in a Valley so deeply Sandy and loose that both the men and Horses who were soundly harrassed by the nights march had much difficulty to dragg their Legs out of this deep Sand. The Governour of Gaza who had by his Spies been advertised hereof laid himself in Ambush behind some little Hills and all of a suddain appeared upon the top of them with some of his Squadrons but without advancing as first resolving to observe the Countenance of the Christians And accordingly seeing that they made a Halt and shewed some surprize to find those People in order of Battle whom they had thought to have found asleep in their Beds he commanded some Squadrons to descend and charge them at full Speed and the light Arabian Horses running as freely upon these Sands as if they had been upon firm ground they made a furious discharge of their Arrows and then retreated to their main Body in a little time returning again in greater numbers shooting always without coming nearer than the distance of their Arrows and without danger of being pursued by the Christians who did not without difficulty advance over the heavy Sands so that wheeling and running round about the Army all day they harassed them till Night a Night that was to be spent in Arms without repose and repast and without the Possibility of advancing or retreating and in nothing but miserable trouble and waking dispair in which they were overwhelmed And indeed their Fortune was much more deplorable the next morning when the whole Army of the Sultan being joined to the Garrison of Gaza encompassed them on all sides and without fear attacking the poor Soldiers already half dead and almost unable to carry their Arms they came to charge them with the Sword and Lance. The Christians indeed performed in despight of their Fortune all that could be expected from men of Courage and infinitely above their Strength but there was a necessity that they must yield to multitude with which they were oppressed most of them being either slain or taken that miserable day Henry Count de Bar one of the most Valiant Princes of his time Simon Count de Clermont the Lords John de Barres Robert Malet Richard de Beaumont and many others of the Bravest and most remarkable men remained dead upon the place The Constable Amauri and seventy other great French Lords after having fought most courageously and by their long resistance given an opportunity to the Duke of Burgundy to make his escape were taken Prisoners and carried in Chains to Grand Caire Thus ended this unhappy Jealousie Ambition and Vain Glory which were governed by rashness and Imprudence in this fatal Encounter of our Ancient Worthies whose misfortune may teach all the Gallant men of our times that they can never be truely Brave unless their Courage be regulated by Prudence in the Commanders and Obediences in the Inferior Officers and Soldiers This unfortunate news did so astonish all the rest of the Army which was at Ascalon in no very good understanding among themselves that they presently returned to Ptolemais where the divisions which continued still among them as well as between the Sultans of Egypt and Damascus compleated the loss of all by two most Shameful Treaties with the Infidels For the Templers who had one part of the Army on their side made a Truce with Nazer Sultan of Damascus year 1240 upon condition that he should surrender to them the Castles of Beaufort and Saphet with all the Territory of Jerusalem and that they should assist him with all their Forces against Melech-Salah Sultan of Egypt who had dethroned his Brother Edel to possess himself thereof and the Hospitallers supported by the King of Navarr the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretany and the other part of the Army made a truce quite opposite to this with the Sultan of Egypt against the Sultan of Damascus After which the King of Navarr the Duke of Bretany and the greatest part of the Cusades embarking in the Port of Acre returned into their own Country almost at the same time that Richard Earl of Cornwall Brother to King Henry the third of England arrived in Palestine with good Troops of English Crusades This Prince who following the Example of his Uncle Richard Coeur de Lyon had taken the Cross with a great Party of the Nobility and Gentry of England embarked at Dover about Whitsontide and landing in France passed to Paris where he was magnificently received by St. Lewis who lodged him in his Palace and caused him to be royally treated and conducted to Lyons from whence passing by Roan to Arles where he was to be received by Count Raymond de Provence he came to Marseilles and about the middle of September he imbarked upon the Fleet which he had sent through the Straits and upon the eleventh of October in fifteen days after the departure of the King of Navarr he came to Anchor in the Road of Ptolemais The Sarasins had a strange fear upon them for this Prince whose very name was formidable to them renewing the memory of the famous Richard King of England who by his marvellous Feats of Arms was so terrible to these Infidels that the Women were wont to quiet their Children when they cried with threatning them with King Richard and the Horsemen to make a Skewish boggling Horse go forward would commonly say to him in clapping their Spurrs to him What dost think it is King Richard And certainly his Nephew wanted neither Spirit nor Courage neither Money nor Conduct to support a name so great and so terribly to the Sarasins He did all that could be expected from a very great Prince to put things into a Condition so that it might be hoped the War against the Infidels might be happily prosecuted for within three days after his arrival he caused it to be proclaimed by the sound of Trumpet through the whole City That if any one of those who remained in the Holy Land stood in need of Money he would furnish them during all the time of their Service But he quickly learnt that in the deplorable condition to which matters were reduced by the division which still continued among the principal Officers and above all the Templers and Hospitallers there was no appearance of succeeding by the way of Arms. And therefore seeing that it was impossible to bring them to any agreement and that the Sultan of Damascus did not at all observe the truce whereas he of Egypt offered to continue it with new advantages to the Christians he resolved at last by the advice of the Duke of Burgundy the great Master of the Hospital and the greatest part of the Crusades to accept of it upon these conditions That all the Prisoners an each side and especially those who were taken at the Battle of Gaza should be set at liberty and that the Christians should enjoy certain Lands which the Sultan possessed in Palestine Mean time the Earl whilest he staid for the
being of an Humor not to forget themselves whilest they served others so advantageously they took occasion to be their own Paymasters by making themselves Masters of certain Places in Pavia where they afterwards became very Powerful by the Accession of divers of their Countrymen who flocked thither to them upon the Incouragement of their good Fortune and Renown The most considerable of these was a Person of Quality one Tancred Lord of Hauteville who of twelve Sons which he had not at all inferior to their Father in Courage sent eleven of them into Italy They were so fortunate that in a little time a fair Occasion presented itself to them to establish their Dominion in Italy For Baldwin Lieutenant to the Greek Governor being ill treated by him craving Aid of these Normans broak out into Terms of Defiance with him These Eleven Brothers the most renowned of their Nation and to whom all the rest yeilded Obedience carried themselves with such Conduct and admirable good Fortune that after having intirely defeated the Greeks in three Battles they chaced them out of almost all their Dependancies in Italy dividing the Conquests among themselves But still they acknowledged for their Captain and Chief the eldest Brother William Surnamed for his Valour Iron-Arme who was the first Earl of Pavia his two next Brothers Drogon and Humphry succeeded him and after them the Third which was the famous Robert Guischard This Prince who certainly was one of the greatest Men of his Age not contented with Pavia by the force of his Arms extended his Dominion into Calabria and Conquered the greatest part of that Country which is now called the Kingdom of Naples and took upon himself the Title of Duke of Pavia and Calabria for which he did Homage to Pope Nicholas the Second restoring to him such Lands as had been usurped from the Church He had afterwards great Differences with Gregory the Seventh who Excommunicated him but in the end being Reconciled he received Absolution and became his great Protector and at the earnest intreaty of that Pope it was that he with his Son Bohemond passed the Sea to make War with Alexis Commenius the Usurper of the Imperial Throne out of which his Predecessor Nicephorus Botaniatos had expelled the Emperor Michel Parapinacius who was come to Rome to Implore the Succor of the Pope and the Normans There can be nothing more Glorious than that which upon this Occasion was performed by this admirable Prince for he over-ran all Greece and with no more than fifteen thousand Men defeated Alexis in a set Battle who Encountred him upon the Frontier of Thrace with an Army of one hundred and seventy thousand Combatants Then leaving Bohemond in Thrace who successfully pusht on the War often beating Alexis as the Princess Ann his Sister Confesses he hasted to the Succor of the Pope who was closely Besieged by the Imperialists and Romans in the Castle of St. Angelo he constrained Henry the Emperor to depart from Italy Retook Rome from the Schismaticks conducted the Pope to Salernum returned to the East in his Passage defeated the Fleet of Alexis and having Rejoyned with Bohemond not long after he died full of Glory leaving his Estate to his Son Roger who after an unkind and unlucky War at last came to an Agreement with his Brother Prince Bohemond giving him for his Share the Principality of Tarentum year 1097 This Prince who was nothing Inferior to his Father in Skill or Courage was with his Uncle Roger Earl of Sicily at the Siege of Amalphi when the French Princes passed through Italy for the Levant So soon as he understood the Subject of their Voyage he declared publickly that he would be one with them either out of his great Zeal for the Glory of God or that he believed this might afford a fair Opportunity for him to Recommence the War with Alexis and by Possessing some part of the Empire establish himself in the East for he sent some of his People immediately to Duke Godfrey to obstruct the Peace between him and Alexis Be it as it will for it is no part of my Province to enter into Mens Intentions after the spiteful manner of most People and above all others Historians who to make themselves thought Able and Understanding too frequently fall into this piece of Malice It is most undoubted that Bohemond shewed such a mighty Ardor for this Holy Expedition that having in the Field torn a silken Cloak which he wore into Crosses he took the first himself and afterwards presented the rest to the principal Officers of his Army which were received with such an universal Applause that all the Souldiers protested they would follow him insomuch that passing quite through the quarter of Bohemond Earl Roger was in a manner wholy deserted and forced to retire Bohemond overjoyed at this Adventure applied himself with incredible Diligence to make Preparation for this Enterprize and in a short time passed the Sea after Hugh the Great but with another manner of Equipage than that Prince had done for he had in his Army ten thousand Horse and above so many Foot together with the greatest part of the Gentry of Sicily Calabria and Pavia and the Princes and Norman Lords the principal whereof were the brave Tancred his Nephew his Sisters Son the Earls Richard and Ranulph his Cousins the Sons of William Iron-Arme his Uncle Richard the Son of Earle Ranulph Herman de Canni Humphrey the Son of Raould and Robert de Sourdevall The Army passed through Epirus and Macedon where the Greek Imperialists who had their Winter Quarters there drawing together attended their Motions intending if possible to surprize them and at a certain Pass upon a River when one half of the Army was marched over they fell in upon the Rere But Tancred immediately Repassing followed by two thousand Horse charged them so home that having cut the forwardest of them in pieces the rest consulted their Safety with their Heels He took also many Prisoners whom he sent to Bohemond who reproaching them for this unworthy Action they assured him that what they had done was by particular Order from the Emperor notwithstanding that that perfidious Prince had wrote Letters full of Complements and Civility to Bohemond by that Artifice it seems thinking to amuse him and make him less Careful or Suspicious However this Blow so astonished Alexis that to avoid a greater he sent an Excuse to Bohemond and commanded his Officers to furnish his Army with Provisions he also requested Duke Godfrey with the principal Lords of his Army to meet this Prince and mediate a Reconciliation and the Duke knew so well how to soften that great Spirit that notwithstanding all the reason he had for his Distrusts he brought him along with him to pay his Duty to the Emperor and to take the same Oath with the rest of the Princes which he did with the same Intention lest it should procrastinate that great Design for which they
the Plain whither it was descended to defend the Pass and if the Entry into the River was easie the getting out was difficult the further Bank being not only possessed by the Enemies but very steep and high and that which made the Difficulty greater was that there was not one fordable place to be found all the Country People though several Examined agreeing in the Protestation that they never knew any passing there And besides all this so soon as any of the Soldiers entred the River to search for a Ford the Turks on the other side also entred the River and showred down their Arrows upon them Nevertheless the Desire which the Army had to pass and fight the Infidels was so great that after having tried both above and below to find out a Ford in the River without regarding the Arrows of the Enemies they at the last found one turning a little upon the left hand which those of the Country had never known The King after he had given Orders to the Cavalry of the Avant-Guard to pass the Ford he put himself at the Head of the Rere which faced the Turks who had charged them there and running upon them at a full Cariere before they had the Liberty according to their Custom to retire he cut a great part of them in pieces and repulsed the rest with Sword and Lance at their very Reins even to the Mountains At the same time Thierri Earl of Flanders Henry the Son of Thibald Earl of Champagne and William Earl de Mascon having thrown themselves with the first Squadrons into the River were followed by all the rest and in Despight of the Arrows which like Hail were showred most furiously upon them from the opposite Bank which did but little Execution upon those armed Troops they gained the other Shoar and sustained the Shock of their Enemies till the rest of the Troops got over and drew up in Batalia Immediately thereupon they made a most furious Charge upon the Turks who now no longer able to use their Bows were presently overthrown for these Barbarians having no defensive Arms and not accustomed to fight Foot to Foot against the Franks were constrained to give way to that Terrible Shock and therefore betook themselves to Flight leaving a great Number of their Men extended upon the Earth and a great many of Prisoners the rest were pursued to the Mountains where they saved themselves year 1148 but the Camp which they had pitched in the Plain fell to the Share of the Soldiers thus the whole Army having now no more Enemy neither in Front or Rear which durst appear passed the River with Ease some behind the Horse others upon the Wagons and Planks of Timber There ran a Report in the Army that a Cavalier in white Arms who was never seen before nor after passing before the rest as it were to shew them the Way they were to take gave the first Charge upon the Squadrons of the Enemy But as it was the Humour of those times to feign such Visions to render extraordinary Actions as this was more miraculous one may without scruple dispense with disbelieving this Apparition Eudes a Monk of St. Dennis who was the Successor of Sugerius and who was by that great Abbot recommended to the King as an able Man to serve him both as his Chaplain and his Secretary during that Voyage satisfies himself with saying that there were several who affirmed they saw that white Cavalier but that for his own particular he was resolved neither to be deceived nor to deceive others and that he saw no such thing He adds like a man of Sense that without having Recourse to this Marvel which was not easie to prove there was another Passage not less remarkable or surprising and which ought to be wholly attributed to the Divine Protection and that is that in this Attempt there was not one Person of Quality lost except Milon or Miles the Lord of Nogent who was drowned A strange and marvellous Adventure which we have seen repeated within a few days by that admirable Reflux and if I may venture to express it so Circulation of the same Events which produces the same thing in succeeding Ages which have happened in those past so long ago For in the War with Holland where the King of France by the prodigious Success of his Arms made himself Master in less than one Champagne of above thirty strong places he commanded a Party of his Cavalry to pass the Rhine not far from its Mouth under the Conduct of the Generous Count de Guiche where those Braves in the View of their Enemies who were drawn up on the other side to oppose them passed that great River partly by a Ford till that time unknown and partly by swimming without any other considerable Loss than that of the Count de Nogent who there perished in signallizing by a glorious Death his Zeal and Courage in one of the fairest Occasions that were ever seen But it is in short that one ought to expect that what ever was great or Heroick in their Ancestors is in our time to be performed by their Descendants under a King who hitherto hath carried the Glory of this August Monarchy to a higher Degree than any of his Illustrious Predecessors have done since Charlemain The End of the First Part. THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land TOME II. BOOK I. The CONTENTS of the First Book The Rereguard of the Kings Army Defeated in the Mountains of Laodicea for want of observing the Kings Orders The Description of that Combat A most Heroick Action of the King in an extreme Danger of his Life His March and admirable Conduct to Attalia The new Perfidy of the Greeks in Betraying the Royal Army The Arrival of the King at Antioch and his Difference with Prince Raymond The Conquenty March to Jerusalem where he is met by the Emperor Conrade The Councel at Ptolemaïs where the Siege of Damascus is resolved The Description of the City of Damascus The manner of the March of the Christian Army towards that City The young King Baldwin makes the first Attack his Character and extraordinary Valour in the Attack against the Gardens and Suburbs of Damascus The great Combat upon the Bank of the River A brave Action of the Emperor Conrade An Account of the Siege of Damascus and the Treachery of the Syrians which occasioned the ill Success of that Enterprise The Return of the Emperor and the King The Murmurs against St. Bernard and his Apology The Conquest of Noradin after the raising of the Siege The Death of King Baldwin and his Elogy His Brother Amauri Succeeds him The History of that Princes Life who by his Avarice looseth the Opportunity of Conquering all Egypt The History of Syracon who Seizes upon the Kingdom of Egypt and leaves it to his Nephew Saladin The Elogy and first Conquest of that Prince The
thinking it very lawful to revenge Persidiousness by Treachery no sooner saw them disarmed but they fell upon them and put them all to the Sword except a very few who escaped the Massacre to carry the woful News into their own Country to the other Crusades who yet by their Misfortune grew never the Wiser or more Considerate For in the beginning of the Summer of this same Year a prodigious Multitude of People gathered from divers parts of France England the low Countries Lorrain and that part of Germany which lyes upon the Rhine drawing along with them an infinite of Women and People of the lewdest Condition in the World assembled themselves near Collen where they passed the Rhine in order to joyn with Count Emico who attended them with a great number of Crusades of the higher Germany of the same dissolute Complexion with themselves These People to Signalize their false Zeal by covering a most barbarous Action with the specious pretence of Piety most inhumanly Massacred all the Jews whom they found at Collen and Mayence where they forced the Arch-Bishops Palace where Rothard the Archbishop had secured a hundred of these poor Creatures as in a Sanctuary But it proved no Protection against the Fury of those Barbarians who Butchered them in a most savage manner cutting their Throats like Sheep sparing neither the Women for their Sex nor the Children for their innocent Age nor indeed was there any Sanctuary to be found against this horrible Barbarism which was inspired by Avarice and promoted by an insatiable Covetousness of the Riches of the Jews Insomuch that the remainders of them being reduced to the utmost Dispair chose rather to repeat the doleful Example of Saguntum Capua and with their own Hand to commit the bloody Execution so that barricadoing themselves within their Houses the pityless Mothers like Furies cut the Throats of their sucking Babes the Husbands their Wives and Daughters and the Fathers their Sons and the Servants chose rather to dispatch each other than to fall into the Hands of those incompassionate Monsters who profaned the Character and rendered the Name of Christian of which they were unworthy most Infamous and Detestable But it was not long before God Almighty by the remarkable Vengeance which he executed upon these wicked People manifested the Abhorrence which he had of their Crimes and that he had no Intention to make use of their Service in reconquering the Inheritance of his Son by the profane Hands of those who had declared themselves his Enemies by such Impieties as even the Infidels themselves would have blushed to commit For this huge Army of Bedlams which consisted of above two hundred thousand Men of whom there were not above three thousand Horse laying Siege to Mesbourg a strong place upon the Danubius in Hungary where they were denyed Passage and when they were just upon the point of gaining it was in an instant struck with such a Pannick Fear that they fled with so much Precipitation Blindness and Disorder and all perished there except a very few of the Horse who being well mounted saved themselves by Flight For the greatest part of them were Smothered whilest they indeavoured to pass the Morass with which the Town is Invironed others were slain by the Garrison who upon this occasion sallying out followed them with Death closely at the Heels many were cut off by the Peasants who ran from all parts to take Vengeance of these Robbers and a multitude of them were drowned whilest indeavouring to pass the Danube they tumbled headlong one upon another so that the Shoar of that great River was for some time covered with their dead Bodies insomuch that this prodigious multitude of distracted People who pretended with impunity to commit the most execrable Crimes in the World causing a Shee-Goat to be worshipped which was carried at the Head of the Army as their conducting Divinity vanished in a moment by a terrible Blow of the Divine Justice which would not indure to be affronted by their pretended Piety and making Religion only a Cover for those abominable Wickednesses wherewith they daily dishonored God year 1096 But to proceed the Army of Peter the Hermite did not meet with a Fortune much more advantageous It was now become very numerous by the Conjunction of an infinite number of Lombards Genoese Piemontanes and other People of Italy who having taken upon them the Cross with the earliest even presently after the Council of Clermont came in several Troops by themselves without any Leaders and being joyned with those Forces of Gautier near Constantinople they were commanded there to attend the Arrival of the Hermite by the Emperors Order who now began to entertain some suspicious Jealousies of this great Army of Franks who were to be followed by others as numerous as they So soon as Peter was arrived the Emperor who had an extream desire to see him sent for him to the Palace where the Hermite who by the Voyage he had made into the Levant was well skilled in the Language and as Eloquent an Orator as a great Captain made him a Discourse in publick upon the Subject of this Expedition and the Holy War of the Forces and Qualities of the Princes which were expected with which the Emperor appeared so well satisfied that he made the Hermite very fair Presents and bestowed upon him a round Sum of Money to buy Provisions for his Troops After which he sent him back to the Camp Exhorting him by no means to precipitate this great Affair and especially not to attempt the passing of the Straits till the Arrival of the Princes nor to expose his harrassed Troops against those of the Turks which were far stronger than his and against which his tired and feeble Men would be able to make no tolerable Resistance The truth is the greatest part of our Historians represent this Prince as the most perfidious and disloyal of Mankind one who under the fine appearance of a feigned Friendship covered that horrible Treason which he had contrived against the Latins which was by a thousand unworthy Artifices to bring them to Destruction as well as by the Arms of the Turkish Infidels on the other side the Greek Writers when they mention this Emperor and this War speak nothing like it and the Princess Anna his Daughter who hath written the History of her Father in a Stile Florid and Beautiful after the Genius of her Sex in her Alexiada paints him directly contrary and hath dressed him up like a Hero a Wise and Politick Prince who upon this Occurrence performed the most admirable things in the World But to deal sincerely and without Prejudice the best way in my Opinion is to avoid both these Extreams to the end thereby if possible to find out Truth in the middle Way But this is most certain that this Alexis Comnenius was no other than an Usurper of the Empire of his Master and his Benefactor who had given him the Command
it was obliged to halt upon the Frontier of Hungary to treat with King Carloman concerning their passage For in Truth he had sufficient reason to be distrustful of this Army of the Crusades after the horrible injuries which he had received from those of Peter Godescalc and Emico The Treaty was however quickly concluded by the open and plain dealing between the King and the Duke who had an Interview upon a certain Bridge The King demanded as Hostages Prince Baldwin and the Princess his Lady and coasting all along with the Army of Godfrey ordered the Magazines to furnish them with Provisions at a reasonable price till such time as the greatest part of the Troops were passed over the Savus where he returned the Hostages with a thousand Protestations of Amity to the Duke whose Conduct and Fidelity he had in extraordinary admiration With the same order Godfrey caused his Army to pass over the vast Countries of Bulgaria and the Territories of the Greek Emperour according as he had promised his Embassadors who were sent to him by Alexis whilest he was upon his March until at length he arrived at Philipopolis in Thracia where he received Intelligence of the detention of Hugh the Great This young Prince who was Brother to Philip the first King of France had not to speak Truth either so much Experience or so much Ability as the other Princes of the Crusade who were possessed of very fair Estates but however he was a person admirably well composed full of Honour Vertue and Goodness extream Brave and of an Humour sweet and indearing the advantage which he had by his Illustrious Birth above the rest gave him a title to a greater Respect and he was therefore treated with so much Honour and Duty by all that though diverse others had in reality a greater Command and Interest in the Army yet nevertheless his Name was more Celebrated among strangers and especially the Greeks The Princes which accompanied him in this Voyage were Robert Duke of Normandy Son to William the Conquerer with the Noble Troops of English Normans and Brittains Stephen Earl of Chartres and Blois whose power was so great that it was commonly said that he was owner of more Places and Castles then there were days in the year Prince Eustace of Bullen Brother to Duke Godfrey and Robert Earl of Flanders who following the example of the Duke of Lorrain sold his Estate to furnish the Charges of this War These Princes who together composed a most puissant and numerous Army having stated their measures and conferred a long time at Paris with Hugh the great in the presence of the King his Brother put themselves upon their Way in the Month of September and having traversed France and Italy and received the Benediction of the Pope whom they found at Leuca and also having visited Rome and the Holy Places to implore the Divine Assistance the Winter being too far advanced for them commodiously to pass into Epirus they were obliged to distribute their Army about Bari Brindes and Otranto there to attend the coming of the Spring and the conveniency of imbarquing their Forces But Hugh suffering himself to be transported by the heat of his Conrage and the Impatience natural to Young Persons and above all others those of the French Nation was not able to support this delay but exposed himself too rashly to the Faith of the Greeks imbarking at Bari to pass to Duras as he did very slenderly accompanied and in a condition in no sort suitable to his Quality and the Majestick Name of France which he was to sustain during this War But the Governour of that place whether it were that he had secret Orders to secure such of the Crusade as he could surprize or that he believed he should do his Master the Emperor a considerable Service by putting into his hands so great a Prince who might serve for a Hostage to secure him against the Latins immediately upon his arrival seized him and sent him under a strong Guard through By-ways to Constantinople where the Emperor detained him Prisoner Godfrey who presently after this adventure arrived at Philipopolis where he received an account of it sent immediately to the Emperour to demand the Liberty of this Prince and those who accompanied him and in the mean time advanced with his Army as far as Adrianople But perceiving by the Answer which he received from Alexis what he was to Expect he acted like an open Enemy and for eight days wasting the Country all along as he went he marched directly to Constantinople where he raised such a consternation that Alexis sent to him to his Camp to desire a Peace making him all the Promises of receiving a just satisfaction In short Godfrey still advancing encamped two days before Christmass within view of this great City when with joy he received Hugh the Great to whom the Emperor had now given his Liberty and who came to pay his thanks to his Deliverer and Benefactor accompanied with Drogon de Neele Clerembaud de Vendeuïle and William Viscount of Melun commonly called the Carpenter either because he was so notable an Artist in framing of Engines of War or that according to the mode of Expression in those times he used so terribly to hack and hew his Enemies that neither Cask Shield nor Curiass was able to resist the Force of his blows But this Peace by reason of the perfidiousness of Alexis lasted not long for perceiving that after he had given orders privately to prohibit the furnishing them with provisions the Army began to live at Discretion he had recourse to Artifice and desired Godfrey to take up his Quarters in the fair Houses Palaces Hamblets and Villages which lay all along the Bosphorus to the Euxine Sea pretending the Rigor of the season was too extream to permit them to continue in their Camp but the truth is with a design to lock up this great Army in the little space which is between the Strait and the River which discharges it self into the Port that there he might more easily destroy them He had also a design to surprize the Duke inviting him to come to the Palace to confer with him about the War but finding that the Duke would not be decoyed and that he did with good reason distrust him he endeavoured again to famish the Army prohibiting the furnishing them with any kind of provisions he also attacked them both by Sea and Land for he commanded out his Cavalry against those who were sent to forrage and caused many Vessels manned with Archers to fall down the River who incessantly discharged upon such of the Soldiers as appeared But his Enterprize prospered accordingly for Godfrey with ease defeating the Greek Cavalry made himself Master of the Bridge of Blakerness in despite of all that the Emperors People endeavoured to do to oppose him and having without danger repassed the Main of his Army who set sire at their parting to the Houses and
had taken Arms. The Emperor received him with all the Marks of Esteem and Kindness and believing he knew his blind side which he thought was Ambition he promised him that Conditionally that he would take the Oath which was required of him he would establish this Prince in the greatest part of those Provinces which lye between Constantinople and Antioch which he thought was an irresistable Argument to work upon his Temper But Tancred whether it were that he had secret Orders from Bohemond or that he could not dispose himself to Digest an Oath which he did not approve drew his Troops to this side of the Strait without seeing the Emperor at all who was forced to dissemble this Affront which was put upon him The Earl of Flanders who came up a few Days after went to wait upon the Emperor with a slender Retinue and without Difficulty took the same Oath as the others had done After which these Forces also passed the Bosphorus to encamp near Calcedon with the rest But the Arival of Count Raymond brought such new Difficulties as were not without great Trouble to be Surmounted This Lord had taken the Cross the first of all others at that same time when the Greek Ambassadors came to Pope Vrban after his departure from Clermont and his Example was so prevalent that he was followed by above one hundred thousand Men out of Avergne Gascoine Languedoc and Provence who put themselves under his Conduct He was a Prince of a majestick Aspect and being somewhat advanced in Years his gray Hairs rendered him still more Venerable but he was only so old as to have his Experience increased and his Judgment more strong without any diminution to the strength of his Body which was every way Robust and capable of induring all the Fatigues of War He had acquired a very noble Reputation especially in Spain in the Wars against the Moors for Alphonsus the great King of Castile who gave him his Daughter Elvira in Marriage as a Recompence of his Valor the glorious Marks whereof he carried in his Face having lost one of his Eyes by the shot of an Arrow which was so far from being a Blemish that together with his goodly Presence it inhanced his Esteem and Reputation among the Soldiers who had him in mighty Veneration He possessed moreover all the good Qualities which were requisite to render him a great Prince and an honest Man above all things a lover of Honor Justice and Integrity an inviolable Master of his Word Vigilant Wise and of a great Foresight Magnificent Prudent in his Counsels firm and unalterable in his Resolutions But after all this it must be acknowledged that notwithstanding his Age and all his Prudence he retained too much of the Genius and the Temper of his Country for he was a mighty Opiniatre and not able to bear Injuries or to suffer his own Sentiments or his Will to be Opposed The Countess his Lady who had the Heart of a Heroine generously followed her Husband in this Voyage as did also his Son Bertrand whom he was resolved to educate in this fair School of Virtue both by his Instructions and his Example Many great Persons accompanied him of whom the principal were Aimar Bishop of Pavia the Popes Legate William Bishop of Orange Currard Earl of Rousillon William Earl of Montpellier Gaston de Bearn William de Forrest Raiband of Orange Raimond the first Viscount of Turenne and several Spanish Lords together with Bernard Archbishop of Toledo and all the brave Lords and Gentlemen of Avergn Gascony Languedoc and Provence This brave Earl having passed the Alpes and taken his way by Lombardy and Friul Marched quite through Dalmatia being forced continually to stand upon his Guard to defend himself from the ancient Sclavonians a Barbaroas People who then Inhabited that Country and who never failed upon any Advantage to assail him and lay Ambuscades for him all the Way till he came to Duras from thence he entred into Epirus and traversed all Macedon and Thracia till he came to a Town upon the Hellespont within four days March of Constantinople having been forced to sight his Passage all the way against the Greeks and Bulgarians which the perfidious Alexis contrary to all his fair Protestations of Friendship had caused to arm against him However for the present he dissembled the Injury and tho not without a great deal of Repugnance leaving his Army Encamped near that City he advanced with a small Train to Constantinople there to treat with the Emperor according to the earnest Desires of the Princes who had already passed the Strait who now desired nothing more than to come to a Conjunction of their Forces in order to their entring upon Action The Emperor after a magnificent Reception pressed him also to the point of Homage as the other Princes had agreed The Earl smartly replied That he would never do it and that he was not come so far as the Levant to find a Master nor did he intend to become a Vassal to any other besides Christ Jesus But that nevertheless if his Imperial Majesty would joyn his Forces with theirs and put himself at the Head of the Army he would without trouble acknowledg him for his General and in that Quality oney him as well as any of the rest Alexis netled at this Denial however stilled his ill Humor and amuling the Earl with a pretence of treating with him further concerning the Common Interests the Imperial Troops who were Quartered in Thracia receiving secret Orders to that purpose sell unexpectedly in the Night upon his Camp who believing themselves in great Security in the Country of their Friends kept no manner of strict Guard this Surprise brought a strange Confusion upon the Camp and many Soldiers were killed before they could be awakned but after a little time these cowardly Assailants were repulsed with a very great Slaughter The Disorder however was never the less for the Souldiers who before had suffered so much in their march began to mutiny and believing that they were betrayed by their Officers who had brought them thither to be butchered nothing would satisfie them but to return into their own Country But the Earl who could by no means endure to think of retreating appeased them by changing their dispair into a desire of Revenge he therefore sent openly to reproach the Emperor with this infamous treachery and to sollicit the rest of the Princes to joyn with him and at once to deliver themselves from this persidious Greek by razing his Imperial Throne But the Princes at the earnest prayer of Alexis who absolutely disavowed the action and offered to make any kind of satisfaction to the Earl made such powerful Remonstrances to Raimond that in conclusion they not only appeased him but also obliged him for fear of losing more time to the prejudice of their great design to take the Oath which was desired which accordingly he did but in these terms That he promised
to enterprize nothing contrary to the honor or the life of Alexis provided that Prince should inviolably observe all that he had promised But when the Homage came under debate he constantly protested that he would die before he would do it and that the Emperor and the Princes ought to be abundantly satisfied with the Oath which he had taken From whence they might have learned that the same Resolution in the rest might have proved no less advantagious to them then their politick Condescension for assuredly what colour soever may be put upon this Action it can never redound much to their Honour in the History of their lives But so it commonly happens that it is the Destiny of humane Prudence to be most grosly mistaken when for its security it makes choice of Profitable rather than Honest This dangerous quarrel being in this manner appeased the Princes after having resolved at a great Council of War immediately to besiege the City of Nice repaired to Calcedon whither also the Army of Raimond marched up to joyn with the rest Raimond himself and Prince Bohemond of whom the jealous Emperor was extreamly suspicious staying still at Constantinople to solicite Alexis to send the Provisions for the Army and according to his promise to go and take upon him the Command of the Army which they the more pressed that thereby they might be the better assured of him but he still excused himself from the apprehensions which he had of the Bulgarians who might draw dangerous advantages from his absence Whereupon Bohemond and the Earl presently after him having given order for the Provisions passed the strait and followed the rest of the Princes towards Nice and in the mean time Robert Duke of Normandy Stephen Earl of Blois and Prince Eustace who were yet expected with impatience after having passed the Winte and Lent in Pavia and Calabria Embarquing after Easter the fifteenth of April towards the latter end of May came up with the Christian Army and encamped near that City year 1097 This Robert Duke of Normandy was the Son of that famous William who effaced the first infamous Surname of the Bastard by that of the Conqueror which he acquired by his Merits in the Conquests of the Kingdom of England This Prince was low of Stature but of a lofty Mind and a large heart valiant and fearless upon occasion of honourable engagements of great sincerity and integrity magnificent in his Expences and liberal even to prodigality but withal he was extream voluptuous and naturally averse to trouble and business a Lover of disorderly pleasures and especially of eating and drinking very plentifully which made him something Corpulent and unwieldy and by these irregularities he lost the Realm of England in which his younger Brother established himself whilest he instead of making Preparation for War diverted himself with making provision only for his pleasures and this also lost him the love of the Normans whom he oppressed with excessive Impositions and exactions to furnish himself wherewithal to support his Luxury However he recovered that Dutchy and resolving in some measure to imitate the Piety of his Grandfather Robert the eighth Duke of Normandy who by an uncommon Devotion for so great a Prince went on Pilgrimage barefooted to Jerusalem he was one of the first in taking upon him the Cross thereby to atone God Almighty for the viciousness of his former life he therefore generously engaged his Dutchy to his two Brothers for fifteen thousand Marks in silver to enable him to undertake this Voyage wherein he suffered much in a toilsome march and performed more when once he came to enter into the War All matters having thus passed at Constantinople between the Emperor and the Princes there remained only Earl Stephen and Prince Eustace who with the Earl of Tholose were still to perform what the rest of the Princes had already done they therefore repaired to Constantinople to pay their Homage to the Emperor who received them with all manner of honour sparing no charges in treating them most Royally and in making them Presents which in beauty richness and magnificence surpassed all that he had bestowed upon the other Princes After which this perfidious man under pretence of furnishing them with an able Conductor and some Troops of his own promising that so soon as his affairs would permit he would follow them in Person with all his Forces gave them one Tatin a wicked fellow of his Court whose nose having been cut off carried in his Face the ugly Witness of his horrid Crimes It was to this infamous wretch that he trusted the great secret of his intended treachery against the Princes of the Crusade He it was who was to give him an exact account of all occurrences and upon occasion to put his orders in Execution for their Ruin whilest the poor Princes who thought they had reason to be extremely well satisfied with his proceedings passed the Bosphorus and by great marches rejoyned the Gross of the Army which had now begun the Siege of Nice THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land BOOK II. The CONTENTS of the Second Book The Description of the City of Nice in Blthynia and the Siege thereof by the Princes of the Crusade The second and third Battle of Nice where the young Solyman was beaten The taking of that City and the Treachery of the Greek Emperor The March of the Christian Army One part thereof surprised by Soliman The Battle of the Gorgonian Valley The Progress of the Christian Army in the lesser Asia The great danger of Duke Godfrey and his Combat with a monstrous Bear The difference and little Civil Dissention between Baldwin and Tancred Baldwin makes himself Master of the Principality of Edessa The Entrance of the Christian Army into Syria The Description of the famous City of Antioch It is besieged by the Princes The Relation of this famous Siege The Combat at the Bridge of Antioch The marvellous Actions of Duke Godfrey The Approach of Corbagath with a prodigious Army to relieve the City The Relation of the taking of Antioch by Bohemond by Intelligence in the City with one Pyrrhus The Christian Army at the same time besieged by Corbagath A Relation of the discovery of the top of a Spear which was believed to be that which pierced our Saviours side The memorable Battle of Antioch where the whole power of the Turks and Sarasens in Asia was defeated by the Christians The death of Aymar de Monteil Bishop of Pavia The quarrel between Count Raymond and the Prince of Tarrentum The taking of Marra A strange Relation of the gratitude of a Lyon The Siege of Arcas The odd Story of Anselme de Ribemond Earl of Bouchain and the deceased Engelram Son to the Earl of St. Paul The taking of Torlosa by a stratagem by the Vicount de Turenne The Sultan of Aegypt takes Jerusalem from the Turks breaks
