MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

BOOK II

CHAPTER X.

KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. BALDWIN III AMALRIC. [ 1152-1169.

Baldwin's Military Success—Noureddin's Plans—Syro-Frank Dissentions—Egyptian Affairs—Amalric's Accession—His Wars—Saladin in Egypt—Christian and Moslem Internal Dissentions, 

Ere the consequences of the great misfortune that had just befallen Christendom (a misfortune that might long have been foreseen) are related, it will be expedient to take a retrospective survey of the faults and follies which had preceded, and at least contributed to produce that unfortunate triumph of Moslem valour and ability. In other words, to inquire into the fortunes of the Syro-Frank states, during the third of a century, that had elapsed since the second Crusade.

When the condition and prospects of those states were last considered, Baldwin III and Noureddin were the rival occupants of the stage, and of these the Turk was by far the more distinguished character. El Malek el Aadil Noureddin Mohammed—his more correct denomination—was indeed the very ideal of a Moslem hero. Tall, handsome, and even fair, excelling in martial exercises, and valiant as active in war; just, merciful, and liberal in peace, he was as scrupulous in obeying the precepts of Islam as he was zealous in propagating its creed. He caused the dust gathered by his feet in his Holy Wars—i. e. those against Christians or Idolaters—to be collected and preserved for his pillow in the grave. Four days in every week he sat, in Oriental fashion, at his gate to administer justice, accessible to all, listening to all, unbiassed by distinction of persons, country, or even religion. Appropriating the whole of the public revenue to the public service, he lived upon his private fortune, and of that gave away so much in charity that he had little left for household expenses, and allowed his wife—the expression, which repeatedly occurs, looks as if he was satisfied with one—only twenty gold pieces a-year for her dress. To her complaints of her unprincely apparel, he would answer: “Of my own I have no more; of the wealth of the Faithful I am but the Treasurer; and I cannot incur eternal perdition to trick thee out more showily”. In public concerns he was no niggard of the public money: everywhere he repaired walls and improved fortifications, built hospitals, mosques with schools attached to them, libraries, baths, and fountains. Amongst his troops he enforced the strictest discipline; but, though he gave them no land, saying, “The camp must be the soldier’s home,” he was most generous to them, taking charge of the families of all who fell in battle.

But the dangers to be apprehended from this formidable enemy were not immediately apparent. Noureddin had some respect for the military prowess of the Syro-Franks; more for that of the monastic knights and the crusaders; and, therefore, fully adopting his father’s policy, he saw that he must at least reconstruct Zenghi’s now subdivided mass of dominions and power, before he could, with any prospect of success, attempt to clear Syria from intrusive Christians. Whilst thus preparing for the conflict, to avoid premature hostilities with the Christians was an essential element of his policy.

As yet Jerusalem entertained no fear of him, and the belligerent propensities of her youthful monarch, though often betraying him into rash or ill concerted enterprises, seemed to have temporarily regenerated the nation. Even the disasters occasionally resulting from Baldwin’s temerity, as they called forth his higher qualities, invincible resolution, and fortitude—seemed, by exciting affection for the young King, to raise the character of his subjects, whilst they gradually so matured his own that he ultimately commanded the respect of both friends and foes. About this time, a most unlooked for victory, and a subsequent conquest in the South, nearly the last won by the Syro- Franks, in some measure counterbalanced the recent losses in the North.

In the end of the year 1152, a wild horde of Turcomans, carefully avoiding to trespass upon the territories of Noureddin, poured into Palestine. The King and his Councillors, deeming fortified towns unendangered, as impregnable by such barbarians, collected the troops before the unwalled and therefore imperilled Neapolis, which lay in the direction they seemed to be pursuing. But the object of the Turcomans was Jerusalem, which their ancestors had, in the eleventh century, torn from the Fatimid caliphate; and, again avoiding an encounter with the prepared foes, whose prowess they feared, and taking a line that, being thought secure against them, had been left unguarded, they reached the Holy City, and encamped upon the Mount of Olives. This profanation of a hallowed spot fired the Jerusalemites to an utter forgetfulness of caution. The few knights remaining in the city, gathered together what men and arms they could muster, rushed out, and fell with such impetuosity upon the abhorred Turcomans, that they defeated and routed them; then, as impetuously pursuing, they actually drove them out of Palestine, without the aid, or even the knowledge, of the royal army. 

