angels in a vision to go to Bethlehem Being to shape their course into Palestine they went into France shewing they had a vertigo in their heads mistaking the West for the East or else that like vagabonds they were never out of their way The Holy Lamb was their ensigne but their actions neither holy nor lambe-like They pillaged and killed the poor Jews as they went an unhappy nation whose heads lie pat for every ones hands to hit and their legges so stand in mens way that few can go by them without spurning at them Where they wanted Jews they made Jews of Christians especially if they were rich using them with all cruelty But at last near Burdeaux threescore thousand of them were slain and the rest dispersed A rhymer of that age or in courtesie call him a Poet made this Epitaph on them M semel bis C LI conjungere disce Duxit Pastorum saeva Megaera chorum Learn to put together well What M C C L I do spell When some devilish fiend in France Did teach the Shepherds how to dance By this time Lewis in Syria had stayed out the death and buriall of all his hopes to receive succour from his own countrey Long expecting in vain that France should come to him he at last returned to it The greatnesse of the burden he bore made him to go the faster and being loaden with debts to his Italian creditours he secretly hasted home Where safely arriving besides loyaltie to their Prince love to a stranger was enough to make him welcome Chap. 22. The conversion of the Tartarians Haalon conquereth Persia and extinguisheth the Caliphs of Babylon LEwis is gone and left the Christians in Syria in a wofull condition without hope of amendment Now can any good come out of Tartary Can the Northern wind blow a comfortable warmth Yea see a strange vicissitude of things Haito the Christian King of Armenia had travelled to Mango the Cham of Tartary to communicate to him the present danger of the Tâ—rks and to consult of a remedy He shewed how if order were not taken with them in time they would over-runne all Asia Let him not count that he lay out of their rode because of his remote situation For what is the way wanderers will not trace He might expect onely this courtesie to be last devoured In conclusion Haito prevailed so farre with this Pagan that he not onely promised his assistance but also was baptised and took the Christian religion on him So also did his whole countrey by his example and Christianity being the Court-fashion none would be out of it Never since the time of Constantine the Great did the devill at once lose a greater morsel or was there made a more hopefull accession to the Faith Understand we this conversion of Tartary though Authours predicate it universally of that whole countrey onely of Cathaia the Eastern and most refined part of that Empire For Cannibals were still in the North who needed first to be converted to reason and to be made men before they could become Christians Also at this same time we find a swarm of Western Tartarian heathens forraging Poland So it seemeth so vast was the Empire that it was still night in the West though it was day in the Eastern part thereof Now whether the conversion of these Tartarians was solemnly deliberately and methodically wrought by preaching first those things wherein the light of Nature concurreth with Faith then those wherein humane reason is no foe but standeth neuter such as are merely of Faith leaving the issue of all to God whose oratory onely can perswade souls or whether which is more probable it was but tumultuously done many on a sudden rather snatching then embracing religion we will not dispute Sure it is that Mango sent Haalon his brother who is said to have married a wife an excellent Christian and descended from the Wise-men who came to see our Saviour with a great army to suppresse the Turks and assist the Christians It seemeth his army rid post for falling into Persia he conquered it sooner then one can well travell it in half
generall nor so full of varieties and the mysteries thereof sooner learned or because in sea-fights fortune may seem to be a deeper sharer and valour not so much interested Whatsoever it is the laurel purchased on land hath a more lively verdure then that which is got at sea We return to the Venetians who using or rather abusing this conquest enter Ptolemais cast out all Genoans thence throw down their buildings both publick and private demolish the fort which they had builded at S. Saba rifle and spoil their shops warehouses and storehouses onely the Pope prevailed so farre with them that they set at liberty the prisoners they had taken Ten years did this warre last betwixt these two States in Syria composed at last saith my Authour by the authority of Pope Clement the fourth and by famine the bad cause of a good effect which in Palestine starved them into agreement Longer these warres lasted betwixt them in Italy their successe like the sea they fought on ebbing and flowing In this costly warre Pisa was first beggered and for all her politick partaking Genoa at last trode so heavy upon her that ever since she hath drooped and hung the wing and at this day is maid to Florence who formerly was mistresse of a good part of Italy But I have no calling and lesse comfort to prosecute these bloudy dissensions For warres of Christians against Infidels are like the heat of exercise which serveth to keep the body of Christianity in health but these civil warres amongst themselves like the heat of a feaver dangerous and destructive of religion Chap. 25. Charles made King of Sicily and Ierusalem by the Pope Hugh King of Cyprus pretendeth also to go to Ierusalem WE have now gotten Pantaleon a Frenchman who succeeded Robert in the titular Patriarchship of Jerusalem to be Pope by the name of Urbane the fourth To advance the Holy cause after fourteen years interregnum in Syria he appointed Charles Duke of Anjou yonger brother to King Lewis of France King of Sicily and Jerusalem and it was ratified by Clement the fourth his successour This honour was first offered to Lewis himself but piety had dried up in him all ambitious humours then to our Henry of England but his warre-wasted purse could not stretch to the Popes price At last this Charles accepted it But it is not for any speciall favour to the bush if a man run under it in a storm it was no love to Charles but to himself to be sheltred from Maufred that the Pope conferred this honour upon him And the wife of Charles that she might go in equipage with her three sisters being Queens sold all her jewels to furnish her husband with money to purchase these Kingdomes that sex loving bravery well but greatnesse better Now the Pope whose well grounded and bounded bountie will never undo him for where he giveth away the meat he selleth the sauce conditioned with Charles on these termes First that he should conquer Maufred then King of Sicily who molested the Pope and that he should finally subdue all the remaining race of Frederick the second Emperour who claimed that Kingdome Secondly in acknowledgement that he held these Kingdomes from the Pope he should pay him an annuall pension of four some say fourty thousand pounds Provided if this Charles should chance to be chosen Emperour of Germany that then he should either resigne Sicily back again into the hands of his Holinesse or not accept the Empire For he knew that all Emperours would be possessed with an anti-papall spirit and that they would hold Sicily not in homage from the Church but as a member of the Empire Besides the Pope would not dispense that Princes should hold pluralitie of temporall Dominions in Italy especially he was so ticklish he could not endure the same Prince should embrace him on both sides Ever since the twinne-titles of Sicily and Jerusalem have gone together and fit it is that the shadow should follow the substance Charles subdued Maufred and Conradine his nephew the last of the Suevian race and grandchild to Emperour Frederick and was possessed of Sicilie and lived there but as for the gaining of Jerusalem he little regarded it nor came thither at all A watchfull King who never slept in his Kingdome His absence gave occasion to Hugh King of Cyprus to furbish up new his old title to the Kingdome as lineally descended from Almerick the second And coming to Ptolemais he there was crowned King of Jerusalem But the extremity of the famine all things being excessive dear much abated the solemnity and state of his Coronation Chap. 26. The Tartarians alienated from the Christians Bendocdar tyrannizeth over them and Lewis King of France setteth forth again for to succour them BUt betwixt two Kings the Kingdome went to the ground For Haalon the Tartarian Prince and late Christian convert was returned home to succeed his brother Mango in the Empire leaving Abaga his sonne with competent forces in the city of Damascus which he had wonne from the Turks Soon after Abaga followed his father aud substituted Guirboca his Lieutenant in Damascus This Guirboca upon the occasion of his nephew rashly slain by the Christians in a broil fell off wholly from Christianity with all the Tartarians his countreymen The occasion this The Dutch Christians return with great booty they had taken from the Turks Guirboca's nephew meeteth them demandeth it for himself the Christians deny him as souldiers are very tender-conscienced in that point counting it a great sinne to part with the spoil they are possessed of hence brawls then blows Guirboca's nephew is slain Hereat the Tartarians who were very humorous in their friendship if not observed to an inch lost for ever in discontent all either reel aside to Mahomet or fall back to Paganisme Herein the Christians cannot be excused Infant-converts must be well tended It had been discretion in them even against discretion to have yielded a little to these Tartarians and so to continue their amity which was so advantageous to the Holy warre However one may question the truth of their conversion whether reall at first This spring was too forward to hold and the speedy withering of their religion argueth it wanted root And as tame foxes if they break loose and return wild do ten times more mischief then those which are wild from the beginning so these renegadoes raged more furiously then any Pagans against religion Guirboca sacrificed many Christians to the ghost of his nephew destroyed Cesarea and burnt it using all cruelty against the inhabitants Nor lesse were the Christians plagued at the same time with Bendocdar the Mammaluke Prince in Egypt who succeeded Melechem and every where raging against them either killed or forced them to forswear their religion The city of Joppa he took and burned and then wonne Antioch slaying therein twenty thousand and carrying away captive an hundred