Vigor imaginable but as the strongest Engines were too feeble against those Massy Walls and that the unshaken Towers were defended by an Army which might in the open field have given Battle to the Crusades it was resolved to attempt it by a long Siege and the Regular way of Art for this purpose they laid a Bridge of Boats over the Orontes to repulse those who had the Liberty to pass by the Bridge Gate they built Forts to block up the besieged and to empeach their frequent Sallies and in short nothing was omitted that might straiten them of Provision and at last oblige them by Famine to surrender the Town But the Consumption of Provisions which so great an Army occasioned the continual Excursions of the Turkish Garrisons who were about Antioch who wasted all the Country the frequent loss of Convoys and the Rigor of the following Winter almost famisht the Besiegers so that at Christmas the Army had neither Forrage nor Provisions It is true that Bohemond and the Earl of Flanders who were almost continually on horseback did what was possible to get subsistence oftentimes beating the Enemy who attempted to hinder them But as there was a general Desolation in the Country and that there came nothing by Sea in that tempestuous and rough Season so though for the most part they returned loaden with glory for having beaten the Turks yet they brought but a light stock of Provision for so great a multitude which was not easily satisfied This great evil so terrible of it self and which encreased daily was also accompanied with so many others as must in conclusion have reduced the Army to despair the continual Rains had so dammaged the Tents that the Souldiers lay almost quite exposed most of the Horses died so that there were not many above a thousand left in the whole Army At the same time arrived the deplorable account of the Misfortune of Swenon the Son of the King of Denmark who coming to the Siege with fifteen hundred fresh Cavaliers all brave and choice men was by Solyman surprized in a Valley and cut in pieces Many daily deserted following the example of the Traitor Talin the Emperors Lieutenant who pretending to go to solicit his Master for succour abandoned the Army many also of the principal Officers of the Army withdrew and among the rest the stout William the Carpenter Vicount of Melun And which is most surprizing even Peter the Hermit he who was the forwardest of all others to take up the Cross was also one of the first who deserted it and this great Faster who by his voluntary austerity by which he had gained so high a Reputation of Sanctimony making Profession to eat neither bread nor flesh was not able to resist the Severity of this constrained Abstinence which not only the Soldiers year 1097 but the chief commanders also supported so joyfully rather than violate the Vow which they had made unto Almighty God An example which gives us to understand that there is rarely a solid Foundation for this outside Sanctimony especially when it comes to make so great a Noise and that commonly God Almighty permits it to be followed with remarkable humiliation either to discover the falseness and illusion of it if feigned or to cure it of the Vanity of being proud of it the best of all that is good if it be true and certainly the confusion which Peter drew upon himself by so cowardly an Action was sufficient to cure him of that distemper For Tancred who foresaw the dangerous consequence of this pernicious flight persued these two Deserters and brought them back to the Tent of his Uncle Bohemond who there in the presence of all the Princes severely reproached them with their base Cowardize but at the Importunate intreaties of Hugh the Great whose Kinsman the Carpenter had the honor to be they were pardoned though with this condition that they should publickly make Oath that they would accomplish their Vow and not abandon this Enterprize till they had delivered the Holy Sepulchre In short every day produced new misfortunes and now the Pestilence which is the usual Attendant of Famine began to make a terrible Destruction in the Army Whereupon the Bishops had recourse to extraordinary Prayers and admirable Regulations were made and severe Orders given out against the Vices and Disorders which had slipt into the Camp and which with good reason it was apprehended were the Causes of God's displeasure against them nor was it long before the Supernatural Efficacy of this procedure became most visible for from that time the Plague began to decrease and Duke Godfrey whose distemper seemed to be communicated to the whole Army beginning also to recover his Health he by his presence inspired new life Health Vigor and Courage into the Souldiers A great Succour of twenty eight thousand Horse who attempted to force the quarter of Bohemond were defeated by this brave Prince and the Earl of Tholose and which is the Miracle they had only Seven hundred Horse divided into six squadrons with which they engaged and vanquished this great number of Enemies upon the Nineteenth day of February between the River and the Lake where they had put themselves in Battle that they might not be surrounded After which they returned to the Camp loaden with the spoils of their Enemies and that which they most wanted a great number of Horses And as a Trophee of their Victory they threw over the Walls a hundred of the Heads of the principal Turks thereby also to punish the Insolence of the Besieged who insulted over the Christians a little before by shewing them upon the Walls one of the Standards which they had taken in a Sally wherein was painted the Image of the Blessed Virgin About the same time the Ambassadors of the Sultan of Aegypt arrived in the Camp to treat of an Alliance with the Princes to whom he promised to joyn his Forces against their Common Enemies and not long after two Fleets from Genoa and Pisa arrived very Fortunately at the Port of St. Simeon with all sorts of Provisions which were very welcome after a five-month-Siege but this Arrival was the occasion of a great Mischief as well as of a great advantage For so soon as the Arrival of these two Fleets was known in the Camp the Souldiers ran thither in Shoals every one with Precipitation resolving to purvey for themselves such things as they wanted There was reason to fear that the Enemy would lay hold of this Opportunity and Disorder and therefore Bohemond and the Earl of Tholose who were to conduct the Egyptian Ambassadors to the Port in order to their imbarquing hasted with their Troops to convoy in their return this great multitude of Souldiers who were gone without any order and without their Arms. And that which they apprehended fell out accordingly for they fell into an Ambuscade of four thousand of the Enemies who had secretly sallied out of the Town by the
out Orders through every Quarter of the Camp that the Soldiers should be ready to march the Morning following being the third day of June and accordingly at high Noon he marched at the Head of the commanded Party with Trumpets sounding that so the Besieged taking Notice of them might suppose they were going upon some Design abroad and be the more secure of any thing intended against them at home but towards the Evening having taken a long Circuit behind the Mountains towards the South he turned Head and taking his March Westward to the left Hand he stopped in a Valley a little distance from the Western Gate where stood one of the Towers which was to be put into his Hands From thence he sent sixty of the most resolute Soldiers with a Ladder of Ropes of the length which Pyrrhus had directed But as a certain Lombard who had the Signal which was to shew that Bohemond and Pyrrhus were met was about to give it there followed an Accident which had like to have lost all The Turks who were ever jealous of the Christians had received Advice that there was some Treachery hatching in the Town and that in particular there was some Reason to suspect Pyrrhus Accien who was resolved to clear the Matter sent for him as was customary to the Council where this matter was under Debate and asked his Advice to see whether he would change his Countenance and so betray his Guilt of such a Design But this cunning Man perceiving the Intention of the Turk without the least Hesitation or mark of Astonishment replied briskly That nothing ought to be neglected upon such an Occasion and that he had thought of a most easy and certain Expedient to hinder so great a Mischief For said he with the greatest Assurance imaginable there needs no more but to change the Captains who command at the Gates and in the Towers to break all the Measures of those who may have entertained any Intelligence with the Enemies This Expedient which appeared so proper made them banish the Suspition which they had entertained of him and which they had no positive Evidence to support but considering that such a Change could not be made on the suddain year 1098 as Pyrrhus had well foreseen the Execution of it was deferred till the next Morning and then it was resolved by this means to cure the Distrusts which they had of the Christians and thereby to quiet the Fears of the People however Orders were given to those who went the Round that Night to acquit themselves of their Charge with all the Care and Circumspection that was possible Now as the Lombard began to speak to Pyrrhus the Captain who walked the Round in that Quarter came by with one carrying a Lanthorn before him and without doubt all had been discovered if Pyrrhus who saw him coming had not instantly acquainted the Soldiers with it and ordered them to fall flat upon their Bellies After which the Round who found all in good Order being passed by Pyrrhus who had so luckily escaped two such eminent Dangers having perceived the Sign of Bohemond threw down a Cord by which he drew up the Ladder which he fastened to one of the Battlements of the Tower The sixty Soldiers being now gotten up Bohemond who was advertised by the Lombard that all was their own ran with the rest who mounted with so much heat and in such a Throng that the Ladder being overcharged pulled down the Battlement to which it was tied which with its Fall crushed some of the Soldiers but this did not hinder but that the Ladder being well fastened again others mounted it with an equal Ardor and whilest some of them made themselves Masters of the Towers killing all the Turks which they met others broke open a Sally-Port by which Bohemond entred followed by the rest of his Troops who seizing upon the Gates by break of day the whole Army was without Resistance got into the City where Bohemond as it were to take Possession had caused his Standard to be planted It is impossible to express the horrible Consequences of this Surprize which being favoured by a great Wind the sleeping Turks had scarcely heard the Noise which the Victorious Army made in their Entry All went down indifferently which came in their way in that terrible Tumult the very Brother of Pyrrhus was slain among the rest being unknown and which was most deplorable by the Hand of his Brother Pyrrhus as the Archbishop of Tyre writes either because he had discovered the Design or because he opposed it but this is contrary to the positive Evidence of all those who were present who affirm that Pyrrhus was most sensibly touched with this Misfortune which was wholy to be attributed to Chance however Bohemond did what he could to Comfort him and gave order for the Preservation of his Family and of all the Christians who to distinguish themselves came before the Conquerors singing the Prayers of the Church The greatest part of the Turks were killed either in the Houses or in the Streets indeavouring either to defend themselves by sighting or save their Lives by flying Few there were who saved themselves all the Gates being either shut or possessed by the Crusades and at the last those who indeavoured to escape over the Walls or who to fly into the Castle were without Mercy put to the Sword The unfortunate Accien whether it were that his Fear had destroyed his Judgment or that he thought thereby to hasten the Relief or that he feared there was the same Treachery in the Castle fled out by the Gate of the Plain in a Disguise and having hid himself in a little Hut he was discovered by some Christians of Syria and by them slain and his Head presented to Bohemond After this the Soldiers fell to Plunder and by that piece of Witchcraft of good Fortune which makes Men in Prosperity too commonly to forget God they plunged themselves headlong into all manner of Debauches as it were to make a Recompence to those great Evils they had suffered by a long Siege by committing greator But God that he might punish this brutish Ingratitude permitted them to fall into greater and more insupportable than any they had yet indured for within three or four days after the Town was taken Corbagath arriving with his Army and having put what Men he thought good into the Castle to attaque the Retrenchments of the Christians and having possessed all the Avenues and made himself Master of all the Forts which the Crusades had raised he Incamped in the Plain between the Orontes and the Mountains and besieged the City much more closely than it was before So that there remaining but little Provision in the Town after so long a Siege year 1098 and the time being too little after it was taken to lay in more and impossible to get any into the Town the whole Christian Army being there shut up the Famine in a little time
be ready to march against the Enemy the next day which was the twenty eighth of June being the Eve of the Apostle St. Peter and St. Paul This Order was received with a marvellous Chearfulness every one prepared his Arms and fell to his Devotions the Bishops and Priests Administred the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist all that Night to the Principal Officers and the greatest part of the Soldiers Upon break of Day the Army which by the nine Months Siege of Antioch was reduced to less than one half issued out by the Bridge-Gate divided into six great Batallions which followed one another every one sustained by a very small Squadron of Cavalry for that the greatest part of the Horses were dead and eaten by their Masters during the extream Famine and who this day were therefore constrained to serve on Foot Hugh the Great accompanied with the Earl of Flanders commanded the first Body the great Standard of the Christian Army being carried before him One shall not find in all the fabulous Histories of the feigned Heroes any thing comparable to the Actions of this brave Prince upon this Occasion he was so Meagre and Weak by reason of the extream Famine which he had indured in the Siege that he was scarce able to support himself insomuch that he was requested by the other Princes to stay with those who were left to guard the Retrenchments which were made against the Castle If it shall please God said he I will never lose so fair an Occasion of dying Gloriously for the sake of Jesus Christ I will this day Fight at the Head of the Army and I shall esteem myself extraordinary Happy to be of the number of those who by a Death precious in the Sight of God and full of Glory in the Sight of Men shall gain the glorious Crown of Martyrdom In short he was the first that marched out of the Town and who gave the first happy Presage of the Victory by cutting in pieces two thousand Turks who were advanced out of the Fort to hinder the Sally Duke Godfrey led the second Brigade composed of Lorrainers and Germans year 1098 The Duke of Normands followed after him with his Body After him the Bishop of Pavia with his Troops which were increased by a part of Count Raymond's who being sick remained in the Town with those who kept the Guard against the Castle Tancred led the fifth Batallion and the sixth was conducted by Bohemond There was little need of saying any thing to inspire the Soldiers with Courage who were already prepossessed with so advantagious Imaginations of certain Victory A little pleasant Dew which fell upon them as they marched out increased their Belief and consirmed them in an Opinion that God had sent it for their Refreshment and to give them an Increase of Strength And in effect whether there was any thing extraordinary in it at this time or that their Imagination impregnated with the favourable Visions which had been published among them acted more powerfully upon their Bodies they felt themselves strengthened in such a strange manner that they began to sing and with a mighty loud Voice to cry It is the Will of God it is the Will of God and made no manner of Scruple but that they were going to a most assured Victory So soon as all the Battalions were drawn out they marched Westward to that Quarter where the Mountains abutted upon the River to the end that having them upon their Backs they might not be surrounded by the mighty number of their Enemies after which making a half turn to the left towards the North where the Mountains make a kind of Semicircle they divided every Batalion into two thereby forming twelve which were ranged in two Lines extending a great length thereby to possess all the space between the Mountains and the Orontes Hugh the Great the Earl of Flanders and the Duke of Normandy had the left hand towards the Mountain which covered them Godfrey of Bullen was on the Right extending himself to the very River having Eustace his Brother to sustain him together with the Earls of St. Paul and Toul Baldwin de Bourg Renaud de Beauvais Valon de Chaumont Erard du Puiset and Tancred with his Brigade The Bishop of Pavia was in the middle having the main Body of the Battle with the Troops of the Earl of Tholose which in his Absence were Commanded by the Earls of Die and Rousillon William de Montpellier Gaston de Foix Prince of Bearne Amaneu d' Albret Raymond Viscount of Turene Raimbaud Earl of Orange and Peter Viscount de Castellane Raymond de Agiles Canon of Pavia writes in his History that he carried the Holy Spear before his Bishop who altho he was Armed for his own Safety yet fought no other way than by his Exhortations by his Voice and Gesture animating the Army in shewing them the Sacred Steel He also adds that by an extraordinary Wonder which ought to be attributed to the Faith which these Soldiers had in Christ Jesus whom they honoured in this Spear which they believed was Consecrated by his Blood not one Man of those who fought in that Body received any Wound in this terrible Day Bohemond Commanded the Body of Reserves Composed of his Batallion which was the strongest of them all there being divers other Troops added to his to the intent that he might send Succor to any of the rest which might be too hard pressed by the Enemy One part of the Clergy which came out of the City in Procession at the Head of the Army was placed in his Quarter to implore the Aid of Heaven during the Combat the other which were barefooted upon the Walls displayed the Cross and the Ensigns towards the Army continually giving them their Benediction and with grievous Groans accompanied with the lamentable Cries of the Women and Children who followed them begging the Almighty Protection of God against the wicked Enemies of his most Holy Name In the mean time Corbagath who had so mightily mistaken the Christian Army was ingaged in a Game at Chess when he was informed by a Signal from the Castle that they were issued out of the Town and finding contrary to his Opinion that they made Head that way with an intention to sight him he immediately gave out all necessary Orders for the receiving of them For he instantly sent Soliman the Sultan of Damascus with him of Alepo and a brave Turk whose Name was Karieth with two great Bodies of Cavalry and Infantry to go round about the Mountain upon the right Hand to fall upon the Rere of the Christians by the way of the Sea-Coast But the Princes perceiving it sent a great Detachment composed of several Troops drawn from the two Wings under the Command of Renaud Earl of Toul year 1098 to stop those who might attack them on that Quarter during the Combat to be short he ranged his Army partly upon the Hills which he
Prince understood some time after made him change his Resolution for now he imagined that he might make his Advantage of this Victory of the Christians and that it would give him the Opportunity if he knew how to manage it to recover that by himself which he could expect to have but a part of if he joyned with the Christians He knew very well that their Army was extreamly weakned by the long Sieges Diseases and Combats which they had indured and that the Emperor Alexis was so far from sending them any Reinforcements that he urged him incessantly to take Arms against them as appeared plainly after the Battle of Ascalon when the Letters which this perfidious Prince had written to him upon this Subject were found in the Sultans Cabinet And in short He was strongly possessed with the Belief that the Turks were so drained both of Men and Mony that they were almost intirely ruined and could not possibly after such horrible Losses be in any Condition to Oppose him with considerable Force And therefore whilest they were under the Astonishment of their Overthrow and that the Princes spent their time about Antioch either in Diversions or in taking little Places or that which was far worse in vain Contests he sent a considerable Army into Palestine where he took the greatest part of the Cities and Jerusalem it self which for a Sum of Mony was surrendred unto him by the Governor year 1099 who saw himself out of all hope of Relief After this when he knew that the Princes were in Phenicia he sent back their Ambassadors which he had detained above a Year and joyned with them his own who were to acquaint the Princes That having made himself Master of Jerusalem which of right belonged to him he did not think himself bound in Justice to put it into their Hands but nevertheless if the Christians thought good to visit the Sepulchre they might do so provided they did not come in greater Numbers than two or three Hundred and that they came as simple Pilgrims without any Arms and returned immediately so soon as they should have finished their Devotions The Princes filled with Indignation at this Insolence of a Barbarian thought fit to treat him with Disdain and therefore only smiling at his extravagant Proposition they instantly dispatched his Ambassadors to him with Order to let him Understand That they were not to be treated like Fools or Slaves but like his and the Conquerors of the whole East and that if he did not immediately Surrender Jerusalem upon this Demand they knew very well how to take it from him in despight of all the Power of his Empire of which they made so very little Account that after they had taken it he might expect the severest Punishment due to his dishonorable Perfidy and from which he would find the proud Walls of Babylon where he thought himself so secure should not be able to protect him Not long after this the Princes gave Audience to the Ambassadors of Alexis who were sent from him to Complain that contrary to the Promise of the Princes Bohemond kept Antioch of which he pretended to be Prince and also to desire them to stay for him till July when he would come and joyn them with a puissant Army and all kinds of Provisions that so they might together more commodiously besiege Jerusalem Earl Raymond who preserved still some little Remains of his Aversion to Bohemond and who feared that they would raise the Siege of Arcas which he had given a Suspicion that like Bohemond he designed also to keep for himself was of opinion that it was fit to satisfie the Emperour and to wait his coming before they undertook the Siege of Jerusalem But all the others who saw through the Artifice of the Emperour who had no other thoughts but to impose upon them answered his Ambassadours That Alexis having upon all Occasions acted directly contrary to his Promises they thought themselves absolutely discharged from the Obligations of theirs that Bohemond possessed Antioch with the greatest Justice all the other Princes having yielded it to him as for the rest that which had already passed answered for what was to be expected from him and that they would no longer regard his Word which he had with so little Honour so often Violated and that they were resolved immediately to advance without him towards Jerusalem in order to the Accomplishment of their Religious Vow In short a few days after having gained a great Victory over the Emir of Tripoly who had the Confidence to sally out and give the Christians Battle they granted him Peace at his Earnest Solicitation notwithstanding that the Earl of Tholose with a strange Obstinacy did all that lay in his power to oppose it but with little Effect more than the Displeasure which he had to see himself forsaken of all his People who as did all the rest demanded with an incredible Ardor without delaying about these other Places to be lead immediately to Jerusalem The Conditions which these Victorious Princes made with so much Honor and Advantage with the Tripoline were these That leaving to the Emir Tripolis Arcas and Biblis which were under his Government he should pay down a large Sum of Mony and furnish the Army with Horses Apparel and Provisions That he should set at Liberty three hundred Prisoners who had been taken during the Siege of Antioch and that if they took Jerusalem he should become their Tributary and turn Christian This Treaty was concluded the thirteenth day of May and after the Repose of three or four days about Tripolis the Army put themselves upon their March leaving Mount Libanus upon the Left and with good Guides following the Sea-Coast-Way that so they might be the more easily Accommodated by the Fleet which consisted of Venetians Genoese Pisans and the Pyrate Vinimarc who coasted all along with them year 1099 After having in three days March happily passed the dangerous Straits where but a very few People might have stopped their Passage they descended into the Plain of Beritus at present called Baruth and from thence passing over the Regions of Sidon Sarepta and Tyre between Mount Saron and the Sea they encamped in the beautiful and fertile Plain of Ptolemais sometime before called Accon and since named St. John d' Acre The Emir who Commanded in so fair a Town where there was a most delicate Port and which would have been most Commodious for the Princes fearing to be Attacqued immediately sent to treat with them He furnished them with all sorts of Refreshments and that he might quit himself of such Guests the Sooner his Fear constrained him to promise them with an Oath That if they took Jerusalem and kept it twenty days against the Sultan of Egypt he would acknowledge them for his Masters and put them into Possession of the Town but the contrary was soon after evident by a very surprizing Accident which shewed that this Perfidious Person had quite
Rama where they took some of the Enemies Scouts had Advertised him that the Sultan was Incamped at Ascalon a City upon the Sea-Coast two good days Journeys from Jerusalem towards Egypt he resolved to go to meet him and notwithstanding the prodigious Inequality of their Forces to give him Battle For this Purpose having first Implored the Help of Heaven by publick Prayers at which he assisted with marvellous Devotion he parted from Jerusalem upon Tuesday the eleventh day of August with the Earl of Flanders and that Arnold de Rohes who by an Intrigue which is no part of my History to relate was now chosen Patriarch of Jerusalem with the Consent of the Pope This new Patriarch who for very many Reasons was not so very agreeable to the generality of the People thought to acquire Reputation by shewing his extraordinary Zeal upon this Occasion He therefore left Peter the Hermite to take Care that Prayers might be made to God Almighty for the happy Success of the Arms of the King whom he would follow carrying with him to Encourage the Soldiers a part of the Wood of the true Cross which an honest Christian had hid during the Siege lest the Sarasins should profane it The same day the King joyned Tancred and Count Eustace waiting the coming up of the Duke of Normandy and Earl Raymond who met him at Ibelin which was Anciently the City of Gath one of the five Cities of the Lords of the Philistins some few Miles from Lidda and Ramula The next day they advanced together to the Brook Soreck which was not above two or three Leagues from the Enemies Camp There they found a prodigious Number of Horses Oxen Camels Asses Sheep and Goats which were guarded by some Arabians who were easily Routed some of them being taken Prisoners by whom they gained Intelligence of the Posture of the Enemies so that they easily Seized upon these Flocks and Herds of Cattle but there being reason to fear that this was but a Snare which the Sultan had laid for the Christian Army to fall upon them whilest they were busie in dividing the Prey the King expresly Prohibited all Persons to meddle with the Booty and not to think of taking any thing from the Enemy till they had gained the Battle which they were going to give them year 1099 In short the next Morning being Friday and the Eve of the Assumption of our Lady the Army at break of day passed without any Trouble the Torrent which at that dry Season of the Summer had but very little Water in it and the Sultan who could never perswade himself that the Christians would dare to be so hardy as to Advance to him had given no Order to hinder their Passage or to Dispute it with them Never was there seen a greater Ardor than appeared in the Countenances of the Soldiers upon this Occasion so much Joy and so much Assurance of Victory appeared amongst them tho they were but a handful of Men in comparison of the infinite Multitude of their Enemies for those who speak with the least assure us that there were a hundred thousand Horse and above three hundred thousand Foot in their Army for the Sultan who had set his Resolution either to Preserve or Recover Jerusalem had Amassed all the Soldiers that possibly he could out of Egypt Lybia Affrica Ethiopia Arabia and the Towns which were yet Possessed by the Turks who joyned with him against the Christians as their common Enemies And the Historians who speak the most of the Christians will not allow them to be above twenty thousand among which about five thousand Horse they being not in a Condition to Re-mount the Cavalry since the Taking of Jerusalem But that which gave this Confidence to the Christians besides the Contempt which they had of these Numbers of Sarasins which they made no account of was the Zeal which they had for the Glory of Christ Jesus and the eager Desire which boyled in their Hearts to Revenge the horrible Blasphemy of the Sultan For they had learned from the Prisoners that this impious Miscreant had haughtily threatned to Extirpate all the Christians and their Religion out of the East that he would rase the very Foundations of the Holy Sepulchre and utterly Ruine all the Monuments of Christian Religion and thereby spoil the Longing of those of the West to make any more such Voyages to Jerusalem They passed then over the Torrent with Trumpets Sounding and great Shouts of Joy as if it had been in Triumph and that they intended with their small Army to Affront the mighty Number of their Despised Enemies But it happened by a very surprizing Accident that the Mistake of their Enemies supplied the Defect of their Number by making them appear to be far more than in Reality they were which mistake produced all the Effect that could have been hoped or wished had they been really so many as they appeared to be for that mighty number of Cattle which had been taken the day before and which the King had forbidden the Soldiers to meddle with followed the Army as they passed the Rivulet and without being in the least Conducted by any Ranged themselves in the order of Troops upon their March as if it had been the Rere-guard of an Army extending themselves to the left Hand to the very Foot of the Mountains which border upon the East covering all that large Campain which from the Brook extends it self even to Ascalon which lies on the right Hand upon the Sea Coast and as these Animals filled all the Plain even to the Mountains and that the Horses Excited by the Noise of the Trumpets fell to Neighing according to their couragious Nature in such a manner that they might be heard afar off so these great Herds of other Cattle in Marching raised such mighty Clouds of Dust between them and the Sarasins that not being able to distinguish clearly they took them for part of the Christian Army and particularly for Squadrons of Cavalry and consequently their Fear also multiplying them in their amazed Imaginations they conjectured that their Number was not at all inferior to theirs whereupon they were Seised with a general Consternation and not being able to disabuse their troubled imaginations they stood as if they had been stupid thinking they were to deal with a million of Christians who since the taking of Jerusalem were Arrived from the West In the mean time the Armies being thus near there was a necessity of Fighting that of the Christians was divided into three Bodies Count Raymond Commanded the Right Point which was extended to the Sea that so they might not be Surrounded on that side The King took the Left that so he might be opposite to the Right of the Enemy where their Principal Squadrons were ranged The Duke of Normandy the Earl of Flanders Tancred year 1099 and Gaston de Foix were in the middle with the main Body of the Battle These three Bodies were ranged
upon two Lines in the first of which were drawn up the Infantry with very large Intervals between the Batalions and in the second the Cavalry following here in the new Order which the King had given and which was most exactly well performed thereby to put the Enemies in Disorder The Enemies were also drawn up in two long Lines wherein the Batalions and Squadrons had a great depth and looked like two great Armies seperated one from the other a great distance that they might not confound and indamage one another by reason of their Multitude The Lieutenant General who was an Armenian Renegade and the same that had taken Jerusalem from the Turks the Year before commanded the Right Wing where were the Turkish Auxiliary Troops and the greatest Part of the Cavalry which enlarged themselves towards the Mountain to charge the Christians in the Flank The Affricans and the Arabians were in the Left and the Sultan himself with the Aegyptians invironed with all his Braves of Babylon and Grand Cairo was in the main Battle the Ethiopians had the Van in Regard of their manner of Fight which was to expect the Enemy with one Knee upon the Ground and after having in this Posture discharged their Arrows they made use of certain Iron Flails with which they discharged weighty Blows upon the Casks and Bucklers of their Enemies to break them in pieces The Sultan had caused it to be proclaimed among the Ranks as they stood in Batalia that there were no more Christians than that pittiful Company which faced them and that the great Number with which their Imagination was so disturbed was nothing but a pure Illusion that he would not have them permit one single man of these Robbers to escape whom the Despair of being able to escape his hands and no other reason had brought to the Battle But the fear which had already seized upon the Judement of these Barbarians would not suffer them to understand any thing that was said nor give them leave to disbelieve their misinformed Senses which told them they saw what indeed was not an infinite Number of Enemies whom they were to encounter The Crusades all this time advanced still deliberately encouraged by the King who spoke much better to them by the Language of that Joy which they saw in his Countenance the Fire that mounted into his Eyes and the Assurance of his Mine Fierce and yet seeming to despise and contemn his Enemies and by the Terrible Glittering of his Sword than by any words he could have spoken which would difficultly have been understood among the Noise of the Trumpets and the chearful shouts which the Soldiers gave when they saw him in that Condition So soon as they were come within distance the Infantry according to the Order which had been given all together discharged their Arrows and at the same time the Horse ran at full Speed in the Intervals between the Batalions with their Lances couched against the Sarasins and performed the Charge so swiftly that they did not give them Liberty to draw their Bows above all the Brave Duke of Normandy who was accustomed in every Battle to distinguish himself by some great and Illustrious Action having observed the great Standard by its shining Embroidery of Silver and the Golden Apple which glistered under the point of it he ran upon him who carried it and tumbled him dead at the Feet of the Sultans all the rest in their places charged so Home and the Foot also without further troubling their Darts or Arrows with their Swords flew in like Lightning at the Breach which the Horse had made in the Batalions so that the Sarasins already shaken with the Fear which their false Imagination had imprinted in their Hearts made a very miserable Resistance and so absolutely lost their Courage and their Sense that throwing away their Arms some of them stood immoveable as if they had been stupid and suffered themselves to be Slain without making any manner of Defence whilest others of them scrambled up the Trees which were there the Soldiers fetching them down with a certain Cruel Pleasure with their Arrows as if they had been little Birds some of them threw themselves down upon the Earth either thinking to escape Death by counterfeiting it among the Heaps of those that were dead year 1099 or as if they submitted to receive it according to the Pleasure of the Victors some of them crept upon their Bellies others continued in the kneeling Posture without stirring as did the Ethiopians upon whom Godfrey and his Troops fell cutting off Heads and Arms with mighty Blows of the Cimiter in that very Posture wherein he found them with one knee on the Ground they never offering to make one Discharge against him Those on the Left Wing where the Gascons and Provencals under Earl Raymond fought made also a most bloody Execution and charged the Enemy so impetuously that to avoid their Death they hastened it throwing themselves and crouding one another Headlong into the Sea where they were swallowed up in a Moment sparing the Victorious Christians the Trouble of killing them with the Mortal Steel In a word all the rest betook themselves to flight and in flying broke and entangled those of the Second Line who had not yet struck a Blow but yet that did not prevent their having a share in the Misfortune of the first for the Conquerors eagerly pursued the Fugitives killing them continually to the very Gates of Ascalon There the Croud was so great every one striving to be foremost to save himself and they precipitated one another over the Draw-Bridge in such Numbers that two thousand of them were drowned and smothered in the Moat The Sultan himself unable to stop the flight of his Men had like there to have perished and not thinking himself safe in the Town he quitted it and with the hast of a flying Coward threw himself aboard the Ships which he had in the Port loaden with all sorts of Engines for the Siege of Jerusalem It is true that some of the Crusades made too much hast to fall to the Plunder insomuch that they were in Danger of being surprized by the Lieutenant General who had rallied some Troops to make his Advantage of such an Opportunity but the King whose Vigilant Eye was every where perceiving it run immediately to their Succour and not only disingaged his own men but cut in pieces those miserable Remnants of his Enemies and thereby rendred the Victory absolute and compleat although it was not yet much above twelve of the Clock After which he gave the Pillage to the Victorious Army which got there the Richest Booty that they had hitherto met withal during the whole War for the Great Lords of Babylon and all the considerable Persons of Egypt and the Neighbouring Regions were come in their most magnificent Equipage to attend the Sultan who had also brought with him an inestimable Treasure and vast Quantities of all manner of Provisions
for the Entertainment of so great an Army and besides they who were to share in this prodigious Booty were but an inconsiderable Number in Comparison of those who had been Parties in the other Battles In this Battle there were slain thirty thousand upon the place and twice as many in the Pursuit in the whole above one hundred thousand Men without counting those who were stifled at the Gate of Ascalon or those others who threw themselves into the Sea which though they were a great Number yet it was impossible to compute them On the part of the Christians there was not any one man of Note nor so much as one Horseman slain and but a very inconsiderable Number of the Infantry and of those most were of that unruly sort of Soldiers who disbanded themselves from their Colours to run to the Plunder Thus the King having assured his new Kingdom by this great and Memorable Victory led the Army back again loaden with Spoils and Glory to Jerusalem where it entred in a kind of Triumph which was finished by the solemn returning of Thanks to Jesus Christ at his Holy Sepulchre There Robert Duke of Normandy hung up the great Standard of the Sultan as his Sword also which in his Flight he had let fall and which to add to his Offering he bought of a Soldier who had found it See here the true Account of the Battle of Ascalon which was rather a flight on the one side and a Slaughter on the other than a Combat which Tasso nevertheless hath rendred famous by a hundred Beautiful and Magnificent Falsities which his Art gives him the License to add throughout his Poem of which he makes this the Conclusion as indeed it was also of this first Crusade For the Princes and great Lords with those who had followed them believing that they had fully accomplished their Vow took their Leave of the King to return into their respective Countries and Habitations year 1099 but in Regard it is the History of the Crusades and not only that of the Realm of Jerusalem which I undertake to write I shall not treat of that but so concisely as may be and as it hath a necessary Connexion to that of the Crusades in making it known by the Consequent Events the Occasions and the Causes which gave Birth and Rise to the others and as it shews the Condition in which the Christian Princes found the East when they were published and when they undertook their Voyages to assist them year 1100 After that the Crusades to the Number of about twenty thousand had quitted the Holy Land Godfrey who had not remaining with him more than three hundred Horse and about two thousand Foot together with Tancred who never abandoned him received a reinforcement from Italy which was brought him by Dambert Arch-Bishop of Pisa Legat to Pope Paschal the second who succeeded Pope Vrban It was with these few Troops that the King to inlarge the Frontiers of his new Kingdom conquered the places which were yet untaken round about Jerusalem After which he made himself Master of Tiberias and other Towns upon the Lake of Genazareth and the greatest part of Galilee the Government whereof he bestowed upon Tancred He compelled also the Emirs of Ptolemais Cesarea Antipatris and Ascalon to become his Tributaries and the Arabian Princes beyond Jordan in most humble manner to beg Peace of him After which he caused the Port and the City of Joppa which afterwards was called Jaffa to be fortified where he received the Succours of the Venetians who being joyned with Tancred some time after took Caiphas at the Foot of Mount Carmel And now after so many Toils being fallen sick he caused himself to be removed to Jerusalem whereupon the eight day of July in the fortieth Year of his Age and the first of his Reign he rendred his glorious Soul into the Hands of his Almighty Redeemer by a most Religious Death He was a Prince in whom all the Vertues Christian Civil and Military were assembled in the highest Point of Humane Perfection without the Mixture of any Default so that it will for ever remain difficult to find another like him or of whom one may without the Magnifying Vice of Flattery say the same things even among the Catalogue of the greatest Saints Baldwin his Brother succeeded him and leaving to his Consin Baldwin Earl of Bourg the Principality of Edessa with a few Troops marched to Jerusalem from whence Tancred after having rendred Caiphas into his Hands was retired in Order to his taking upon him the Principality of Antioch during the Imprisonment of his Uncle Bohemond who had by an Ambuscade which they laid for him been taken by the Turks year 1101 This new King who though he was nothing comparable either in Sanctity or Prudence to his Brother had notwithstanding many excellent Qualities and Endowments and above all others he was most extraordinary Valiant and a great Soldier In the beginning of the Spring making a League with the Naval Forces of Genoa at Jaffa he with their Assistance took Antipatris and Cesarea and in Conclusion in a set Battle Vanquished the Army of the Sarasins of Egypt but the Year following year 1102 happening too wilfully and with Precipitation to engage in the Plain of Rama without staying for his Infantry though his Army consisted in twenty thousand Foot and ten thousand Horse he lost the Bactle and many French Princes and Lords who at that time were come to visit the Holy Places For so soon as it was known in France that Jerusalem was taken there were an Infinite Number of People of all Ages and Qualities who for Devotion undertook that Voyage the Principal Persons were Hugh the Great and the Earl of Blois who being retired into France the one before the other after the taking of Antioch thought to repair that Fault by this second Voyage also the Earls William de Poitiers Geoffry de Vendosme Stephen de Burgogne and Hugh Brother to Earl Raymond of Tholose who having stayed some time at Constantinople to treat with the Emperor Alexis joyned themselves with those Princes The other Nations and particularly the Lombards and the Cermans would also have a part in this Expedition and the Number of these new Pilgrims was so excessive great that counting also the French there arrived when they passed into Asia year 1102 two hundred and sixty Thousand men but as it was nothing else but a confused Multitude of disorderly Voluntiers of all sorts of Conditions which followed them without Order Discipline Obedience and almost without Arms and that the Princes and Bishops went rather in Pilgrimage than to a Holy War after the Conquest of Jerusalem I do not reckon this among the Crusades And indeed there never was one more irregular or less fortunate for the greatest part of these ill conducted Pilgrims perished by the Miseries of the Way or by the Arms of the Turks under Soliman with whom the Persidious Alexis