Encouraged by this success, Baldwin led his forces southward, once more to besiege Ascalon. The Saracens defended themselves resolutely, and despatched messengers to the Sultan of Damascus, and to the more distant Noureddin, soliciting succours. But the Emir, Atabeg, or Sultan, Anar, was dead, and his nominal master, or successor, the imbecile Modjireddin Abek, being now in fact tributary to Baldwin, would not, whatever he may have vaguely promised, take arms against the Christian neighbour whom he dreaded. Thus disappointing the energetic Noureddin of the expected co-operation, and even opposing his passage, he foiled all measures projected for the relief of the besieged city. For months did Ascalon, daily expecting the promised succours, hold the force of Palestine at bay. At length the besiegers were joined by a band of armed pilgrims from Europe, amongst whom there chanced to be an able engineer. The battering train was immediately improved, and one of the usual movable towers built and brought up to the attack. The Saracens managed to set it on fire; but the wind at that moment shifting, drove the flames over upon the town, and a portion of the wall was burnt. The breach thus made was a full equivalent for the loss of the tower; and Ascalon, it is averred might upon the instant have been taken, but for the insolent rapacity of the Templars, whose faults now often endangered the kingdom of which their valour was the mainstay. They, headed by their Grand-Master, Bernard de Tremelai, were the first to storm the breach, where some of their body are reported to have remained stationary, in order to exclude their fellow soldiers, and monopolise the booty. This attempt at monopoly is denied by the partisans of the Templars, and if the offence were true, fearfully was it punished: for it is very certain that they only, or with very few companions, had entered the town, when the Saracens, recovering from the momentary torpor of consternation, surrounded, with overpowering numbers, their handful of enemies, and after a sharp struggle cut them down to a man; whilst those who could not find room to take a share in the conflict, were hastily obstructing the breach and repairing the damaged fortification. They hung the bodies of the slain out over the wall, as if in mockery of the besiegers.

This disaster, including the loss of the Grand-Master of the Templars, following upon the loss of their tower, so discouraged Baldwin and his Baronage that they proposed to raise the siege. The humiliation of such a step was averted by the vehement exhortations of Raimond du Puy, Grand-Master of the hospital —eager perhaps to exalt his own Order at its rival’s expense—and of the centenarian Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fulcher, to whose eloquence the revival of the King’s spirits is mainly ascribed. A few days afterwards, the troops, called upon to avenge the Templars, renewed the assault so vigorously, that Ascalon, now despairing of efficient succours from without, offered to capitulate. The only condition granted was a safe conduct for the inhabitants and their movable property to El Arish. They evacuated their native place accordingly, and were duly escorted the covenanted distance on their way. But no sooner had their Christian guard left them, than a Turcoman band, their own paid auxiliaries, turned upon the exiles, attacked, plundered, and routed them, putting numbers to death. Meanwhile the banner of the Cross floated over Ascalon, and the whole army sang the Te Deum. The kingdom of Jerusalem had now acquired the historic boundaries of the Holy Land.