observed that the sea cannot digest the cruditie of a dead corpse being a due debt to be interred where it dieth and a ship cannot abide to be made a bier of He was Sainted after his death by Boniface the eighth and the five and twentieth day of August on which day in his first voyage to Palestine he went on shipboard is consecrated to his memorie Herein he had better luck then as good a man I mean our Henry the sixth who could not be canonized without a mightie summe of money belike Angels making Saints at Rome Chap. 28. Tunis taken The French return home whilest our Edward valiantly setteth forward for Palestine BY this time Tunis was brought to great distresse and at last on these conditions surrendred That it should pay yearly to Charles King of Sicily and Jerusalem fourtie thousand crowns That it should receive Christian Ministers freely to exercise their religion If any Saracen would be baptized he should be suffered That all Christian captives should be set free That they should pay back so much money as should defray the Christians charges in this voyage Our Edward would needs have had the town beaten down and all put to the sword thinking the foulest quarter too fair for them Their goods because got by robberie he would have sacrificed as an anathema to God and burnt to ashes His own share he execrated and caused it to be burnt forbidding the English to save any thing of it because that coals stolen out of that fire would sooner burn their houses then warm their hands It troubled not the consciences of other Princes to enrich themselves herewith but they glutted themselves with the stolen honie which they found in this hive of drones And which was worse now their bellies were full they would go to bed return home and goe no further Yea the young King of France called Philip the Bold was fearfull to prosecute his journey to Palestine whereas Prince Edward struck his breast and swore That though all his friends forsook him yet he would enter Prolemais though but onely with Fow in his horse-keeper By which speech he incensed the English to go on with him The rest pleading the distemperature of the weather went to Sicily in hope with change of aire to recover their health Where many of them found what they sought to avoid death amongst other Theobald King of Navarre and Isabell his wife and William Earl of Flanders who ended their dayes at Drepanum Besides their navie was pursuivanted after with a horrible tempest and a curse entailed either on their ill-gotten goods or deserting Gods cause or both arrested them in their return so that of this great wealth little was landed in Europe their ships being wracked and the goods therein cast into the sea with which the waves played a little and then chopped them up at a morsel Whilest the weather frowning on them smiled on the English Prince Edward no whit damnified either in his men or ships with Elenor his tender consort then young with child safely arrived at Ptolemais to the great solace and comfort of the Christians there being in great distresse Chap. 29. Prince Edwards performance in Palestine He is dangerously wounded yet recovereth and returneth home safe AT his arrivall the last stake of the Christians was on losing For Bendocdar the Mammaluke Prince of Egypt and Syria had brought Ptolemais to so low an ebbe that they therein resolved if some unexpected succour reversed not their intentions within three dayes to resigne the citie unto him Edward landing stayed this precipitation who arrived with his armie there in the very interim in opportunitie it self which is the very quintessence of time so that all concluded his coming thus hitting the mark was guided by the hand of an especiall providence And now those who before in despair would have thrown up their cards hope at least to make a saving game and the Christians taking comfort and courage both defie their enemies and their own thoughts of surrendring the citie Prince Edward having sufficiently manned and victualled Ptolemais taking six or seven thousand souldiers marched to Nazareth which he took and slew those he found there After this about midsummer understanding the Turks were gathered together at Cakhow fourtie miles off very early in the morning he set upon them slew a thousand and put the rest to flight In these skirmishes he gave evident testimonies of his personall valour Yea in cold bloud he would boldly challenge any Infidel to a duell To speak truth this his conceived perfection was his greatest imperfection For the world was abundantly satisfied in the point of his valour yet such was his confidence of his strength and eagernesse of honour that having merited the esteem of a most stout man he would still supererogate yea he would profer to fight with any mean person if cried up by the volge for a tall man this daring being a generall fault in great spirits and a great fault in a Generall who staketh a pearl against a piece of glasse The best was in that age a man fighting with sword and buckler had in a manner many lives to lose and duells were not dangerous Whilest he stayed at Ptolemais Elenor his Lady was delivered of a fair daughter called from her birth-place Joan of Acres But fear of her husbands death abated her joy at her daughters birth The Turks not matching him in valour thought to master him with treachery which was thus contrived The Admirall of Joppa a Turk pretended he would turn Christian and imployed one Anzazim an Assasine in the businesse betwixt him and Prince Edward who carried himself so cunningly that by often repairing to our Prince he got much credit and esteem with him Some write this Anzazim was before alwayes bred under ground as men keep hawks and warre-horses in the dark to make them more fierce that so coming abroad he should fear to venture on no man But sure so cunning a companion had long conversed with light and been acquainted with men yea Christians and Princes as appeareth by his complying carriage else if he had not been well read in their company he could not have been so perfect in his lesson But let him be bred any where or in hell it self For this was his religion To kill any he was commanded or on the non-performance willingly to forfeit his life The fifth time of his coming he brought Prince Edward letters from his Master which whilest he was reading alone and lying on his bed he struck him into the arm with an invenomed knife Being about to fetch another stroke the Prince with his foot gave him such a blow that he felled him to the ground and wresting the knife from him ranne the Turk into the belly and slew him yet so that in struggling he hurt himself therewith in the forehead At this noise in sprang his servants and one of them with a stool beate the braines out of
the dead Turks head shewing little wit in his owne and the Prince was highly displeased that the monument of his valour should be stained with anothers crueltie It is storied how Elenor his Lady sucked all the poyson out of his wounds without doing any harm to her self So sovereign a medicine is a womans tongue anointed with the vertue of loving affection Pitie it is so pretty a story should not be true with all the miracles in Lovers Legends and sure he shall get himself no credit who undertaketh to confute a passage so sounding to the honour of the sex Yet can it not stand with what others have written How the Physician who was to dresse his wounds spake to the Lord Edmund and the Lord John Voysie to take away Lady Elenor out of the Princes presence lest her pitie should be cruell towards him in not suffering his sores to be searched to the quick And though she cried out and wrung her hands Madame said they be contented it is better that one woman should weep a little while then that all the Realme of England should lament a great season And so they conducted her out of the place And the Prince by the benefit of physick good attendance and an antidote the Master of the Templars gave him shewed himself on horse-back whole and well within fifteen dayes after The Admirall of Joppa hearing of his recoverie utterly disavowed that he had any hand in the treacherie as none will willingly father unsucceeding villany True it is he was truly sorrowfull whether because Edward was so bad or no worse wounded he knoweth that knoweth hearts Some wholly acquit him herein and conceive this mischief proceeded from Simon Earl of Montforts hatred to our Prince who bearing him and all his kindred an old grudge for doing some conceived wrong to his father in very deed nothing but justice to a rebell hired as