Jerusalem for whom they performed many notable Services in their Wars And for this Reason the Hospitallers divided their Community into three different Ranks of which the first was that of Knights who went to the Wars the second of Friers or Brothers Servitors who had the Charge of the Sick and the Pilgrims and the third was that of Ecclesiasticks and Chaplains who administred the Sacraments and this Company which was thus advanced into a Military Order was also confirmed by Pope Paschal the second It was in Imitation of these Armed Hospitallers that many others also much about the same time taking up the Profession of Arms at Jerusalem began to establish other new Military Orders The first were those who had the Guard of the Holy Sepulchre for many Ages and that King Baldwin the First of Canons which they were before changed them into Knights of the Holy Sepulchre They retired after the loss of the Holy Land into Italy where they setled at Perouse and continued there till such time as Pope Innocent the eighth sent them to the Knights of the Rhodes the Fathers Cordeliers succeeded them in keeping the Holy Sepulchre and to this day retain the Power of giving the Honor of Knight-hood to such noble Persons as resort thither to visit the Holy Places Some time after about the Year 1118. nine French Gentlemen of whom the Principal were Hugh de Payn and Geffry de Saint Omer going to present themselves before Guarimond the Patriarch of Jerusalem he perswaded them so Effectually that between his Hands they took upon them a Vow of Chastity and Obedience year 1118 and to employ their Lives in defending the Passes and keeping the Ways clear and free for the Pilgrims who came to the Holy Land King Baldwin gave them Lodgings in his Palace near the Temple and from thence they came to be called Templers or Knights of the Temple They continued nine Years in this manner their Number not at all Increasing and without all distinction of Habits until the Year 1128 when Pope Honorius the Second bestowed upon them at the Council of Troyes a Rule with a white Habit to which Eugenius the Third added a red Cross And after that time as they acquired a mighty Reputation by their Virtue Courage and admirable Things which they did against the Infidels so their Order grew mightily and became so Puissant by the great Estates which were every where Conferred upon them that they became equal in their Fortune to the greatest Princes But in Conclusion these great Revenues which at first were the Recompences and the Testimonies of their Merit became the Occasion of their Misfortune for from thence sprung those Disorders with which they are but too justly Reproached though possibly the Hatred into which they fell by reason of their Pride and Arrogance may have represented those Disorders greater than they were in Reality yet it is certain that they gave an Occasion to the Fathers of the Council of Vienna under Clement the Fifth utterly to Extinguish their Order the greatest part of their fair Revenues being given to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem year 1119 who about this time Conquered the Isle of Rhodes Immediately after the Establishment of this Order of the Templers that of the Knights of the Teutonick Order began being Founded by the Charity of a Rich German Lord who having had his Part in the taking of Jerusalem had resolved there to pass the remainder of his Days with his Family in the Exercises of Piety He observing that many Pilgrims and poor Soldiers of his Nation suffered extreamly in a Country where no body understood them built a Hospital at Jerusalem to receive them and some time after an Oratory in Honor of the Blessed Virgin many Germans drawn by the Example of his so great Charity joyned with him and quitting their Estates to the Use of this Hospital devoted themselves to the Service of the Poor of their Nation and there being among them many Gentlemen who had undertaken this Voyage principally with a Design to make War against the Infidels they added to this Vow that of Fighting unto Death against the Enemies of Jesus Christ herein following the Conduct Manner of Living and the Rule of the Templers until that about seventy Years after Pope Celestin the third Erected it into a military Order under the Rule of St. Augustin for those of the German Nation only giving them a white Habit with a black Cross to distinguish them from the Templers Nevertheless they could after that do no manner of great Services to Christendom in Syria by reason that the Affairs of the Christians were then become altogether Desperate about thirty eight years after the Emperor Frederick the Second Returning from his unfortunate Voyage to the Holy Land brought them all into Germany under their fourth Great Master Herman Psaltza to whom he proposed the Conquest of Prussia from the barbarous People and Pagans who at that time Inhabited there This Valiant Man entred the Country with his Knights and two thousand others who took upon them the Habit after the Example of Conrade Marquess of Thuringia who accompanied him with twenty thousand Soldiers In three Years time they made themselves Masters of all the Country Reducing the People to Christianity and Built Marienburg to be the chief Seat of their Order giving it the Name of the Holy Virgin their Protectress After which their Successors Possessed themselves of the greatest part of the Northern Countries which are on both sides of the Vistula Extending themselves and their Catholick Religion into Lithuania continually Augmenting their Power and Dominion till after a long War which they had undertaken against the King of Poland that King Jagelon Defeated them in that famous Battle wherein they lost the greatest part of their Knights who were accompanied with the Slaughter of fifty thousand of their Soldiers who remained dead upon the Place So that all Prussia being almost Revolted the Great Master to preserve his remaining Interest was obliged to do Homage for it to Casimire King of Poland Afterwards Frederick Duke of Saxony coming to be Great Master year 1118 refused to do that Homage and after that the Knights had for a long time under that Prince used their utmost Efforts to maintain their Soveraign Authority at length Albert Marquis of Brandenburgh who was chosen Great Master abandoning the Interests of the Order to Establish his own particular Designs submitted himself to King Sigismond his Uncle who of Great Master of the Order made him Duke of one part of Prussia under the Soveraignty of Poland After which this new Duke Renouncing the Catholique Religion and Violating his Vow of Knighthood Married the Princess of Denmark and in Conclusion left to his Posterity the Ducal Prussia So that after this time this Order sometimes so Celebrated and powerful having Flourished more than three hundred Years was in a manner quite Extinguished It is nevertheless still kept up in Germany where
the Knights which are the prime Nobility possess great Estates under the Authority of the Great Master of the Teutonick Order But whilest these Military Orders began thus much about the same time to Establish themselves by little and little in Jerusalem that of the Hospitallers both Ancient and Modern which one may say were the Model of the others made a great Progress in Palestine and became of great Consideration by the great Services which it Performed both in Peace and War and upon this Account both the number of Pilgrims as also of Soldiers and Gentlemen who entred into that Order increasing daily St. Gerard the Provincial of the Isle of Martigues who was Master of the Hospitallers when Jerusalem was taken from the Sarasens built about the Year 1112. a third Hospital giving it the Name of St. John Baptist and there placed his new Knights who a little time after began to form the Design of following a Conduct and Manner of Living more Austere and more Perfect than that of the old Fraternity And indeed when after the Death of Gerard Fryer Bryan Roger was chosen by plurality of Voices to be the Great Master of the Hospitallers these new Knights of the third Erection of St. John Baptist persisting in their first Resolution of Living in greater Perfection would needs Imitate the Knights-Templers and add to their other Vows that of Chastity they separated from the Ancient Hospitallers and chose for their Master Fryer Raymond of Pavia a Gentleman of Dauphiny who drew up for them new Constitutions full of solid Christian Piety which may be seen in the Book of the Statutes of that Order with the Approbation of Pope Calixtus the Second in the Year 1123. as also the Priviledges which have been granted to them by forty eight Soveraign Popes After which time to distinguish themselves from the other they called themselves the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and wore a white Cross of eight Angles upon a black Habit. This is that famous Order which contrary to what usually happens to other Establishments hath daily Increased for above this five hundred Years Advancing to the supreme Elevation of Splendor and Glory wherein it appears at this very Day That Order I say which in all times hath had the Honor to have its Commanders and Knights of all that is Brave and Generous among the Nobility of all Europe and above all those Princes who have been most Remarkable and more distinguished by the Greatness of their Merit than by their Illustrious Names or Birth that Order in short which under the Celebrated Names of Rhodes and Maltha hath filled the Earth the Sea and all the Corners of our World with the glorious Trophics of an infinite number of Victories which they have Obtained against the Turks As for the ancient Hospitallers who were thus separated from these New ones with whom they formerly made up one Order under one great Master they still retained their ancient Name of St. Lazarus they added to the Habits of their Knights a green Cross to distinguish them from the others and maintained themselves within the Limits of their first Institution which allowing of Marriage consisted of three principal Vows of Charity to withdraw themselves from the World to the Service of the Infirm and Leprous of Chastity either in a single or conjugal State and of Obedience to their great Master and above all to be continually ready to Fight against the Infidels and the Enemies of the Church They also performed after this very signal Services in Palestine year 1119 which obliged the Kings Fulk Amaurus Baldwin the Third and Fourth and the Queens Melisantha and Theodora to take them into their particular Protection and to honor them with many Marks of their Royal Bounty the precious Testimonies whereof they do to this day preserve in their Treasury It was for this Cause that the young King Lewis at his Return from the Holy Land brought with him some of them into France there to Exercise their charitable Functions and to this purpose gave them the Supervising of all the Operations of the Infirmaries within his Realm as also the Castle of Boni near Orleans to be the principal House and chief Residence of their Order on this side the Sea as appears by his Letters Patents of the Year 1154. Signed by the Chancellor Huges in the Presence of the Constable Matthew de Montmorency which was Confirmed to them by Philip Augustus in the Year 1208 who also granted them great Priviledges and Immunities which have since been Augmented and solemnly Confirmed by twelve of our Kings of France In process of time the Order extended it self by Degrees through all Europe but principally in France England Scotland Germany Hungary Savoy Sicily Pavia Calabria Campania in Italy where the Emperor Frederick the Second gave them great Possessions in the Year 1225 which was also confirmed to them afterwards by the Bulla's of many Popes It was in that flourishing Estate wherein this Order was in Europe under this Emperor and under the King St. Lewis that the Pope Honorius the Third Approved it and Confirmed it anew giving it the Rule of St. Augustin with many great Priviledges which were also afterwards Augmented by the Bulla's of Pope Gregory the Ninth Alexander the Fourth Clement the Fourth Nicholas the Third Gregory the Tenth and John the Twenty second and many other Soveraign Popes who granted to them the same Favours which were Enjoyed by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem by which they were impowred to hold Estates given either by particular Persons or Bodies Politick and Corporate and all the Hospitals and Infirmaries with their Goods and Possessions which at any time belonged to this Order In the time that the Affairs of the Christians were almost become Desperate in the East after the Return of St. Lewis from his Voyage to the Holy Land the great Master of St. Lazarus with the greatest part of the Knights came to settle themselves in France where this devout King who took this Order into his Royal Protection and gave them of his Bounty a thousand Marks besides other Favours which he conferred on them became in a manner a new Founder and in effect it is most certain as appears by most authentick Acts that after this time the principal Seat of the Order of St. Lazarus as well on this as the other side of the Sea hath always been kept at their Castle of Boni where the general Chapter of the Order ought to be kept once every three Years and that the Kings of France have always been the Conservators and Patrons of the Order and have nominated and appointed the great Master That these great Masters have Exercised their Jurisdictions upon all the Knights of the Order in all the States of Christendom as the Generals of the Cistertians Premonstratenses and other Orders which at present are in France Exercise theirs over all the Religious of other Realms It
is true that this Order began to Relax and Decay extremely by the iniquity of the Times during the Wars between the English and French either by the Malice or Negligence of the Knights who either themselves did or permitted others to encroach upon the Estates of the Order appropriating them to their own private Families For this Cause it was that Pope Innocent the Eight at the Request of the Knights of Malta suppressed this Order to Re-unite it with all its Estates to that of St. John of Jerusalem which was obtained by Emery D' Amboise Great Master of the Rhodes by another Bulla from Pope Julius the Second But in regard that the Parliament of France Declared these Bulla's to be Injurious and contrary to the Rights of the Kings of France the Patrons of the Order the Popes Pius Fourth and Pius Fifth caused them to be Revoked upon Remonstrance thereof made to them by Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second who thought themselves too nearly Interessed in the Commanderies or Places of Trust which were within their Dominions so that the Order was again Established with many new Priviledges by Pope Pius the Fourth year 1119 who Created Jannot de Chastillon his Nephew Great Master of the Order after his Death Gregory the Thirteenth Transferred the Great Mastership to Emanuel Philibert the Duke of Savoy and to his Successors granting him also the Union of this Order with all their Estate to that of the Knights of St. Maurice the Erecting of which the Duke had obtained about a Month before It ought nevertheless to be taken for Indubitable that these new Creations to the Dignity of Great Master of St. Lazarus were not made but with Respect to certain Countries and it is no less certain that it was extremely in the Prejudice of the Kings of France who could by no means lose that Right which they had so lawfully acquired and for more than five hundred Years injoyed to have the sole Nomination of the Great Master who ought to be Elected at Boni the principal Conventical General House of the whole Order and who ought to have Jurisdiction over all the Knights of what Nation soever they be Insomuch that all those who are called Great Masters in other Countries are no more to speak properly but Deputies and Substitutes to him who is Established and Acknowledged in France as the King of Spain alledges in his Right Affirming that the Duke of Savoy is only his Vicegerent in Italy which also a very learned Civilian hath remarked according to the Bulla of Gregory the Thirteenth However after all these Bulla's reckoning from that of Innocent the Eight our Kings whose Rights are Sacred and Inviolable have not failed always to name as they did formerly without Interruption the Great Masters of all the Order of St. Lazarus both on this and the other side of the Sea And those of the Fraternity following that is Aignan Claude de Marveil John de Conty John de Leui Michael de Seurre Francis Salviati Aymar de Chartres Hugh Castelan de Castelmore and Charles de Gayan who were provided and nominated by the Kings Lewis Twelfth Francis First Henry Second Francis Second Charles Ninth Henry Third and Henry the Great never failed to take this Quality upon them altho the deplorable Condition to which the Order was Reduced in France the small Number of Knights and the Loss and Alienation of their Estates took from them the Opportunity of maintaining the Dignity of their Place and Order It was for this Reason that Henry the Forth after he had Gloriously Setled the three Estates of his Realm and that after the cruel Disorders of the Civil Wars he had put the Kingdom into a flourishing Condition was resolved also to restore to its primitive Splendor this Military Order of the Hospitallers from which he perswaded himself he should be able to draw very considerable Services He therefore Chose for Great Master one of the Fraternity whose Name was Philibert de Newstang a Gentleman whose Birth and Merit were equally Illustrious He went upon the King's Account to Rome there to treat about this Affair with Pope Paul the Fifth and did so well Negotiate what he had in Commission that the Quality of Restorer Protector and Patron of the Order was reserved to the King and the Dignity of Chief and General of the whole Order of St. Lazarus was Absolutely and without Restrinction to be in him whom the King should name to be Great Master Moreover the Pope having Created a New Order of Knights under the Title of our Lady of Mount Carmel at the Instance of the King he United them to that of St. Lazarus after which time the Knights have with this double Title born for their Armes a Cross or which is doubled consisting of eight Points Pometty between four Flowers-de-Lys with the Image of our Lady in the middle But as the Death of Henry the Great made the greatest of all his Noble Designs to Vanish the Order of St. Lazarus which began to Recover after having received these new Marks of Honor did for the main stand at a Stay continuing in the Condition wherein he lest it till now of late it begins to Flourish in such a manner which would make one believe that we shall one day see it produce those Fruits which it was accustomed to do in the times of its early Force and Vigor For the King who undertakes nothing which he doth not most happily Accomplish having taken up the same generous Design of his August Grandfather whose Sir Name the Acclamation of all Europe hath bestowed upon him will not fail to take all the most Just and Essicacious Ways to restore this ancient Order to that Condition which may render it Serviceable to those necessary Ends for the Good of the Church and State year 1119 which he hath proposed to himself But it is time methinks after this Digression which I hope will neither be Disagreeable nor Unprofitable to the Reader that I should now again follow the Thred of my History year 1123 The new King Baldwin de Bourg who had abundance of Courage and of Virtue obtained many great Victories against the Turks who after having Defeated and Slain in Battle the Prince of Antioch began to menace that great City But as he went to Succour the Earl of Edessa against Balac the most Potent of the Turkish Princes who had taken Earl Josselin with his Cousin Galeran in an Ambuscade he himself happened to be Surprized in the Night by that Emir who sent him Loaden with Irons to the same Castle where the two Earls his Kinsmen were detained Captives His Imprisonment however had not those dismal Consequences as were expected for Eustace Garnier Lord of Sidon or Saietta and Cesarea who was made Regent of the Realm Defeated the Army of the Egyptian Sarasens who Besieged Jaffa After which their Navy which consisted in eighty Sail of Ships was intirely Ruined by the Venetians who
Death of Amauri and the Troubles and Divisions which it caused in the Realm The Conquests of Saladin thereupon The Reign of Baldwin the Leprous The Ambassage to the Princes of the West to desire their Help against Saladin The Negotiation of the Ambassadors with the Pope and Emperor in France and England with Henry the Second The Artifices of that King to Elude this Ambassage A famous Care of Conscience proposed in the Parliament at London upon this great Affair The Reasons on one side and the other The best Opinion rejected by the Bishops as False The Displeasure of the Patriarch Heraclius against the King The Conference between Philip Augustus and King Henry which Recommences the War The Apostacy and Treason of a Templer The Death of King Baldwin the Fourth and of the young King his Nephew The Artifice of Sybil Mother to the deceased Infant King to obtain the Crown for Guy de Lusignan her second Husband The Despight of Raymond Earl of Tripolis thereupon His Character His horrible Treason and secret Treaty with Saladin who Enters Galilee and Besieges Tiberias Division in the Councel of War held by the King The unfortunate Battle of Tiberias which was lost by the Treachery of Count Raymond The Advantage which Saladin made of his Victory The Relation of the Siege and taking of Jerusalem by that victorious Prince The sorrowful Departure of the Christians from Jerusalem and the Generosity of Saladin The Cruelty and miserable Death of the Earl of Tripolis The Triumph of Saladin An Account of the Preserving of Tyre by Marquis Conrade The Causes of the Loss of the Holy Land year 1148 AFTER so fair a Victory the Greeks who could by no means indure the Glory and the Advantages of the French began more openly to declare themselves against them than before for now they plainly joyned with the Turks to whom they afforded not only a Retreat to Antioch in Pisidia but gave them also the Opportunity with Ease to Assemble and Re-unite their scattered Troops Whilest in the mean time the King was in great Straits for Subsistence and finding himself in no Condition to Attaque them in so strong a Place drew towards Laodicea a large City but not so well Fortified as to be in a Condition to Resist him and there he hoped to meet with some Refreshment for his Army He arrived there three or four days after the Battle but to his great Disappointment he found by the Baseness of him that Commanded there for the Emperor that there was no manner of Provision for the Army It was this wicked Villain who pretending to Convoy a party of the poor Germans who had saved themselves after their Defeat lead them into an Ambuscade of Turks who put them all to the Sword and with whom as it was before Agreed he divided their Spoil This Infamous Traitor fearing it seems that the French would be Revenged of him for his Treachery or else that imagining he should not be able to Betray them in the same manner he was resolved to do them a greater Mischief after having caused all the Inhabitants to Retire with their Goods and Provisions to the Woods and Mountains went himself to seek a Refuge among the Turks so that the King was obliged to stay there till those Fugitives could be found and perswaded to return year 1148 after which loading their Waggons and Sumpters with Provisions which the King who was for rendring Good for Evil would have them paid for the Army decamped and took the way of Pamphilia that so they might by Marching near the Sea have a more commodious Passage and meet with better Plenty of Forrage and Subsistence And tho they knew that both the Greeks and the Turks Coasted along with them tho at a great Distance yet they were esteemed such contemptible Enemies and the French were so Confident after the Victory they had gained that there was too little care taken to stand upon their Guard But this Presumption as it usually happens did not fail to be very Pernicious to this Army which was unfortunately beaten by the Turks by the Fault of one Man who neglected to observe the Orders which were wisely Established by Military Discipline the Army following the Custom of those Times was divided only into two Bodies one of which composed the Vanguard and the other the Rereguard To avoid Jealousies these two Bodies were every day Commanded by two of the Principal Lords who under the King took their several Turns the King sometimes Marching with one sometimes with the other Every Night they Assembled in Councel at which all the Lords Assisted where Orders were issued out concerning the Way of the next days March and the Place where the Army was to Encamp Now there happened to be in the Way which they must of necessity pass a mighty high Mountain extream difficult of Access by reason of the dangerous Narrowness and broken Craggs and Rocks where the Army must file off The King therefore following the Resolution which had been taken at the Councel gave Order that they should Encamp on the Top of the Mountain and that they should pass the Night there and the next Morning descend into the Plain in order of Battle He who led the Vanguard that Day was Geoffry Rancon of Poitiers Lord of Taillebourg who carried the Royal Standard according to the Custom next the Orislame at the Head of this Vanguard The Count de Morienne the King's Uncle with the Queen and all the Ladies of Quality were there also by very good Fortune going before that so they might come in better time to the Place where they were to Incamp The King who usually chose the Place where there was most Danger had put himself into the Rere that so he might make Head against the Enemies if they should attempt to Follow or Molest him as they had done at the Battle of Meander Geoffry Arrived at the Mountain in very good time and seeing the Sun yet of a great height and his Guides telling him that if he did but make a little the more Hast he might Incamp far more Commodiously in one of the fairest Plains of all Asia where he should meet with all sorts of Refreshments for the Army forgetting therefore the Orders of the King with extream Rashness he descended from the Mountain and Marched a great way to that agreeable Place which had been shewed him supposing that the Arrierguard not finding him upon the Mountain would certainly follow him But he took very false Measures and in deceiving himself in this manner occasioned the Loss of the other part of the Army which was more miserably deceived by him For the very same Reason which made him March forward from the Mountain to gain the Valley made the others also seeing the Sun so high to make no hast to get to the Mountain where they doubted not but to find him Encamped according to the King's Orders By this means the Turks who Coasted all
advantage from his Absence as also that they were not without Jealousies and Suspicious that his own Sons of whom they were not too well assured might occasion some disturbance in the Realm but that for his own particular he would with all his heart give fifty thousand Marks in Silver for the maintaining of the War year 1185 and that he would further oblige himself to maintain all such of his Subjects as would undertake that Enterprise This certainly was very obligingly and advantageously offered by the King but the Cholerick Patriarch fiercely rejecting the Proposition told him very insolently That they had no occasion for his Money but for his Person that they had more Gold and Silver than they desired and that they were not come so far but to search for a Man who wanted Money as he did and who therefore might to his advantage make a profitable War against the Infidels and that they did not seek for Money which stood in need of a Man who was skilled in Military Affairs and knew how to employ it in that War And for you Sir added he speaking to him with an Air as offensive and disobliging as was imaginable You have hitherto reigned with abundance of Glory But know that God whose Cause you have now abandoned is about also to abandon you and he will let you see what will be the Consequence of repaying him with Ingratitude for all those Riches and Kingdoms which you have not obtained but by your Enormous Crimes You have violated your Faith to the King of France who is your Soveraign and you make that your Excuse to refuse this War that you are afraid he should make War upon you You have barbarously caused the holy Arch-bishop of Canterbury to be murdered and yet in Expiation of your Guilt you refuse to undertake this Holy War for the Defence of the Holy Land to which you had engaged your self most solemnly upon the blessed Sacrament And then seeing the King change Colour and blush with Madness and Anger Never believe pursued he thrusting out his Neck Never believe that I have the least Apprehension of the Effects of that Fury which glows about your Cheeks and Eyes and which the truth of what I have spoken which you cannot endure hath kindled in your Soul there taking Head Treat me as you have done St. Thomas I had rather die by your Hand in England than by that of the Sarasins in Syria since I esteem you little less than a barbarous Sarasin In truth this extravagant raving Language in a Patriarch and a Patriarch-Ambassadour was both inexcusable and insupportable but the King whose Age and Experience and the dangerous Consequences which had followed upon the death of Becket the Arch-bishop of Canterbury had rendred more moderate made a great Attempt upon himself and generously surmounted his Passion though the Patriarch went on still vomiting out of indecent Reproaches worse than before which I am ashamed to relate And when the Transport into which the old Prelate had put himself was over and that he began again to be in a tolerable Humour the King did not for all this fail to treat him with abundance of Sweetness and Civility till such time as he carried him over in his own Ship to Roan where after the Celebration of Easter he went with him to the Frontier that so he might be a Witness of the Conference which was held for three days with King Philip upon the Subject of this Holy War But for all that the Patriarch was no more satisfied than he had been before for the two Kings remained fixed in their Resolution and both together informed him that their Affairs would not permit to be so far and long absent from their Dominions but that they were both willing to assist him with such Stores of Men and Money as might defend them against all the Power of Saladin And thus it happened at the last that Heraclius who had made no scruple while he was in Palestine but he should bring along with him either the King of England or one of his Sons was forced to return not only without them but without the Succours also which were offered him which out of madness he foolishly despised contrary to all the Rules of Prudence and Reason and to the mighty prejudice of the declining Affairs of his Master So much doth it import Princes not to abandon their Affairs and Interests to the Discretion of those who have so little themselves as to suffer their unruly Passions to govern them so absolutely as to lose even that little which they have It is true indeed that after all this the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and Roan and the greatest part of the Lords of England Normandy and Guienne and the other Provinces which the English possessed in France took up the Cross as soon as the Soldiers which Philip Augustus had levied in order to the sending them to the Succour of the Holy Land But this beginning of a Crusade turned to no great account not only because the two Kings did not at all engage in it year 1185 but also because the Peace which was made between them was shortly after broken the occasion of which and the renewing of the War happened to be by the Refusal of Richard the Son of the King of England to do the Homage which he ought to have rendred to King Philip for the Earldom of Poitou which he held of the Crown of France by that ancient Tenure as also by reason that King Henry refused to restore the Earldom of Gisors after the death of the young Henry his eldest Son to whom it was given in Dowry with Margaret of France his Lady the Sister of Philip Augustus upon Condition that it should revert to that Crown if Henry should dye without Issue as he did three Years after his Marriage Thus the Holy Land which was so furiously attacked by an Enemy so formidable as Saladin remained destitute of all Assistance and that which was still more deplorable was that this sad Relation being reported throughout Palestine by the Indiscretion of the Patriarch struck the whole Country with such an universal Consternation as produced a most dangerous Effect for an Enggish Knight of the Temple one Robert de St. Alban a good Captain but an ill Man who had neither Religion Honour nor Conscience believing upon this Report that all was lost as to the Christians and that he could no longer hope to establish his Fortune amongst a ruined People he began to think of making it among the Sarasins and to make himself considerable in meriting well of Saladin though by the blackest of all Crimes This infamous Man therefore rendred himself to that Prince offering him his Service against the Christians and promised him that in a little time he would destroy them and also take the City of Jerusalem with the Weakness whereof he was perfectly acquainted And that he might give him such Assurance of his Truth as was
of Tiberias That it was to lose all to lose their Honour by suffering the Princess his Wife who so bravely defended it to perish whilst they stood cowardly looking on And that all the other Cities despairing after such an Example to be relieved would instantly surrender to the Conquerors and follow the Fortune of Tiberias if it should be taken And for any thing else in drawing out the Garrisons from the Cities they should thereby have so good an Army and so numerous that there could not be any room for Fear but that they should beat that Enemy whom they had so often vanquished with far less Forces The four Sons also of the Princess Eschina which she had by her first Husband made a mighty Noise and with repeated Instances demanded Relief to be sent to their Mother The Queen Sybilla also employed for this purpose all the Power which she had over the Spirit of the King her Husband who was indeed her Creature So that in conclusion the greatest part of the Lords inclining to this Opinion some out of Complaisance to the Queen others out of Service to the four Princes of Tiberias and divers out of the design which Count Raymond had secretly communicated to them it was resolved that they should march directly against the Enemies with all the Forces which they could draw out of the Garrisons where none were to be lest but such as were incapable of bearing Arms. And thus with these Troops which were composed of a great many Men and a few Soldiers the Army consisting in twelve thousand Horse and twenty thousand Foot besides the Citizens who were compelled by Force to serve in the War they advanced towards Tiberias Now as Raymond who in Right of the Princess his Lady was Prince of Galilee was better acquainted with the Country than the rest and that he was not only esteemed a great Soldier but that he seemed also to have the greatest Interest in the Victory which was to deliver the Person which ought to be the dearest to him the Conduct of the Army was unanimously committed to him That perfidious Traytor who gave secret Advertisement of all things to the Enemies unfortunately or rather maliciously engaged them in a rude and steril Country among the Straits of the Rocks and Mountains where there was neither Water nor Forrage The Enemies who only waited for this lucky Minute failed not to encompass them with their Troops which were far more numerous after the same manner that the Romans had some time been inclosed in the Furcae Caudinae year 1187 which were not more Famous by the Shameful Ignomony into which the ignorance and the Temerity of their Captains there precipitated their Soldiers then these Straits for the deplorable Overthrow of the Christian Army which was betrayed into the Hands of the Infidels by the baseness of their Perfidious Conductor It was now high Summer in the beginning of July when the Heats of that Burning Climate are most insupportable and there was not one Drop of Water to be found among those Rocks so that the Men and Horses died with Thirst and were able to do no more there was therefore a Necessity of resolving immediately to sight the Enemy For though the Disadvantage was very great by reason that it was impossible to draw up the Army in Battalia in a Post which was so uneven and so strait and broken with Rocks that they could not attack the Enemy but by filing off yet it was impossible to avoid that Choice the Army was divided into a great many Bodies commanded by the Principal Lords who were to follow one another who were to sustain there Companions and who were reciprocally to be sustained by those which followed them The Enemies expected them in good Order to cut them off as they marched in these long Files before they should have Leisure to form themselves into Squadrons upon the Plain to give them Battle The great Master of the Temple who chose to have the Van with his Noble Knights advanced first and charged so furiously upon those Enemies which opposed him that overturning them upon those who followed them he put them into Disorder insomuch that these Gallant men who fought most Valiantly after the Example of their Captain killing overturning or putting to flight all that durst oppose their first Fury had they been sustained by the other Bodies who had Order to follow them the whole Army might with little Difficulty have been drawn from that disadvantageous Post and have had the Liberty of sighting in the Plain Field where they would doubtless have been able to have hoped or however disputed for the Victory but here it was that the detestable Treason of the Perfidious Earl of Tripolis made it self most infamously Visible For he had so ordered the Matter that he himself commanded that Body which was to follow the Templers and he had also disposed the other Troops in such manner that all the Lords who were of his Party were to follow him Now these Traytors would not advance alledging that this was to lead their Souldiers to a perfect Butchery to quit their advantageous Post and to march them thus in Files into the Plain which was all covered with the Battalions and squadrons of the Enemies who must needs cut them all in Pieces taking them thus without Trouble one after another So that these brave Knights infamously abandoned by their Reserves and on every side surrounded by an innumerable Multitude of Sarasins were all either slain upon the Place or taken Prisoners not so much as one of them escaping After this Defeat Saladin seeing that no more durst advance to the Combat approached to the Camp of the Christians which yet he would not adventure to attack but that he might complete their Dispair by taking from them all Appearance of a Possibility to draw themselves out of that wicked Strait he caused Fires to be made in the Woods which invironed the greatest Parts of those Rocks and set strong Guards upon all the other Avenues that so he might sight them with greater Advantage if they should endeavour to Retreat But six Fugitives who run to his Army and to gain Credence with him offered to become Sarasins as they presently did having assured him that the Christian Soldiers were half dead with Hunger and Thirst and under the greatest Consternation so oppressed with their Misfortune Weariness and Despair that they were scarce able to stand or go upon this Advice he instantly resolved to Charge them which he did with that Success that his Army powering in upon them by the Straits which the Christians had abandoned they fell upon these miserable People who were crouded together and who had neither Courage to defend themselves nor Power to fly cross the Flames and the Rocks that it was no longer a Combat but a Horrible Butchery and Slaughter So that almost all the Captains and Christian Soldiers either perished in this miserable Day or were taken Prisoners
Few there were who saved themselves by Flight year 1187 except the Perfidious Raymond and his Complices whom the Turks permitted to escape The King seeing that all was lost thought to have saved himself by flying but Tokedin the Nephew of Saladin pursued him so quick that he took him Prisoner as also the true Cross which Rufin the Bishop of Ptolemais according to the Custom carried that Day in the Battle That Bishop was armed with a Curiass contrary to the manner of all the other Prelates who before him had carried that Holy Wood unarmed not so much as one of them having even been wounded whereas he notwithstanding his Armour was shot quite through the Body with an Arrow wherewith he lost both his life and the Cross which he carried Tokedin who took it when he brought the King a Prisoner before his Uncle presented that also to him as the most Glorious Trophy of his Victory There never was any Victory more sad and deplorable to the Vanquished or more complete and advantageous to the Vanquishers a Victory which made the Conquerors Masters of all the rich Equipage of so many Princes and great Lords as were either Slain or taken in that Battle And as Saladin had a mortal Hatred to the Knights of the two Orders of the Temple and the Hospital of Jerusalem he caused the Heads of all of them who were found among the Prisoners to be cut off in his Presence excepting only the great Master of the Temple so that he almost extinguished the whole Orders of them that were in Palestine for not one of these Valiant men had once offered to fly and the greatest part of them perished Nobly with their Swords in their Hands during the Combat He also with his own hand slew the Brave Renaud de Chattillon who after having a long time governed the Principality of Antioch the Heiress whereof the Princess Constantia he had married was since that Governour of the Countries beyond Jordan where he had so often arrested the Course and of Saladin's Victories This Prince who otherwise was a Person of great Humanity when his Anger did not transport him beyond his Reason yet could not bear with this Valiant man who being by him briskly and with a little insulting over his Misfortunes demanded some Questions answered him with an Air as Fierce and Haughty as the other spoke to him insomuch that the Liberty which he ought to have admired in a man whose Courage neither his Misfortune nor his Chains could abate provoked him to that Degree that forgetting himself he cut of his Head with a Blow of his Cimiter dishonouring his Victory by that Brutal Action which was so altogether unworthy of so great a man as he otherwise was And thus by this unmanly Action he made it appear that it was more difficult to vanquish himself than to overcome his Enemies As for the rest whether it were that he repented of so shameful and cruel a Transport or that his Avarice opposed his Cruelty the Fear that he had to lose so many great Ransoms which he might expect from such considerable Prisoners made him treat them with extraordinary Civility especially the King the Great Master of the Temple and the old Marquis of Montferrat the Father-in-Law of Queen Sybilla who being come a little before to Visit the Holy Places would needs make one in that unfortunate Battle But this was the smallest Fruit which Saladin drew from the gaining of this Memorable Day for being a great Captain as able dexterous and diligent in making the best of a Victory as he was Valiant and happy in gaining it and that he knew that the greatest part of the Cities were in a manner destitute of Garrisons and without Defence he therefore immediately marched and presented his Victorious Army before Ptolemais a fair and flourishing City whose Haven was Necessary to receive the Fleet which was to come to him from Egypt There were no Soldiers in the City all those which had been in Garrison having been drawn out to recruit the Army where they perished in that fatal Battle and after so great a Loss there was no Expectation of any Succour for them so that though it was a mighty strong Place yet it was surrendred to him in two days upon the Assurance which he gave to the Native Inhabitants that he would treat them most favourably and that the Latins should have Liberty to retire whither they pleased and that there should not be the least Injury offered either to their Persons or Goods which they might carry away with them He did most exactly keep his Word with them and the Reputation which he had gained of being a just merciful and Generous Prince year 1187 together with the Inability which the other Cities found to defend themselves all the Forces of the Kingdom being so imprudently exposed upon one single Hazzard where they all perished was the Reason that in less than three Months all the other Cities except Tyre Ascalon and Jerusalem yielded and submitted themselves to the Will of the Conqueror He made some little Offer to besiege Ascalon but seeing that Place which was as the Bulwork of the Realm against Egypt was extraordinary strong and well defended he was in the Opinion that if he must imploy his Forces against these three Cities which remainded yet untaken it was much better to begin with the Capital City For he well hoped that after the taking of that the two others seeing themselves separated from one another at the two Extremities of the Kingdom would quickly follow the Fortune of Jerusalem It was then about the middle of September that Saladin came to encamp before Jerusalem with the most powerful and numerous Army that he had ever before had sierce with his Victories and rich with the Spoils of the Vanquished and despising the pitiful Remainders of those who were shut up in the Capital City which he looked upon as the End of his Labours and the Subject of his Future Triumph There was in the City the Queen Sybilla the patriarch Heraclius and Renaud Lord of Sidon or Sajetta who escaped from the Battle and was suspected to be a Accomplice in the Treason of Count Raymond And that which without doubt was a very unlucky Presage to this poor City was that besides the frighted Citizens who trembled to see such a formidable Enemy at their Gates there were but a very inconsiderable Number of Soldiers who had escaped the Defeat and the Inhabitants of the little Villages and Neighbouring Burroughs who were come thither for Refuge Saladin immediately caused the Besieged to be summoned to surrender the City proposing to them Examples of others who had experienced his Clemency Equity and that inviolable Fidelity with which he always kept his Word and Promise He promised them also that besides those advantageous Conditions which he had granted to others and which he offered to them he would confer greater Favours upon them he would maintain the