But Noureddine’s power was increasing far more rapidly and materially. He had long looked to Damascus, as the fulcrum, upon which the lever, destined to overthrow Frank usurpation, must rest: and Modjireddin’s paltering about the relief of Ascalon, offered him a plea to his conscience, for incorporating it with his own dominions. Upon this occasion he is charged with having employed, in dealing with his co-religionists, craft to prepare the way for force; a proceeding which he might deem lawful to spare the shedding of Moslem blood, if his stratagem were really calculated so to do. According to some accounts, his emissaries merely induced the Emirs to desert their Sultan for him, by working upon their horror of Modjireddin’s connexion with the Christians; according to others he had recourse to far different, and far less lawful means. They charge him with having contrived to render the first citizens of Damascus, objects of suspicion to the Sultan; in order that the acts of violence and cruelty which that suspicion engendered, might exasperate the inhabitants to such a degree as should render the task of winning them to desire Noureddin as their sovereign, in preference to their incapable tyrant, easy. Either way the hearts of the men of Damascus were already his, when the Atabeg sat down before their walls, and they speedily compelled Modjireddin to capitulate. Again Noureddin is taxed with not having faithfully executed the terms granted; with having offered the Sultan, in lieu of Emesa for which in his capitulation he had stipulated, some remote and insignificant lordships, and when he refused to accept them as ah equivalent for Emesa, having given him nothing. That this was not an age of scrupulous veracity has already been observed, and it is by no means impossible, perhaps not even unlikely, that Noureddin, however honourable, having promised any­thing to get Damascus bloodlessly, did not choose to risk the Mohammedan cause by intrusting a city, important as was Emesa, to hands whose incapacity had been proved.

Noureddin, by this acquisition, in a manner turned the flank of the Christian Kingdom, and looked confidently forward to its subjugation. For the present he made Damascus his capital, as the seat of his government. He improved the defences of this already strong city; and he adorned it with baths and fountains, as well as with mosques and the schools usually attached to them, with colleges and libraries; and hence he prepared to wage regular war against the intrusive Franks.

Those Franks, occupied with their increasing internal disorders, were hardly even thinking of preparations for defence. At Antioch, the widowed Constance, after re­fusing several suitable proposals of marriage, fell in love with a mere adventurer. This was Renaud de Chatillon; a knight indeed, and a bold one, of great prowess in arms, but of the lowest order of nobility; who having been brought to Syria by Lewis VII, had remained there to seek his fortune. And he found it; for him, despite the strenuous opposition of the Patriarch, the sovereign Princess wedded; and to him she transferred her whole authority. Rapaciously and tyrannically he used it: of which his treatment of the Patriarch, whom he hated as the opponent of his marriage, will be a sufficient instance. He first demanded a large sum of money from him; which being refused, he ordered the aged prelate to be seized, and after his bald head had been well smeared with honey, placed under a south wall, in broiling sunshine, amidst swarms of insects, until the insupportable torment drove him to purchase his release by the surrender of all his hoarded treasures. He was no sooner at liberty, than, distrusting the professions of the Prince of Antioch, as Chatillon was now entitled, the plundered Patriarch fled from his station and his duties, to Jerusalem.

Within the kingdom itself, dissentions, beyond Baldwin’s power to appease or repress, prevailed. The Templars and Hospitalers, if valiant as ever, were no longer single-minded, military monks. Already had wealth lowered the original spirit that produced this peculiar species of chivalry. Many knights were engrossed by the care of the ample estates of their several Orders; whilst others were habitually detained in Europe by the service due for fiefs. Still valiant, they fought the infidels as gallantly as ever; but they now looked for profit in so doing, and sold their arms to the King of Jerusalem, as though he had been a foreign prince. Pride and ostentation had already superseded simplicity: and the Hospitalers, no longer worthy of that name, are said to have even so early devolved their original and especial office, the tendance of the sick, upon their serving-brothers and their chaplains. Both Orders were at open enmity with the hierarchy; the Clergy had always very reluctantly admitted the exemption from episcopal control, as from payment of tithes, and the other spiritual privileges granted them by the Popes, as to the champions of Christendom. They now refused to acknowledge the validity of those grants, and the Knights of St. John, as the Hospitalers ought, perhaps, henceforward to be called, resented this attempt to dispute their prerogatives, by misusing them. They made their chaplains administer the rites of the church to excommunicated persons; they made them perform divine service in places under interdict; not as before, quietly in closed chapels, as for their own private worship, but with chiming-bells, open doors, and all the pomp of publicity. These indecent hostilities reached their climax at Jerusalem; where, whilst the aged Patriarch Fulcher was preaching in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Raymond, Grand-Master of St. John, ordered such a clatter of bells in their adjacent Hospital, or convent, as completely drowned his voice; whilst one of the Knights actually entered the church, his bow ready bent in his hand, to shoot arrows amongst the congregation. The Patriarch, notwithstanding his hundred winters’ snows, repaired to Italy, attended by several prelates, to lay his complaint before the Pope. This was in the year 1154: and he found Adrian IV too much occupied by his own concerns with the Romans, the Emperor, and the King of Sicily, to bestow upon the ecclesiastical concerns of Palestine such a degree of attentive consideration as would have afforded a chance of counterbalancing his natural disposition both to maintain the acts, grants or other, of his predecessors, and to favour Orders so immediately attached to the papacy, as the Templars and Hospitalers. The Patriarch accused the Pope of being bribed, or at least prejudiced, and returned unsuccessful; his defeat naturally inflated the arrogance of the Knights of St. John.