they think this Assasine to murder him as a little before for the same quarrell he had served Henry sonne to Richard King of the Romanes and our Edwards cousin germane at Viterbo in Italy It is much this Simon living in France should contrive this Princes death in Palestine but malice hath long arms and can take men off at great distance Yea this addeth to the cunning of the engineer to work unseen and the further from him the blow is given the lesse is he himself suspected Whosoever plotted God prevented it and the Christians there would have revenged it but Edward would not suffer them In all haste they would have marched and fallen on the Turks had not he disswaded them because then many Christians unarmed and in small companies were gone to visit the Sepulchre all whose throats had then probably been cut before their return Eighteen moneths he stayed at Ptolemais and then came back through Italy without doing any extraordinarie matter in Palestine What musick can one string make when all the rest are broken what could Edward do alone when those Princes fell back on whom the project most relied Lewis and Charles were the main undertakers Edward entertained but as an adventurer and sharer and so he furnished himself accordingly with competent forces to succour others but not to subsist of themselves But as too often where the principal miscarrieth the second and sureties must lie at the stake to make the debt good so in their default he valiantly went forward though having in all but thirteen ships and some thousands of men too many for a plain Prince to visit with and too few for a great one to warre with and performed what lay within the compasse of his power In a word his coming to Ptolemais and assisting them there was like a cordiall given to a dying man which doth piece out his life or death rather a few grones and as many gasps the longers By this time Henry his aged father being dead his lamp not quenched but going out for want of oil the English Nobilitie came as farre as the Alpes in Savoy to wait on Edward in his return Leave we him then to be attended home by them to receive the Crown to which no lesse his vertues then birth entitled him Since the Conquest he was the first King of his name and the first that settled the Law and State deserving the style of Englands Justinian and that freed this Kingdome from the wardship of the Peers shewing himself in all his actions after capable to command not the realm onely but the whole world Chap. 30. Rodulphus the Emperours voyage to Palestine hindred The Duke of Mechlenburg his captivitie and inlargement BEfore Edwards departure Hugh King of Jerusalem and Cyprus concluded a peace to our Princes small liking with the Mammaluke Sultan of Egypt to hold onely in and near Ptolemais whereby the Christians had some breathing-time But that which now possessed all mens thoughts and talk in Syria was the expectation of Rodulphus to come thither with a great armie who after two and twentie yeares interregnum was chosen Emperour of Germany This Rodulphus was a mean Earl of Haspurg Frederick the last Emperour was his godfather who little thought that having so many sons of his own his god-son should next succeed him and lived in a private way But now the Empire refusing her rich suiters married this Earl without any portion onely for pure love A preferment beyond his expectation not above his deserts For Germany had many bigger lights none brighter Pope Gregory the tenth would not ratifie his election but on this condition That he should in person march with an armie to Palestine And though this was but an old policie To send the Emperours far away that so he might command in chief in their absence yet his Holinesse did so turn and dresse this third-bare plot with specious pretenses of piety that it passed for new and fresh especially to those that beheld it at distance But Rodulphus could not be spared out of Germany being there imployed in civil discords The knees of the Dutch Princes were too stiff to do him homage till he softned them by degrees And indeed he was not provided for the Holy warre and wanted a stock of his own to drive so costly a trade having no paternall lands considerable no bottom to begin on though through his thrift and providence he first laid the foundation of the Austrian familie Yet somewhat to answer expectation he sent Henry Duke of Mechlenburg with competent forces into Palestine Who coming to Ptolemais made many notable incursions into the countrey about Damasco with fire and sword destroying all as he went and carrying thence many rich booties till at last he was circumvented taken prisoner by the Mammalukes Twenty six yeares he lived in captivity keeping his conscience free all the while At last the Sultan of Egypt a renegado Germane who formerly had been engineer to this Dukes father set him at liberty together with
Martine his servant that he who so long had shared of his miserie might also partake of his happinesse No sooner had this Duke put to sea but he was again taken by pirates and the Sultan out of pitie to this distressed Prince and out of scorn that fortune should frustrate and defeat his reall courtesie set him free again At last he came safely home and was there welcomed with asmuch wonder as joy his subjects conceiving his return a resurrection having buried him in their thoughts long before Here he found two counterfeits who pretended themselves to be this Duke and on that title challenged lodging with Anastasia his Lady But the one of them had a softer bedfellow provided him a pool of water wherein he was drowned the other was made a bonefire of to solemnize the joy of the Dukes return Chap. 31. Charles King of Ierusalem His intentions in Syria stopped by the Sicilian Vespers His death and sonnes succession BY this time Charles King of Jerusalem and Sicily had made great preparations for the Holy war And to make his claim to the Kingdome of Jerusalem the stronger he bought also the title of Maria Domicella Princesse of Antioch which pretended aright to the same He sent also Roger the Count of S. Severine as his Vice-roy to Ptolemais where he was honourably received in despite of Hugh King of Cyprus by the especial favour of Albertine Morisine the Venetian Consul there And now his navie was reported to be readie and that by the way he had a project upon Michael Paleologus the Emperour of Greece Whē all his intentions were suddenly blasted it so happening that on Easter day as the bell tolled to Even-song all the throats of the Frenchmen in Sicily were cut in a moment by the natives thereof and that Island won by Peter King of Aragon The grand contriver of this massacre was one Jacobus Prochyta a Physician and I dare say he killed more in an houre then he cured all his life-time Those that condemn the Sicilians herein cannot excuse the French such formerly had been their pride lust covetousnesse and crueltie to the people of that Island putting them causelesly to exquisite torture so that an ordinary hanging was counted an extraordinarie favour But the secrecie of contriving this slaughter of the French was little lesse then miraculous that so many knowing it none should discover it like cunning dogs barking in triumph after they had bitten not before to give any warning Hence grew the proverb of the Sicilian Vespers though their Even-song was nothing to the English Mattens intended in the Gunpowder-Treason Mean time King Charles was at Rome beholding the making of Cardinals when this doleful news was brought unto him and struck him to the heart He survived a year or two longer but dull and melancholick living as it were without life and died at last having reigned King of Jerusalem twentie year A Prince which had tasted of various successe fortune for a while smiling on him and at last laughing at him His son Charles succeded him in the Kingdome of Naples and in the title of Jerusalem He was surnamed Cunctator Delayer not in the same sense as Fabius the Shield of Rome was so called he onely stayed till opportunitie was come our Charles till it was passed I find nothing memorable of him except this That offended with the Templars in Palestine for taking part against him with the King of Cyprus he seised on their lands and confiscated all their goods they had in Naples or any other part of his dominions How ever let him have room in the catalogue of our Kings of Jerusalem For as high hills near the sea-side though otherwise never so base and barren ground yet will serve to be sea-marks for the direction of mariners so this Charles together with Hugh John and Henry Kings of Cyprus pretending also to Jerusalem though we reade nothing remarkable of them will become the front of a page and serve to divide and distinguish times and to parcell the historie the better to our apprehension As for the bare anatomie of their reigne for we find it not fleshed with any historie with the dates of their beginnings and endings we shall present it to the reader hereafter in our Chronologie Chap. 32. The succession of the Mammaluke Princes in Egypt Alphir taketh Tripoli and Tyre The wofull estate of Ptolemais BUt whilest these titular Kings slept the Mammaluke Princes were vigilant to infest the reliques of the Christians in Palestine Which Princes succession we will adventure to set down nor are we discouraged with the difficulties which encounter us herein The hardnesse in the story of the Mammalukes proceedeth as we conceive from one of these causes First the State is not written directly but by reflexion not storied by any constant writer of their own but in snaps and parcels as the Chroniclers of neighbouring Christian countreyes