their Empire and delivering them into the Hands of the Philistins Chaldeans and other Infidel People who were the Executioners of his Justice so did he punish the horrible Crimes of the Christians whom he had brought into Palestine by the victorious Arms of the first Crusades by depriving them of that Kingdom and abandoning them to be Slaves to those People whom their Ancestors had with so much Glory so often vanquished But farther to give some natural Reason for this Change the first Conquerors of Palestine were warlike and most valiant Men accustomed to Fatigues and such as frankly exposed themselves to all manner of Dangers and were never known to recoil let the number of their Enemies which they were to incounter be never so Prodigious they esteemed it a Happiness to dye Martyrs in combating gloriously for the Faith and for the Name of Jesus Christ And the Orientals against whom they fought were at that time little skilled in Wars cowardly undisciplin'd and half-armed People who were not able to abide above one Shock as having nothing to trust to but their Bows and Arrows which they shot at Rovers and commonly rather slying than fighting Whereas on the contrary the Christians having exchanged with the Infidels for all their Vices had also gotten their Cowardice their esseminate and idle way of Living loving Repose and Pleasure and hating the trouble of War and the Severity of that Discipline which is so necessary to a Soldier and which they wholly neglected The Turks and Sarasins on the other hand were become mighty Warlike under their victorious Sultans Sanguin Noradin Syracon and Saladin who having learnt at their Cost to arm themselves like the Europeans with good Curiasses and strong Lances had also taught them to follow their Colours year 1188 to fight hand to hand and had inspired them with Courage and Considence both by their Examples and the fortunate Success of their Arms. And in short The Conquerors of the Holy Land under the first Kings were under one sole Head who uniformly governed the whole Body of his Estate and Army which acted according to the Measures which he prescribed with a perfect Unity without Division without diversity of Interests Inclinations and Opinions as if the whole Army had been as one Man according to the Expression so frequent in the Scripture Whereas the Turks and Sarasins were then divided almost into as many particular Estates as there were Cities in Palestine and Syria and therefore could raise no great Armies but what must be commanded by many Chiefs who for the most part never accorded very well by reason of the diversity of their Opinions and Interests which made them almost continually be overthrown though they were incomparably the stronger in number of Soldiers than their Conquerors But upon the falling of the Realm the Christian Army was composed of the Troops of diverse Chiefs those of the King of Jerusalem the Prince of Antioch the Earl of Tripolis and the great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who all of them had different Prospects and Designs which did not at all agree one with the other On the contrary all the Estates of the Infidels bordering upon the Christians Egypt Arabia Mesopotamia the Realms of Damascus and Cilicia were at that time united into one single Monarchy under the great Saladin and so their Army had but one Captain and Head who being most Wise and Valiant gave one Impression and a constant regular Movement to this great Body which did not act but according to his positive Orders And certainly it is most particularly this Unity which hath always made great Armies Victorious as may be seen in all Ages and Histories but was never more manifested than in this last Campaign which was so glorious and so advantageous to the King of France For on the one part the Emperour and the Spaniards and great part of the Princes of the Circles of the Empire and the Hollanders being leagued and confederated against him had raised very strong and numerous Armies to invade France both by Sea and Land On the other side that King alone without imploying any other Power but his own and giving out himself those Orders which were with Fidelity Executed always prevented them I do not say from entring but so much as approaching France Beat them thoroughly to the very Islands and in Person by main Force conquered one fair and large Province and his Army alone in Flanders under his auspicious Fortune commanded by the famous Prince of Conde having to oppose them three great Armies of the Emperour the King of Spain and the Hollanders joyned in one Body under three Chieftains yet cut in pieces their Rere took their Baggage ravished from them more than one hundred Colours and shamefully chased them from before Oudenard and pursued them beyond the Scheld And there it was that their Commanders having at last the Leisure to take Breath and to complain one to another were constrained to avow by their Flight which they disguised under the name of a Retreat that as there is but one Soul in one Body to give it Life Movement and the Power to perform those admirable Operations of a Man so there ought to be but one absolute Monarch in a Kingdom and one General in an Army to procure the Felicity of the People and to inable them to triumph gloriously over all the Enemies which go about to trouble their Repose or rob them of their Happiness But after these Reflections which I have made according to my little Art in Politicks which possibly will not appear altogether Useless or at least Indivertive it is time to return to my Subject and pursue this History of the Crusade THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART II. BOOK II. The CONTENTS of the Second Book The Death of Pope Urban III. upon the News of the Loss of Jerusalem The Decrees of Pope Gregory VIII and the Rules of the Cardinals to move God Almighty to Mercy and Compassion upon the Christians Gregory makes Peace between the Pisans and the Genoese Clement III. his Successor sends his Legats to the King of France and to the King of England The Conference at Gisors where the Archbishop of Tyre proposes the Crusade which is received by the two Kings The Ordinances which they made for the Regulation of it The War re-commences between the two Kings which hinders the Effect of the Crusade Richard Duke of Guinne joins with King Philip against his own Father The Death of Henry II. King of England His Elegy and Character The Legates propose the Crusade at the Diet at Mayence The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa there takes upon him the Cross as do many other Princes and Prelates of the Empire The Description of that Emperor His March to Thracia where he is necessitated to combat the Greeks The Character of the Greek Emperor Isaac Angelus The Reason why this
all Persons might mortgage their Inheritances or their Benefices for three Years during which time the Creditors should peaceably enjoy them whatever happened to the Owners That all unlawful Games of Chance all Swearing Blasphemy and Disorders should be severely punished To which were also added very admirable Orders for the Regulation of Excess in Apparel in the Tables and the Retinues of the Crusades and above all that except some old Landresses there should no Women be suffered to go along with the Army as had been permitted in the former Crusades and which had occasioned great Disorders These Ordinances were received and solemnly published in both the Kingdoms where an infinite number of People enrolled themselves for the Cross some out of Zeal and true Devotion others to be exempted from the Tax which though it was consented to by the Bishops in the Parliament of Paris which was held this Year about Mid-Lent yet there were some Ecclesiasticks who declared themselves against it tartly enough Among the rest Peter de Blois one of the most knowing Men of his Age writ against it to Henry de Dreux Bishop of Orleans the King's Nephew in very hard Terms pressing him to oppose this Ordinance of the King which he said was a Breach of the Liberties and Privileges of the Ecclesiasticks from whom he pretended no other Aids ever were or ought to be exacted besides their Suffrages and Prayers But this Advice of this Archdeacon of Bath in England though otherwise an able Man prevailed nothing upon the Bishops of France whom he something too liberally accused of following too gentle and easie a Conduct For they as well as the Bishops of England with great Justice and Reason as well as Piety believed that such a part of the Goods of the Church might very lawfully be employed upon such an holy Occasion for the Deliverance of the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ and so many poor Christian Slaves and in a manner all the Oriental Churches from the Oppression and Tyranny of the Infidels See now how Zeal when it is a little over-heated easily becomes so false and foolish as to blind Men to that degree that they are not able to see that for good Sense which common Reason alone without other Theology discovers so plainly to the whole World Thus then all things were disposed for a happy Beginning to this Crusade if the Division which in a little time after broke out again between the two Kings had not turned those Arms against Christians which they had before prepared to fight against the Sarasins Among other Articles which were agreed upon at this famous Conference in the Field of Gisors it was ordained That all Matters in difference on one part and the other should remain in the same Estate wherein they stood before and that no one should enterprize any thing against his Neighbour till such time as the Holy War were determined In this time Richard Duke of Guienne and Earl of Poitiers to the prejudice of a Treaty so solemnly made concluded and ratified renewing the ancient Quarrel betwixt him and Count Raymond of Tholouse threw himself suddenly into that Count's Territories and presently took from him Cahors and Moissack Philip in mighty Indignation for this Action and moved with the Complaints of the Count who came to implore his Succour as his Soveraign immediately made a powerful Diversion in the Provinces of the English where he took Castle-Roux Busencais Argemon Levroux Montrichard and all the places which the English at that time possessed in Avergne and Berry Henry on his part did not fail to make haste to his Son's Assistance who went to joyn him in Normandy year 1188 Philip also marched thither with his Victorious Army where he obtained great Advantages against the English till at length a Conference for Peace was held near Bonmoulin at which the Earls of Flanders and Champaigne with divers other Princes continually importuned the King to conclude protesting to him that otherwise they would desert him for that they were resolved to accomplish their Vow in going to the Holy War There never was any Conference managed with greater Dexterity and Policy than this was by King Philip For knowing perfectly the Humour and the Interests of the King of England and his Son he only demanded that the Princess Alice his Sister whom the late King his Father had designed to be married to Richard and who was kept in Custody by Henry should be put into the hands of her intended Husband since they were now both of Age and that Richard should be declared joynt King of England with his Father as the deceased Prince Henry had been who had married Margaret the eldest Sister of the Princess Alice Henry against whom the Prince his eldest Son supported by the French had formerly made a most cruel War fearing lest Richard who was no less ambitious than his Brother should create him the same trouble or possibly having his Soul pre-possessed with another Passion less excusable but more strong than either Fear or Policy would by no means agree to these two Articles So that this Conference produced no other Effects but only a Truce of a few Months during the Winter and that which Philip had foreseen did not fail to happen to his advantage as well as according to his Expectation for Richard who was of a Temper extream ambitious and turbulent was so exasperated with this Denyal that he instantly abandoned his Father and passed into the Party and Interests of Philip did him Homage for all the Lands which he held in France and promised him an inviolable Fidelity and to serve him against all Persons whatsoever even his own Father as he did And indeed as soon as the short Truce which had been made came to be expired which it did the next Spring the King with all his Forces joyned with those of Richard who had drawn to his Party besides the Gascons and Poitenins his Vassals many Angevins and Bretons marched against Henry who lay with a very few Troops at Saumur But the Cardinal d' Anaigne the Pope's Legate who succeeded in the place of the Cardinal d'Albano who was dead not long before negotiated so happily with the two Kings that they promised to meet in Whitsun-Week near Ferte-Benard and there amicably to treat before him and the Archbishops of Reims Bourges Rean and Canterbury who were to decide all their Differences Whereupon these Prelates instantly pronounced an Anathema against all those of what Quality soever except the Persons of the two Kings who should any way go about to obstruct the Conclusion of a Peace so necessary to all Christendom and without which the Crusade would become wholly ineffectual The Kings and Richard Duke of Guienne and Earl of Poitiers accompanied with all the Great Men of both Realms being come to the place designed for the Conference Philip demanded as before That his Sister the Princess Alice who was affianced to Duke Richard should be delivered to
all this time still advanced towards Iconium with a Resolution to Perish or to take that City and both to punish the Sultan for his Perfidy and to refresh his Army after so many Fatigues For this Reason therefore these cowardly Barbarïans fearing such an Affront and believing on the other side that they had to do with Men half dead with Famine resolved at length to expect them in the open Field and with all their Forces to put it to the hazard of a Battle And therefore having mustered up all their Troops which composed an Army of more than three hundred thousand Combatants upon the eleventh day of May they appeared in View of the Christian Army under the Conduct of Melich the eldest Son of the Sultan He extended his Troops to the right and left upon the Heights which he had possessed himself of all thereabout as far as the Sight would reach that thereby he might strike a Terror into the Hearts of the Christians who after having lost so great numbers of their Souldiers and the greatest part of their Horses by the defect of Forrage and Provisions in such a difficult March of three Months appeared but as a handful in comparison of such a fearful Multitude of their Enemies The Emperor who was one of the greatest Captains of the World took occasion to draw an Advantage from this Action of the Enemies who did it for their own and to terrify the Christians by the View of all their Forces which were to be discovered easily from their Posts for he put on a counterfeit Amazement and after having well dissembled a Fear by the little Assurance of his Countenance and the many Changes which he made in the order of his Battle he caused his Troops to move in such a sort of Countermarch as gave the Turks a firm Persuasion that he had not the least Intention to Fight but rather how to save himself by a Retreat Hereupon the first Squadrons of the Barbarians who believed that the Victory was already as good as in their Hands and that they had nothing more to do but to change this Retreat into a manifest Flight descended from the Mountains into the Plain with so much Precipitation that they galloped with a loose Rein and in great Disorder with dreadful Cries according to their Custom after these supposed Fugitives But they soon found their Mistake for the Germans turning Head imediately upon them and charging them with their Swords quickly made them fly in good Earnest after having left a great many stretching upon the place to save themselves in Hast and Confusion upon the Mountains with the gross of their Army which was not yet come down The two following Days passed in light Skirmishes but upon the third which was the morrow after Whitsuntide there was a necessity of coming to a general Battle Melich who had too many Troops to be able to range them commodiously in the Ground of which he was possessed divided his Army into two great Bodies which he posted the one behind the other year 1190 upon two Hills which were separated by a little Valley that so he might be able to send what Troops he pleased from the second Hill to sustain those who were upon the first He commanded the first Body in Person his Brothers being at the Head of the other which served as a Rereguard The Emperor himself on his side led the Van and the Command of the Rere he gave to his Son the Duke of Suabia who had order to sustain him by instantly following of him to the end that they might make the more powerful Effort by charging both together almost at the same time upon the first Body of the Enemies Now the Ascent of the Hill upon which they stood in Battalia being not very steep the Emperor after he had passed the prodigious Discharge of their Arrows and Stones which had little Effect charged upon the first Squadrons of his Enemies after which contrary to their Custom they made some Resistance whereas usually their manner of Fight was like that of the ancient Parthians from whom they were descended in vaulting about and returning to the Charge after they had wheeled off but this Resistance lasted but a little time for these sort of People who were better acquainted with robbing and killing than with this manner of sighting not being able to sustain the furious Shock of these Germans whose very Countenances struck them with Terrour and who dealt about lusty Blows of Pike Sword and Battle-Axes and made a dreadful Slaughter among such as either durst abide their Force or had not the Opportunity to avoid it as indeed few of them had by reason of the greatness of their Number which hindred the nimbleness of their Flight so that of the boldest of them who for some time maintained the close Fight above ten thousand lay stretched out upon the Place Melich who behaved himself very gallantly was overthrown by a Blow of the Lance and four of the Sultan's principal Noblemen were slain by his Side nor was it without extreme Difficulty and Hazard that being quickly re-mounted again and seeing that all his Vanguard was intirely defeated he saved himself upon the Hill where the Rereguard commanded by his Brothers stood in Battalia But that stood but a small time it was already half defeated by the Fear which seized those Troops in seeing the woful Slaughter of their Companions of the Van and the Flight of the General who in saving himself with the Flyers carried also the Terrour and the Confusion among the other Squadrons so that as soon as ever they saw the Emperor who marched over the Bellies of all those whom he found in the Valley advanced gently and in good Order against them they presently fled at full Speed towards Iconium having the Christians still at their Backs who pursued them until it was Night That which is most marvellous in this Victory is that the Conquerors obtained it without almost any Loss which many attributed to the particular Protection of St. George and St. Victor which are the ordinary Names that are called upon in Battle and whom some affirmed that they saw combat with the Turks before the Squadrons of the Christians which must either be attributed to some extraordinary Effect of the Divine Commission as many times happened to the People of Israel according to the Testimony of the Scripture it self which relates to us the Sun 's standing still in Gibeon and the Moon in the Valley of Ajalon and that the Stars in their Courses fought against proud Sisera and that the Hailstones of prodigious bigness the Artillery of Heaven overthrew the Enemies of God and his People Or else it is possible it might be the effect of what diverse of them had often heard related of the Celestial Squadrons which were reported to have been seen in the first Crusade at the famous Battle of Antioch whose Imagination being therefore strongly pre-possessed with the Impressions
been quickly routed of all the Christian Army there remained none in the Field of Battle besides the great Master of the Temple who with his Body without runing to the Spoil as did the rest pursued the Victory in very good Order Saladin finding himself incomparably the Stronger after the Rallyment which he had made and not doubting in the least but he should easily deal with the rest if he could only defeat this single Body which was that only which was in a Condition of fighting marched instantly towards him and stopping him in the middle of his Course obliged him to change his pursuit into a more regular Combat the Fight was for a time on both sides maintained with a most obstinate Courage and all the Vigour imaginable the one fighting to preserve the advantage and the Victory which they had already gotten and the other to snatch it out of the Hands of these few who remained in order of Battle and who could not expect to be relieved But at length a new Re-inforcement which Saladin did not in the least expect and who came just in the very Heat of the Fight quite turned the Scale of Fortune to his side It was five or six thousand men who during the Battle had issued out of the Town and who having made a shew as if they would attack the Camp only to amuse those who defended it turned short to the left to fall upon the Rere of those whom they saw in so small a number combating against their Party So that this small number being overpowered by the Multitude of their Enemies who surrounded them on all Parts was at last constrained to give way and endeavour to save themselves in the best manner that they could after having left the greatest part of their Valiant Companions extended upon the Earth and among others the Great Master and the Steward of the Order and eighteen or twenty of the bravest Knights Saladin without losing any time turned short towards his Camp which was full of the disorderly Soldiers of the Christians who were so busie in plundering that they had not so much as perceived this Action of Saladin There was nevertheless some Rallyment made by the Diligence of the Captains year 1190 who seeing the Danger wherein they were advanced with those Troops which they could draw together to oppose the first Effort of the Enemy and some still coming after others and putting themselves into Order of Battle as well as they could they began again to renew the Combat with some hope of regaining the advantage by their Valour which they had lost by their Indiscretion But it happened as it doth frequently that the greatest Events depend upon the most trifling things that a ridiculous Accident made them loose anew all their Hopes and put all into disorder and Confusion For the Germans who had been the most greedy of the Booty as they had pillaged the Tents of Saladin were endeavouring to get together to secure their Booty before they returned to the Combat It happened that a Horse the most beautiful of all which they had taken being broken from them a great many of them followed him with all Speed to take him again thereupon some of them who were already engaged seeing them in that hast and Precipitation almost breathless running in that tumultuous manner there being nothing so disturbing as a suddain Fear imagined that the greatest Part of their Enemies having invested them were falling upon their Backs whilest that Saladin after having cut the Templers in pieces came to attack them in the Front This Imagination made them instantly face about and at that Moment seeing a great many others following the first who cried after the Horse they made no doubt but that they fled from their Enemies who pursued them and thereupon fell to running also thereby drawing by their Example those who were next them to a shameful Flight It fortuned also at the same time that some demanding in this Tumult and Confusion What is the Matter Some others at a Venture made Answer that those of the Town having defeated the Guard were plundering the Camp so that this Report being presently spread through the whole Army all disbanded and ran with Precipitation and disorder towards the Camp some to save that others to save themselves all to lose their Honour and the day and without doubt all had been lost if Geoffry de Lusignan and James de Avesnes who came out in order of Battle with the Body which they commanded had not stopped the Turks who pursued with great Eagerness the Flying Christians and constrained them to take also their Turn of running and making the best of their Way to their own Camp Thus ended the unlucky Day the Honour whereof both parties challenged as their own and endeavoured as well as they could to frame some kind of Appearance of a Victory to themselves The Christians for having taken and plundered the Camp of the Sarasins who were also finally repulsed by them The Sarasins for that they had put the Christians to Flight and beaten them to their very Camp the loss however certainly fell much more heavily upon the Sarasins than upon the Christians for the Christians did not lose above two thousand Men besides the great Master of the Temple and his Knights and Count Andrew de Brienne who was slain while he endeavoured to stop the Flight of his Soldiers Whereas Saladin beside incomparably a greater Number of Turks which were slain in the first Charge lost also Mirasalion his eldest Son his Nephew Tokedin and his Lieutenant General Migebat who were slain upon the Place with the greatest Part of his Officers and the most Valiant men of his Army who were ashamed to fly as did the rest at the very Beginning of the Battle After this having mutually tasted of each others Courage they did as it were by consent on both sides forbear fighting and fell to fortifiing themselves Saladin in drawing new Troops from all the Places in his Dominions and the Christians by working upon their Retrenchments before the Town and making Strong Lines of Circumvallation against the Army of Saladin Contravallation against those of the City whom they Besieged very straitly by distributing their Quarters within the two Lines in this manner The Marquis of Montferrat took his Post toward Tyre on the North to the very Coast of the Sea Upon his left were the Knights of the Hospital in a fair Estate which they possessed before the loss of Ptolemais After them incamped the Genoese upon a Hill called Mount Musard The French possessed the quarter between the North and the East having at their Head Robert Earl of Dreux with the Bishop of Beavais his Brother year 1190 the Counts de Blois de Clermont de Bar and de Brienne Hugh de Gournay and the brave Nobility and Gentry which came upon the Fleet which was equipped at Marseilles and to animate them to the War they had also with them the
Equivalent to the loss they might hereby sustain made no doubt but that they would with Joy receive a Proposition so advantageous to all Christians but especially to Princes who had always reason to fear all things from these Desperadoes but Avarice which had already begun to corrupt that Order so far blinded them that one of the Knights upon whom the great Master would never permit Justice to be done assassinated the Ambassadour who was come to propose a Condition so just and reasonable This so exasperated these People that they became more obstinate in their Mahometanism more Enemies to the Christians and more Assassins than ever they had been before It was for such a kind of Injustice that these two Russians murdered the Marquis Conrade Prince of Tyre for a ship loaden with rich Merchandise which belonged to a Subject of the Old man of the Mountain being forced by a Tempest to put into the Port of Tyre the Marquis caused her to be seized and put the Master of her to death for complaining of the Injustice which was done him The Prince of the Assassins sending to demand Satisfaction and Restitution of the Ship and Goods and Reparation for the Death of his Subject the Marquis made a laughing matter of it at the first but upon a Second demand he commanded one of the Envoys to be thrown into the Sea This so incensed the old man that he sent two of his Devotes to Tyre who there counterfeited to renounce Mahometanism and got themselves baptized the better to cover and enable them to execute their Treason After some time they found means to get into the Marquis his Retinue and ordinarily to attend him wherever he went and hereby obtained an Opportunity of stabbing him as he returned from Dinner from the Bishop of Beauvais and though they were put to the most exquisite Torments which could be suffered and roasted alive yet would they never accuse any Person or confess who it was that set them on to commit such a horrible Murther There were some however who failed not to suspect King Richard who was known to be his declared Enemy and the report was so strong that it was written to King Philip the August and he was assured that this Prince with whom he had had such great differences had hired the Old man of the Mountain to commit this Assassinate upon the Marquis There cannot indeed be too much Precaution to preserve the Sacred Persons of Kings upon which depends the Welfare of their Dominions and upon this occasion Philip took Guards about his Person to protect himself from a like Treason and such damnable Attempts But neither History nor Historian ought so far to take the particular part either of Princes or Nations as to disingage himself of that Duty which he owes to truth and for the Interest I have in that I think my self obliged tosay That though King Richard neither loved King Philip nor the Marquis yet nevertheless he was not at all culpable of these horrid Crimes of which some have with so much Injustice and so little Truth accused him and endeavoured to blacken his Memory And indeed the Prince of the Mountains did in a short time after wholly justisie and acquit him of this suspicion by the Testimony of his Authentick Letters wherein he declared the true cause of this Murther of the Marquis according to the manner which I have before recounted And one ought with Truth to avow that considering the Natural Humour and Inclination of King Richard he could not be capable of so black a Treason for although he was extreme Violent Impetuous and mighty Impatient of Injuries and Affronts yet he had a great and generous Soul and made Profession openly and like a Gallant man to attack such as he believed he ought to esteem his Enemies and was never known to have recourse to base and Ignominous Ways of taking his Revenge And this great Courage not only taught him to despise all these false Reports but also to draw all those advantages which an able Polititian could make of such an untoward Accident in the baseness whereof he knew he had no share For he managed the matter so well that without much difficulty he perswaded the Princess Isabella the Widow of Marquis Conrade to marry Henry Count of Champagne to whom in regard of his Adherence to him year 1191 he was resolved at his return to leave all that remained to the Christians of the Holy Land the Promise which he made to the Princess to make her Queen of Jerusalem by the Exclusion of Guy of Lusignan was the thing she most passionately desired was the most powerful reason to induce her to this Marriage Nor was it difficult for him to make good his Promise in regard that on the one hand Count Henry was extremely beloved by the great men of the Country who had no manner of kindness for Lusignan and on the other that he promised him in Exchange for a Kingdom which was almost wholly lost to give him that of Cyprus provided he payed to the Templers a certain Summ of Money for which he had engaged it to them This despoiled Prince whose Fortune absolutely depended upon his Protector willingly received this Offer so that shortly after the Marriage was celebrated between the Count du Champain and the Princess Isabella who from that time took upon her the Title of the Queen of Jerusalem although Henry out of Modesty would pretend to nothing higher than that of Prince Thus all the Forces of the Realm being united by this Accomodation Richard put himself at the Head of them and began the Champaign early in the Month of June by the Siege of Darum which he took in four days being one of the strongest Fortresses which Saladin had and after the taking of several other places of less Importance which he put into the Hands of his Nephew he returned to Ascalon where the Duke of Burgundy joyned him with the French Troops under his Command After which to save his Reputation and that it might not appear to have been his Fault that Jerusalem was not taken he seemed resolved to besiege and take it in good Earnest which caused a mighty joy throughout the Army which seemed to breath nothing but the consummating of that glorious Enterprise For this purpose he parted from Ascalon and advanced to Bethanopolis between Jaffa and Jerusasalem to the same place where he was posted before when he had a former Design of besieging the City When he arrived there he understood that a Part of the Army of the Sarasins was encamped behind the neighbouring Mountains with a Design to fall upon him when he should be about making his Lodgements whereupon he went and briskly fell upon them and that with so much Fury and so little Expectation that he cut the greatest part of them in pieces and put the rest to Flight taking all their Baggage and so returned loaden with Booty to the Camp whilest this
happened news was brought him that the Caravan of Egypt guarded with above ten thousand men with all sorts of Munitions for the Relief of Jerusalem was advancing thither and at no great distance whereupon taking five thousand Horse he marched upon the Eve of St. John Baptist to surprize them and charged them so Impetuously that after having slain the greatest part of the Convoy with the loss of not above seventeen or eighteen Horsemen and dissipated the rest he took betwixt four and five thousand Camels and an Infinite Number of other Beasts of Burden charged with Gold Silver and precious Merchandises not only for Necessity but delight such as come from the Indies by the Arabian Gulph to Egypt And this great Booty he destributed liberally among the Army without reserving any thing for himself which was more then ever he had done in all the former Battles which he had gained And in Truth it seemed very resonable that after two such great Victories and the taking of such a rich Convoy the taking of Jerusalem could not be a thing to be doubted but the Joy which possessed the whole Army which with incredible Ardor undertook that Enterprise was presently after changed into an Excessive Grief when the Resolution of returning to Ascalon was declared to them as the Advice of twenty Captains whom Richard had chosen to deliberate concerning the Siege of Jerusalem whilest he marched to attack the Caravan For they all concluded that the Siege was not by any means fit to be undertaken alledging many weak and feeble reasons but concealing the true ones upon which it was grounded which was that the King of England had strongly resolved to return to his own Dominions and that all which he had done was but to amuse the World and to make a shew as if he would besiege Jerusalem For he had received advice two several times after Easter by two Expresses from England that his Brother John having by force displaced and driven out of the Realm the Bishop of Ely his Chancellor year 1192 and the Principal Officers of the Crown manifestly intended to make himself King he was also assured that he was powerfully protected by the King of France who was ready by force to take Vexin because it was refused to be surrendred to him according to the Articles of Messina Richard who was extreme hasty would have immediately imbarked himself leaving to the Count de Champagne with the Places in Palestine three hundred men at Arms and two thousand English Foot together with the Forces of the Country for his Defence But a certain Ecclesiastick a very able man who was near his Person and in whom he reposed very much Confidence perswaded him to deferr his Departure for a little time that so he might save his Honor by making some Movement by which the World might be perswaded that it was not his Fault that Jerusalem was not taken and upon this Account it was that he did all that is before mentioned and that he would have those twenty Captains of whom he was very well assured determine the Affair concerning the Siege of Jerusalem who by no means approved it but urged that it was much better to continue the Fortifications of Ascalon and Gaza which were the two Keys of the Realm towards Egypt and by that means to secure themselves from the Attempts of Saladin before they undertook the Siege of the Capital City So that Richard seemed only to deferr it upon the Opinion of so many knowing men who were chosen from among the Templers and Knights of the Hospital the Lords of the Country and several of those who come from Europe after which he declared publickly that since it was judged inconvenient at that time to attempt the Siege of Jerusalem he would there leave thee Count de Champagne his Nephew to undertake it in due time and that for himself he was obliged to return to defend his Dominions against such as laid hold of this Advantage of his Absence to Enterprize against him and to invade them It is impossible to express the Mischief which this Imprudent Declaration occasioned which he did before he had perfected his Treaty with Saladin which was then a Foot for Saladin seeing the Danger he was in to lose all was contented to have some and to yield the rest to the Christians upon most advantageous Conditions But so soon as he perceived that he had nothing to fear from that quarter and that upon Richard's resolving to depart the whole Army would Instantly disband he held so firm and fierce that a Truce in such a manner as he pleased was all that could be gained from him a Truce unworthy of the Reputation and Courage of a King of England the Army of the Crusades being herewith most furiously inraged and almost mad to see themselves robbed of the Glory of delivering the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus Christ which they had with so much Danger come so far to search after disbanded of its one accord the greatest part of them thinking now of nothing but returning into their own Country bestowing a thousand Curses upon King Richard whom they accused more than ever to have assassinated the Prince of Tyre to have attempted against the Life of Philip the August and sold the Holy Land to Saladin with whom he held a Correspondence Richard by the Grandeur of his Soul and his Natural Courage gave himself no manner of trouble for what was the Effect of Rage and Anger and the Malicious pleasure which men take to speak Evil of those whom Fortune or Merit have elevated above them or what they spoak so outragiously against his Conduct in this War and indeed in a short time after he made it evident by a most glorious Action that this last Accusation was as great a Calumny as the two former For as he arrived at Acre where the Duke of Burgundy with the French were also come to give order for their Return he received advice that Saladin understanding that the Christian Army was broken up had laid Siege to Jaffa Upon this news he rallied all the Troops he could and dividing them into two Bodies he gave one to the Count de Champagne with Orders to march by Land and with the other he himself went by Sea with the choice Lords of the French and Flemings who would follow him upon this great occasion Those who manifested the greatest Ardour and whom among others he chose to be near his Person were Gauchier de Chastillon who had lost his Brother in the Siege of Acre the Counts of Cleves and Limbourg the Baron of Stanford Valeran de Luxenburg Guy de Montfort Bartholomew de Mortemar Raoul de Mauleon William de L' Estang Andrew de Savigni Henry de Nevile Dreux de Mello and William de Barres He was for some time stayed by contrary Winds and did not arrive till precisely the Evening of that day wherein those who had retired into the Castle after the taking
Church should give the fortieth penny of their Revenue and the Cardinals the tenth for the carrying on of this Holy War Obliging himself in particular to send considerable Summs of Money and store of Provisions for that purpose and to raise Money for those Expences he caused all his Plate both Gold and Silver to be melted down and would be served in nothing but earthen Wooden or Vessels made of Glass At the same time he sent Cardinals to Venice Genoa and Pisa to exhort those potent Republicks to rigg out their Shipping as well to transport the Crusades into Palestine as to attack the Sarasins by Sea He also took great care to pacifie the Troubles of Hungary which hindred the Effect of the Crusade there and which Duke Andrew the Youngest Son of the deceased King Bela had raised in that Realm against Henry his Brother who succeeded to the Crown But in regard the happy Success of this Crusade depended more especially upon the Kings of England and France the two most potent Monarchies of Christendom who were now engaged in a cruel War he sent the Cardinal Peter of Capua his Legate who negotiated so skilfully and with such Success between them that at length at a Conference which they had at Andeli they consented to a Truce of five Years in which time it was supposed the Enterprise of the Holy War might be happily concluded And in the mean time the Crusade was published in all Places but especially in France where that Devout man Fouques de Nevilli preached it by order from the Pope This so famous man who without Dispute was one of the greatest and most admirable Preachers that ever was was Curate of Nevilli upon the Marne not far from Paris a man of a great temporal Estate but most Zealous for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls which he endeavoured after by exercising with an incredible Fervency that extraordinary Talent which he had received from God to preach his Holy word This he did with all the Force imaginable not only in his own Parish Church but in all the adjacent Places and especially in Paris where he declared himself the Implacable Enemy of all Vices but above all of Usury and Impudicity which occasioned such horrible disorders in that time which he reproved boldly without fearing any person and with all the Heat and Zeal which his Temperament ardent and billious could furnish him with God who at the Beginning of his Ministry to elevate him by the Way of Humiliation permitted him for two Years to toil and labour without any Fruit whilest preaching with all his Power against those two Vices some mocking him others wholly abandoning him whilest a third sort took occasion outrageously to abuse his Sermons not any one seeming to reform or be converted by all his preaching insomuch that he was just upon the point of quitting and giving over his preaching despairing ever to do any good by it But God who was resolved to make use of him did so suddenly Change their Hearts and gave such Power to his words that piercing like flaming Darts into the most obdurate Hearts they made such a Prodigious Change upon the Manners of Men that to astonishment all France seemed to be reformed by him For he did not only abolish that Extravagant Extortion and unjust Usury which had so prevailed that neither the Ordinances of the King nor the Censures of the Church had been able to repress but he touched the Hearts of the Usurers so to the quick that publickly detesting their Crime they made restitution of what they had gotten by this kind of Robbery unto those whom they had oppressed by those horrid Extortions and where they could not sind those to whom they ought to make Reparation they came drowned in Tears throwing themselves at his Feet year 1198 and intreating him to take that unlawful Gain and destribute it among the Poor That which added still more Force and Efficacy to his Discourses was that it pleased God to bestow upon him the Gift of Miracles which he wrought in the Presence of the whole World either before or after his Preaching curing all sorts of Maladies and Infirmities by the sole Imposition of his Hands The Writers of those times tell us of great Wonders which he did and one among the rest assures us that he durst not recount all that he knew in regard of the great Incredulity of Mankind as for my own particular I believe that the greatest Miracle which he did was the clearing of Paris of those Infamous Places and the converting of so many lewd and debauched Women some of which making the Vow of Chastity silled the new Nunnery of St. Antonina whic'h he sounded for so pious a Design others of them publickly promised for the Future to lead a most austere and penitent Life and among the Young Women many who distrusted their Courage and their Power accepted the Favour which he offered which was a handsome Portion by the help whereof they easily passed from that danderous Condition wherein they were into that of an honest and lawful Marriage For this Purpose he procured mighty Contributions even the Schollars of the University raising for him five hundred Livres in Silver and the Burgers of Paris in a Body not reckoning the Particular Benefactions adding above a thousand more which was a very extraordinary Summ for those times So many Wonders which his Renown published of this admirable Preacher caused the Bishops to invite him into their Diocesses where he was received with extraordinary respect the People and Clergy flocking to him as if he had been an Angel sent from Heaven The good man did not hereupon grow proud and vain or distinguished himself by any foolish Affectation for he always went according to his Custom on Horseback decently habited like a man of his Profession he kept his Beard shavenaccording to the Custom of that Age his Diet which he always received with Benediction and giving of Thanks was indifferently what was offered him neither did there appear any thing singular either in his Person or in his manner of Living so that his preaching and his Miracles always produced good Effects wherever he came excepting in two Places in Normandy where he was very ill treated For coming to Lizieux and taking upon him with his usual Liberty and Vehemence to reprove the Disorders of the Ecclesiasticks who were very irregular they made him Prisoner but without being able to abridge him even in his Fetters of the Fredom which he took to reprehend them so that being ashamed to detain him after they were a little recovered from the Brutal Transport they set him again at Liberty After which as he preached at Caen doing his usual Wonders before the People The Governor of the Castle thinking he should do the King of England a great pleasure the good man having been very liberal in reproving his Debauches committed him to Prison from whence being in a marvellous way