If the Templars were less embroiled with the Palestine clergy, they, about the same time, most offensively, even as the story is told by their friends, displayed that thirst for gold which, disgracing their chivalrousness, almost renders probable some of the charges subsequently brought against them. The tale requires a glance at Egypt.

There, it will be recollected, the Fatimid Caliphs had suffered the whole power of a despotic sovereign to pass into the hands of hereditary Sultan-Viziers, whose regular succession was however occasionally interrupted by murder. The policy of the Sultan-Viziers was essentially pacific, because war must have obliged them either to intrust an army to a leader, who might use it against themselves, or to head their troops in person, thus leaving the palace open to a rival. Whilst Ascalon was Egyptian they had trusted in its strength for defence against the Syro-Franks; upon its fall they offered to purchase peace by paying tribute, and Baldwin, whose exchequer the long siege had drained, gladly replenished it by the transaction.

But the reigning Caliph Dhafer, in the indulgence of his extravagant as disgusting appetite, had grossly insulted the son of his Sultan-Vizier Abbas. Abbas, who had shown himself not particularly chary of human life—having obtained his high office by the murder of his predecessor, the father of one of his own wives—caused the royal offender to be assassinated. Then, accusing the dead Caliph’s three brothers of his own act, he procured their judicial murder, whilst he proclaimed an infant heir Caliph. But a harem domestic had been a secret witness to the sinful retribution of sin; he revealed the truth, and the people rose against the Sultan-Vizier. Abbas flung large sums from his palace windows amidst his assailants; and whilst they were fighting for the booty, with his son Nasireddin, and the bulk of his treasure, effected his escape by a back door. Escorted by his own guards he fled, making for Palestine. When they reached the territories of his Christian ally, Abbas deemed himself safe; and so he might have been had he thrown the whole of his hoards amongst the Cairo rabble. But the sight of the wealth he had brought away proved irresistible to the party of Templars resident near the frontier. They attacked the little band, overpowered it, seized the tempting prize, and massacred all its defenders except Nasireddin, who saved his life by professing a desire to be instructed in Christianity. Him they took home with them as a prisoner, and their chaplain expounded the Gospel to him. He declared himself a convert, but had devoted to the investigation more time than he had to spare. He was only preparing to receive baptism, when the triumphant and still vindictive Egyptian rivals of his father offered 6000 gold pieces for the person of the son. Again the tempta­tion proved irresistible. The Templars accepted the money and delivered up their neophyte to his enemies, to be dragged back to Cairo, and there tortured to death for a deed not his. All that the advocates of the Templars can allege in extenuation of the undisputed fact, is, that Nasireddin merely pretended conversion to avoid death, wherefore they delivered him up as a hypocritical blasphemer.