have catched at them Secondly out of a popular errour their chief Captains by reason of their large authoritie passe for absolute Kings Thirdly the same King hath many names and the same name by translation in sundrie languages is strangely disguised How-ever we will use our best conjectures in these uncertainties and a dimme candle is better then no light Bendocdar or Bandodacar otherwise Melechdaet was the last Egyptian Prince we mentioned A dangerous man to the Christians but that Abaga the Tartarian took him to task and kept him in continuall imployment This Abaga had a prettie trick to make cowards valiant causing them that ranne away from the battell ever after to wear womens clothes Bendocdar died at Damascus of a wound he received in Armenia or as some say by cold in swimming over Euphrates Elpis succeeded him his sonne say some but the Mammalukes laws forbid that except his extraordinary worth was his facultie and dispenied with him ad succedendum patri But who knoweth not that the Eastern tongue speaketh nephewes and kinsmen to be sonnes Some wholly omit him enough to make us suspect that he was onely some Deputy clapped in to stop up the vacancie till Melechsaites was chosen Melechsaites called by Marinus Melechmessor wonne the strong castle of Mergath from the Hospitallers He much loved and was very bountifull to the Carmelites who lived dispersed in Syria but afterwards he banished them out of his countrey because they altered their habit and wore white coats at the appointment of Pope Honorius the Turks being generally enemies to innovations and loving constancy in old customes Nor was this any mishap but an advantage to the Carmelites to lose their dwellings in Syria and gain better in Europe where they planted themselves in the fattest places So that he who knoweth not to choose good ground let him find out an house of the Carmelites a mark that faileth not for his direction Alphir was next to Melechsaites otherwise called Elsi He perceiving that now or never was the time
into Cyprus It is strange what is reported That above five hundred matrones and virgins of noble bloud standing upon the shore of Ptolemais and having all their richest jewels with them cried out with lamentable voice and profered to any mariner that would undertake safely to land them any where all their wealth for his hire and also that he should choose any one of them for his wife Then a certain mariner came and transporting them all freely safely landed them in Cyprus nor by any enquirie could it after be known when he was sought for to receive his hire who this mariner was nor whither he went The Hospitallers for haste were fain to leave their treasure behind them and hide it in a vault which being made known from time to time to their successours was fetched from thence by the galleys of Malta about three hundred yeares afterwards Henry King of Cyprus to his great cost and greater commendation gave free entertainment to all Pilgrimes that fled hither till such time as they could be transported to their own countreys and thanks was all the shot expected of these guests at their departure Thus after an hundred ninetie and four yeares ended the Holy warre for continuance the longest for money spent the costliest for bloudshed the cruellest for pretenses the most pious for the true intent the most politick the world ever saw And at this day the Turks to spare the Christians their pains of coming so long a journey to Palestine have done them the unwelcome courtesie to come more then half the way to give them a meeting The end of the fourth Book A Supplement of the Historie of the HOLY WARRE Book V. Chap. 1. The executing of the Templars in France MY task is done Whatsoever remaineth is voluntary and over-measure onely to hemme the end of our historie that it ravel not out As to shew What became of the Templars the Teutonick Order and the Hospitallers What were the hindrances of this warre What nation best deserved in it What offers were afterwards made to recover Jerusalem By how many challengers that title at this day is claimed What is the present strength of Jerusalem What hope to regain it with some other passages which offer attendance on these principall heads Know then Some nineteen yeares after the Christians had lost all in Palestine the Templars by the cruel deed of Pope Clement the fifth and foul fact of Philip the Fair King of France were finally exstirpared out of all Christendome The historie thereof is but in twilight not clearly delivered but darkened with many doubts and difficulties We must pick out letters and syllables here and there aswell as we may all which put together spell thus much Pope Clement having long sojourned in France had received many reall courtesies from Philip the King yea he owed little lesse then himself to him At last Philip requested of him a boon great enough for a King to ask and a Pope to grant namely all the lands of the Knights Templars through France forfeited by reason of their horrible heresies and licentious living The Pope was willing to gratifie him in some good proportion for his favours received as thankfulnesse is alwayes the badge of a good nature and therefore being thus long the Kings guest he gave him the Templars lands and goods to pay for his entertainment On a sudden all the Templars in France they clapt into prison wisely catching those Lions in a net which had they been fairly hunted to death would have made their part good with all the dogs in France Damnable sinnes were laid to their charge as sacrificing of men to an idol they worshipped rosting of a Templars bastard and drinking his bloud spitting upon the crosse of Christ conspiring with Turks and Saracens against Christianitie Sodomie bestialitie with many other villanies out of the rode of humane corruption and as farre from mans nature as Gods law Well the Templars thus shut in prison their crimes were half-proved The sole witnesse against them was one of their own Order a notorious malefactour who at the same time being in prison and to suffer for his own offenses condemned by the Master of their Order sought to prove his own innocency by charging all his own Order to be guiltie And his case standing thus he must either kill or be killed die or put others to death he would be sure to provide water enough to drive the mill and fwore most heartily to whatsoever was objected against the Order Besides the Templars being brought upon the rack confessed the accusations to be true wherewith they were charged Hereupon all the Templars through France were most cruelly burned to death at a stake with James the grand Master of their Order Chap. 2. Arguments produced on either side both for the innocencie and guiltinesse of the Templars THere is scarce a harder question in later historie then this Whether the Templars justly or unjustly were condemned to suffer On the one side it is dangerous to affirm they were innocent because condemned by the Pope infallible in matters of such consequence This bugbear affrighteth many and maketh their hands shake when they write hereof If they should say the Templars were burned wrongfully they may be fetched over the coals themselves for charging his Holinesse so deeply yea hereby they bring so much innocent bloud on the Popes head as is enough to drown him Some therefore in this matter know little and dare speak lesse for fear of afterclaps Secondly some who suspect that one eye of the Church may be dimme yet hold that both the eyes the Pope and generall Council together cannot be deceived Now the Council of Vienne countenanced the exstirpation of the Templars determined the dissolution of their Order and adjudged their lands to be conferred to the Knights-Hospitallers Men ought then to be well advised how they condemn a generall Council to be accessorie post factum to the murder of so many men For all this those who dare not hollow do whisper on the other side accounting the Templars not malefactours but martyrs First because the witnesse was unsufficient a malefactour against his Judge and secondly they bring tortured men against themselves Yea there want not those that maintain that a confession extorted on the rack is of no validitie If they be weak men and unable to endure torment they will speak any thing and in this case their words are endited not from their heart but outward limbes that are in pain and a poor conquest it is to make either the hand of a child to beate or the tongue of the tortured man to accuse himself If they be sturdie and stubborn whose backs are paved against torments such as bring brasen sides against steely whips they will confesse nothing And though these Templars were stout and valiant men yet it is to be commended to ones consideration whether slavish and servile souls will not better bear