Venice in order to their Transportation had changed their Resolution and went to embark at Marseilles as did the Bishop of Autun and the Burgundians John de Nele Chastelain of Bourges Nicholas de Mailli and Thierri the Cousin of Baldwin with whom that Count had intrusted the Fleet which he had equipped in Flanders And others of them in the Ports of Pavia among which the brave William de Nevilli Henry de Longchamp and Renaud de Dampierre General of the Troops of Champagne either because they believed that the Passage would be shorter and less dangerous that way than to embark at Venice or that they had some Distrust and Jealousie of the Venetians or which is most probable that they thought they should thereby be exempted from paying their Quota of so great a Sum of Money as was promised to be paid to that Republick Insomuch that there being a great number of those who ought to have contributed to the Charge drawn off year 1202 and that many of those who were present were not able or rather not willing to pay more than their first Proportion being inwardly pleased to think that the Army would by this Accident be broken and they should be at liberty to return it was absolutely impossible for the Princes to raise the Sum which they ought to pay for the Re-imbursment of the Venetians So that after they had generously above what was their Part given all that they had in Gold Silver and Jewels they still found themselves in Arrear thirty four thousand of the eighty five thousand Marks which they were by Contract obliged to pay Thus this noble Enterprise which was so happily begun ran the danger of being shipwrack'd even in the Port where it was to be imbarked But the Doge who was a mighty Politician made his Advantage of this Accident to serve the Republick by furnishing the Princes who extreamly desired it with an Opportunity of dis-engaging themselves from the trouble and perplexity of this untoward Accident For after he had communicated his Design to the Senate who approved it as a most suitable Expedient to secure both their Honour and their Interest and also to purchase them a considerable Advantage he went to the Princes and offered to give them time for the Payment of the residue of their Debt till such time as the Holy War should be happily accomplished by their Conquests provided they would presently joyn with the Venetians for the recovering of Zara a strong and potent City in Dalmatia which having revolted four or five times from them had about three Years before put it self into the Power of the King of Hungary There were a great many who stoutly opposed this Proposition some out of a secret Malignity of Spirit and a desire they had to see the Army disbanded others on the contrary by the eager desire which they had to go immediately to the Conquest of the Holy Land amongst whom the hottest were some Abbots of the Cistertian Order as the Abbot du Val de Sernay the Abbot of Trappe and a German named Martin Litz Abbot of a Monastery in Alsatia who after he had by the Order of Pope Innocent preached the Crusade about Baste after the Example of Peter the Hermite had put himself at the Head of an Army of Crusades and conducting them by Trent and Verona arrived at Venice a little before this Accident fell out Great Disputes there were upon this Subject and the Reasons which were urged on one side and the other were very plausible Those who were against it alledged that besides its being a most detestable thing for Christians who had taken upon them the Cross to turn those Arms which they had taken up against Infidels upon their Brethren by making War against a Christian King it was a known thing that the Bulla of the Crusade declared all those Excommunicate who should attempt any thing during the Holy War against the Crusades and that none could be ignorant that the King of Hungary who was in possession of Zara had taken upon him the Cross and was making Preparation to pass into Palestine And in truth Pope Innocent fearing that they would undertake this Siege had a little before sent Cardinal Peter de Capua to Venice to oppose that Design and expresly to forbid the Crusades under pain of Anathema to engage therein But on the other part Henry Dandolo the Doge remonstrated That these Lightnings of Rome were not discharged but against such as went about to make any Advantage of the Absence of the Crusades and thereby unjustly to ravish from them their Estates and that they were not designed against such as pursuing that natural Right wherewith God had invested them and which it was not in the power of any Pope to take from private Persons much less from Soveraigns designed only to recover their own Estates to reduce their Rebels to Obedience and to constrain those who supported them to leave them to the Justice and the Clemency of their Masters That if this were not allowed to be Truth it must of necessity follow that a thing so sacred as the Crusade must be the Cause of all manner of Injustice by favouring and giving Protection to Thieves Robbers Revolters Rebels and Vsurpers to whom the Popes by virtue of their Bulla's under pretext of the Holy War must give the Opportunity to glory in their Crimes and to confirm themselves in their Revolts and Vsurpations That the Authority of the Church extending it self only to things purely spiritual which were intrusted to it by Jesus Christ year 1202 whose Kingdom as he declares is not of this World could not undertake to be the Arbiter either of Peace or War which Princes make according as they judge it conducive to the publick Good and their own Interest That therefore the Church had nothing to do in this Case or to hinder them from taking Arms against the Zarantines who besides that they were Rebels were also by their continual Piracies and destroying Commerce publick Enemies to Mankind and particular Enemies to the Crusades whose Passage into Palestine by Sea as that of their Provisions they made very unsecure and dangerous Now as these Reasons both on the one side and the other appeared very strong it was a long time before any Resolution could be taken and in that time many of the Germans who were come thither under the Conduct of the Abbot Martin having consumed what they brought with them for their Voyage and divers others of the more Wealthy resolving not to make War against the Christians took occasion to return back into their own Countries But at length the greatest part of the French suffered themselves to be persuaded by the Reasons of the Doge which made a strong Impression upon their Spirits to which the necessity to which they found themselves reduced either to joyn with the Venetians or give over the Enterprise contributed not a little towards the finishing this Agreement Nevertheless it
whilst the Soldiers animated by their brave Examples threw themselves out of the Ships some into the Sea some upon the Shoar every one having a desire of the Honour of being foremost to come to the Combat but the Cowardice of Commenius and his Greeks did not permit them that Favour year 1203 for though at first they put on the Countenance of Soldiers and resolute Men whilst there was no other fighting but with the Cross-bows and Arrows yet so soon as they saw the French without staying for the dis-imbarking of their Horses march directly towards them with their Swords in their Hands this infinite Rabble turned Head and sled with so much speed that the Count de St. Paul who was one of the first that charged them pleasantly writ in his Letter to the Duke of Brabant that they out-ran the very Arrows which were shot after them so swift were their Feet by the suddain Terrour which then siezed them and put all those Spirits which should have actuated their Hands and Hearts into their Heels So that the Army was constrained to give them over to their own Fear which pursued them nothing else being able to overtake them whilst the Princes had leisure to throw out the Bridges and disimbark the Horses and range the Army as was before agreed into six Squadrons Now they imagining that Alexis Comnenius after his Flight was retreated to his Camp they resolved immediately to attack him there but he eased them of that trouble for they presently found that this Cowardly Prince had for his safety abandoned it with so much Precipitation that he had left behind him his Tents and Equipage and all the Baggage of his Army with which the Soldiers inriched themselves After this the Night approaching they lodged themselves commodiously in the Quarter of the Jews which was upon the Bank of the Bosphorus near the Castle of Galatha which they resolved the next Day to attack thereby to gain the Command of the Haven but they were prevented by the Garrison of the English-Danes Pisans and other Strangers to whom the Emperors had intrusted the Keeping of that Place who by the Order of Comnenius made a vigorous Sally the next Morning being re-inforced by an infinite Multitude of Greek Soldiers and Burghers who continually passed from Pera to relieve them Insomuch that these Strangers who were good Men and found few of the French prepared to receive them had at first some Advantage The valiant James d' Avesnes who was the first that advanced with what Infantry he could get together to oppose them received a great Wound in his Face with a Lance and had undoubtedly been slain if he had not been instantly succoured by Nicholas de Laulain one of his Knights who drew him out of the Press of his Enemies with which he was surrounded and by a prodigious Valour almost singly sustained the Brunt till the rest of the Troops came up who hasted from all Parts to the Combat Then it was that they furiously charged these Soldiers of the Garrison of Galatha who sighting bravely were most of them cut in pieces the rest crowded by that confused Multitude of Greeks who presently took the Fright sled with so great haste and Disorder that one part of them running towards the Port to recover their Barks threw themselves into them with such Precipitation that they sunk the Vessels and were drowned whilst others thinking to save themselves in the Castle of Galatha did in such a manner by their Multitude stop up the Passage of the Gate every one being desirous to be the foremost that those who pursued them closely would not give them the liberty to shut it so that after a bloody Combat which was maintained by these miserable Men out of perfect Necessity and Despair and not by true Courage and Valour the French gained the Gate and after they had either taken or slain all such as made any Resistance they remained Masters of the Fortress and of the Chain At the same time also wherein the French performed this memorable Action the Venetians having drawn up their Fleet in Order in the Chanal below Scutari turned the Prows of their Gallies and Ships against the Entry of the Haven and under the favour of a Tide-Wind which blew from the East just in their Sterns they bore up to the Chain from their Engines which threw Darts and great Stones battering and bruising the five and twenty Gallies and other Ships which lay there to defend it Insomuch that one of the greatest Ships coming up close to the Chain whilst the others continually discharged against the Greeks they cut the Chain in two with prodigious Scissors of Steel which were opened and shut with an Engine After which having broken and chopped in pieces the Timbers that supported the Chain the whole Venetian Fleet freely entred the Port and all the Greek Vessels were either taken disabled or sunk This was but the beginning of the most wonderful and hazardous Enterprise that ever was undertaken which was to take a City in which for one that attacked it the Mareshal de Ville Hardouin tells us there were two hundred to defend it However in order thereunto it was resolved that there should be two Attacks the one by Sea on the Port side and the other by Land towards the Palace of Blaquerness near that end of the Wall which adjoyns to the Haven The Venetians undertook the first and the French made Choice of the second because that in those times they were not acquainted with fighting on Ship-board as were the Venetians who were then accounted the most potent and able Sea-men of the World having as it were founded their Empire upon that Watry Element Having therefore for four days made all the Preparations necessary for their Attacks the French Army coasting along by the Fleet marched near two Leagues to the Stone-Bridge which is a little below the place where the River Barbyses joyning its Streams with that of Cydaris dischargeth it self into the Bottom of the Haven This Bridge was something longer than that which is called the Small Bridge at Paris and so narrow that not above three Horse-men could pass abreast upon it So that if the Greeks had had any Courage they might easily have maintained it but they contented themselves with breaking it and that being easily repaired in the Night the whole Army passed over it without Molestation and having put themselves into the same Order as before of six Bodies they encamped in the Valley of Blaquerness between the City and the Cosmidium or Monastery of St. Cosmus which was sometimes called Bohemond's Castle because that Prince lodged there when he was at Constantinople in the first Crusade The Camp was immediately fortified and the Engines prepared to batter the Courtain and the Towers which were on the Right and Left near the Palace and the Gate of Blaquerness which was the only Quarter which could be besieged by such a small number of Men
the Greeks to defend their Liberty with a stern and menacing tone reproaching the Great men of the Empire with their Effeminate and Voluptuous way of living and obliged them more by the fear of his Savage Humour than by the hopes of Victory or his Example to betake themselves to their Arms. And as he imagined that the Latins intended to storm the City he forgot nothing that might contribute to its Defence he fortified the Walls and Towers he raised them where they were low with Parapets made of strong Timber and floored with boards two or three Stories high that so his men might under Shelter discharge upon the Assailants All the Curtain and the Platforms of the Towers were stored with such a great number of all kinds of Engines that one could scarcely believe there was in the whole World a City so well fortified and provided or which could be more difficult to be taken But the Princes who were not much concerned at these Preparations knowing they signified nothing unless they were defended by men of Courage after they had laboured in making all things ready till Thursday the Week after mid-lent upon that day being the eighth of April they caused all the Army to be imbarked upon the Ships which were ranged into two Lines extending half a League in their Front The Great Ships were in the first with their long Ladders in manner of a Draw-Bridge which were fastned to the Masts and the Wooden Towers of an extraordinary Height The Gallies and Flat Bottoms were in the Second and were to advance through the Intervals which were left between Ship and Ship Early in the next Morning all the Fleet weighed and with the Help of Sails and Oars crossing the Gulph in good Order they presented themselves before the Walls They had all the Success they could have hoped for in Despight of the Discharge of the Enemies Engines and the Infinite number of Darts and Arrows which were powered upon them from the Curtain and the Towers those who were aboard the Gallies and the flat Bottoms observing their order of passing between the great Ships got safely ashoar and planting their Engines all along the Key they clapt their Ladders to the Walls and then the great Ships coming up close the Venetians throwing out their Bridges made of Masts and Yards placed them against the Towers and both the one and the other mounting Courageously went to the Assault with their Swords in their Hands The Combat was maintained on both sides with an Incredible Fury the Assaillants animated by the Ardent Desire which they had and the certain hope they entertained that they should that day take the richest City in the World And the Defendants forced by the Necessity whereto they were reduced either to Vanquish or lose all But in Conclusion the number of these Desperate Defendants being Infinite in Comparison of the Assailants and the Emperor who had pitched his Tents in a spacious place upon a rising Ground in the City near the Walls continually sending fresh Supplies to refresh those who were weary and the Towers which he had raised upon the Walls surpassing those Wooden ones to which they had applyed the scaling Ladders so that the Greeks fought with all manner of Advantage in discharging their Darts Arrows and stones from the higher place the Assailants were every where repulsed and about three of the Clock in the Afternoon they were forced to retreat with the loss of many Soldiers and a great many Engines of Battery This ill success did a little trouble the Princes but it was so far from abating their Courage that it raised it much higher by inflaming it with a generous Despight to find themselves obliged to yield to those whom they had so often beaten And the same Night they held a Councel of War where it was resolved that all things should be disposed within two days to give a second Assault upon the same side and not on that of the Propontis as the French proposed in regard that part of the City was not so well fortified for the Venetians who better understood the Sea made them apprehend that if they once went out of the Port the Current would undoutedly carry them into the Chanal of the Bosphorus year 1204 and that it was impossible to stem the Course of the Sea or to bring the Ships near to the Walls They therefore only added to the order which had been formerly observed in the Assault that there should not now be one Ship alotted to each Tower but two tied together that thereby they might be able to attack the great numbers which defended the Towers with greater Force than could be expected from the Soldiers of one single Ship It was also resolved that the French should be intermixed with the Venetians both by Sea and Land that so the two Nations might not lay the Blame of a Miscarriage if any should happen upon one another Upon Munday therefore the twelth of April they came to the Assault with greater Vigor resolution and sierceness than before notwithstanding that they saw all the Towers and the Walls covered with an Infinite of Soldiers This consident Approach struck a Terror into the Greeks who believed they should have terrified the Assailants with that number or men and little expected the Latins would so suddainly make another Attempt of which they so assured themselves that they had spent the two days with great rejoycings and abundance of Bonsires for the Joy of the Victory The Assault was extremely furious and continued a long time without the French and Venetians advancing any thing more than in the first Assault or giving it over for the obstinate resistance with which they met they sought on both sides every where with an equal desire and resolution of being the Victors and the advantage seemed till noon to continue with the Greeks but then a Gale arising from the Norward proved mighty favourable to the Assailants by driving the Ships close up to the very Walls Whereupon two great Ships one called the Pilgrim the other the Paradise being tied together by a good Omen for the Crusades having on board of them among other French Lords the Bishops of Soissons and Troyes were carried so near to a Tower adjoyning to the Hill where the Tyrant was posted that they applied their Bridges and Ladders without any difficulty immediately then two of the most Valiant Knights one a French man whose name was Andrew d' Vrboise a Domestick of the Bishop of Soissons the other a Venetian who was called Peter Alberti mounted courageously well covered with their Shields and with their Scimiters in their Hands they both leaped down together into the Tower and were upon a signal immediately followed by John de Choisy and all the brave men which were aboard those two Ships It some times happens in War that there is but one single Moment and one brave Action of some Valiant man to decide a day those who defended
Two great Armies of Sarasins besiege the Camp They attack the Lines and force them A great Combat within the Lines The Enemy at last repulsed The Arrival of St. Francis before Damiata His Conference with the Sultan The Battle without the Lines lost by the Crusades An advantageous Peace offered to the Christians by the Sultan The Reasons for and against it It is at last rejected by the Legate Damiata taken by Night year 1204 WHilest the Confederate Princes did with so much Glory and good Fortune conquer a whole Empire those who had separated from them to go directly into Palestine or who had taken other ways to put themselves under other Commanders met with all manner of ill Success and were so far from supporting that tottering State that in conclusion they did nothing but weaken the poor remainders of the Christian Power in the Holy Land The Truce which had for some time continued between them and the Sarasins having been broaken by one of the Admirals of Egypt and no sort of Satisfaction to be obtained for it the War broke out more furiously than before between King Emeri and Coradin the Son of Saphadin who was as great a Captain as his Father By Saphadin's Orders therefore he immediately advanced with a powerful Army and incamped within a League of Ptolemais Now John de Nele who commanded the great Fleet which had been equipped in Flanders and who staid at Marseilles to Winter having heard this News made hast from thence and whereas he should have joyned the Princes who besieged Constantinople as Count Baldwin had ordered him he sailed directly for Ptolemais where he landed having more Soldiers aboard his Fleet than there was in the whole Army of the Consederate Princes So that with those who were already passed by the Ports of Brindes and Otranto under Simon de Montfort Renard de Dampierre and the other Lords who had quitted the Confederates before they left Venice together with that great Multitude of Bretons who followed the Monk Herloin thither there were more Forces than might have chased the Infidels out of Palestine But there happened so many ill Accidents to them as ruined all their Designs for the Plague which began a little before in Ptolemais raged so furiously among these new Comers that it is reported there died in that City at one time above two thousand Persons in an Hour so that almost one half of them perished of that terrible Disease and the remainder to avoid that Danger year 1204 instantly re-imbarking failed back again to Europe There was also a fearful Dissention between the Christians themselves and the Crusades occasioned by a War betwixt Livon King of Armenia and Bohemond Earl of Tripolis and Prince of Antioch for the Principality of that State and as many great Lords and among others Renard de Dampierre with whom Theobald Count de Champagne at his Death had intrusted his Troops took the Part of Bohemond and marched to his Assistance they were surprized by the Sultan of Alepo who defeated them so intirely that there was scarce one who escaped either being taken or flain Villaine de Nevilly one of the most valiant Men of his time was there unfortunately slain and his Bother William de Nevilly Bernard de Montmirail and John de Villiers were taken as Renard de Dampierre General of the Champenois who was led to Alepo where he remained a Prisoner for thirty Years as for the poor Bretons they having only the Monk to lead them and he knowing better how to persuade them to take Arms than how to manage them they like those who followed Peter the Hermite were quickly dispersed and neither knowing what they had to do nor how to do it they perished either by the Plague or Famine or the Swords of the Infidels and the poor remainders of that great number did not without great Difficulty at last regain their Country of Bretany without having done any thing worthy of the great Zeal and Courage which carried them out of it But it hath been an old Observation that Lions with a timerous Stagg for their Captain will all prove Harts and that even fearful Deer when led by a Lion will do like Lions But in short there was not one of those who separated from the Army of the Confederates to go without them into the Holy Land who had not sufficient Reason of Repentance either for the Disgrace or the Damage which he suffered Even Simon de Momfort who before this had done so many Wonders in the War against the Albigenses was forced to return into France without bringing home with him from the Voyage any thing except the Trouble to have done nothing So dangerous it is to quit the main Body to which one is related and from which no better Fortune is to be expected but like a Branch cut from the Stem of a Tree to be blasted and withered In this miserable Estate were the Christians in the East and almost reduced to the utmost Dispair when they received the News of the taking of Constantinople by the Confederate Princes of whom even those who had abandoned them were constrained to demand Help from those to whom they had before denied theirs tho it was not to be expected that so small a Number ingaged in so great an Enterprise as the settling of their new Conquests and inlarging them could for the present be able to afford them It is impossible however to express the Joy which this News gave the Christians of Palestine who now did not question in the least but the Way was opened for the most short and certain Deliverance of the Holy Land from the Oppression of the barbarous Infidels But in regard of the Fear they were in of losing all after so many Misfortunes as one upon the Neck of another had fallen upon them King Emeri had before made a most disadvantageous Truce with the Infidels for six Years whereupon all the Crusades who were in Palestine went to wait upon the new Emperor at Constantinople The Legate himself Peter de Capua Cardinal of St. Marcellus being sent for thither by Baldwin to regulate the Affairs of the Church sailed thither and was followed by his Collegue the Cardinal of St. Praxede and such a multitude of the Oriental Christians of all Conditions that the King was almost left quite alone without any Forces considerable enough to oppose the Infidels if they should attempt to break the Truce as they quickly after did The Pope was hereupon mightily afraid and extremely troubled that his Legats should also without his Order abandon the Holy Land But the Providence of God averted this threatned Misfortune by a War which presently broke out among the Sarasins one against another and the Pope comforted himself with the Conquest of Constantinople which was altogether so unexpected to him He now no longer condemned this Enterprise of the Crusades as he had done formerly the fortunate Success thereof fully justifying the Undertaking
formerly joyned to that great City and which had been demolished to be re-built with so much Expedition and Diligence that they had wholly finished it before the Army of the Sarasins could draw together to interrupt them in the Work The great Masters of the Temple and the Teutonick Order with a small number of Crusades under the Conduct of Gautier d' Avesnes remained between the City of Acre and Cesarea and there fortified an old Castle of the Pilgrims upon a Promontory which advanceth it self into the Sea near Mount Carmel and in the clearing of the Ruins found a Treasure which defrayed the Charges they were at in the repairing of it The Kings of Hungary and Cyprus with the greatest part of the Pilgrims and Earl Bohemond retired to Tripolis where a few days after the King of Cyprus died in the very Flower of his Age. And for the King of Hungary believing that he had accomplished his Vow he only staid till the Season was convenient to pass the Seas and then returned with his Men and all the Booty they had gotten into his own Kingdom where his Presence was become mighty necessary by reason of the dangerous Troubles which had been raised during his Absence and a deplorable Accident which happened to his House which is not at all relating to this History and that was the true Reason why nothing was able to prevail with him to make a longer Stay neither the Intreaties of the Patriarch nor the Excommunication which he thundred out against him and all such as should follow him into Europe But this Prince who doubted not but the too zealous Prelate had herein exceeded the Bounds of his Power gave himself no trouble for the severe Censure being satisfied that he had no Power or Jurisdiction over him and that no Power upon earth had any right over Kings in the Temporal Affairs of the Realms year 1218 with the Conduct whereof they are solely intrusted by God Almighty to whom alone they are obliged to give an Account of the Government of their Estates to which next to the Duty to God they owe their chief Care and their chief Diligence This Loss of the Assistance of two such considerable Kings accompanied with so many brave Men was quickly after repaired by another Re-inforcement which came very seasonably to begin the next Campaigne for almost at the same time that King John de Brienne Leopold Duke of Austria and the three great Masters of the Military Orders after they had sinished the Fortresses of Cesarea and the Pilgrims Castle were come to Ptolemais to deliberate upon what was to be done in the posture wherein their Affairs then stood they were agreeably surprized to see the greatest part of the Northern Fleet arrive for they had utterly despaired of it there having not been the least Account what was become of it since the time that it first put to Sea This great Fleet had weighed from the Mouth of the Mase the 29th Day of May and had happily passed the Coasts of England and France but they were a long time stayed by contrary Winds upon the Coast of Spain and after they had been bruised by a furious Tempest in which they lost several Ships upon the Coast of Portugal the rest of the Fleet which had been separated by the Storm had been with great difficulty at last met together about the middle of July in the River of Lisbon Now as the Earls of Holland and Wida who were gotten up to the Port of this great City had given Order to re-sit their Ships the Bishops of Lisbon and d' Evora the great Priors of the Temple and Hospital and the Commander of the Order of the Knights of St. James of the Sword or Palmela and many great Lords of the Realm came to wait upon them from Alphonsus II. King of Portugal to remonstrate to them That it was by a most particular Disposal of the Divine Providence for the Good of Portugal that the Tempest had thrown them upon the Port of Lisbon and that it shill continued to stay them there That thereby it appeared manifestly that God would make use of them to drive the Moors out of the Realm who having seized upon the Fortress of Alcazar held all the Country from Algarves to the Tagus in Subjection That before their Fleet could be repaired so as to be put into a Condition of going to Sea the Season for Navigation would be past And that if they should resolutely pursue their Voyage yet would it be ineffectual in regard that before they could arrive at Palestine it would be far advanced in the Year that they must pass the Winter there unprofuably That therefore it would be more advantageous and glorious for them to pass it in Portugal and lend them their Assistance to take Alcazar from the Sarasins which they conjured them to do by the Zeal which they had to Religion assuring them that this Enterprise of which they would give an Account to the Pope would be most pleasing to him and that thereby they should merit the Recompence of a Crusade The Earls having proposed this Affair to the Council of the Crusades there were many that opposed it protesting that they would immediately go to accomplish their Vow The Frisons above all appeared most determined in this Resolution and the Matter went so far that they separated from the Earls and parted with the first fair Wind the twenty sixth of July with above eighty Ships who were followed by some others of several Nations and tho the Weather for some time proved favourable to them they were constrained to Winter at Corneta at Gaieta and several other Ports of Italy But the Earls who after that Separation and those which had been lost during the Tempest had not above a hundred Ships believed that they could not more profitably serve Christendome than upon this Occasion resolved to undertake the Siege of Alcazar which accordingly therefore they undertook with the Portuguese in the beginning of the Month of August They first attempted to storm the Place but that Attempt not Succeeding in regard that the Garrison which was very strong defended themselves with abundance of Vigor they found themselves obliged to besiege it according to the regular Way by Sapping and Mining this they followed without making any great Progress till the ninth of September at which time a great Succor of four Moorish Kings of Andalusia appeared within a League of the Christian Army The Battle was not long deferred for the Christians year 1218 wonderfully encouraged by the Arrival of the Troops of the Templers who the Night before the Battle joyned the Army and much more by the Sight of the glorious Standard of the Cross which appeared in the Air as it were to give them not only the Signal of the Combat but an assured sign of Victory and Triumph went courageously against the Enemy although their numbers were incomparably greater than theirs The Battle began early
which he called the new Damiata with two Bridges one upon the Pelusiack Chanal for the Convenience of Communication with Grand Caire which lies upon the Bank of the Nile on the right hand and the other upon the Tanitick to make his Excursions as far as Damiata that by this means he might draw the Christian Army into a Country where he believed he should most assuredly ruin them without running the hazard of coming to a Battle And the Success proved better for him than he had foreseen or could have imagined For immediately after the arrival of the King of Jerusalem a great Council was held to determine what was to be undertaken with so brave an Army as was then together There this Prince with great Judgement gave his Opinion That besides that it was extreme dangerous to engage the Army in such a Country particularly at that season of the year when the Nilus began to swell in order to its constant Immdation it was also to no purpose to make any further Conquests there which would weaken the Army and not conduce in the least to the great end which they had proposed to themselves For having Damiata and Tanis which were the two strongest places of Egypt and the two Keys of the Kingdom towards Palestine they would certainly hinder the Sultan who durst never leave these two strong places behind him from going to the Assistance of his Brother Coradin and that before he could possbly regain them they might easily reconquer all the Holy Land and rebuild Jerusalem which was the ultimate end of the Crusade And that after this if the Christians of the West had a desire to recover Egypt from the Insidels they might make another Crusade to the Success whereof a King of Jerusalem well established in his Dominions might contribute very much But on the other part the Legate who after the taking of Damiata to which without doubt he had contributed in a great measure and after the Retreat of John de Brienne which shewed that he was in fear of him was now become more hot fierce and untractable strongly opposed this advice And seeing himself supported in his Opinion not only by the Bishops but by the greatest part of the Crusades who were lately come who desired nothing so much as to see the Enemy he said a hundred things with more heat than Prudence to prove That this was to betray the Common Cause to let such a fair opportunity escape them of cutting in pieces a patched Army and consequently the taking of Grand Caire which had no manner of Fortifications capable of resisting them That besides that this would be the most Illustrious action in the World for the Glory of the Christian Name this was to strike directly at the Foundation of the Sarasin Empire and the way to reverse it from the top to the bottom that after this glorious Conquest there would remain nothing either in Palestine or Syria that could oppose the victorious Arms of the Christians And in short this Legate who was of an humour extremely Martial said so much and that with Menaces of Excommunication against those who should oppose it that the most ancient Captains among the Crusades who when they had before opposed this Prelate had not done it but that the King was at their head and the King himself fearing that he should render himself suspected and might make the Soldiers believe that he acted only for his particular Interest suffered himself at length to be hurried down this impetuous Torrent and concluded as the rest to come to a Battle It was then in the Month of July that the Christian Army composed of above seventy thousand men without computing those who were aboard the Fleet year 1221 which consisted in a great number of Vessels marched directly against the Sultan towards Caire which is about thirty Leagues from Damiata They marched between the two Eastern Branches of the Nile the Fleet being upon their right hand which sailed up the Tanitique Arm to furnish them with Provisions and if there were occasion to combate the Vessels of the Sarasins Immediately all the Enemies which were in the Field fled and retired to the main Body of the Sarasin Army on the other side the River and the Christians taking this flight for a happy presage of their Victory marched pleasantly almost as far as the half-way towards Caire to the Angle which these two Arms of the Nile make where they must of necessity stop by reason that the Enemy was incamped on the other side the River and which was extremely difficult and dangerous to pass in view of an Army more numerous than theirs Now though the Sultan saw his Design begin to thrive so well he having drawn the Christians to the place which he desired yet nevertheless seeing them in so good a condition and that they were much stronger than he had believed he was afraid that they would at last in despight of all his Art and Force find some way to pass the River the Christians having more than once before this done the same in the sight of stronger Armies than his For this reason therefore having no mind to be constrained to expose his Empire to the hazard of a Battle which he was afraid he might lose he chose rather once more to offer Peace upon the same conditions which he had before proposed adding moreover this time that he would leave them in the peaceable possession of Damiata with its Territories for above six Leagues round about it provided that they passed no farther And in truth this was all that which the Crusades could reasonably have desired or wished for nor was it possible to make a Peace either more glorious or more advantageous to all Christendom since thereby they would most assuredly recover the whole Realm of Jerusalem for which only the War was undertaken without the Expence of one drop of Christian Blood But it hath been an observation of more than one Ages Experience that when a Person who is not acquainted with the Mystery and Profession of War takes a Fancy in his imagination to the honour of that Employ and believes that he ought to do some wonderful action to render himself illustrious and considerable by his Arms there is nothing which he will not do to satisfie that foolish passion which usually carries him further than his Fear the common and natural disposition of those people who become courageous and resolute when they think their Enemies timerous and cowardly The Legate who had once before rejected the Propositions of Peace was now so far from hearkning to them that looking upon this offer of the Sultan's as an indubitable sign that he was in his own opinion desperate and gave all for lost unless he could weather this dreadful Tempest which hung over his head he pressed the Commanders now more vigorously than ever to come to the decision of a general Battle This Legate was a Spaniard by birth and by
whom God hath ordained to carry the Sword and to make use of it upon occasion as he shall judge most expedient But that which was still most deplorable was that this loss of Damiata was the thing which begot that sad difference between the Emperour and the Holy See which beginning under Pope Honorius upon the miscarriage of this Crusade had those dreadful consequences under the two following Popes which produced an infinite number of mischiefs to the Church and in Italy and were at last the principal cause of the ruine of the Affairs of the Christians in the East But in regard that it is in this part of History where the Writers observe the worst measures and for the most part on the one side and the other fall into the Invective and Declamation which a Historian ought above all things to avoid as the most dangerous to his honour and the credit which he desires to have in the World I have therefore indeavoured to secure my self from that prepossession which by reason of my profession may render me suspected of partiality and have resolved faithfully and impartially to relate matters of fact as I find them in the most Authentick Acts and Records and in those Authors least liable to Suspicion or Exception without undertaking to pass my Censure and Judgment either of the Intentions of People which only appertains to God or of the right which they either had or had not to do as they then did leaving this wholly to the pleasure and discretion of the Reader whom it is necessary that I should first make acquainted with this same Emperour Frederick the Second of whom there are such different paintings and Portraicts drawn by different Historians He was then of the Age of near eight and twenty years of a just Stature and majestick Shape a good Proportion and a Complexion strong and vigorous his Face was very agreeable his Hair fair inclining something to yellow and in the turn of his Mouth his Forehead his Eyes and his whole Face there was a certain briskness fine and sprightly which produced in those who saw him at the same time both Love and Veneration As for his Mind one may truly say that he had there a strange Medley of the admirable good Qualities of his Grandfather and the ill ones of his Father for like him he was of temper very vindicative in the pursuit of his Enemies severe and vigorous in taking his revenge even to cruelty not too religious or exact in observing his Promises nor overburdened with true Piety or Devotion he was cunning dexterous and a notable Dissembler commonly preferring his Interest before his Conscience and above all an excessive lover of the pleasures and delights of Sence in which he would drown himself sometimes even to Scandal and Infamy But on the other part it must not be concealed or denied but that he was Master of many most admirable Qualities and Perfections worthy of a Great Prince even by the confession of his very Enemies For he had a Heart truly Great and Noble he was most Liberal and Magnificent and above all things never failed in plentifully rewarding the Services which were done for him he was Prudent and Mighty knowing in Affairs of State and of strong natural Parts and Reason really brave and a most excellent Soldier perfectly a Master in the Trade of War He had a Mind very quick apprehensive and generally knowing and which being stored with a large stock of acquired Learning rendered him very able in most of the Liberal Arts but more particularly in Mechanicks which he knew even to perfection and that which was still more rare year 1221 he spoke six several Languages so well that in any one of them he was able to express himself with ease and Eloquence either in the Latin Greek Italian French German or Sarasin he was a great admirer and lover of Learning and learned men for whose sake he caused an exact Latin Translation of the Works of Aristotle to be made from the best Copies Greek and Arabian of which he made a Present to the University of Bologne Such in truth was this Prince of whom Authors write so differently the various passions with which they are possessed too frequently transporting them with immoderate and unbecoming heat in favour of the several Parties and Interests which they follow making some of them conceal his Vices and speak of nothing but his Perfections whilest others overlooking all his good Qualities will permit the Reader to see only with their Opticks his Vices and his Faults Now the Emperor having understood in Pavia where he then was the sad news of the loss of Damiata which was brought him from the East by the Great Master of the Teutonick Order he sent immediately to the Pope to let him know how great an Affliction this misfortune of the Christian Army was unto him and to assure him that he would omit nothing which in the present condition of his Affairs was possible for him to do to put himself as soon as could be into a condition of going in Person with a powerful Army into Syria But the Pope who was strucken with this News as if it had been a Thunderbolt and whose Grief admitted of no Consolation vented his Passion by writing to him in very hard Language bitterly complaining of him and accusing him of being the occasion of this Disaster in so often abusing his good Nature and puting off his Voyage from time to time notwithstanding that he stood obliged to the performance of it both by his Oath and Vow laying to his charge the guilt of this great blow which Christendom had received by the deplorable loss in Egypt And after having exhorted him to repair this fault by immediately conducting into Syria the Assistance which he had so often promised protesting that if he did not do it without any longer amusing the World by his Excuses and Delaies he would declare him and cause him to be solemnly denounced to his confusion an Excommunicate Person throughout the Christian World as a Sacrilegious Violater of the Vow which he had made unto Almighty God year 1222 Frederick who believed that the Gallies of Italy and the Army of Germany which he had sent to Damiata but above all the Importance of the War which he was obliged to attend in Sicily were sufficient Excuses for him was extreamly provoked by these Letters and these Menaces And being of a violent Nature when he was shocked and the good Fortune which hitherto in all his Enterprises had attended him rendring him more fierce and haughty he openly broke with the Pope entred upon the Lands of the Church which he said belonged to the Empire he chased several Bishops out of the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily who were suspected to favour the Pope and of his own Authority named others renewing the Ancient Pretensions of the Kings of Sicily who affirmed that this Right appertained to them and to justifie his