It should seem as if these nefarious double gains of the Templars had excited the cupidity of Baldwin, beyond the power of respect for his plighted word to control. Although he had, in December, 1156, concluded a truce with Noureddin—a truce for a definite number of years was the nearest approach to a peace that bigotry on either side could endure—in January, 1157, he perfidiously surprised some nomad Turcomans, who, in reliance upon the truce, were depasturing their numerous herds of horses and kine in the neighbourhood of the frontier fortress, Paneas; slaughtered the owners, and carried off the cattle. Noureddin, irritated by this treacherous robbery, renewed the war.

It was waged with fluctuating success, but upon the whole to the disadvantage of the Christians; and Baldwin had little cause to rejoice in having provoked it. The petty Moslem states, alarmed by his threatening movements, sought security in voluntary submission to Noureddin’s sovereignty: whence the consolidation of his power, which had hitherto appeared to divert his attention from his grand object, was so far consummated as to allow of his seriously beginning his Holy War. The capture of Paneas, as the strongest eastern bulwark of the kingdom, he judged the first step towards the expulsion of the Franks; and to this fortress he laid siege.

Paneas was held in fief by the Constable de Thoron, who applied to the Templars for reinforcements. According to their new custom they bargained for payment of those services, which their vow bound them to render gratuitously; and Thoron was obliged to promise them half his town. It is difficult to regret that the corps, sent to earn this reward, fell into a Saracen ambuscade on its road, and suffered so severely as to be reduced to an utterly insignificant aid. The town was burnt, and the castle, defended by the Constable and his son, was at the last gasp, when Baldwin came to its relief, in such force that Noureddin raised the siege at his approach. But if foiled in this attempt, the Atabeg was neither defeated nor disheartened; and he prepared an ambuscade, into which Baldwin, returning towards Jerusalem with the careless­ness inspired by success, fell in his turn; and despite the prowess which the Syro-Franks, however degenerate, still boasted, was completely defeated. He himself hardly escaped by flight; numbers were slain, and Bertrand de Blanquefort, Grand-Master of the Templars, with eighty of his knights, and some of the principal Palestine Barons were taken. Again Noureddin besieged Paneas, and again it was reduced to the last extremity, when again Baldwin, now cordially assisted by the Prince of Antioch, relieved it.

During this operation he was joined by his half-sisters elderly consort, the Earl of Flanders, who now visited the Holy Land upon his third crusading pilgrimage. His appearance, coincident with a severe illness of Noureddine’s giving rise to a report of his death, cheered the spirits of all; and it was resolved to besiege Caesarea, which the Atabeg had lately conquered from the principality of Antioch. The Mohammedans, already contending for the heritage of their dead or dying hero, had no leisure to attempt raising the siege; and Caesarea was nearly taken, when, again to baffle the besieger’s hopes, the fable of selling the skin of the live lion, was enacted. Thea Earl of Flanders, still hankering after Asiatic dominions, demanded Caesarea for himself, to be held of the Crown of Jerusalem. Renaud insisted that a fief, which had always belonged to Antioch, could be held only of that principality; but the Earl would not condescend to be the man of any one less than a king, and thought foul scorn to be asked to do homage to a person by birth so much his inferior, as the matrimonially exalted Chatillon. The consequence of these dissentions was that Caesarea still held out, when Noureddin, recovering, marched to relieve it; and to raise the siege became unavoidable. The following year, 1158, Caesarea was retaken by the Christians, and restored to Antioch; and this, with the capture of another fort, and a victory, barren of fruit, over Noureddin himself, formed the sum total of Syro-Frank success.

In 1159, hostilities were interrupted by an alarm in which, strange to say, Baldwin and Noureddin for a moment sympathized. The Emperor Manuel was reported to be leading an army through Asia Minor; and, whilst the Moslem dreaded an overwhelming union of the Constantinopolitan with the Syro-Frank forces, the King of Jerusalem, though married to a niece of Manuel’s, feared the strenuous assertion, by the strong hand, of the Eastern Empire’s pretension to sovereignty over Oriental Chris­tendom. But Manuel w as not just then at leisure either to protect Jerusalem, or to claim its sovereignty. His business w as with vassals who had acknowledged them­selves such, or had done so till very lately. A few words will explain the matter.