torment then generous spirits who are for the enduring of honourable danger and speedie death but not provided for torment which they are not acquainted with neither is it the proper object of valour Again it is produced in their behalf that being burned at the stake they denied it at their death though formerly they had confessed it and whose charitie if not stark-blind will not be so tender-eyed as to believe that they would not breath out their soul with a lie and wilfully contract a new guilt in that very instant wherein they were to be arraigned before the Judge of heaven A Templar being to be burned at Burdeaux and seeing the Pope and King Philip looking out at a window cried unto them Clement thou cruell Tyrant seeing there is no higher amongst mortall men to whom I should appeal for my unjust death I cite thee together with King Philip to the tribunall of Christ the just Judge who redeemed me there both to appear within one yeare and a day where I will lay open my cause and justice shall be done without any by-respect In like manner James grand Master of the Templars though by piece-meal he was tortured to death craved pardon of God and those of his Order that forced by extremitie of pain on the rack and allured with hope of life he had accused them of such damnable sinnes whereof they were innocent Moreover the people with their suffrage acquitted them happie was he that could get an handfull of their ashes into his bosome as the Relique of pious martyrs to preserve Indeed little heed is to be given to peoples humours whose judgement is nothing but prejudice and passion and commonly envie all in prosperitie pitie all in adversitie though often both undeservedly And we may believe that the beholding of the Templars torments when they were burned wrought in the people first a commiserating of their persons and so by degrees a justifying of their cause However vulgus non semper errat aliquando elìgit and though it matters little for the gales of a private mans fancie yet it is something when the wind bloweth from all corners And true it is they were generally cryed up for innocents Lastly Pope Clement and King Philip were within the time prefixed summoned by death to answer to God for what they had done And though it is bad to be busie with Gods secrets yet an argment drawn from the event especially when it goeth in company with others as it is not much to be depended on so it is not wholly to be neglected Besides King Philip missed of his expectation and the morsell fell besides his mouth for the lands of the Templars which were first granted to him as a portion for his youngest sonne were afterwards by the Council of Vienne bestowed on the Knights-Hospitallers Chap. 3. A moderate way what is to be conceived of the suppression of the Templars BEtwixt the two extremities of those that count these Templars either Malefactours or Martyrs some find a middle way whose verdict we will parcell into these severall particulars 1. No doubt there were many novices and punies amongst them newly admitted into their Order which if at all were little guiltie for none can be fledge in wickednesse at their first hatching To these much mercy belonged The punishing of others might have been an admonition to them and crueltie it was where there were degrees of offenses to inflict the same punishment and to put all of them to death 2. Surely many of them were most hainous offenders Not to speak what they deserved from God who needeth not pick a quarrel with man but alwayes hath a just controversie with him they are accounted notorious transgressours of humane laws yet perchance if the same candle had been lighted to search as much dust and dirt might have been found in other Orders 3. They are conceived in generall to be guiltlesse and innocent from those damnable sinnes wherewith they were charged Which hainous offenses were laid against them either because men out of modestie and holy horrour should be ashamed and afraid to dive deep in searching the ground-work and bottome of these accusations but rather take them to be true on the credit of the accusers or that the world might the more easily be induced to believe the crimes objected to be true as conceiving otherwise none would be so devilish as to lay such devilish offenses to their charge or lastly if the crimes were not believed in the totall summe yet if credited in some competent portion the least particular should be enough to do the deed and to make them odious in the world 4. The chief cause of their ruine was their extraordinary wealth They were feared of many envied of more loved of none As Naboths vineyard was the chiefest ground for his blasphemie and as in England Sr John Cornwall Lord Fanhop said merrily That not he but his stately house at Ampthill in Bedford-shire was guiltie of high treason so certainly their welath was the principall evidence against them and cause of their overthrow It is quarrell and cause enough to bring a sheep that is fat to the shambles We may believe King Philip would never have tooke away their lives if he might have took their lands without putting them to death but the mischief was he could not get the hony unlesse he burnt the bees Some will say The Hospitallers had great yea greater revenues nineteen thousand Mannors to the Templars nine thousand yet none envied their wealth It is true but then they busied themselves in defending of Christendome maintaining the Island of Rhodes against the Turks as the Teutonick order defended Pruss-land against the Tartarian the world therefore never grudged them great wages who did good work These were accounted necessary members of Christendome the Templars esteemed but a superfluous wenne they lay at rack and manger and did nothing who had they betook themselves to any honourable employment to take the Turks to task either in Europe or Asia their happinesse had been lesse repined at and their overthrow more lamented And certain it is that this their idlenesse disposed them for other vices as standing waters are most subject to putrifie I heare one bird sing a different note from all the rest in the wood namely that what specious shews soever were pretended the true cause of their ruine was that they began to desert the Pope and adhere to the Emperour If this was true no doubt they were deeply guiltie and deserved the hard measure they suffered Sure I am how-ever at this time they might turn edge they had formerly been true blades for his Holinesse All Europe followed the copie that France had set them Here in England King Edward the second of that name suppressed the Order and put them to death So by vertue of a writ sent from him to Sir John Wogan Lord chief Justice in Ireland were they served
the portraiture of a dead man lying on his shroud the most artificially cut in stone saith my Authour that ever man beheld Others had rent assigned them of 200l 80l l 60l l 50l l 20l l 10l l according to their severall qualities and deserts At the same time justs and tornaments were held at Westminster wherein the challengers against all comers were Sr John Dudly Sr Thomas Seymore Sr Thomas Poinings Sr George Carew Knights Anthonie Kingstone and Richard Cromwell Esquires To each of whom for reward of their valour the King gave a hundred markes of yearely revenues and a house to dwell in to them and their heires out of the lands belonging to these Hospitallers And at this time many had Danae's happinesse to have golden showres rained into their bosomes These Abbey-lands though skittish mares to some have given good milk to others Which is produced as an argument That if they prove unsuccessefull to any it is the users default no inherencie of a curse in the things themselves But let one keep an exact Register of lands and mark their motions how they ebbe and flow betwixt buyers and sellers and surely he will say with the Poet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this is most sure Let land be held in never so good a tenure it will never be held by an unthrift The Hospitallers Priory-church was preserved from down-pulling all the dayes of King Henry the eighth but in the third yeare of King Edward the sixth with the bell-towre a piece of curious workmanship graven gilt and enamelled it was undermined and blown up with gunpowder and the stone imployed in building the Lord Protectours house in the Strand Thus as chirurgeons in cutting off a gangrened leg alwayes cut it off above the joynt even where the flesh is whole and sound so belike for fear of further infection to banish Monkerie for ever they rased the structures and harmlesse buildings of Priories which otherwise in themselves were void of any offence They feared if Abbeys were onely left in a swound the Pope would soon get hot water to recover them To prevent which they killed them and killed them again overturning the very foundation of the houses infringing altering and transferring the lands that they might never be reduced to their own propertie Some outrages were committed in the manner of these dissolutions Many manuscripts guilty of no other superstition then red letters in the front were condemned to the fire and here a principall key of antiquitie was lost to the great prejudice of posteritie But in sudden alterations it is not to be expected that all things be done by the square and compasse Chap. 8. Queen Mary setteth up the Hospitallers again They are again deposed by Queen Elisabeth QUeen Mary a Princesse more zealous then politick attempted to restore Abbeys to their pristine estate and former glory And though certain of her counsellers objected that the state of her Kingdome and dignity thereof and her Crown imperiall could not honourably be furnished and maintained without the possession of Abbey-land yet she frankly restored resigned and confirmed by Parliament all ecclesiasticall revenues which by the authority of that high Court in the dayes of her Father were annexed to the Crown protesting she set more by her salvation then by ten Kingdomes But the Nobilitie followed not her example They had eaten up the Abbey-lands and now after twenty yeares possession digested and turned them into good bloud in their estates they were loth therefore to emptie their veins again and the forwardest Romanist was backward enough in this costly piece of devotion However out of her own liberalitie she set up two or three bankrupt Covents as Sion and Westminster and gave them stock to trade with The Knights also of S. John of Jerusalem she reseated in their