proceeding of the Emperor so little obliging nevertheless as he desired nothing so much as to quiet all those discords and Wars which might be prejudicial to that which he so much desired should be made against the Enemies of Jesus Christ and his Church he did not forbear doing what was most advantageous for the Emperors Interest insomuch that he perswaded the greatest part of the Cities of Lombardy who were confederated against him to lay down their Arms and obliged himself to obtain their Peace and pardon with the Conservation of their Privileges and Immunities upon condition that they should at their own charge maintain a certain number of Soldiers to serve under the Emperor for two years in the Holy War It was for the same reason that he hindred Henry the third King of England from Enterprizing any thing against France whilest Lewis the eighth made War against the Albigenses That King prosecuted the War against them with so much heat and Zeal that he did not spare continually to expose his Royal Person to all hazards and dangers and after having taken Avignion and the greatest part of the considerable places in Languedoc he was seized with that dangerous Malady which was got into his Army year 1226 of which he died at Montpensier the eight of November in the fourtieth Year of his Age and the third of his Reign leaving for his Successor his eldest Son Lewis the ninth of the Age of twelve years under the Regence of the Queen his Mother Blanch of Castile This was he who by the August Sirname of Lewis the Saint which was given him by God by the Authority which he hath given to his Church hath made himself be more gloriously distinguished by that title since his death than all other Kings have done during their lives by all the most Illustrious Sirnames and most magnificent appellations which men have bestowed upon them At last the term drawing near wherein the Emperor had obliged himself to begin this Voyage and that all things appeared better disposed than ever they had been before to the undertaking the Pope believed that the deciding Blow which he had so long desired was now certainly to be given And therefore redoubling his Efforts as one shall see a Flambeau blaze out twice or thrice with mighty Force before it is extinguished so he pressed the Crusades with so much Ardour that an infinite number of them came from all Europe into Italy it is reported that out of England alone there came above sixty thousand men to whom the appearance of a marvellous Crucifix from Heaven all glorious and shining in which were plainly to be seen the five Wounds had given so much Courage that they desired nothing so much as to combat and to die for Jesus Christ But as this devout Pope believed that he should enjoy upon Earth the Fruit of so much care and pains as he had taken to assemble so many Crusades he was taken more happily for himself to receive them in Heaven from whence he might see though without trouble in a small time after that which would have sufficiently afflicted him in this life that the Success of this Crusade proved quite otherways than he had vainly flattered himself withal in the time of his Pontificate But that a man may therefore never be disappointed there is nothing better than for any Person constantly to do what he ought to do and what he can do without promising himself any certainty of future contingencies and Events for which God alone is able to answer year 1227 He died at Rome the sixth of March in the Year 1227 and two days after the Sacred College by common consent gave him for his Successor the famous Hugoline Cardinal of Ostia who took the name of Gregory the ninth He was Nephew to Innocent the third who had imployed him in the most important Affairs of the Church a man of a mighty Spirit well made and of a Port extremely Majestick very knowing a great Canonist and of an irreproachable Life to whom St. Francis whose order he took into his Protection had predicted that he should be Pope He was in short of great Courage and incapable of yielding even in the greatest dangers but withal too quick in Execution of what he proposed without fearing the Consequences how mischeivous soever they might happen to be The first thing that he did after his Exaltation was to pursue the Enterprise of his Predecessor and to press the Emperor Frederick to put himself as soon as it was possible into a Condition to perform what he had so solemnly promised This Prince who after so many delays durst no longer desire the time to be prolonged appointed the Rendevouz to be at Brindes where the Shipping lay all ready for the Transportation of that Infinite number of Crusades who descended from all parts of Italy But as they came into Pavia during the great heats of the Summer which in that Country are excessive an Epidemical Distemper began to disperse it self among them which took off a great number and made others withdraw themselves though few of them ever returned into their own Country but perished miserably by the Way That which further contributed to the diminution of the Army was that a certain Imposture set up by some of the Principal Persons in Rome who had no kindness for the Pope as it appeared presently after counterfeited an Authority and Power from Gregory who had appointed him his Vicar for that purpose to take of the Cross from such as desired to be dispensed with as to the Performance of the Voyage and to commute their Vow into some considerable Alms of which this Cheat made his own advantage It is true that he was taken by the order of the Pope year 1227 and paid the price of his imposture but it was not till after many who were very glad to be dispensed with from a Voyage which they found already to be troublesome and dangerous had quitted the Cross by this Way which they believed was a very lawful and authentick way of being disbanded In short those who remained into Pavia came to Brindes with the Emperor and Lewis Lantgrave of Thuringia and Hesse who had conducted a gallant Troop of Germans who were imbarked about the middle of August and sailed towards Syria not doubting but they should be followed by the Emperor who seemed continually disposed and ready to part thither also And accordingly so soon as he saw the Lantgrave a little recovered of some Fits of a Fever which he had gotten in a little Island near Brindes whether he had gone to divert himself he put to Sea the eight of September with this Prince and the Patriarch of Jerusalem and those few Troops which remained But he sailed not far for the third day of the Navigation he commanded them of a sudden to tack about and stand for the Port of Otranto alledging that he found himself much indisposed and that in the Condition
quitted Palestine the preceding year upon the new retardment of the Emperor's Voyage there were not then in Palestine remaining of the new comers more than about eight hundred men at Arms and ten thousand Foot besides the Knights which the Great Masters of the three Orders had upon the place All these Crusades had chosen for their General Henry Duke of Limbourg who after a long deliberation with the Officers of the Army the Patriarch and the Bishops of Caesarea and Nazareth and those of Oxford and Winchester in England seeing themselves too weak to attack Coradin they had imployed themselves in the rebuilding and Fortification of Caesarea and some other little Maritim places resolving to do the same to Jaffa in expectation of the Succours which were to come from Europe In this time Coradin died leaving for his Successor his Son Melesel of the Age of twelve years under the Tutelage and Regency of the Emir Esedinebec Hereupon the Sultans his Neighbours failed not to enterprize immediately against him and this doubtless was of great advantage to the Crusades who were not only delivered from the most formidable of their Enemies but saw them also engaged in Civil Wars This was the State of the Christian Affairs at the arrival of the Emperor who was not able to prevent it but that many of this small number of Crusades believing that they had satisfied their Vow by a Years Service returned by the Conveniency of passage which they had that Autumn On the other part the Sultan of Egypt who always maintained a good Intelligence with his Brother Coradin was come to the Assistance of his Nephew with a potent Army and was incamped at Napolose anciently Sichem or Sichar where he expected the coming up of all the Forces of Damascus who were to join with his Upon this whether the Emperor believed that he could not with those few Troops he had undertake this War but to his dishonour or whether it was that the matter was so preconcerted betwixt him and the Sultan before his coming thither as the common report went although there is no manner of Foundation for it in History or which is most probable that he had a great desire to return with all Expedition into Italy it is certain that he sent Count Thomas his Confident and Balian Lord of Tyre to Meledin to whom after they had in the Emperors name made magnificent presents they acquainted him That it was not at all the desire of their Master that there should be any thing betwixt them two which might prevent their living in perfect Amitie That Frederick who was the most potent Prince in Christendom was not come into the East to make new Conquests there for that he was possessed of such large Dominions in the West as were capable to satisfie the vastest Ambition That the great reason of his coming was to visit the Holy places and to redemand the Realm of Jerusalem which the Christians had conquered and for so long a time possessed and which appertained to his Son in right of the Empress Jolante his Mother who was the Queen and the lawful Inheretrix of that Kingdom That if he were satisfied in a demand so just and reasonable he was ready to return into Europe without drawing his Sword and therefore desired the Sultan that by an unjust refusal he would not be the occasion of sheding so much humane Blood which might be spared there having been so much already miserably spilt in so many cruel Battles as had been already fought upon this quarrel year 1228 Meledin who had a Soul naturally inclined to mildness and to peace as had most evidently appeared in the War of Damiata gave the Ambassadors a favourable Audience and promised that he would send Ambassadors of his own who should carry to the Emperor his Answer in an Affair of that Importance and having made them very rich Presents he sent them back to Frederick whilest these matters were in Agitation two Cordeliers who came immediately from Rome presented the Patriarch and the three great Masters of the Military Orders Letters from the Pope by which he strictly prohibited them from giving any Obedience to the Emperor and appointed the Patriarch to declare him Excommunicate now as this could not be done without making a mighty noise the Sultan was quickly by his Intelligencers made acquainted with it and therefore seeing that besides that the Emperor had but a very slender Army he was in danger of having the fortune to be ill obeyed but yet nevertheless being very willing to deliver himself from the continual Fear which he had of some new Crusade which was only to be done by some good and long Truce and not doubting but now he had an opportunity to do it as he pleased he put on a Countenance something fierce and haughty as if he were very indifferent in the matter however he sent his Ambassadors who from him were to acquaint the Emperor That he was far from refusing his Amity but for that which concerned the Article of Jerusalem that which was desired of him was of such a Nature that neither his Conscience his Honour nor his Religion would permit him to agree to it in regard that the Sarasins themselves had as great a Veneration for the Temple of the Lord whither they resorted from all Parts to worship God as the Christians had for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to which they came in Pilgrimage to adore Christ Jesus But that nevertheless if his Imperial Majesty would please to send new Ambassadors to their Master he would make such reasonable Propositions as that he should have cause to find himself very well satisfied And thereupon they presented the Emperor from him with a huge Elephant several admirable Camels and divers other rare Animals of Egypt and Arabia And Frederick after having magnificently treated them and honoured them with Noble Presents sent them back with his Ambassadors to treat with the Sultan That Prince who was resolved to come to his Ends in the manner which he had formed in his own Imagination did not presently give them Audience but only made them be informed that they must follow him to the City of Gaza whither he marched with his Army leaving that of the Sultan of Damascus his Nephew at Napolose This procedure made the Emperor Frederick believe that Meledin had a Design to affront him and therefore having caused all the Captains to Assemble he acquainted them that according to the resolution which they had taken he thought it convenient to march with the Army to Jaffa and to fortifie it thereby to secure the passage to Jerusalem they all submitted to his Orders except the two great Masters of the Templers and Hospitallers who said in plain terms that the Pope to whom they owed obedience had forbidden them to obey an Excommunicate Prince and that therefore if the Orders were issued out in his Name they would not obey them The Emperor extremely surprized by
return into Italy as soon as was possible to recover the places which the Pope's Army had taken in his Dominions there left all things in Palestine in the same condition wherein he had found them not giving himself the trouble to build either the Walls of Jerusalem or any other of those Cities which were yielded to him by the Treaty insomuch that the Sarasins who were much the stronger in the Country especially after his departure were as much Masters as they had been before the Treaty which Established the Affairs of the Christians in nothing but appearance But the Emperor who believed he had reason to charge the Pope as the Cause of all those Mischiefs which might follow upon his hasty departure was not at all concerned at it but after having treated the Patriarch and the Templers very contemptuously at Acre he commanded all his Soldiers to follow him alledging there was no necessity for their stay in Palestine during the Treaty and therefore upon the first day of May he departed with two Gallies only and in a few dayes arrived in the Kingdom of Naples where in a little time he recovered all the places which had been taken from him during his absence year 1230 and the Year following by the Mediation of Herman de Saltza great Master of the Teutonick Order and divers other Princes and Prelates of Germany he made his peace with the Pope who received him at Anagnia with all manner of Honours and Marks of Affection giving him Absolution and restoring him to all his Rights Thus the differences of Princes the most highly exasperated one against the other may by a Treaty of a few days come to be determined but many Ages ofttimes will not suffice to repair the Evils which they have produced in the World year 1232 In this time Meledin who was come to a Rupture with his Nephew whom he had driven out of Damascus fearing that during the War which he made with him there should be some new Crusade formed in the West sent his Ambassadors to Frederick to renew the Amity which they had contracted and presented him among other precious Rarities of the East a most Magnificent Tent which was valued at above one hundred thousand Crowns in which surpassing all that ever was written of the Magnificence of the Ancient Kings of Persia the Heavens were so perfectly represented that this admirable Pavilion look'd like the true and natural Skie in it were to be seen the shining Globes of the Sun and Moon which by secret Movements turning like those glorious Luminaries by the Skill of Art kept exactly the same measures in their Regular Motions which Nature hath prescribed to those two beautiful Planets insomuch that by this well governed Motion all the Hours of the Day and Night were as well to be known by the Artificial Course of these two Globes within the Tent as by a Dial or Exact Quadrant from the natural Motions of the Sun and Moon It is said also that these Ambassadors addressed themselves to the Pope to desire peace with him but that he dismissed them without an Audience in regard that he would not have any Commerce with Infidels and that he still continued in the Design of pursuing the Crusade year 1233 And indeed as soon as the Troubles of Italy were quieted at least for a time by the fervent Preachings of the Religious of the Orders of St. Dominick and St. Francis whom the Pope sent into all the Cities to compose the Minds of men to peace he called a great Assembly of Prelates to Spoleta year 1234 at which the Emperor himself assisted together with the Patriarchs of Constantinople Antioch and Jerusalem whom Gregory had caused to come thither to deliberate with them upon the Affairs of the East There it was resolved That so soon as the Truce was expired the War should be renewed in Palestine and that in the interim Theoderick Archbishop of Ravenna should be sent into Palestine in quality of Legate with Letters from the Pope to all the Prelates and from the Emperor to all his Officers by which they should be injoyned to obey him year 1235 And in short that the Pope should write to all the Princes and should send Preachers to all places to exhort all faithful Christians to take upon them the Cross and to give notice to such as had already taken it to hold themselves ready for the Voyage within four Years which was exactly the time when the Truce expired this did not fail to produce the same Effects which had been seen in the other Crusades for the Devotion of that Holy Voyage being the thing in Vogue in those times there were always a multitude of People of all Ranks and Conditions who either then took the Cross or having taken it before resolved with the first opportunity to accomplish their Vow He who upon this occasion shewed the most Zeal and Fervour and whom all the rest were obliged to look upon as their Chieftain was the King of Navarr This Prince was the famous Theobald the Fifth of the Name Count de Champagne and Brie who renouncing the League which the Princes had made against the Regency of Queen Blanche and discovering the Ambushes which they had laid for the Surprisal of the young King her Son thereby rendred a most signal Service to France and to St. Lewis who reciprocally also defended him against all the Forces of the Princes of the League who had turned their Arms and all their Rage against him for having advertised the King of this Treason which was hatched against him He was the Posthumous Son of that brave Theobald the Fourth who died in his preparations for the Crusade of which he was the Chief and of Blanche de Navarr Sister of Sancho the strong the last of the Male Descendants of Garcias Ximenes who had reigned five Years in Navarr and therefore according to the Custom of the Laws of Spain where in default of Males the Crown descends to the Daughters this Count Theobald was in right of his deceased Mother proclaimed King of Navarr at Pampelona in the Month of May 1224. He was then about the Age of three and thirty Years a goodly Prince of an Excellent Mind and most Noble Inclinations extreamly addicted to the Catholick Religion which he took great care to preserve free from Heresies in his Dominions above all he was liberal and magnificent Vertues which he enjoyed as it were by Succession from the Counts de Campagne his Ancestors who possessed these Royal Vertues in such a degree of perfection as distinguished them from all the other Princes of their time he was besides of an humour sweet and pleasant a Mind extream quick and polite and which he had diligently cultivated and improved by all manner of gentile Learning and particularly Poetry in which he had made himself an able Master as appears by certain Copies of Verses which he made after he had left the Court of France to which
ratification of the Treaty caused a Fortress to be built near Ascalon which was finished before his departure After which the Sultan who acted like his Father Meledin with great Sincerity having signed and ratified the Treaty which he caused to be approved by all his Emirs he sent back all the Prisoners together with the Constable of Montfort who during his Imprisoment had been treated more rigorously than all the others in regard that out of his Generosity he could never be perswaded to discover the quality of the Barons who were in Captivity with him After which Richard having caused the bones of the French who were slain in the Battle of Gaza to be gathered up and honourably interred in the Church yard at Ascalon reimbarked upon his Fleet and steered towards Italy The Ship which carried the Constable Amauri put in at Otranto where this Illustrious Count died by a kind of Martyrdom by the hardships which he indured in his Captivity happy in this that he had spent the best part of his Life either in Combating against the Albigensian Hereticks year 1241 or the Sarasin Infidels for the Interests of Jesus Christ of whom he had the Honour to be a Knight after a most particular manner and such a one as doth not afford us another Example besides himself For Count Simon his Father General of the Holy League and the Crusade against the Albigenses having made a great meeting of Barons and Bishops at Castelnau-d'-Arry upon St. John Baptist's day in the year twelve hundred and thirteen there to celebrate with great Pomp and magnificence the promotion of his eldest Son Amauri to the order of Knighthood his absolute pleasure was contrary the common to Custom that the Ceremony should be performed by the Bishops And for this purpose addressing himself to two of the greatest Prelates of their time Manasses Bishop of Orleance and William Bishop of Auxerre who was afterwards removed to Paris and who were two Brothers of the Illustrious House of Seignelay whose name they bore he obliged them notwithstanding all their modest resistance to satisfie him telling them that since he was resolved that his Son should be a Knight of Jesus Christ it was reasonable that he should receive that order by the Hands of the Bishops who represent Christ Jesus our Master and our King Thereupon the Bishop of Orleance in his Episcopal Habits having celebrated Mass in a most magnificent Pavilion which was erected in the Field of Castelnau-d'-Arry which was filled with Knights Soldiers and People the Count and Countess his Lady presented Amauri before the Altar supplicating the Bishops to give him the order of Knighthood to serve Jesus Christ against the Enemies of his Holy Name then the Bishop who officiated and William Bishop of Auxerre kneeling down girded the Sword about him and by their Prayers begged the Blessings of Heaven upon this new Knight who about three Months after signalized himself in the memorable Battle of Muret where his Father with less than two thousand men defeated a hundred thousand Albigensians and Aragoneses under their King Peter who was slain upon the field with twenty thousand of his men And afterwards he performed so many gallant things following the Example and the orders of that great Captain that some time after his death King Lewis the eighth acknowledging him for a Son who had rendred himself most worthy of such a Father bestowed upon him the Sword of a Constable of France And as this brave Count was extremely considered by the Pope both for his own Merit and for that of the famous Simon de Montfort he caused magnificent Funerals to be made for him at Rome where he was interred in the Church of the Vatican his heart according to his desire at his death being carried into France and buried under the Monument where his Statue lies in the Church of the Nunnery of Hautebruiere which is at this day more famous than ever not only for the rare Vertues of so many illustrious Virgins as are consecrated to God but also by reason of the certainty that besides the heart of the Constable Amauri and the Bodies of his Grandfather and his Uncle Gui de Montfort there lieth interred that of Simon his Father that invincible Champion of Jesus Christ who with so much Courage and good Fortune combated for his Glory against the Albigensian Hereticks For as they were at work in the Year one thousand six hundred fifty six to repair his Tomb which is to be seen in the middle of that Church there were found the Bones of a man and a Woman lying in their natural order wrapped up neatly in Carnation Taffata which being compared with the inscription gives no place for doubting but that these are the Bones of this famous Count and Alice his Wise which are deposited in that Tomb. And this is so far from contradicting what Peter du Val de Sernay writes that Count Amauri caused the Body of his Father to be carried from the Field of Tolouse to Carcassone that it is most conformable to him because he says that he caused it to be first carried thither and that word makes it clear to me that he had a design to transport them to some other place after which according to the custom of France in that time that they had separated the Flesh from the Bones with boyling Water which the Historian expresseth by these words Primùm apud Carcassonam curatum Gallico more exportavit They first did that to his Body at Carcassone which the French were accustomed to do and which sometime after was done to the Body of St Lowis separating the Flesh from the Bones The Flesh and the Intrals of Count Simon were interred at Carcassone and the Bones were transported into France by his Son into the Earldom year 1241 which bore his name and which to this day carries that of his and his great Grandfather being called Montfort-l'-Amauri I have contrary to my custom made this little remark by the by to do Justice to this Famous Nunnery and to shew that many times People dispute much at ramdom out of passages in Ancient Authors concerning the Monuments they pretend to possess either by reading them only in Quotations or not examining them with that exactness as they ought in order to their making an equitable Judgment of them Thus it was that the Constable Amauri de Montfort ended his days at Otranto in his return from the Holy Land at the same time that Richard Earl of Cornwall landing in Sicily after he had conserred with the Emperor Frederick passed to Rome to endeavour an accomodation of matters with the Pope whom he found still firm and inflexible in his refolution to have intire Satisfaction but yet nevertheless extremely troubled with the sad news which he had received of the taking of his Legates and all the Prelates which he had convoked to Rome The Pope considering the pitious condition to which the Affairs of the Christians in
the East were reduced and that Frederick drawing his advantage from this ill Success charged it all upon the Pope to render him odious to all the Princes and that he became still more powerful and more hot in his Persecutions of the Holy See and that while the West was troubled with this War it was impossible for any Crusade to prosper in the East all these considerations had made him resolve in the preceding Year according to the advice of the King St. Lewis who passionately desired the Peace of the Church to call a general Council at Rome to meet in Easter of this Year to which he invited all the Princes and Prelates of Christendom Frederick himself at first made some appearance of consenting to it and in order thereto to admit of a Truce with the Pope but he presently changed his opinion and upon the demand that the Lombards should be also comprised in this truce to the end that this War might not obstruct the Freedom of passage to the Council he took occasion to write to all Princes whom he endeavoured to interest in his Cause in which Letters he complained That this Council was not called by the Bishop of Rome his mortal and declared Enemy for any other end but to give his Rebellious Subjects who were at the last gasp the leisure to take breath and to renew the War with more Vigour than before at the same time when he would condemn and depose him in a Council wherein his Capital Enemy was to preside and wherein it was well known that many People who were Enemies to the Empire and others of whom he was well assured that they were his Creatures and dependants were to be his Judges That for these reasons he desired them to advertise all the Prelates in their Dominions that they should forbear this Voyage for which he could not promise them any safety in regard that though for the love of the Princes his Friends and Allies he was ready to favour their Subjects in all things he was nevertheless absolutely resolved not to permit any that should be so audacious as to go to a Council which was called against him by his mortal Enemy Mean while he caused all the Passages to be diligently guarded taking imprisoning treating ill and cruelly Massacring some of those who adventured to go by Land and to guard the Sea he set out a great Fleet and armed out twenty new Gallies at Naples and in Sicily which towards the end of March joined those of Pisa who were of the Emperor's Party under Entius the King of Sardinia The Pope also on his side having a great Soul as upon all occasions he made apparent and a Vigour much surpassing his Age which now approached to a hundred years and whose Courage was invincible in maintaining the Rights of the Church and the Supream dignity of the Pontificate writ the most curious Letters in the World to all Prelates to exhort them by all Considerations both Divine and humane to despise the Menaces of Frederick and generously to expose themselves to all hazards for the Service of the Church in the most important of all occasions which was to hinder her from being oppressed and robbed intirely of all her Liberty promising them withal that he would take care to Arm so potently at Sea for their safe passage that they should have no occasion to fear their Enemies year 1241 And in truth he gave particular and most pressing orders to Cardinal Gregory whom he had sent Legate to Genoa to spare for no charges to reinforce his Fleet with a great number of Ships which he was to join with those of Genoa and the Genoeses who made no doubt but they should be able to beat all that they should encounter upon the Sea promised with so much certainty and Considence to the Prelates of France Spain England and Italy who were come to that Port with the two Legates of France and England that they would conduct them to Rome without any manner of danger that they resolved to venture that passage rather than trust to the offers of the Emperor For that Politick Prince seeing them arrived at Genoa notwithstanding all his menaces changed his method and whether it were that he had a design to surprize them or that he would thereby endeavour to persuade the World that he was ready on his side to make all manner of reasonable advances towards Peace which could be expected from him he offered them all the Security which they could desire and in such manner as should best like them for their free passage through Lombardy and Romanca that so he might have the opportunity of informing them of the Justice of his care it being as he said altogether unreasonable that after having already been condomned by his Enemy Gregory without being heard he should also be condemned by those whom the Pope had called together to serve his own Passion against an Emperor who desired nothing but throughly to instruct them after which he would willingly submit to their Judgment But the Prelates durst not trust to the Faith of a Prince who was accused not to have too great an Honour for his word and being encouraged by the Pope and the Genoese Admiral who considently affirmed always that they should not need to fear any thing they all in conclusion went aboard the Fleet except the Arch-Bishops of Bourges and of Tours and the Bishops of Chartres and some others who not finding the Convoy that was promised them beyond Vienna and judging it was not safe for them to pass any further returned into their respective Diocesses And certainly it appeared quickly after that they had acted with reason and foresight for the Enemies Fleet which expected that of Genoa in their passage meeting with them about Pisa there was a necessity of coming to an engagement which was very fatal to the Genoese and to all the Prelates whom they conducted For three of their Gallies were sunk two and twenty taken with the greatest part of the other Ships together with the three Legates a hundred Ambassadours or Procurators of Cities and Bishops four thousand Genoese and almost all the Prelates who were going to the Council among which for France where the Arch-Bishops of Roan Ausch Bourdeaux and Besanson the Bishops of Nismes Agde and Carcassone the Abbots of the Cluniaques Cistercians and Clairvalleys whom Frederick who was then at Faenza which after a long Siege he had taken caused to be carried bound to the Castle of the Egg at Naples where the greatest part of them perished miserably by their long Sufferings only the Prelates of France escaped better by the interposition of St. Lewis who sent to demand them of the Emperor At first Frederick made some difficulty to deliver them they being as he said his Enemies but the King writ to him a Letter so reasonable but withal so positive giving him to understand on the one hand that they had no manner of intention
follow the design of his Predecessor year 1244 to redress the Evils of the Church by a General Council for the calling whereof he sent his Circular Letters throughout all Europe It was held at Lyons the year following and was opened upon the Eve of the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles It was at this Council that the Cardinals received from Innocent the Red-Hat for a distinction of their Dignity and the Obligation which they had to loose even their Lives for the cause of God and of his Church especially in this Persecution of the Emperor Frederick The Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch as also those of Aquilea and Venice assisted at this Council together with one hundred and fourty Arch-Bishops and Bishops of France Italy Spain England Scotland and Ireland the Deputies of many other places the Abbots of Cluni the Cistercians and Claraval the General of the order of St. Dominick and the Vicar of that of St. Francis as also a great number of other Abbots and Priors of the same Kingdoms There came scarcely any at all from Germany for fear of offending the Emperor nor from Hungary by reason of the irruption which the Tartars had made at that time into those Countries Baldwin the Emperor of Constantinople who came to desire assistance from the Pope was there also together with Raymond Count of Tholose Raymond Berenger Count de Provence and the Ambassadors of the Emperor the Kings of England France and the other Christian Princes Affairs of the greatest moment certainly passed with wonderful Expedition in those times in Comparison of what they do in our days For this great Council wherein matters of the Greatest Importance were treated of the smallest of which would now take up much a longer time and would be discussed and debated with extraordinary difficulty was finished in three Sessions In the first of them the Pope being seated upon a Throne which was raised in the great Church at Lyons having at his Right hand the Emperor of Constantinople and upon his Left the other Princes he made a most Pathetick Discourse in which comparing his pains and Grief to those of Jesus Christ upon the Cross he said that the Church had received five great Wounds from which it was impossible but he must be extremely sensible of her pain The first was the abuses and disorders which were so frequent among the Ecclesiasticks The Second was by the Insolence and the Tyranny of the Sarasins year 1245 who had prophaned the Sacred places and laid wast the Holy City and were upon the point of taking all that remained in Palestine from the Christians The third Wound was that which was given by the Schism of the Greeks whose power though it had been brought down yet now began to rise again and even to threaten Constantinople which was reduced to the last Extremities The fourth was by the furious irruption of the Tartars into Hungary even to the very consines of Germany where they filled all with Blood Slaughter and Ruin The Fifth was by the terrible Persecution of Frederick who exposed the Church to all those Sufferings for which Pope Gregory had cut him off from the Body of the Church in which he not only persisted but daily augmented his former guilt by new and greater Crimes After which the Patriarch of Constantinople and Valeran Bishop of Berylus who was sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to implore the Succour of the Christians of the West gave a Relation of the deplorable condition wherein the Affairs of the Latins were in Greece and Palestine And then Thadeus de Sessa the Judge of the Imperial Palace and the Emperors Ambassador rose up and spoke to the Council in the name of his Master At first that he might gain the Favour of the Assembly he repeated in general and few words what the Pope had said concerning the Sarasins Greeks Tartars and the Emperor and protested that Frederick whose Power by reason of so many Victories as he had gained against his Enemies was greater than ever it had been before offered himself withal his heart to employ all that he had his Fortunes and his Arms to reduce the Greeks to reason and to repulse the Tartars and that he was ready to go himself in person and at his own charges into Palestine to drive out the Corasmins and there to reestablish the Affairs of the Christians which were in such ill terms and that in the mean time he promised to restore to the Church whatsoever should be found that he had taken from it and to make all the satisfaction that could be expected if in any thing he had offended To this the Pope not doubting but all this was said as an Artifice to surprize and amuse the Council only answered that they were not met there to talk of new promises but to see that he performed those which he had already made upon his Oath which he had so often eluded And then added he after having so often deceived us what Caution will he give to Warrant that which he promiseth The Kings of France and England boldly and without delay answered Thadeus ought not they to be accepted By no means replyed the Pope because if he should again fail in his promises as thereis reason enough to believe that he will we shall be obliged to take our remedy against these two Kings So that the Church for one Enemy which she hath now upon her hands shall then have three which are the three most puissant Princes in all Europe Then Thadeus continuing his discourse to come to the point which was in question and upon which he was defired to insist he endeavoured to answer precisely to all the Crimes which the Pope had objected against Frederick And being very dexterous and wonderful Eloquent he spoke with so much Art and gave so soft and plausible a turn to his defence that there were very many in the Assembly who appeared highly satisfied But Innocent who was a very able man and who was perfectly well acquainted with all the Circumstances of this Affair replied instantly to all that the Emperors Ambassadour had said in defence of his Master and answered to every particular with as much exactness and Strength as if he had been a long time before prepared by seeing what Thadeus would say upon this Subject And this was what was done in this first Session In the Second which was held eight days after upon Tuesday the fifth of July diverse Bishops especially the Spaniards who were come in greater numbers to the Council than any other Nation tendered an accusation consisting in many Articles against the Emperor urging the Pope to condemn him especially upon this whereon they insisted principally That it was the intention of that Prince as appeared by his own Letters to dispoil the Ecclesiasticks of all their Estates and to reduce them to the same condition that they were in during the times of the primitive Persecution The Ambassadour on
Reigned in France year 1246 had gained over the Princes of the League over the Duke of Bretany the Counts of Tholouse and March and over the King of England and the Prince Richard his Brother who had indeavoured to support the Earl of March and by a pretty piece of Policy he carried along with him all the Princes and all the Great men of the Realm who might give any Suspicion or the least occasion to fear that they had either the Power the Will or the Temptation during his absence to trouble the Repose of his Dominions For of the two most mutinous Spirits of whom he had most reason to be distrustful he took one of them which was the Earl of March along with him and the other which was Raymond the Young who was Earl of Tholouse who had also taken upon him the Cross died before the Voyage leaving his Dominions to Alphonsus the King's Brother the Count of Poitiers who had married the Princess Joanna his Daughter and Heiress and the King for his greater assurance sent that Prince to establish himself in his new Dominion of Languedoc before he imbarqued himself as he afterwards did to go and joyn him in the East Moreover he deferred his Voyage for almost four Years to take the advantage of two fair occasions which presented themselves the one to reunite the County of Mascon to the Crown which he bought of the Countess who after she had distributed the money for which she sold it to the poor retired to the Nunnery of Maubuisson and there professed herself the other was to bring the County of Provence into the Royal House which had been separated from it for above three hundred Years For Raymond Berenger the Fifth of the Name and the last of the Catalonian Family who had reigned in Provence being dead the year preceeding the King knew with so much Art how to gain Romee de Villeneuve and Albert de Tarascon the Trustees and Guardians of the Princess Beatrix the remaining Daughter of the four which Count Raymond had had who was Sister to the Queen and the Heiress to the Count that he obtained her for Charles d' Anjou his Brother and without losing of time advancing towards Provence with one part of the Army which was ready for the Holy War he broke all the measures of James the King of Aragon Cousin German to the deceased Count and hindered his carrying the Princess away by force as he had designed if he could not procure her by other wayes in order to oblige her to marry his Son and by that means to retain this fair County in his Family which lay so conveniently for him During this time Lewis had all the leisure which could be reasonably desired to make his preparations and provisions year 1247 which were the greatest that ever had been seen and also to settle that Publick Peace and Tranquility which he had so happily given to all his Dominions and to assure himself on the side of England also For he prolonged the Truce which had been made with that King two or three Years before after the Victory of Taillebourg and also engaged the Pope to be the Guarranty that it should be inviolably observed as it was during all the time of his absence although the English hearing of his being taken Prisoner indeavoured to break it In short this Wise Prince neither went as the first Crusades had done by Land and thereby he avoided the dangers into which they had fallen of perishing by Famine and the miseries which attended those vast Desert Countries which were possessed by the Barbarians neither did he go with a confused Multitude of all manner of Persons and People who were to be gotten together who served for no other purpose but to put all into disorder but with a good Army consisting in betwixt thirty and forty thousand men which was such a number as the Great Alexander had when he went to the Conquest of Asia but this Army was composed for the greatest part of Gentlemen and choice Souldiers such as were capable of marching over the bellies of all that Egypt and Syria could oppose against them unless some accident should happen or some extraordinary misfortune befal them against which no humane Prudence can give any Warranty or Assurance And that which was most considerable the whole Army was absolutely at his disposal in regard that it consisted wholly of French for the King of England would not permit the Bishop of Berytus who went thither to preach the Crusade to publish it in his Dominions alledging that he stood in need of all his Subjects to defend himself against his Enemies if they should attack him year 1245 King Lewis having wisely provided all things necessary for his Voyage which he undertook in his very prime strength being about three and thirty Years of Age he had nothing further to do but to take care of the Government of his Realm in his absence and this he left to his Mother Queen Blanch the most able Woman and most capable of Governing of any of her time after which he went according to the Custom of those Ages to St. Dennis to receive the Oristame the Scarf and the Pilgrim's Staff which he did in great Solemnity for he parted from Paris upon the Friday after Whitsunday in the year 1248. accompanied with the two Princes his Brothers the Legate year 1248 and the most part of the Princes of the Crusade being preceded by all the Processions of the whole City which were followed by an infinite number of People who all in tears marched from the Palace to the Nunnery of St. Antonina singing Psalms and Letanies for the prosperity of his Voyage From thence he went by Burgundy to Lyons where he made his Entry with all manner of Magnificence for never any King was better acquainted with the Art of making his Royal Majesty most conspicuous in those Publick Ceremonies where he was minded to shew it and the Historians of that Age inform us that among other remarkable Circumstances of this Magnificent Entry there were an hundred Knights who being compleatly armed and mounted upon their great charging Horses caparisoned with their Coat Armor according to the manner of those times marched before him with their Swords drawn in their hands and this is that which our present King who in Magnificience and Grandeur surpasseth all his Predecessars hath revived in our dayes to render to the Majesty of our Kings that which St. Lewis himself as great a Saint as he was judged necessary upon some occasions for the manifesting his Lustre and his Greatness After this the Holy King having again conferred with the Pope who kept his Court at Lyons descended by the Rhone and went to take Shipping with the Queen upon the twenty fifth of August at Aigues-Mortes where the greatest part of his Fleet waited for him the remainder being at Marseilles there to take in the rest of his Army After which setting sail