place and Sr Thomas Tresham of Rushton in Northamptonshire was the first and last Lord Prior after their restitution For their nests were plucked down before they were warm in them by the coming in of Queen Elisabeth To conclude in the founders of religious houses were some good intents mixt with superstitious ends amongst the Religious persons themselves some pietie more loosnesse and lazinesse in the confounders of those houses some detestation of the vices of Friars more desire of the wealth of Friaries in God all just all righteous in permitting the badnesse and causing the destruction of these numerous Fraternities Chap. 9. Observations on the Holy warre The horrible superstition therein WE have finished the story of the Holy warre And now I conceive my indentures are cancelled and I discharged from the strict service and ties of an Historian so that it may be lawfull for me to take more libertie and to make some observations on what hath been past Before I go further I must deplore the worlds losse of that worthy work which the Lord Verulam left unfinished concerning the Holy warre an excellent piece and alas it is but a piece so that in a pardonable discontent we may almost wish that either it had been more wholly to have satisfied our hunger or lesse not at all to have raised our appetite It was begun not in an historicall but in a politick way not reporting the Holy warre past with the Turks but advising how to manage it in the future And no doubt if he had perfected the work it would have proved worthy the Authour But since any have been deterred from finishing the same as ashamed to add mud-walls and a thatched roof to so fair a foundation of hewen and polished stone From that Authour we may borrow this distinction That three things are necessary to make an invasive warre lawfull the lawfullnesse of the jurisdiction the merit of the cause and the orderly and lawfull prosecution of the cause Let us apply it to our present purpose in this Holy warre For the first two Whether the jurisdiction the Christians pretended over the Turks dominions was lawfull or not and Whether this warre was not onely operae but vitae pretium worth the losing so many lives we referre the reader to what hath been said in the first Book Onely it will not be amisse to adde a storie or two out of an Authour of good account When Charles the sixth was King of France the Duke of Bourbon sailed over into Africa with a great armie there to fight against the Saracens The Saracen Prince sent an herald to know of him the cause of his coming The Duke answered it was to revenge the death of Christ the Sonne of God and true Prophet whom they had unjustly crucified The Saracens sent back again their messenger to demonstrate their innocencie how they were not Saracens but Jews which put Christ to death and therefore that the Christians if posteritie should be punished for their predecessours fault should rather revenge themselves on the Jews which lived amongst them Another relateth that in the yeare of our Lord 1453
report the honour thereof through the whole world A Sultan of Damascus who had but one eye chanced to lose the other and so became stark-blinde when coming devoutly to this image though he was a Pagan having faith in God and confidence therein he perfectly was restored to his sight Infinite are the sholes of miracles done by Christs Crosse in Jerusalem insomuch that my Authour blamed the Bishop of Acon who carried the Crosse in that battel wherein it was lost to the Turks for wearing a corselet and therefore saith he he was justly slain because his weak faith relied on meanes not on the miraculous protection thereof When Conrade Landt-grave of Thuringia was inrolled in the Teutonick Order to goe to the Holy warre and received his benediction as the fushion was the Holy Ghost visibly descended upon him in the shape of fire The said Conrade received of God as a boon for his valour in this service the rare facultie That by looking on any man he could tell whether or no he had committed a mortall sinne yea at first fight descrie their secret sinnes But the last miracle of our Lady in Palestine is the Lady of all miracles which was this In the yeare 1291 when the Holy land was finally subdued by the Turks the chamber at Nazareth wherein the Angel Gabriel saluted her with joyfull tydings was wonderfully transported into Sclavonia That countrey being unworthy of her divine presence it was by the Angels carried over into Italie anno 1294. That place also being infested with thieves and pirates the Angels removed it to the little village of Loretto where this Pilgrime-Chappel resteth it selfe at this day and liketh her entertainment so well it will travel no further But enough for fools meat is unsavourie to the taste of the wise I have transgressed already two instances had been sufficient as Noah preserved but two of all unclean creatures the rest might be lost without losse and safely be drowned in oblivion How-ever we may observe these millions of miracles are reducible to one of these foure ranks 1. Falsely reported never so much as seemingly done Asia the theatre whereon they were acted is at a great distance and the miracles as farre from truth as the place from us And who knoweth not when a lie is once set on foot besides the first founders it meeteth with many benefactours who contribute their charitie thereunto 2. Falsely done insomuch as at this day they are sented amongst the Romanists Who would not laugh to see the picture of a Saint weep Where one devout Catholick lifteth up his eyes ten of their wiser sort wag their heads 3. Truly done but by the strength of nature Suppose one desperately sick a piece of the Crosse is applied to him he recovereth is this a miracle Nothing lesse how many thousands have made an escape after Death in a manner hath arrested them As therefore it is sacriledge to father Gods immediate works on naturall causes so it is superstition to intitle naturall events to be miraculous 4. Many miracles were ascribed to Saints which were done by Satan I know it will non-plus his power to worke a true miracle but I take the word at large and indeed vulgar not to say humane eyes are too dimme to discern betwixt things wonderfull and truly miraculous Now Satan the master-juggler needeth no wires or ginnes to worke with being all ginnes himselfe so transcendent is the activitie of a spirit Nay may not God give the Devil leave to goe beyond himself it being just with him that those who will not have Truth their king and willingly obey it should have Falshood their tyrant to whom their judgement should be captivated and inslaved Chap. 11. The second grand errour in prosecuting the Holy warre being the Christians notorious breaking their faith with Infidels NExt unto Superstition which was deeply inlayed in the Holy warre we may make the Christians Truce-breaking with the Infidels the second cause of their ill successe Yet never but once did they breake promise with the Turks which was as I may say a constant and continued faith-breaking never keeping their word To omit severall straining of the sinewes and unjoynting the bones of many a solemne peace we will onely instance where the neck thereof was clearly broken asunder 1. When Godfrey first won Jerusalem pardon was proclaimed to all the Turks which yielded themselves yet three dayes after in cold bloud they were all without difference of age or sex put to the sword 2. Almerick the First swore effectually to assist the Saracens in driving the Turks out of Egypt and soon after invaded Egypt and warred upon the Turks against his promise I know something he pretended herein to defend himself but of no validitie and such plausible and curious wittie evasions to avoid perjurie are but the tying of a most artificiall knot in the halter therewith to strangle ones own conscience 3. There was a peace concluded for some time betwixt King Guy and Saladine which non obstante Reinold of Castile robbed Saladines own mother Whereupon followed the miserable overthrow of the Christians and taking of Jerusalem 4. Our Richard at his departure from Palestine made a firm peace for five yeares with Saladine and it stood yet in force when Henry Duke of Saxonie coming with a great armie of new adventurers invaded the Turkish dominions 5. Frederick the Second Emperour made a truce of ten yeares with the Sultan of Babylon and yet in despite thereof Theobald King of Navarre forraged the countrey of Gaza to the just overthrow of him and his armie 6. Reinold Vice-roy of Palestine in the name of Frederick the Emperour and after him our Richard Earl of Cornwall drew up a firm peace with the said Sultan which was instantly disturbed and interrupted by the turbulent Templars 7. Lastly the Venetians in the name of all Christian Princes concluded a five yeares peace with Alphir the Mammaluke Prince of Egypt yet some voluntaries in Ptolemais pillaged and robbed many Saracen merchants about the citie But pardon them this last fault we will promise they shall never do so any more in Palestine hereupon losing all they had left there And how could Safetie it selfe save this people and blesse this project so blackly blasted with perjury As it is observed of tyrants Where one goeth ten are sent to the grave so where one truce concluded with the Turks did naturally expire and determine many were violently broken off A sinne so repugnant to all moral honestie so injurious to the quiet and peace of the world so odious in it selfe so scandalous to all men To dissolve a league when confirmed by Oath the strongest bond of conscience the end of particular strife the souldier of publick peace the sole assurance of amitie betwixt divers nations made here below but inrolled in his high court whose glorious name doth sign it a sinne I say so hainous that God cannot but must severely