upon the twenty seventh he arrived about the twentieth of September in the Isle of Cyprus where the other Ships which came from Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles sooner or later as the Troops came up which were to be imbarqued upon them came to joyn him in a little time after There it was that St. Lewis committed a great Error which must not be dissembled and which most assuredly was the cause of his Misfortune by following against his own Judgment the advice of the Lords of his Army and the Barons of the Isle of Cyprus For one part of them being very glad to repose themselves and the other to have time to prepare themselves for the Voyage which they promised to undertake with the French and they lay so continually at him that they persuaded the King contrary to his Inclination to stay in the Island till after Easter pretending that the Winter was now approaching and that it was most convenient to expect the coming up of several other Troops which were to arrive and this occasioned two great Mischiefs For first the Waters in the Island were nothing so wholesome as those of Egypt and the Air was very bad and not at all favourable to Strangers who were not accustomed to it by reason whereof Diseases fell into the Army and considerable numbers of them died and divers even of the first Quality to the number of at least an hundred and fifty among whom were extremely regretted the Counts de Dreux Vendosme St. Paul and Montfort the Bishops of Beauvais and Noyon and the Illustrious Archambaud de Bourbon This is he who was the last of the Race of the Archambauds who having held during the time of seven Counts of that name Bourbon and a great part of Avergne for three hundred and eight years lost them happily for the Glory of that House by the Heiress thereof marrying into the August Race of St. Lewis there to revive again in the most glorious manner in the Descendants of that King who are raised as we see them at this day with greater Splendour than ever to one of the tallest Thrones of Christendom For the Prince John de Burgogne the second Son of Hugh the Fourth who was of this Crusade having married Agnes year 1248 the Inheretrix of Archambaud had by her only one Daughter Beatrix de Burgogne a Princess of the Blood of France by her Father and Heiress of Bourbon by her Mother Robert of France the fourth Son of St. Lewis and Count de Clermont in Beavoise married this Princess Beatrix by whom he had Lewis who took the Surname of the Inheritance of his Mother and was the first Duke of Bourbon and from him by James de Bourbon Constable of France his second Son are descended the Princes of that Royal House of which the Eldest after the Race of Valois was Extinct succeeded to the Crown of France from Henry the Great whose Grandson Lewis fourteenth the Inheritor of his admirable Vertues and the glorious Surname of The Great hath with the Crown rendred that Name the most August and the most revered of all the Earth which he hath received from so many Kings his Predecessors accounting from this St. Lewis to whom he is the Twelfth in a Lineal Succession And I cannot believe that this Digression will be disagreeable which I make of this Genealogy upon so favourable an opportunity since it falls in so naturally with the Subject of my History which I now am about again to pursue The second ill consequence which this too long stay in the Isle of Cyprus produced was the leisure which was thereby given the Sarasins who were then at War among themselves to reunite or at least to suspend their private quarrels to put themselves into a condition to oppose the Forces of the Christians And in truth when the King came to Land in the Isle of Cyprus the Sultan of Egypt who sometime before had seized upon Damasous and all the other Sultans upon his hands who were united against him for their common defence and would not treat at all of any peace as he desired unless he would first withdraw his Forces out of Syria He was himself sick at Damascus and fearing that the Christian Army should in the mean time fall into Egypt he was at last obliged at least to obtain a Truce from the Sultan of Alepo and to draw off his Army from before Emessa which he had besieged so that if St. Lewis in stead of stopping in Cyprus had gone directly to attack Egypt he had found it without any Forces capable of resisting him and might have made himself Master of it with very little difficulty Whereas during these six Months which were spent unprofitably in this Island the Sultan of Egypt had all the time and opportunity which he could desire to accommodate matters with the Sultan of Alepo and to recover of his Distemper as also to draw his Army into Egypt and there to raise new Troops and put all things into a posture to receive the Christians on the contrary the King's Army was extremely weakned by this long time of lying still and besides consumed all the great Provisions which had been made insomuch that unless the Emperor Frederick and the Venetians to whom he made applications for Provisions which the Isle could not furnish him withal and who served him with it in a manner infinitely obliging had not furnished him he had been constrained to return into France without doing any thing at all It was during his stay in this Island and towards the end of the Year that he received from Nicosia the Embassadors of one of the Tartarian Princes whose name was Ercalthay and who was then in the most Eastern Parts of Persia After they had presented their Letters of Credence which were written in the Persian Language and in Arabick Characters and translated into Latin by Father Andrew a Monk of the Order of St. Dominick who had formerly known these Ambassadors in Persia whither he had been sent by Pope Innocent they informed the King that the Great Cham of Tartary had about three Years before been baptized having been converted by the good Example and the Exhortations of the Empress his Mother the Daughter of a King of the Indians she having always been a Christian That their Master Prince Ercalthay who had also for a long time been a Christian had been sent by the Great Cham with a Potent Army against the Calife of Baldac as great an Enemy of the Christians as the Sultan of Egypt That that Sultan to afright the Sultan of Mussule or Nineveh who was also a Friend of the Christians had written to him that the King of France being come to attack Egypt had been defeated at Sea and had lost above sixty of his Ships which had been carried in Triumph into Damiata They added that their Master had not doubted but that this Defeat by the Egyptians was a pure Fiction year 1248 and that therefore
having understood that a King so renowned throughout the World was come to make War upon Egypt he had sent them to inform his Majesty that he was marching to besiege the Calife in Baldac in the beginning of the Summer and therefore requested him at the same time to attack Egypt and that the Sultan and the Calife being thereby hindered from mutually assisting the one the other they might both of them with more ease come to the ends which they had proposed All this which these Ambassadors had related and the account which they gave of the puissance of the Tartars was exactly conformable to the Letters which the Constable of Armenia who had made a Great Voyage into Tartaria had before written to the King of Cyprus so that St. Lewis received them with an incredible joy year 1249 and himself conducted them upon the Holy Days of the Nativity and Epiphany to the Divine Offices caused them to be entertained at his own Table and kept them there till the beginning of February that so he might treat with them with more deliberation After which he dispatched them loaden with Noble Presents together with Father Andrew and two other Religious of his Order two Cordeliers two Secular Ecclesiasticks and Gentlemen Attendants whom he sent Ambassadors some to the Prince Ercalthay and others to the Great Cham with most Magnificent Presents both for the one and the other There was sent to the Great Cham among other Rarities and curious Pieces of great value a most Sumptuous Tent of Scarlet in form of a Chappel where was to be seen in rich Embroidery all the Mysteries of the Life and Passion of Jesus Christ admirably represented in Silk raised with Gold there was also belonging to the Chappel sent all the necessary Ornaments and Furniture for the Celebration of the Divine Offices as also to each of them a small piece of the Wood of the Holy Cross and the King writ to them Letters full of the Spirit of Religion with which his Soul abounded in which he exhorted them to persevere in the love of God who by his Grace had been pleased to illuminate their Minds and had called them to the happy knowledge of himself The Legate also on his part did the same writing to the Mother of the Great Cham and to all the Christians of that huge Empire exhorting them to take great care to preserve themselves in the true Faith and the Unity of the Catholick Church under the Obedience of the Vicar of Jesus Christ upon Earth After this the King spent the rest of the Winter in pacifying some troubles among the Christians especially those of Syria and Palestine and in according the differences which were between the King of Armenia and the Princes of Antioch who were continually in some quarrel or other He caused also a great number of slat bottomed Boats to be built in order to the landing of his men and at last after he had assembled all his Troops who were with part of his Ships in the neighbouring Islands and had received a reinforcement from Europe of about two hundred English Gentlemen conducted by William Longsword Earl of Salisbury who were resolved to have a share in this War and after he had escaped the Treachery of certain Sarasins who were come disguised into Cyprus with intention to poyson him he imbarqued the Week before Whit sunday together with Henry King of Cyprus and set sail for Egypt But being by ill weather which separated his Fleet driven into Limisso he parted the day after the Feast from that Port and with a fair gale of Wind arrived in four days before Damiata which place he resolved to besiege Damiata of which I have formerly given the description both as to its Situation and Strength was at this time nothing so well fortified as it was when about thirty Years before it was taken by the Christians after a Siege of eighteen Months neither was it defended by such gallant men as those who sustained that long Siege and the Sultan of Egypt Melech-Salah although he was a great Soldier yet was much declined from his first Vigor being in a weak and languishing condition by reason of the great Sickness which he had had during the Winter at Damascus Nevertheless as he did expect that the King would make his first attempt against the City of Damascus which was the Key of Egypt he brought thither all the Army which came with him from Syria and so soon as the Signal was given from the Tower of Pharus that the Christian Fleet appeared he ranged his Army along the Shoar and caused his Ships and Gallies to descend to the Mouth of the Nile year 1249 so that the first object that appeared before the Eyes of the French were two great Armies one by Sea to oppose their Entry into the River the other by Land upon the Brink of the Shoar to hinder their descent from which two Armies they heard the terrible noise of their Instruments of War and the dreadful shouts of so many millions of Sarasins as made the Arched Roof of Heaven resound again the Sultan himself as ill as he was would put himself at the head of them armed completely from head to foot in his fairest Arms all of fine Gold and sparkling with precious Stones which receiving a marvellous reduplication from the shining Beams of the Sun cast such glittering Rayes as made him seem all on fire Hereupon the King held a Council with the King of Cyprus the Duke of Burgundy and William Hardoum Prince of Achaia who came from Morea John d' Ybelin Count de Jaffa who was come from Palestine and with the rest of the Princes and Great Lords They were all in the Opinion that they ought not to endeavour a descent in View of two such great Armies they having not the third part of the number of their Enemies and that they ought rather to expect the arrival of those who had been separated by the Tempest among whom there were above twelve hundred Knights who were the choice men of the Army But the King maintained the contrary opinion and made it clearly appear that if they deferred it any longer they might put themselves in evident danger of losing all in regard that they had no Port to which they might retire and secure themselves from a suddain Tempest which as it had done before might chance to overtake them and either separate them or force them ashoar upon the Enemies Coasts And that besides this delay would not only give the Enemies an increase of Courage but the time to retrench themselves with greater advantage This resolution of the King and the Power of his reasonings having dissipated the Fear which they had That they should not succeed in their attempt with so small a number it was ordered that the next morning they should move directly against the Enemies if they should again appear to dispute the descent the day following accordingly being the Friday after
Clergy singing Hymns in the praise of the great God of Armies after which the King accompanied with the Queen the King of Cyprus the Counts D' Artois and D' Anjou marched bareheaded and barefooted with a profound Humility giving all the Glory to God only he was followed in this manner by all the Princes the Lords the Officers and the whole Army which afterwards continued there all the Summer and the Autumn partly in the City and partly in the Camp which he caused to be fortified against the Sarasins who indeavoured to surprize it That which made him take this Resolution was the fear of falling into a misfortune by the inundation of the Nilus as the Christian Army under King John de Brienne had done But in regard that the River does not begin to swell till towards Mid-summer if they had marched presently towards Caire and not deferred it to an unseasonable time as they did afterwards it is almost certain that in the disorder which the Sultans Sickness and the defeat of his Army had occasioned they might have had time enough before the rising of the Nile to have taken that great City which being not at all fortified would upon its Reduction have made them Masters of all Egypt without ever drawing the Sword But it is the Misfortune which usually attends Prosperity which is apt so to Blind and unbend Mens spirits and to make them slacken their pace in the full Career of their pursuit of Glory and then to stop when they ought by acting most vigourosly to seek that safe Repose which is only to be had by going through with their great designs The Pious King was not able to oppose the Torrent of Opinions which ran so impetuously strong for their stay at Damiata under a hundred specious pretexts which were alledged for it and during this stay so fatal to their Affairs the Army not only wasted with this long idleness but pulled down upon themselves the just Vengeance of the incensed Omnipotence by all manner of dissoluteness and the most shameful and infamous Debauches into which both the Officers and Soldiers continually plunged themselves nor was it possible for St. Lewis by his utmost Efforts to prevent them either by his Reproofs and Exhortations by his orders which were ill observed of by the Punishments which he did inflict upon the Criminals in banishing many Officers of his own houshold from the Court or even by that which is ordinarily most prevalent from Kings by the admirable examples of all manner of Virtues which upon all occasions were so conspicuous in his Life and Actions At length the Count de Poitiers who had been so long expected arriving about the end of October with his Sister-in-Law the Countess D' Artois and a great and Noble Reinforcement of the choice Gentlemen of the Arrier-ban a Council was held to consider what enterprise was to be undertaken And in this matter there were two Opinions very remote and different The first was maintained by the Duke of Bretany who was of Opinion that they ought to Attack the City of Alexandria in regard that if they could take that place they should thereby become Masters of all that side of Egypt that they should be Masters of an admirable and safe Port for the Fleet to ride in that they should thereby have the great conveniency not only of receiving the Succours of Men and Provisions which they should stand in need of but also be able absolutely to hinder any from coming to the Enemies by Sea But the Count D' Artois declared himself for the second Opinion and strongly argued that as the certain way to destroy a Serpent was to crush his head so to finish the Conquest of Egypt in a little time the certain way was to march directly against Caire which was the Capital City of the Realm This advice which seemed most plausible in regard it seemed to carry more Honor in it was imbraced by all with great applause and thereupon the King gave orders for the Army to march which they did upon the twentieth of November I have shewed formerly that the Nilus entring into the lower Egypt a little below the Grand Caire which is also the ancient Memphis divides it self into four Arms which when this great River increases as it doth certainly more or less every Year from about the Feast of St. John the Baptist till towards the middle of September it also makes several other great Channels which remain dry when the Waters fall and retire within their proper shoars from whence as before was observed arises that opinion so common among Authors year 1249 who frequently talk of the seven Mouths of the Nilus The Ancient Pelusium stood upon the first of these Branches towards Palestine Damiata was situate upon the second Arm towards the left hand about a good mile from the Sea for as for the City of that Name at this time it stands above two Leagues further up the River and upon the other side there is also a little City called Massora on the other side the River in the Land of Goshen upon the Road that leads to Caire in the place where this second Arm divides it self from the first And this is the true situation of these places as appears evidently by the Consequences of this History and that which hath occasioned so much trouble in these matters is the confounding of these Names whilst they give to the first of the Arms of the Nilus that of Rexi or Rossette which at present is the Name of the Fourth and was anciently called Canonique upon which Alexandria stands as the second upon which Damiata was situate was called the Tanitique It was near the Angle which the parting of these two Armes of the Nilus formed near Massora that the Sarasins were incamped with all their Forces commanded by the Emir Secedun Faroardin the most renowned and bravest of their Captains to whom the Sultan Melech-Salah who was almost ready to breath his last had intrusted the Government of all his Dominions and the Conduct of his Army against the Christians in expectation of the return of his Son Almoadam whom he had sent into Syria to raise new Troops The Kings Army which had received a reinforcement of the Troops of the King of Cyprus those of the Prince of Achaia of all the Forces of the Templers and Hospitallers together with those brought by the Patriarch and the Arrierban of France which the Count of Poitiers had happily conducted to Damiata consisted in sixty thousand Men whereof there were twenty thousand Horse these were as many as were sufficient to have conquered the Realm of Egypt if they had been as well disciplined and as obedient to the Orders of the King as they were brave and resolute But every one was for acting according to his own Opinion and St. Lewis who together with his Devotion had as much Courage and Resolution as was capable of making him like a Hero desire
the one side and the other but especially of the Sarasins who left among the Slain with which the whole Field was covered the Valiant Fracardin their General and divers of their Admirals who were surprized and slain in the Camp The King with those few Men who escaped this bloody Day lodged himself near the Machins which had been taken and which the brave Gaucher de Chastillon to whom the King gave the Guard of them preserved notwithstanding all the Attempts which the Sarasins who were posted close by vainly made under the savour of the darkness to recover them The two following Days were imployed in fortifying the Camp and passing over the greatest part of the Troops which were in the Duke of Burgundy's Camp on the other side the River and certainly this diligence was no more than necessary for the King was advertised by his Spies upon the Thursday in the evening that he who succeeded Fracardin was resolved to attack the Camp the next morning with their whole Army which had received a great reinforcement from Grand Caire For this new General whom the Sarasins had chosen for his extraordinary Valour and admirable Conduct having caused to be carried round the Camp upon the top of a Lance the Coat of Arms of the Count d' Artois which was richly Embroidered with his Arms the Flowers de Lys Or caused it to be Proclaimed that it was the King himself who was slain and that the Christian Army being in the utmost Consternation after the loss of their King and so many gallant Men as were slain in the Battle they ought to Attack them instantly in those feeble retrenchments without giving them leisure to recover or to save themselves The Sarasins who believed that they were to be led to a certain Victory and to the Booty rather than the Combate by their great shouts of Joy witnessed that they were ready to march against the Enemy and accordingly it was resolved that they should go the next Morning to attack the Christians in their Camp The King who had received this advice made very good use of it for having disposed all things during the Night for the receiving the Enemy he caused the Army to disloge about break of Day and divided it into eight Bodies year 1250 which he placed in Battalia before the Retrenchments which lay all along the bank of the River the Army was drawn up all upon one line that so they might possess the whole length of the Camp and make head against the Enemies in all places if they should attack them on all sides at once as by reason of their infinite multitude it might very well be imagined they would The Count d' Anjou who commanded the first Body was upon the Right hand above the River towards Caire and had a this left Guy d' Ibelin the Constable and Baldwin his Brother High Steward of Cyprus who lead the Auxiliaries of that Kingdom The Valiant Gaucher de Chastillon followed with the third Body composed of the brave Nobility and Gentry of France William Sonnac Great Master of the Temple made the fourth with the little remainder of his Knights Gui de Malvoisin one of the stoutest Knights of the Army led the fifth The Earl of Flanders was with his Body posted in the place where the Retrenchments turned towards the River to secure the Camp on that side Joinville Seneschal of Champagne was upon his left drawing down to the River and the Count de Poitiers who was next him appeared alone upon Horseback at the head of a great Battalion which made the last of the Bodies to whom Josserand de Brianson who came along with him joyned himself with twenty of his Knights who fought that Day on Foot so that the two Princes the Brothers of the King had the two Wings of the Army The General of the Sarasins who observed it and who was a great Captain ranged his Men also according to the order of the Kings Army and extended himself upon two great lines which answered to the length of the Retrenchments He placed all his old Souldiers upon the first dividing them into so many Battalions which were sustained by his best Horse which were drawn up in a separate Body before the Army All his Battalions were incomparably stronger than the Christians and he strengthened them more or less according as he observed the opposite Battalions which they were to encounter were Stronger or Weaker For as for Cavalry the French had but a few the greatest part of the Horses having been either killed or wounded in the last ingagement Upon the second Line he ranged an infinite number of new Troops which were come to him from Caire and all the upper Egypt The Armies stood thus facing one another till about Noon when the Sarasins began to move from all p arts and with dreadful shouts mingled with the sound of an infinite number of Drums Trumpets and Cornets they charged upon all the French Battalions all together with so much Fury that those who had for a long time been acquainted with the Wars in the East assure us that they had never seen the like in all the Battles wherein they had fought against the Sarasins For at the same time that some of them discharged their Darts and Arrows in infinite Numbers to disorder the Christians the first Ranks of their Infantry running in to them threw from their long Brasen Pipes their dreadful Wild-fire among them to break their Ranks and at the same time the Cavalry which followed them indeavoured to enter by the breaches which the Fire had made and to hinder the Souldiers while they were buisy to secure themselves from the Wild-fire from closing their ranks and getting into order again The Battalion of the Count d' Anjou which received the first charge from the left Wing of the Enemies and was at first so disordered that the Souldiers not being able to rally again presently that Prince was in great danger either to be slain or taken by the Sarasins The King who was in the middle of his Troops to give the necessary orders for all things being advertised of the extreme danger of his Brother did an Action which it will be very difficult to find one to equal it even among the most boasted Actions of the so much celebrated Heroes of Antiquity For he had no sooner received the News but without deliberating one Moment and without staying to give out his Orders or even so much as commanding any to follow him he ran to his relief and spurring his Horse at full speed towards the Battalion of the Count breaking throw the Crowd he threw himself with his Sword in his hand like Lighting into the middle of the Sarasins who were carrying off the Count wounding overturning and trampling under his Horses feet what ever opposed his passage laying about him on both sides upon the Insidels with his terrible Sword year 1250 whose furious blows made Heads and Arms fly off at
all parties according to the agreement the King surrendred Damiata upon the Friday after Ascension-Day and was at the same time set at Liberty himself with all the Prisoners so far as that the four Gallies fell down the River to the Bridge of Damiata into which place Geoffrey de Sergines entred early in the Morning year 1250 to deliver it into the hands of the Sarasins after he had drawn out all the French together with the Queen who after the Imprisonment of the King had been reduced to great extremities For so soon as she received the sad news she fell into such an excessive grief that believing she was upon the point of falling into the hands of the Sarasins she threw her self upon her knees before a Knight of fourscore years of Age who never forsook her and obliged him to promise her with an Oath to grant her one request which she desired him to do for her and this was that if the Sarasins took the City he would cut off her head the Old Knight promised her he would adding with great frankness that before she had done him the Honor to desire it of him he had already resolved to do it thereby to put her into a place of security and out of the Power of those Barbarians The Extremity and Violence of her grief brought her also into her Travail three Days before her time and she was delivered of a Son to whom they gave a Surname drawn from her Affliction calling him Tristan as being in truth the true Son of her Sorrow And upon the same Day understanding that the Pisans the Genoese and all the rest of the People were resolved to abandon the place fearing the Siege and Famine she prevailed so far upon them with her Prayers and Tears that they were contented to stay she promising to furnish them with Provisions at her own Charges which she did at the Expence of above three hundred thousand Livres At length the Queen the Legate the Bishops and the Duke of Burgundy who retired thither in a good hour together with all the Garrison which was Commanded by Oliver de Termes imbarqued upon the Ships which expected them below the Bridge and steered away directly for Acre according to the Order of the King and the Sarasins entred into Damiata where presently making themselves Drunk with the Wines they found there they most brutishly slew all the Sick and fired the Machins which according to the Treaty they were to surrender But the Admirals did far worse for instead of delivering the King and the Prisoners so soon as Damiata was put into their Possession they put it under deliberation Whether they should not rather cut all their throats and one among them maintained that having committed so great a Crime against the Law of Mahomet as they had done in killing their Sultan they should yet commit a greater as he shewed them out of one of their Books if they should suffer the greatest Enemy of their Law to escape with his Life out of their hands And the matter went so far that the four Gallies rowed up the River till they came within a League of Caire insomuch that all the Prisoners except the King whom they Guarded in his Pavilion upon the Bank of the River had now lost all manner of hopes of Life or Liberty But at last the better Opinion prevailed and there were some among them who urged vigorously that if after having slain their Sultan they should again imbrue their hands in the Blood of one of the greatest Kings in the World after having given their Faith to him by such a Solemn Treaty they should pass through the whole Earth for the most infamous and the most abominable of all Mankind but to speak truth I am rather of an Opinion that the eight hundred thousand Bysances which they would have lost by committing such a horrible Crime without any manner of advantage was the weight which turned the Scale and was the strongest reason to perswade them for this time at least to be honest and to keep their Word and their Oath And this informs us that interest is the best Guarranty of any Treaty being the thing which hath more Power over most People to oblige them to stand to their agreements than all the Oaths and all the Hands and Seals which they can give Thus then after two and thirty Days Captivity the King all the Princes and the Lords of France and Cyprus and of the Realm of Jerusalem with the poor remainder of Soldiers which there was left after such a terrible defeat wherein there were lost near thirty thousand Men were set at Liberty the Count de Poitiers only excepted who was kept at Damiata for the security of the first Payment and the same Evening the King was Conducted by twenty thousand Sarasins who to do him Honor Marched on Foot to a large Genoese Gally which attended him below the Bridge and upon which he imbarqued with his Brother Charles year 1250 Count d' Anjou Alberic Marshal of France the Lord de Joinville Philip de Nemours who sold the Town of that name to the King the brave Geoffrey de Sergines and Nicholas General of the Order of the Trinity or the Mathurins The others went aboard the Vessels which were prepared for them and the next Day the Counts of Flanders Bretany and Soissons accompanied with divers Great Lords took their leave of the King and set Sail for France where they all happily arrived except Peter de Dreux Duke of Bretany who being very much indisposed when he took Ship died upon the Sea three Weeks after His Body was carried by his Knights into Bretany where he reposeth in the Nunnery of Villeneuve near Nantes and although the War which he made with St. Lewis in the beginning of his Reign and which thrive so ill that he only got by it the shameful name of Illclerk will be a blemish to him in History yet his Zeal and Courage which he made so highly conspicuous in his two Voyages to the Holy War have so effaced that blot by the Blood which he therein shed for the interest of Jesus Christ and by the happy Death which he found in that service that one may lawfully give him a place among the Hero's of the Crusade The King stayed yet two Days the Saturday and the Sunday after Ascension upon the River in his Gally in expectation of the finishing of the first payment that so the Count de Poitiers might be set at Liberty and understanding in the Evening of the Sunday that there wanted thirty thousand Livres to make up the two hundred thousand and that the Templers who had store of Money aboard their Gallies refused to lend him so much under pretext that by their Rule they were under an Oath to part with nothing of their Revenue but to their Great Master the devout King made them know upon this occasion that he was their first and their greatest Master
greatest number of the French who concluded That he ought with all convenient Expedition to return into France First to give the necessary Orders for the Affairs of his Realm which stood in great necessity of his presence Secondly in regard that having but a very few Knights and Souldiers and who having nothing to subsist upon nor being Master so much as of any one place in the Realm of Jerusalem he could not remain there either with safety Honour or Advantage to himself or the Affairs of the Christians in the East And that he might serve them much more effectually if after having been sometime in France to raise Money and Levy new Troops he should have a desire to return into Egypt to take Vengeance upon these perfidious Enemies of God who had so barbarously violated their Faith and Treaty But all the Knights of the Temple and the Hospital the Patriarch the Prelates and all the Lords of Palestine Cyprus and Syria and even divers of the French Lords among which was the High Steward of Champagne the brave Lord Joinville declared themselves of the contrary opinion and strongly urged That the Honour of the King and welfare of all Christendom in the East obliged him to stay some time longer in the Holy Land That it would be most shameful to abandon so many brave Men as had so faithfully served him in Egypt and also to expose them to the fury of their Enemies who would find them after his retreat much weaker than they were at his coming thither That it was most certain that in the condition wherein things were the Christians of Palestine would not stay there year 1250 but so soon as they should see the King depart they would also abandon the Country and retire to Places of safety and therefore his suddain Retreat must of necessity occasion the loss of all the Realm of Jerusalem for the Conquest whereof the Christians of Europe and especially those of France had spent so much of their Blood and undertaken so many Crusades and that so many thousands of poor Captives who sighed in the Prisons of Caire whereof many were the Relations the Allies or the Friends of those who were in the opinion for the King's return would be reduced to the utmost dispair having once lost all hope of even a possibility of their deliverance since the Infidels would have nothing either to hope or fear from the Christians after having once chased them out of Palestine And in conclusion they added That the stay of the King in the Holy Land for some time longer would without doubt produce the quite contrary Effects to all these Misfortunes which would infallibly be consequent upon his return That it was well known that the King notwithstanding all his losses sustained in Egypt was in a condition to repair one part of them and to strike a terror into his Enemies in regard that all the Money which he had yet expended he had drawn out of the Purses of his Receivers who had gained it unjustly from him That he had still his whole Treasure intire with which he might raise store of good Troops and that so soon as it was known that he would pay well he could not want Souldiers but that men at Arms and Knights would resort to him from all places with which he might serve himself upon the present occasion to very good purpose there being in reality so great a Division among the Infidels that the Sultan of Alepo the most potent of the Sarasins of Syria made War against those of Egypt That he had already taken Damascus from them And that he was resolved in Person to lead his Army into Egypt to revenge the Death of the Sultan his Cousin whom those infamous Mamalukes had so barbarously murdered That the least advantage which the King could draw from this War would be to oblige these perfidious Wretches by the fear which they would have lest he should joyn with their Enemy to set all the Prisoners at liberty That however hereby he would hinder the Infidels from invading the Lands of the Christians And that in the mean time he might fortifie the places which were demolished and thereby leave the Country in a Condition to defend it self whensoever at last he should be obliged to return and leave the Holy Land After he had patiently heard all these Reasons the King took eight days more to consider of what Resolution he ought to make after which having again caused his Lords to be assembled and imploring before them the Light and the Grace of God's Holy Spirit he spoke to them in these Terms That he gave all of them hearty thanks for the Counsel which they had on both parts given him That if any worldly consideration could oblige him to return into France most assuredly it was the Interest of his Realm to which he owed his Principal Applications and his greatest Care But in regard that he was sufficiently satisfied that France had nothing to fear so long as it was under the wise Government of the Queen his Mother who had Forces Courage and Conduct enough to defend it against all those who should in his absence have any designs against it he was resolved not to abandon the Interests of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in Syria but that he would stay there some time longer to put them into a posture of safety That nevertheless he left all Persons who had a desire to it at liberty to return if they so pleased but withal he promised also on the other side to all those who were resolved to run his Fortune that he would make their choice so advantageous that they should have sufficient reason to be satisfied with it This Discourse of the King moved the whole Assembly though with very different Sentiments in some it excited tenderness and Devotion so that they devoted themselves most heartily with this amiable Prince to the Service of Jesus Christ in others it occasioned Grief and Sadness by understanding the King's Resolution which was so unexpected to them and by seeing that their honour obliged them against their Inclinations still to remain in Palestine But hereupon St. Lewis did not fail presently to give out Commissions and Money for making of Levies however for the satisfaction of the Queen his Mother he sent home the two Princes his Brothers into France whither he writ to all the orders of the Realm that admirable Letter by which after he had given them a full account of all the transactions which till then had happened he exhorted them by all the considerations both Divine and Humane year 1250 to come and share with him in the Glory which was to be acquired by generously sacrificing their Lives and Fortunes to the Service of Jesus Christ Whilest these things were doing the King who made his preparations with so much diligence received the Ambassadors which came to him from Europe and from Asia Pope Innocent sent to give him consolation by
themselves between the two Parties On the other side the Sultan Melech Sais retook the Fortress of Margath and made himself Master of the Castle of Laodicea and that of Crac which was one of the strongest places in Syria year 1287 and as at last he was preparing to lay Siege to Tripolis he abandon'd all upon the news which he had of the Death of his Son and returned into Egypt where Elsis one of his Emirs who was mightily esteemed by the Mamalukes tumbled him from the Throne and was chosen Sultan in his place by the name of Melech-Messor This Sultan who was a great Souldier re-entred presently into Syria where he besieged Tripolis year 1288 and at last took it by Assault Seven thousand Christians were there Slain year 1289 and the rest saved themselves by Sea partly in Cyprus and partly in Ptolemais The Sultan who was as able and dexterous as he was Valiant caused this great City to be demolished that so he might not be forced to keep a whole Army in Garrison there and after having taken several places thereabout he made a very advantageous Truce for two Years thereby to frustrate the Design of the Forces which he foresaw would be sent out of Europe against him And indeed a very considerable assistance which the Pope sent at his own charges into the East upon twenty Venetian Gallies arriving not till after the conclusion of this Truce was constrained to return without doing any thing It happened also that an infinite conflux of People of all Nations without Order and without Leaders coming to Ptolemais and finding no imploy committed so many disorders indifferently upon the Lands of the Christians and the Sarasins that the Sultan who only wanted an occasion to break the Truce to his advantage laid hold of that which he believed very favourable to execute the design which he had upon Ptolemais whilest the Christian Princes whom he knew to be ingaged in Wars one against another in Europe had neither Power nor Will to assist it year 1290 For this purpose as he had always a powerful Army on Foot he entred suddainly in the Month of October in the year following and advanced towards Phoenicia and then when he was upon the point of going to invest Ptolemais the Emir whom he had made his Lieutenant thinking by the favour of the Souldiers to obtain his place gave him Poison whereof he died But this did not prevent the Execution of the Design For the Mamalukes who loved Melech-Messor extremely pull'd the Traitor who had poisoned him in a thousand pieces upon the spot and Proclaimed his Son Ely Sultan by the name of Melech-Seraph This new Prince resolved to pursue the design of his Father who at his Death conjured him not to suffer his Body to be Interred before he had taken the City and driven out the Christians And for this purpose therefore without giving them leisure to make any advantage of this so sudden and great change turning short to the left hand towards the Sea he came and laid Siege before Acre or Ptolemais upon the fifth of April year 1291 in the year one thousand two hundred ninety one with an Army of one hundred and sixty thousand Foot and threescore thousand Horse Ptolemais of whose Situation and Strength I have given an account in the fifth Book of this History was at this time one of the fairest richest and most flourishing Cities of all the East by reason of the great Commerce of all the Merchandises which were brought thither from Egypt and Asia by Land and Sea to be from thence transported into Europe And as it was become the Capital City of the Realm since the taking of Jerusalem and the Sanctuary where all the Christians of Palestine took Refuge after the loss of their Cities so it was also then more Populous than ever it had been and such great Industry had been used in these late times in fortifying it that it was thought to be impregnable above all having at least thirty thousand Men well Armed to defend it besides eighteen thousand Crusades who were arrived there a little before without a Commander But this unfortunate City had within its Walls two kinds of Enemies infinitely more formidable than all the Forces of the Sarasins and which were the cause of its being lost year 1291 The first was the division which occasioned most fearful Disorders in regard that besides that there were two Factions which held one of them for the King of Cyprus and the other for the King of Sicily the Venetians the Genoese the Pisans the Florentines the English the Templers the Hospitallers the Teutonick Knights the Princes of the Country and even the Patriarch and the Legate of the Pope would every one so divide the Government as to be independent upon all others so that it might be said that there were in Ptolemais so many different Cities as there were quarters possessed by these Orders and different People who were not only without a Head whose Supreme Authority and Orders they should all obey but who were for the most part in Arms one against another And that which was yet more deplorable and which doubtless was the principal cause of the Desolation of this unfortunate City was that the Corruption of manners was so great and the irregularities of Peoples Lives or rather the inundation of all manner of Crimes and even of the most Infamous and Scandalous Vices were so excessive and horrible that the Divine Justice was even necessitated to exterminate such an abominable Race of Men who calling themselves Christians by their Actions so Wicked and Impious Blasphemed that and his Sacred Name among the Infidels So that one may say as one of the Authors of that time does who was a long time in the Holy Land and averrs it for a deplorable Truth That of all the People which inhabited Syria and Palestine the Christians were the most notoriously lewd and wicked The Sultan who had such a numerous Army and composed of expert Souldiers and above all his Mamalukes who were extreme brave attacked the City upon the Land side by main Force battering the Walls and the Towers Night and Day making abundance of Mines every where and sapping the Foundations of the Towers particularly those of the Tower called Judasses or the Cursed Tower which was as it were the Fortress of the City The besiged also at first defended themselves vigorously being in continual hopes of relief by the way of the Sea which they had open and being united for their better defence under one Chief whom by common consent they chose among all the Captains which was William Beaujeu Great Master of the Temple a most Valiant Man and perfectly skilful in Martial Affairs But there arrived to their assistance only five hundred Foot and two hundred Horse who were conducted by the King of Cyprus And the Great Master of the Temple being unfortunately slain with a poisoned Arrow they lost their Courage