cold countrey is much abated Many other sicknesses seised on the Pilgrimes there especially in summer The Turks like Salamanders could live in that fiery countrey whose scorching our Northern bodies could not endure Yea long before I find it observed by Vitruvius that they who come cold into hot countreys cannot long subsist but are dissolved whilest those that change out of hot into cold find not onely no distemper and sicknesse by the alteration but also grow more healthfull solid and compacted But this perchance is easilyer said then maintained But let us not hereupon be disheartened to set on our Southern foes for fear to be impaired nor they invited to invade us by hope to be improved Know it is not so much the climate as bad and unwholesome diet inraging the climate against us which unfineweth those Northern nations when they come into the South which bad diet though sometimes necessary for want of better food yet is most-times voluntary through mens wilfull intemperance In the Portugall action anno 1589 more English owed their Calenture to the heat of wine then weather Why do our English merchants bodies sadge well enough in Southern aire why cannot our valour thrive as well there as our profit but chiefly for this That merchants are carefull of themselves whilest souldiers count it basenesse to be thristie of their own healths Besides the sinnes of the South unmasculine Northern bodies In hot countreys the Sirens of pleasure sing the sweetest which quickly ravish our eares unused to such musick But should we marching Southwards observe our health in some proportion of temperance and by degrees habituate ourselves to the climate and should we keep ourselves from their sinnes no doubt the North might pierce the South as farre and therein erect as high and long-lasting tropheys as ever the South did in the North. Nor must it have admittance without examination into a judicious breast what some have observed That Northern people never enjoyed any durable settled government in the South Experience avoweth they are more happie in speedy conquering then in long enjoying of countreys But the first Monarch the world ever knew I mean the Assyrian came from the North Whence he is often styled in Scripture The King of the North conquering and for many yeares enjoying those countreys which lie betwixt him and the sunne as Chaldea Mesopotamia Babylonia Syria Egypt To speak nothing of the Turks who in the dichotomizing of the world fall under the Northern part and coming out of Scythia at first subdued most Southern countreys Chap. 16. The seventh impediment the Vitiousnesse of the undertakers THus are we fallen on the next hindrance of successe in this Holy warre the Vitiousnesse of the undertakers But here first we must make an honourable reservation for many adventurers herein whom we confesse most pious and religious persons Let us not raise the opinion of our own piety by trampling on our predecessours as if this age had monopolized all goodnesse to it self Some no doubt most religious and truly valiant as fearing nothing but sinne engaged themselves in this action of whom I could onely wish that their zeal herein had either had more light or lesse heat But with these I say not how many but too many went most wicked people the causers of the ill successe It will be objected Sanctitas morum hath been made of some a note of the true Church never the signe of a fortunate armie Look on all armies generally we shall find them of the souldiers religion not troubled with over-much precisenesse As our King John said whether wittily or wickedly let others judge that the Buck he opened was fat yet never heard Masse so many souldiers have been successefull without the least smack of pietie some such desperate villains that fortune to erroneous judgements may seem to have favoured them for fear True but we must not consider these adventurers as plain and mere souldiers but as Pilgrimes and Gods armie in whom was required and from whom was expected more pietie and puritie of life and maners then in ordinarie men whereas on the contrarie we shall make it appear that they were more vitious then the common sort of men Nor do we this out of crueltie or wantonnesse to wound and mangle the memorie of the dead but to anatomize and open their ulcerous insides that the dead may teach the living and lesson posteritie Besides those that went many were either driven or fled to the Holy land Those were driven who having committed some horrible sinne in Europe had this penance imposed on them To travell to Jerusalem to expiate their faults Many a whore was sent thither to find her virginitie Many a murderer was injoyned to fight in the Holy warre to wash off the guilt of Christian bloud by shedding bloud of Turks The like was in all other offences malefactours were sent hither to satisfie for their former wickednesse Now God forbid we should condemn them if truly penitents for impious May he who speaketh against penitents never have the honour to be one since Repentance is the younger brother to Innocence it self But we find that many of them reverted to their former wickednesse they lost none of their old faults and got many new mending in this hot countrey as sowre ale in summer Others fled hither who having supererogated the gallows in their own countries by their severall misdemeanours theft rapes incest murders to avoid the stroke of Justice protected themselves under this voyage and coming to Palestine so profited in those Eastern schools of vices that they learned to be more artificially wicked This plainly appeareth as in sundrie other Authours so chiefly in Tyrius a witnesse beyond exception who often complaineth hereof And if we value testimonies rather by the weight then number we must credit so grave a man who writeth it with griefe and had no doubt as much water in his eyes as ink in his pen and surely would be thankfull to him that herein would prove him a liar Chap. 17. The eighth hindrance the Treacherie of the Templars of Sacriledge alledged by Baronius the cause of the ill successe RObert Earl of Artois upbraided the Master of the Templars That it was the common speech that the Holy land long since had been wonne but for the false collusion of the Templars and Hospitallers with the Infidels Which words though proceeding from passion in him yet from premeditation in others not made by him but related deserve to be observed the rather because common reports like smoke seldome but from some fire never but from much heat are generally true It is not to be denied but that both these Orders were guiltie herein as appeareth by the whole current of the storie Yea King Almerick fairly trussed up twelve Templars at once hanging them for delivering up an impregnable fort to Syracon These like a deceitfull chirurgeon who hath more corruption in himself then the sore he dresseth prolonged
Doctor Dale the Master of Requests the French tongue is too vulgar for a businesse of this secrecie and importance especially in a French town we will rather treat in Hebrew the language of Jerusalem whereof your Master is King I suppose you are herein as well skilled as we in French At this day the Turk hath eleven points of the law in Jerusalem I mean possession and which is more prescription of a hundred and twentie yeares if you date it from the time it came into the Ottoman familie but farre more if you compute it from such time as the Mammaluke Turks have enjoyed it Yea likely they are to keep it being good at hold-fast and who will as soon lose their teeth as let goe their prey With the description of the greatnesse of which Empire will we God willing now close this Historie Chap. 30. Of the greatnesse strength wealth and wants of the Turkish Empire What hopes of the approching ruine thereof THe Turkish Empire is the greatest and best-compacted not excepting the Romane it self in the height thereof that the sunne ever saw Take sea and land together as bones and flesh make up one bodie and from Buda in the West to Tauris in the East it stretcheth about three thousand miles little lesse is the extent thereof North and South It lieth in the heart of the world like a bold champion bidding defiance to all his borderers commanding the most fruitfull countreys of Europe Asia and Africa Onely America not more happy in her rich mines then in her remotenesse lieth free from the reach thereof Populous it is not for men will never grow thick where meat groweth thinne It lieth waste according to the old Proverb Grasse springeth not where the Grand Signors horse setteth his foot Besides a third part I may say halfe of those in Turkie are not Turks but either Jews or Christians The strength of this Empire consisteth either in bones or stones men or munition Of the first The best stake in the Turks hedge is his great number of Horsemen called Timariots conceived to exceed seven hundred thousand fighting men These are dispersed over all Dominions and have lands allotted unto them in reward of their good service and valour much in the nature of those souldiers of the Romish Empire called Beneficiari And indeed the Turkish Empire resembleth the Romane in many particulars not that they ever studied imitation and by reading of Historie conformed their State to Romane precedents farre be it from us to wrong them with the false imputation of so much learning but rather casually they have met in some common principles of policie Of these Timariots on occasion and competent warning he can bring into the field an hundred and fiftie thousand all bound by the tenure of their lands to arme clothe feed pay themselves So great an armie which would drain the wealth of other Princes doth cost the great Turk no drop of expense Next follow his best footmen called Janizaries taken young from their Christian parents parallel to the Romane Pretorian souldiers being the guard of the Grand Signors person But as they watch about him so he casteth a watchfull eye on them seeing of late they are grown from painfull to be proud yea insolent and intolerable it being true of these Janizaries in the Turkish Empire as of Elephants in an armie If well ruled they alone are enough to winne the battel if unruly they alone are enough to lose it As for all other sorts of the Turks both foot and horse they are but slugs as whom the Grand Signor little trusteth and others need lesse fear His Frontier cities especially those which respect Christendome are exactly fortified Rank with these such places of importance and castles as command passages of consequence As for his inland-cities there is no superfluous scarce competent strength in them But if we allow those people to be chaste who never were solicited to be otherwise then may many cities lying in the bowels of his Empire passe for strong which for a long time have not had not in haste are likely to have the temptation of a siege Of Ordinance he hath great store and hath excellent materials to make them of and is also very powerfull in shipping Indeed ships of great burden would be burdensome in those narrow seas and experience hath found lesser vessels of greater use whereof he hath store And though the Turks either want ingenie or industrie either care not or cannot be good ship-wrights themselves yet the spite is as long as there is gold amongst the Turks there will be drosse amongst the Christians I mean some who for base gain will betray the mysteries of our usefull arts unto them As for wood to build with he hath excellent in Bithynia yea generally in this wild Empire trees grow better then men To his sea-munition may be reduced his multitude of slaves though not the informing yet against their wills the assisting form of his Galleys and in whom consisteth a great part of their strength and swiftnesse Nor must we forget the Pirates of Tunis and Algier which are Turks and no Turks Sometimes the Grand Signor disclaimeth renounceth and casteth them off to stand upon their own bottom as when those Christian Princes which are confederate with him complain to him of the wrongs those seaâ—obbers have done them But though he sendeth them out to seek their own meat he can clock them under his wings at pleasure And we may verily believe though sometimes in the summer of his own prosperitie he throweth them off as an upper garment of no use yet in cold weather he will buckle them on again and if necessitie pincheth him receive them not as retainers at large but as his best servants in ordinarie Nor is it the last and least part of the strength of this Empire that all her native people are linked together in one religion The discords about which in other Kingdomes have been the cause first of the unjoynting and then of the finall ruine and desolation of many worthy States Whereas here the Mahometane religion if I wrong it not with so good a name is so full of unitie and agreement that there is no difference and dissension about it Yea well may that coat have no seam which hath no shape A senselesse ignorant profession it is not able to go to the cost of a controversie And all colours may well agree in the dark Next the strength followeth the wealth yea it is part thereof For all rich Kingdomes may be strong and purchase artificiall fortification The certain and constant revenues of the great Turk are not great if withall we consider the spatiousnesse of his Dominions Some have mounted his ordinarie yearly income to eight millions of gold But men guesse by uncertain aim at Princes revenues especially if they be so remote We may believe that in their conjecture herein though they misse the mark they hit the butt
18. cap. 49. Calvis in Anno 1156. 1 2 2 8 35  3 2 3 3 9 36 ROâ—ERT of Burgundie Tyr. lib. 15. c. 6. 4 3 4 4 10 37  5 4 5 5 11 38  6 5 6 6 12 39  7 6 7 ALMERICUS1 13 40  8 7 8 2 14 41  9 8 9 3 15 42  10 9 10 4 9. FULCâ—ER Archbishop of Tyre 1 43  11 10 11 5 2 44  12 11 He honourably entertaineth the K. of Fran. Is slain in battel by Noradine Tyr. lib. 17. c. 9. 12 6 3 45  13 12 13 7 4 46 Gaza given to the Templars to defend 14 13 CONSTANTIA his wiâ—l Princâ—sse 1 8 5 47  15 14 2 9 6 48 BERNARD d Trenellape 16 15 3 10 7 49  17 16 4 11 8 50  18 17 5 12 The Hospitallers rebell against the Patriarch deny to pay tithes 9 51  19 18 RAINOLD of Castile marrieth Constantis and is Prince in her right Θ 1 13 10 52 The Templars with BERNARD their Master through their own covetousnesse slain at Askelon Θ 20 19 Anno Dom. Popes Emper. of the East Emper. of the West Kings of England Kings of France Holy Warre and Kings of Ierusalem 1155 ADRIAN the fourth 2 13 4 HENRY the second 1 18 14 6 3 14 5 2 19 15 7 4 15 6 3 20 16 8 M. 8. D. 28. 16 7 4 21 17 9 ALEXANDER the third 1 17 8 5 22 18 1160 2 18 9 6 23 Order of the Carmelites first begun in Syria 19 1 3 19 10 7 24 20 2 4 20 11 8 25 21 3 5 21 12 9 26 ALMERICK his B â— 1 4 6 22 13 10 27 2 5 7 23 14 11 18 At the instance of Sultan Sancâ— he gâ—eth into Egypt and dâ—â—veth out Syracon Caelaâ—â—a-Philippi lost 3 6 8 24 15 12 19 4 7 9 25 16 13 20 Almerick contrary to his promiâ—e invadeth Egypt 5 8 10 26 17 14 31 6 9 11 27 18 15 32 7 1170 12 28 19 16 33 He taketh a voyage into Grecia to visit the Emperour his kinsman 8 1 13 29 20 17 34 9 2 14 30 21 18 35 10 3 15 31 22 19 36 11 4 16 32 23 20 37 BALDWINE the fourth 1 Princes of Antioch Patriarchs of Antioch Patriarches of Ierusalem Mrs of Kn. Hospitallers Mrs of Kn. Templars Caliphs of Syrìa Casiphs of Egypt He to despite the Grecian Emperour wasteth the island Cyprus 2 Almerick cruelly tormented for speaking against Pr. Reinolds marriage 14 In vain he crawleth to Rome to complain of them 11 53 BERTRAND de Bianch fort 1 21 20 3 15 12 54 2 22 ELHADACH These Caliphs of Egypt are very difficult to regulate by Chronologie and are ever Heteroclites either deficient or redundant in the proportion of time consenting with other Princes Hitherto we have followed Helvicus now adhere to Tyrius lib. 19. cap. 19. lib. 20. cap. 12. 1 4 16 13 III. AUGERIUS de Balben He is taken prisoner Tyr. l. 18. c. 15. PHILIP of Naples 3 23 2 5 17 14  1 24 3 6 18 X. AMALRICUS Prior of the Sepulchre 1  Afterward he renounceth his place Tyr. lib. 20. c. 24. 2 25 4 7 19 2 III. ARNOLDUS de Campis  26 5 Reinold carried captive to Aleppo 8 20 3   MUSTENE-IGED 6 BOEMUND the third S. to Reimund 1 He prescribeth rules to the Carmelites 21 4   2 7 2 22 5   3 8 3 23 6   4 9 4 24 7 Vâ— GIâ—BERTUS Assalit Who to get Pelusium for his own Order instigated K. Almerick contrary to his oath to invade Egypt 12 Templars hanged for traytours OTTO de Sancto Amando one that feared neither God nor man Tyr. lib. 21. c. 29. 5 Sinar Dargon fight for the Sultany of Egypt 10 He is conquered and taken prisoner ransometh himself 5 25 8   6 11 6 26 9   7 12 7 27 10   8 13 8 28 11   9 14 9 29 12 12  MUSTEZI S. 1 15 10 30 13 VI. CASTUS  2 Turkish K. of Egypt 16 11 31 14   3 SALADINE with his horsemace knocketh out the brains of Elâ—adach the last Turkish Caliph in Egypt Tyr. lib. 20. cap. 12. 12 32 15 VII JOBERTUS The Templars basely kill the Embassadour of the Assasines 4  13 33 16 16  5  Anno Dom. Popes Emper. of the East Emper. of the West Kings of England Kings of France Holy Warre and Kings of Ierusalem 1175 17 33 24 21 38 2 6 18 34 25 22 39 William Marquesse of Montferrat marrieth Sibyll the Kings sister 3 7 19 35 26 23 40 Saladine shamefully conquered at Askelon 4 8 20 36 27 24 41 Fatall jealousies betwixt the King and Reimund Prince of Tripoli for many yeares 5 9 21 37 28 25 42 6   M. 5.     1180 M. 11 D. 29 M. 5. ALEXIUS COMNENê° 1 29 26 PHILIP Augustus S. 1 7 1 LUCIUS the third 1 2 30 27 2 8 2 2 ANDRONICUS S. 1 31 28 3 9 3 3 2 32 29 4 Baldwine disabled with leprosie retireth himself from managing the State 10 4 4 M. â—1 33 30 5 11 5 M 3 D. 28 URBANE the third ISAACIUS ANGELUS 1 34 31 6 BALDWINE the fifth after eight moneths poysoned 6 M. 10 D. 25 GREGORY the eighth 2 35 32 7 GUY de Lusignan in right of Sibyll his wife 1 7 M. 1. D. 27. CLEMENT the third 3 36 33 8 1 CONRADE Marquesse of Montferrat defendeth Tyre and is chosen King Guy taken prisoner Jerusalem won by Saladine Guy having got libertie befiegeth Prolemais 2 8 1 4 37 34 M. 7. RICHARD the first 9 3 9 2 5 38 1 10 3 4. VOYAGE under Frederick surnamed Barbarossa 4 1190 3 6 HENRY the sixth S. 1 2 11 4 5. VOYAGE under Rich. of Eng. Philip of Fran. 5 1 M. 2 D. 10 7 2 3 12 5 Conrade murdered in the market-place of Tyre Ptolema is taken 6 2 CELâ—â—TINE the third 2 8 3 4 13 Guy exchangeth his Kingdome of Jerusalem for Cyprus 7 3 3 M. 7. 9 4 5 14 HENRY Earl of Champaigne 4 4 ALâ—XIUS COMNENUS ANGâ—ZUS 1 5 6 15 2 Princes of Antioch Patriarchs of Antioch Patriarches of Ierusaleâ— Mrs of Kn. Hospitallers Mrs of Kn. Templâ—rs  Caliphs of Syrta Turkish K. of Egypt 14 34 17 VIII ROGER de Moris   6  15 35 18    7  Reinold of Castile once Prince of Antioch ransomed from captivity 16 36 19    8 He getteth Damascus the whole Turkish kingdome in Syria Tyr. lib. 21. c. 6. in despite of Noradines sonne 1 17 37 20  ARNOLDUS de Troge Tyr. lib. 22. c. 7  9 2 18 38 21    10 3 Boemund by putting away Theodora his lawfull wife câ—useth much trouble in this State 19 39 22    NARZAI S. 1 These great figures