that Port and Majesty of a King which he wore and which made him be known for one by such as had the honour to see him the Shape of his Face and the Turn of all his Lincaments were very handsom his Eyes indifferent large and full extream sweet and sparkling with a Fire that wanted nothing in it of Attractive his Hair was inclining to Fair of a lively Colour well assuring the Beholders of the strength of his Robust Constitution his Cheeks plump year 1148 and tinctured with Vermilion and in short having in his Composure all that was delicate and lovely in Queen Melesintha his Mother and the Vivacity of Baldwin the Second his Grandfather whom he much resembled And to make the Harmony compleat he had a Soul proportionable to his Body for his Mind was quick easie ready and penetrating which had been cultivated by the Study of all manner of gentile and ingenuous Learning and which was of wonderful Advantage to him he had a most happy Memory and a marvellous Facility in expressing himself eloquently upon the suddain concerning any kind of Subject of Discourse he was naturally of one of the best Tempers in the World of a heart truly Royal being liberal magnisicent affable obliging complaisant of a good Humour and one who understood innocent and divertive Rallery and how to use it without losing his Friend rather than his Wit for he was rather naturally sober vigilant and provident brave and undaunted in War exposing himself freely to Dangers and suffering equally with the meanest Soldier And to conclude all his greatest Accomplishment was that he was above all a most devout and religious Prince having among all these Perfections that could be wished in a great King as few Failings as most common Men being a little inclined by his Heat to love Play and the Conversation of the Ladies but if he erred in any thing in this last Particular he corrected it afterward by a lawful Marriage Baldwin being such as I have endeavoured to describe him full of Courage and Martial Fire ambitious of Glory in valiantly fighting in view of an Emperor and a King of France who were followed by the bravest Men of the West marched briskly to attack these Gardens which like a Labyrinth seemed to render the Town inaccessible on that Quarter but he found that the Enterprise was not so easie as he had painted it in his conquering Imagination and that the Honour which he pretended to gain was like to prove a very dear Purchace For the Turks who well knew that their Safety depended upon the Preservation of this Post had placed the greatest part of their Garrison there to defend it Some of them were retrenched and barricadoed in the Narrow Ways where not above two could pass a-breast where they repulsed those who assisted them with Push of Pike Others having broken small Holes in the Walls which parted the Gardens pierced with their Javelins from both sides such Soldiers as were in the Passages who could not come to be revenged of those Enemies who wounded them without appearing A great number of others were mounted upon the Turrets and the Tops of the Houses from whence they poured an insinite number of mortal Arrows from above upon the Christians who were below whilst others threw down huge Stones upon those who were wedged in those narrow Passages and could no ways secure themselves from that fearful Hail So that the Soldiers being neither able to advance nor retreat by reason of the multitude of those who pressed forward in following them and that they were stopped by the Retrenchments perished miserably without being able to come at the Enemy who attacked them under their Covertures without partaking at all in the danger of the Combat The young King fretting with Anger and Madness to see his first Attempt succeed so ill resolved to repair the Loss or to perish and therefore commanded to change the Order of the Attack and to turn the Fight from Filing two and two a breast in those narrow Ways to the attempting to make Breaches into these Inclosures through the Walls Now these Walls being but low and made of Earth the ardent desire of the Soldiers to be revenged re-doubled their Strength so that they fell to pulling down the Walls with their Ponyards and other Instruments which were brought for that Service and in a little time they had made a great many Breaches by which they furiously entred into these Gardens The Turks who had for their own Security and to keep out the Christians shut themselves close up in these Gardens being closely pursued had so cut off their own Retreat that in a little time there was made a mighty Slaughter among them Whereupon the others who were yet in the other Gardens that were not taken having taken the Fright as well as those who guarded the Barricades abandoned them and saved themselves within the Town The Ways being thus cleared year 1148 all the Van-Guard passed without any Opposition and advanced almost to the City where they were necessitated to a new Combat far more furious than the first For all the Cavalry of the Enemies supported by the best part of their Infantry suspecting that the Christians after they had carried the Gardens would run in disorder to the River had placed themselves in Battalia upon the Banks of it to prohibit their Approaches The young King who was resolved to have all the Honour of this Day making use of the Heat of his Soldiers who all covered with Sweat and Dust and burnt with Heat and Thirst longed for the Water of the River having instantly rallied them he charged fiercely into the thickest Squadrons of the Enemies But they being all fresh whereas his People were faint and quite tired out do what he could after he had made two furious Charges he was repulsed and his Troops put into some Disorder There was a necessity that he must stop a little to rally his Men and to attend the coming up of the Main Body which followed slowly and was also obliged to make a little Halt after it had joyned him for Convenience of drawing up into Order It was upon this Occasion that the Emperor Conrade performed an Action which though certainly something too rash and a little irregular yet ought to have given him sufficient Consolation for all his former ill Fortune in this second Crusade For having demanded why these two Bodies which marched before his halted so long since he understood that the Van-Guard was engaged with the Enemy who had gained some Advantage upon them he suffered himself to be so transported with the desire of the Combat that running at full Speed followed by all his Germans quite through the Body of the Battel without any Order he flew with his Sword in his hand into the midst of the Enemies who unable to resist the Shock of such a furious and unexpected Charge instantly gave Ground It is said also that he gave such
another dreadful Blow as that of the great Godfrey of Bullen which finished the Victory already inclining upon his first Charge for a puissant Turk armed with a Curiass having attacked him he discharged with all his force such a furious Blow upon the place where the Shoulder joyns to the Neck that the Sword passing through the Neck to the right Shoulder took that and part of the Breast clear off the Head and that Arm and Shoulder falling to the Ground whilst the other remained a Spectacle of Horrour for some time upon the Horse The Turks amazed at this frightful Blow immediately fled and saved themselves in the Town leaving all the Fields and the Rivers free to the Christians who immediately encamped upon the Banks and in the Gardens with mighty convenience both for the Men and Horses This Victory brought such a Despair among the Turks and the Inhabitants of Damascus that knowing well that they were in danger of losing the place upon the first Assault which should be given there being on that side no other Defence beside the Gardens which were now lost they began to think of nothing but how to save themselves by retreating For this purpose they barricadoed all the Streets which opened that way to the end that while their Enemies were busie in breaking the Barricadoes and removing the great Beams which they had laid cross the Streets they might have the more time to save themselves and their Families by the opposite Gates and so retreat with more Security to such neighbouring Towns as were in the Hands of their Friends Thus had Damascus most assuredly fallen into the Power of the Christians if Covetousness Hatred and Envy three furious Passions which at this time wrought more deplorable Effects than the Arms of the Infidels had not suddainly precipitated their Affairs by a most infamous Treason from a certain Hope and a flourishing Condition into the very Gulph of Misfortune and Confusion from whence they were never able to recover again Those of Damascus seeing themselves thus just upon the Eve of their Ruin after they had barricadoed the Streets they advised themselves again of another Means to save themselves which did not fail of the wished Effect After that the French had conquered the Holy Land many Persons of both Sexes not only of the Common People but also of the Nobility were married in Palestine and Syria with the Ladies of that Country and many of the great Lords who were in Baldwin's Army were such as were born of those Marriages and consequently Syrians by Birth year 1148 and by Original either by Father or Mother And as these kind of Mungrels usually degenerate from the fair Qualities of the more noble Nations and participate of the Imperfections of the other so many of these half French half Syrian Lords retained the Vices of the Country and particularly Greediness of Riches and Avarice which to this day is the domineering Vice and Passion of the Orientals The Turks and principal Men of the City who being of the same Country very well knew their Feeble secretly sent some of the most dexterous and cunning of their Citizens to these Motley Lords and Barons whom they knew to be of the most covetous Dispositions and consequently most capable of being brought into Treason To these they gave all imaginable Assurances that they could desire that they should have certain Payment made of most considerable Sums of Money provided they could induce the Besiegers only to change their Attack and remove the Siege to the other side of the City Now he to whom they principally trusted the Management of this Affair found amongst those to whom he addressed himself Inclinations favourable as he could desire to entertain his Propositions Prince Raymond who mortally hated King Lewis the Seventh after the Affair of Antioch had as it is said beforehand corrupted some of his People and obliged them underhand to do all that possibly they could against him that so he might not acquire any Glory from this War There were others who could not with Patience think of permitting the Earl of Flanders as they understood it was concluded between the Emperor and the two Kings to enjoy the Principality of Damascus and they had rather that it should continue in the Possession of the Turks than fall to the share of a Man whom they looked upon as a Stranger in regard he was not born in Syria Thus the Envy of some and the Hatred which Raymond had inspired into others being joyned with the Avarice which reigned equally in both the one and the other produced the most infamous and most cowardly Treason that it was possible for Lords of great Quality not to say Christians to be capable of For counterfeiting a marvellous Zeal for the publick Good they remonstrated to the Council That hitherto they had taken very false Measures That they had too long permitted themselves to be deceived with vain Appearances of a commodious Encampment upon the Banks of the River among the Gardens and Orchards not considering that this was the main Obstacle which had hitherto hindred the Taking of the City for that the River one part whereof served for the Ditch upon that Quarter rendred the Access more difficult and the Attack most dangerous That the Gardens hindred the disposing of the Machins to such convenient Distances as were requisite for the Battery and that the Siege being spun out to a greater length than had been promised to the Soldiers there was great danger that being disgusted and the great Heats beginning now to become insupportable they would quit the Siege That for this Reason they were in the Opinion that they ought to remove the Camp to the other side of the City between the South and East in regard that there being no Gardens nor Rivers nor Ditches full of Water which could hinder them from descending to the very Foot of the Walls which were low weak and without Terrasses on that side and where the Besieged having not expected to be attacked had made no Retrenohments there was all the Appearance imaginable that they should carry the Town at the first Assault without so much as making use of any Engines against it There is a great deal of Room for Wonder and Astonishment to consider the Conduct of these three great Frinces upon this Occasion who at other times wanted neither Spirit nor Judgment nor Experience in Martial Affairs in which it commonly happens That no Man fails twice the first Fault that is committed being for the most part irreparable But whether it was the Eagerness of their Desire to become Masters of the Town in a little time which blinded them or that they believed that it was impossible to act more prudently or more safely than by the Counsels of those who who had the greatest Interest in the Taking of the Place and who being Natives of the Country must needs be much better acquainted than any others with the Strength or
it upon second Thoughts never to perform Philip having after this Manner gained the Consent of Alexis instantly dispatched the Ambassadors of the Princes together with his own and those of his Brother-in-Law Alexis who arrived at Zara about the middle of December The Doge presently gave them Audience in his Palace at Zara where all the Princes and great Lords of the Crusade being assembled the principal of the Ambassage who had order to omit nothing that might oblige the Republick and the Princes to conclude the Treaty according to his Instructions addressed his Discourse to that august Assembly to this Effect My Lords if you see appear in our Faces more Assurance and more Joy than may seem becoming poor and miserable dispoiled Persons who come to implore your Assistance it is to be attributed to our Hopes for besides the Knowledge which we have of the Generosity of so many illustrious Princes and great Personages as compose this August Assembly we have Commission to assure you that we do not present our selves before you with the least intention to retard your glorious Enterprise for the Conquest of the Holy Land but to present you with a Way most Safe Easy and absolutely Necessary not only happily from this Moment to begin it but in consequence most certainly to atchieve it with all the Glory and Advantage which you can hope or desire For the Subject of our Ambassy is to request that those Arms which you design to carry into Egypt and by that Way to enter into Palestine may be employed to render you Masters of Constantinople by placing there the true Heir the Prince Alexis and by overturning the Imperial Throne of the Vsurper who hath seized upon it by the most perfidious Cowardice and the most detestable Treason that ever was See my Lords the shortest and most infallible Way of Conquering the Holy Land and without which it will be always impossible You know generous French nor is it unknown to all Germany what happened to the late King Lewis and to the Emperor Conrade for want of assuring themselves of Constantinople before they passed any further as they were advised by a most able Politician This very Oversight was the cause of the loss of two such flourishing Armies as might with ease have triumphed over all the East if they had been Masters of that great City which is the very Key of Europe and Asia without which one cannot but with extreme Difficulty and a thousand Dangers receive either by Sea or Land those Assistances which are absolutely necessary for the Maintenance of an Army either in Egypt or Syria Nor is it probable that you can repose any sort of Confidence in that perfidious Man who is now Master of it for how can he be trusted who hath so basely betrayed his own Brother who hath banished all the Latins who hath so barbarously affronted the Emperor Philip and Philip King of France both the Allies of these two poor Princes year 1202 whom this wicked Tyrant and Vsurper hath despoiled of their Dominions This Tyrant Barharous and Cruel as he is yet will neither have the Courage nor the Power to resist your invincible Arms which are supported by the Justice of the Cause nor is there any thing so fearful and so basely Mean and Cowardly as a perfidious guilty Tyrant the terrible Images of whose Crimes continually pursue him with the dreadful Fear of Vengeance and render him the most Jealous Vneasy and Fearful of Mankind And so soon as the Prince Alexis shall be seen at the Head of this flourishing Army of French and Venetians at whose very Names the usurping Tyrant will grow pale and tremble all Greece which groans under the load of his servitude will declare themselves for this amiable Prince whom they adore and the Tyrant who is in Execration with the whole World believing that he is Surrounded with so many Enemies armed for his Destruction as there are Men in Constantinople will indeavour by an early Flight to save himself and leave you an easy Conquest over a City willing to be Overcome And for the Advantages which you shall draw from a Conquest so Easy and so Glorious besides what I have already said that it appears of absolute Necessity for the happy Accomplishing of the Holy War it is convenient to let you understand that you are to expect not only Words but real Performances not altogether Contemptible For this Purpose I am to inform you my noble Lords that the Prince Offors and we have ample and full Power to treat with you upon these Conditions First That so soon as he shall be Re-established in the imperial Throne of Constantinople he will pay you two hundred thousand Marks in Silver to be divided between the Confederates for the Charges of the War and to make Provision for the Army Secondly That he will accompany you in Person with an Army to the Conquest of Egypt or if it shall please you better that he shall send along with you ten thousand choise Men and maintain them at his own Charge there for one Year and further that he will during his Life maintain five hundred Knights well Armed for the Preservation of the Conquests which shall be made in the Holy Land And lastly which ought doubtless to be the most powerful Argument of any which I have hitherto used he promises and engages inviolably upon his Faith that if it shall please God by your Assistance to raise him to his Throne that he will reduce his whole Empire under the Obeisance of the Roman Church from which it hath been so long time separated by the Heresie and Schism After this my Lords Judge if the Means which we propose to you for the Execution of your Enterprise of the Holy War is not more Safe more Easy and most Advantageous to you and to the whole Church and in short the Thing of the World most capable to acquire for you Immortal Fame on Eurth and Glory in Heaven This Discourse which seemed so reasonable and persuasive was very diversly received by that Assembly who resolved to take some time to deliberate upon such sair Propositions In truth the Venetians and the greatest Party of the French who besides the Interest of the publick and the common Cause of Christianity found also therein their own made not the least doubt but that the Propositions ought to be accepted but those who had before used their utmost Efforts to hinder the Seige of Zara opposed them with abundance of Heat and above all the rest the Abbot du Val de Sernay who was constantly in the Head of the discontented Party made a mighty Noise with his Monks protesting against this Diversion and urging that they could not with a safe Conscience turn those Arms against Christians which they had taken up for a Holy War against the Infidels for the Deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre On the contrary the Abbot de Los of the same Order a Man of
great Estate and Interest who came along with the Marquis de Montferrat together with several other Abbots of his Party did what was possible to confute all the Reasons of the Abbot du Val de Sernay and endeavoured to persuade the whole Army that the only Means to make the Enterprise upon the Holy Land succeed was this of Constantinople and to close with the Conditions proposed by Alexis and the Ambassadors Whereupon before any thing was concluded the Cardinal of Capua one of the Legates at the Request of the Princes and the Confederates went immediately to consult the Pope who put the Matter under the Deliberation of the Sacred College at the same time when by an odd Adventure the Ambassadors of the Usurper Alexis Comnenius who came to justifie the Proceedings of their Master arrived at Rome year 1202 The Pope presently gave them Audience and they according to their Instructions and the Emperor's Letters remonstrated to him That Isaac having been lawfully deposed for his apparent Insufficiency the Empire could not by Right of Succession appertain to the young Alexis by reason that he was born before his Father was Emperor and that therefore of consequence it must necessarily belong to his Unkle Alexis Comnenius who was legally chosen Emperor That he therefore made it his Request to the Pope that he would not favour his Nephew who was supported in his unjust Pretences by Philip Duke of Suabia the declared Enemy of the Holy See as his Father and Grandfather had been who had raised so many Wars against the Popes his Predecessors And further they desired that he would prohibit the Crusades from going to attack Constantinople contrary to the Vow which they had made to endeavour the Conquest of the Holy Land And then following the Custom of the Greek Emperors who when they have any need of the Assistance of the Popes always promise the Re-union of the Church they made a thousand Protestations of the sincere Intentions of their Master and that he would cause that Obedience to be rendred to the Pope throughout the whole Eastern Empire which was due unto him But whether the Pope hoped for that Re-union from Comnenius who was in Possession of the Empire rather than from the young Alexis who was a banished despoiled Prince and that he apprehended that the Success of this War would not prove fortunate or that he could not upon this Occasion persuade himself to favour the Pretensions of Philip of Suabia whom he did not love and whose Competitor to the Empire he openly protected or whether it was the earnest desire which he had that the Expedition to the Holy Land should be more vigorously prosecuted which made him disapprove these kind of Diversions which were made of the Christian Arms against Christians it is certain that he received the Ambassadors of old Alexis very favourably acknowledging their Master as an Emperor And further He was so far from protecting the Prince as many of the Cardinals advised that he sent back the Legate to the Army of the Confederates with Letters by which he command them in most peremptory Terms to march immediately to the War against the Infidels for the Deliverance of the Holy Land and to give over the Enterprise of Constaminople as apparently contrary to their first Design But in this time the French Princes and the Venetians who were of another Opinion and believed this to be the readiest Way to obtain that End as also considering that the Pope had said nothing in his Letters to oppose that Reason they believed that he had been misinformed of their Intentions of making Constantinople the Way to Jerusalem And therefore notwithstanding his Letters they proceeded in the Treaty and at length finished it by accepting of the Conditions offered by the Ambassadors of Philip and the young Alexis they reciprocally engaging to establish him upon the Throne and in order thereto fifteen Days after Easter to march with the Army and Navy to his Assistance The Articles of which Treaty were on each side ratified by mutual Oaths and signed by the Doge Marquis Boniface the Counts of Flanders Blois and St. Paul and eight of the principal Lords of their Party which without Comparison was much the strongest The Division however still continued and was so far from being quieted by these Letters of the Pope that on the contrary it was more angmented by them and there being such a fair Colour for a Separation after this plain Declaration of a Soveraign Pope many thereupon took occasion to abandon the Army some to return into their Native Country which notwithstanding they never did but miserably perished either by Shipwracks upon the Sea or by Thieves and the Peasants at Land who fell upon them in their Passage and robbed them of all they had even to their very Lives Others left the Army to go directly into Palestine as did Simon and Guy Earls of Montfort with their Abbot du Val de Sernay who were followed by the three Brothers Enguerrand Robert and Hugh de Boves and all those whom they could draw along with them either by their Example their Persuasions or the Authority they had upon their Dependants The Abbot de la Trappe who from the Beginning fell in with that Party did not fail to follow it to the End and accompanied them to joyn in Pavia year 1202 with Renard Count de Dampierre with whom being passed into Syria he there soon learnt as well as his Companions by the unfortunate Success of that Voyage that it is always dangerous to joyn with those who under the pretext of Piety and Religion cause Divisions by separating from the main Body Thus the Christian Army remained much weakned by the Retreat of so many brave Men who had they been firmly united to their Head might have done considerable Services and avoided those Misfortunes which by their Separation fell upon them As for the Pope he took it so heinously that the Confederates had not obeyed his Orders and Advice that he commanded his two Legates the Cardinals of Capua and St. Praxede to withdraw from the Army and sent them express Order to sail to Cyprus and after into Syria there on his Behalf to negotiate with the Crusades who were gone from Hungary and had imbarked in the Ports of Italy and Marseilles The Princes notwithstanding this Defection pursued their Enterprise with more Courage and Resolution and they had the Comfort presently after to understand that the Pope as they had hoped being better informed had at last consented to their Design So that the Venetians after they had demolished Zara to prevent its Revolt for the future caused the whole Army consisting in about forty thousand Combatants to imbark immediately after Easter The Earls of Flanders Blois and St. Paul sailed first steering for the Isle of Corfu at that time belonging to the Eastern Empire where the whole Navy was appointed to rendezvous The Doge and the Marquis de Montferrat stayed
an answer so little expected seemed to slight it and therefore presently put himself upon his March but at last when he saw these two great Bodies separated from the rest of the Army and that there was reason to fear that many others might be induced to follow their Example so that he should be in a manner wholly diserted by all except the Germans who always continued their Fidelity to him he made a great attempt upon himself and reserving his Vengeance for another time he consented that his Lieutenants should give out his Orders not in his Name but in the behalf of God and Christendom and thereupon the whole Army being reunited they continued their March to Jaffa where they fell to work upon the Fortifications which nevertheless were presently interrupted by the News which was received from Italy For whilest he did all these things directly contrary to the Pope's prohibitions which he despised and contemned Gregory who had been attacked in that time by his Lieutenants who spoiled the Lands of the Church had with the assistance of his Allies raised two good Armies which under the Conduct of King John de Brienne and the Counts de Celano and Aquila his Lieutenants year 1228 did not only drive the Imperialists out of the Marquisate of Ancona into which they had fallen but also pursued them into the Realm of Naples where after they had taken the strong place of St. German they made themselves Masters of all the others even to Capua And in the mean time the confederate Cities of Lombardy sollicited by the Cardinal of St. Martin who was sent Legate to Milan for that purpose declaring themselves for the Pope made War against the other Cities who were of the Emperor's Party And after this not only the Villages of these Provinces but the Families of the same City being divided into these two furious Factions which by an odd name the Original of which is very uncertain were called the Guelphes and the Gibelins the first of which held for the Pope and the other for the Emperor these two Factions did in all places an infinite of mischief silling the Cities and the Villages with Desolations Ruins Massacres and Fires this implacable hatred which they had entertained one against another arming them to their mutual destruction and to the commission of all the most barbarous Inhumanities and most detestable Crimes Such are generally the miserable Consequences of the differences of Princes in which those who take their part having neither their Intentions Sentiments nor Manners frequently run into those transports and excesses of Fury which bring neither Reputation nor Advantage to the Cause which they support and which those Princes are so far from esteeming acceptable Services that they are the first in condemning such false Zeal and horrible brutality year 1229 This news of the Progress of the Pope's Army was such a surprise to Frederick and affrightned him so much that to expedite his return he was resolved to comply with the Sultan almost at any rate and therefore sending Count Thomas with one of his Secretaries to him they concluded a Truce for ten Years upon these conditions That the Sultan should yield the City of Jerusalem to Frederick together with the Cities of Bethlehem Nazareth Thoron and Sajeta or Sidon and the Villages which are directly upon the Road between Jerusalem and Jaffa That it should be lawful for the Christians to fortifie these places and to rebuild the Walls of Jerusalem of which the Emperor might dispose as he pleased excepting only the Temple with its appendages which was to be reserved to the Sarasins with liberty there to perform all the Exercises of their Law That the City of Tripolis the Principality of Antioch and the other places which did not appertain to the Kingdom of Jerusalem should not be comprised in this Treaty and that the Emperor should not permit the Christians to assist them This Treaty was mutually signed between them in the Month of February and though the Patriarch who did not approve of it nor would have any Commerce with the Emperor did not only refuse to perform the Ceremonies of his Coronation but had also interdicted all the Churches of Jerusalem if he should attempt to go thither yet he did nevertheless make his Publick Entry there as it were in Triumph upon the seventeenth day of March followed by his whole Army all the Prohibitions of the Patriarch being not able to hinder him from visiting the Holy Sepulchre The next day which was the third Sunday in Lent he went cloathed in his Imperial Habit with abundance of Pomp and Majesty to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where after having said his private Devotions there being not found any one who by reason of the interdict durst attempt to celebrate the Divine Mysteries he caused a Crown of Gold to be placed upon the great Altar and without troubling himself about the Ceremonies which the Church is wont to observe in the Coronation of Kings he went himself up to the Altar and taking the Crown he placed it upon his Head and with his own hands crowned himself King of Jerusalem with the mighty Acclamations of the Germans and the Knights of the Teutonick Order who highly approved of this Action as well as the Treaty which the Emperor had made At the same time he writ to the Pope and to all Christian Kings and Princes Letters by which he invited them in most Pompous and Magnisicent Termes to render solemn thanks unto Almighty God who had in this manner by a miraculous Effect of his Power happily finished this Enterprise without Effusion of Christian Blood and almost without Forces which so many great Princes had not been able to execute with the most potent Armies and after so many cruel Battles which had been fought to oblige the Infidels to restore to the Christians the Holy City year 1229 with the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ for which so many Crusades had been made and in Conclusion he made a Relation of all the Advantages which he pretended were to be drawn from this Treaty But on the other part the Patriarch writ to the Pope and to all Christian People long Letters in which he complains bitterly of Frederick whom he treats in such a manner as at the least one must say is very injurious there he indeavours to lay open the Shame the Dishonour and Illusion of the Treaty by which he maintains that Frederick hath betrayed Christianity First because it is most shameful to have the Sarasins share the Holy City with the Christians Secondly because the Sultan of Damascus having never given his consent to the Agreement the Treaty signified just nothing and in short that all those places which were in shew yielded to the Emperor were in reallity as much the Sarasins as they were before since he returned into Europe without fortifying any one of them And in truth Frederick who took no care now but to reimbark himself and to
first Battle of Massore where the Count d' Artois is slain The second Battle and the admirable Actions of the King The Plague and Famine in the Camp An unfortunate Retreat wherein the whole Army is defeated and the King with all the Princes and Lords are taken Prisoners An Heroick Action of Gaucher de Chastillon in this Retreat The admirable Constancy of the King in his Imprisonment His Treaty with the Sultan The Original of the Mamalukes The Revolution in the Empire of Egypt by the Murder of the Sultan The Confirmation of the Treaty with the Admirals The King absolutely refuseth to take the Oath which these Barbarians would exact from him The Refutation of the Fable touching the pawning of the Holy Eucharist to the Sarasins by the King Lewis His Deliverance and admirable Fidelity to his Promise and the perfidiousness of the Egyptians year 1244 ALL that vast Tract of Land which anciently comprised the Asiatick Sarmatia the two Scythia's the one on this side the other beyond the Mount Imaus with the third which was unknown to Ptolomy from Tanais to the Strait of Anian was formerly called as it is at this Day Tartaria from the Name of the River Tartar or Tattar which dischargeth it self at the farthest part of this vast Continent towards the East into the Northern Sea It was inhabited by an infinite number of People extremely Barbarous who were called Tartars and Mongols and who for a long time lived without Cities without Laws without Civil Policy being divided into divers Troops who had every one their Conductor to lead them from time to time into divers places proper for the feeding of their Flocks and Herds till such time as one named Cyngis obliged all the rest either by cunning or by force to acknowledge him for their Master and their Sovereign Then he took the Surname of Can which signifies Master Prince and Emperor and after having instructed and disciplined his new Subjects he lead them about the beginning of this Century into Indostan against King David to whom they were Tributaries and having vanquished him in a great Battle he put him with his whole Family to death excepting one of his Daughters whom he married and made himself Master of all that Country where his discendants which are called Mogols a name of the Tartars Reign even to this present day After which this Can being slain with a stroak of Lightning his Son Hocloda-Can who had as much Courage and Conduct as Ambition indeavoured the Conquest of all Asia and having divided his Troops whose number was infinite into four terrible Armies the Conduct of three of which he gave to three of his Sons year 1244 and to his Lieutenant Cabesabada the first of them moving Northward seized in Europe upon the Regions lying between the Tanais the Taurick Chersonesus and the Euxin Sea which at this time are called the lesser Tartars The second after having desolated the great Armenia and the Country of the Georgians penetrated Westward as far as Transylvania Hungary and Poland even to the Confines of Germany putting all before them to Fire and Sword The third entring into the leâ—ser Asia there defeated Gajazadin the Sultan of Iconium and compelled the Turks to pay Tribute to the Tartars The fourth having subdued all Persia obliged the Corasmins the Descendants of the Ancient Parthians to go in search of their Fortunes beyond the Tigris and Euphrates whereupon they addressed themselves to the Sultan of Egypt to desire of him some place of residence they being driven out of their own Country by the Tartars This Sultan who did not like such dangerous Guests and yet who was very glad to make use of them against his Enemies caused it to be told them that he left to them all the Country of Palestine upon which they might without difficulty seize in regard that the greatest part of the places there were open and without defence And this he did in revenge because almost all the Christians of the Holy Land following the Advice and Example of the Knights of the Temple having broken the Truce which they had made with him had confederated against him with the Sultan of Damascus his Enemy upon condition that he should relinquish to them all Palestine from Jordan to the Sea Certainly there is nothing more unlawful or dishonourable than to violate ones Faith when once it is given whether it be even to Infidels and Barbarians for he who receives it does at the same time acquire a natural Right to the observing of it so long as the Treaty continues except he does first violate and infringe it himself And the true Religion which Christians profess can never without being rendred extreme odious be pretended as a sufficient Reason to authorise Persidiousness which it prohibits and which it abhors and therefore we have frequently seen that the Breach of Faith which men have covered with the specious pretext of Religion as if God would permit us to deceive those who differ from us in their Belief hath always been followed by some great Misfortune which justifies the Providence of God by making it apparent that he is so far from approving such Infractions of mutual Treaties and Stipulations that he does most visibly and terribly punish such as are guilty of them as was manifested in this Rencounter For the Corasmins being assured of the Protection and the Assistance of the Sultan of Egypt who resolved to make use of them to revenge himself of these Infractors of the Peace which had been mutually sworn between him and the Christians instantly threw themselves all over Palestine with a fearful Number which covered all the Country like some mighty Inundation which being formed of a thousand Torrents precipitates it self from the Mountains and overflows all the Banks with a furious Tempest They did in consequence commit the most horrible mischiefs plundring sacking burning murdering and ruining all before them without resistance in this Surprize and after having taken and cut in pieces six thousand Christians who upon the noise of their approach had sled into Jerusalem they attacked and without difficulty forced the pitiful Retrenchments which had been there thrown up in hast and entring with the Sword they slew all they met cutting the Throats of such as had taken Sanctuary there even upon the Altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which till then had been reverenced by the Sarasins themselves and by a thousand execrable abominations profaning all the Sacred Places about the City and in short they did what ever Cruelty Avarice Luxury Impiety Rage and Fury and all the most brutish Passions could inspire the most brutish and unnatural of all mankind withal At last all the Forces of the Christians in the Countrey being joyned with those of the three Great Masters of the Military Orders and the Succors of the Sultans their Allies they came to a Battle near Gaza where the Corasmins had joyned the Troops of the Sultan of Egypt The
Battle lasted two dayes the seventeenth and eighteenth of October wherein the Christians fought with more Courage but also with greater misfortune than ever they had done in all their former Battles year 1244 The whole Army was divided into three Bodies Gantier the third Count de Brienne and Jaffa Nephew to King John and the Son of that Count Gautier who died in the Conquests of the Realm of Naples commanded the Left Hand Body with the Knights of the Hospital The Sultan of Chamella or Emessa who conducted the Confederate Sarasins had the Right And the Patriarch accompanied with the other Knights and Barons was in the main Battle He had sometime before excommunicated the Count upon his refusing to give him a Tower in the Castle of Jaffa to which he pretended it being called the Patriarch's Tower This Prince who was a very good Christian and unwilling to have any thing lie upon his Conscience which might hinder him from courageously exposing himself to death demanded absolution of him two several times before they came to charge And as this Prelate without doubt criminally rigorous and too severe in an occasion of this nature persisted obstinately in his refusal to give it him The Bishop of Rama a man of great Courage and who made use of the Sword in this War against the Insidels as well as of the Cross in his Church unable to indure that by this accident so much leisure was given to the Enemies to range their Troops cried out aloud My Lord Let not this Scruple trouble you any longer Let us charge The Patriarch is in the Fault and therefore I absolve you in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost And thereupon the Count who took it for a sufficient absolution went to the Charge with his Lance couched and being followed by his Valiant Bishop he threw himself into the thickest Battalions and Squadrons of the Enemies in the place where he observed the Prince of the Corasmins invironed with all the most brave of his Army The Sultan of Emessa also on his side did very Nobly but he was not followed by above two thousand of his Sarasins the others flying upon the first Charge Nevertheless the Christians though abandoned by these Cowards yet never fought more bravely being resolved rather to perish in the Field of Battle than ever to quit it So that after having always maintained their ground without ever recoiling one step in two days from Morning until night at last oppressed by the Multitude of their Enemies who were not only stout men but also infinitely surpassed them in number and of whom notwithstandhing they made a horrible Carnage they were almost all either slain upon the place or taken Prisoners So great was this defeat that there escaped with the Patriarch Robert and some of the Bishops and Abbots not above three and thirty Knights of the Temple six and twenty Hospitallers and three of the Teutonick Knights the Constable Count Philip de Montfort Prince of Tyre Nephew to the Illustrious Count Simon and some hundreds of Soldiers who retired to Ascalon from whence they came to Ptolemais were all was in the utmost Consternation for this dreadful loss The great Masters of the Temple and the Teutonick Order were slain upon the place and the Master of St. John of Jerusalem was taken Prisoner and carried in Irons into Egypt as was also the brave Gautier de Brienne who after he was taken did an Action which made him triumph even in his Captivity over all the Forces of his Conqueror and which doubtless deserves to be recorded to his immortal glory For the Prince of the Corasmins who thought to make advantage of his being taken to gain the City and Castle of Jaffa caused the Valiant Count to be bound under his Arms to a Cross which he had erected before the Gate of the Castle telling the Soldiers of the Garrison who from the walls beheld this woful Spectacle that he would in the most cruel manner put the Count to death except they presently ransomed his life by the surrender of the place But this invincible Hero making a Sacrifice of his life to Jesus Christ to save that little remainder of his Inheritance in the Holy Land cried to his Soldiers as loud as ever he could from his Cross that they should take no care for him but leaving him to the rage of these Dogs to whom he should be obliged for the Crown of Martyrdom that they should courageously defend the place with which he had intrusted them not only for himself but to preserve it for Jesus Christ for whose only sake they had come into Palestine So that the Barbarian losing all hope of gaining the place by this cruel Artifice and not daring to attack it by main Force he would not also lose the opportutunity which he had of making an agreable Present to the Sultan of Egypt year 1244 to whom he sent the brave Count with the other Prisoners and in a few days after the Sarasins of Grand Caire who esteemed him their greatest and most terrible Enemy having demanded him of the Sultan who durst not deny them they fell upon him with the Fury of cruel Wolves or inraged Dogs and after having made him suffer an Infinite number of horrible Torments they tore him in a thousand pieces acquiring for him a thousand Palms and a thousand Crowns of Martyrdom for one which he had wished and which he believed he should have obtained upon his Cross before Jaffa Some years after St. Lewis who had the Memory of this great man in singular Veneration having recovered his Bones which the Admirals of Egypt caused to be restored to him he rendred to him at Acre all the Funeral Honours which were due untohim who had so gloriously given his Life to the Honour of Jesus Christ As for the Corasmins who had exercised so much cruelty upon the Christians and had committed so many horrible Sacrileges in the holy places they afterwards fell out among themselves and the Sultan of Egypt having drawn from them all the Service which he expected he drove them out of his Dominions so that they all miserably perished by the hands of the Sarasins themselves who united all against them for their destruction having a horror for them as the most wicked and most execrable of all Mankind Mean time the news of the lamentable desolation of Jerusalem and the defeat of the Christian Army and of the dangerwherein those few which remained were to be presently besieged by the Sultan of Egypt being brought to the Pope made him resolve to make his last Efforts to procure Succours for them from a General Council which he had convoked For this Pope fearing to fall into the hands of Frederick had saved himself by Sea at Genoa his Native Country and from thence he went by land by Montferrat and Savoy to Lyons where he put himself under the Protection of the King of France resolving to