Those conquests of the first Crusade in Asia Minor, which had been freely ceded to the Greek Empire, had been formed into the government of Cilicia, of which an Armenian, royally descended, whether of the reigning, or of a deposed race in his native country, was named Governor. Favoured by the mountainous nature of the country, its remoteness from Constantinople, the variety of interests distracting that Court, the Governor and his sons speedily transformed themselves from Imperial Officers into hereditary vassal Princes. A change which, since they acknowledged the Imperial sovereignty, was connived at, as, under the circumstances, perhaps irremediable. But, emboldened by such connivance, the then reigning Prince, Toros, grandson of the first Governor, renounced his vassalage, and proclaimed himself King of Lesser Armenia, which name he gave his realm in honour of his own Armenian descent. This was overstepping Manuel’s powers of toleration; and, being personally engaged with more important concerns, he sent his cousin, Andronicus, then in recovered favour after his flighty to Halitsch, with an army to put down this revolt. Rashness and unsteadiness more than counterbalanced the talents and courage of Andronicus: he was defeated by Toros, and Manuel called upon the Prince of Antioch, as his vassal, to quell the revolt of his neighbour—the frontier of Lesser Armenia was barely twenty miles from Antioch.

Renaud, in whose character the knight-errant and the as yet unknown condottiere were blended, was ever ready to make war on any one, provided he saw a prospect of advantage to himself. He bargained for money to defray his expenses, and for possession of the vassal state to be conquered; undertook the adventure, and defeated Toros, expelling him from his usurped kingdom. But, whether purposely or accidentally, his recognition as Prince of Lesser Armenia, or Cilicia, by the Constantinopolitan government, did not immediately follow7 upon its conquest; and even of the pecuniary condition the fulfilment was delayed. For this annoying delay, Chatillon, who was always in want of money, took it upon himself to obtain compensation, together with revenge for the Emperor’s default. He equipped a fleet, put to sea, and without any sort of warning attacked the Greek island of Cyprus, then committed to the government of a nephew of Manuel’s. The surprise rendered success easy and complete. He carried off the Greek Prince as his prisoner; he ravaged the whole island, plundered high and low, clergy and laity; churches and cloisters, as recklessly as palaces and private houses. He practised the most abominable cruelties to extort money, and abandoned Heaven-consecrated virgins to the outrages of his piratical followers.

It was to chastise the Prince of Antioch, and to recover his authority over Lesser Armenia, where, since the de­parture of his conqueror for Cyprus, Toros again reigned independently, that Manuel now visited Asia at the head of an army. In both objects he succeeded. Toros at his approach fled to the mountain fastnesses, and he resumed full possession of the province. The Prince of Antioch durst not confront the Imperial power; but, accompanied by the Bishop of Laodicea, and attended by Antioch vassals and knights, hastened to meet the Emperor at Mamistra, and implore his pardon. Barefoot and bare­headed, in woollen garments, the sleeves of which reached, only to the elbow, with every one a rope about his neck, and a naked sword depending from that round Renaud’s —much as the vanquished Milanese presented themselves to Frederic—did the reigning Prince of Antioch and his company of nobles traverse the streets of Mamistra to the palace. There they were long kept waiting; and, when at length admitted to the Imperial presence, in the face of the assembled troops, they all knelt at the foot of the throne; the Prince offering his sword, which he held by the point, to the Emperor, and, thus humbly awaiting his pleasure; he was forgiven.

Baldwin had been considerably alarmed by the appear­ance of the Eastern Emperor in arms, advancing towards the Syro-Frank States. But, how mistrustful soever of Manuel’s designs, he thought it best to display confidence, and was the next to arrive at Mamistra. He came, was received as a king and a nephew; and prevailed upon the Emperor to pardon Toros, as ever a valuable ally to Jerusalem, restoring him Armenia in vassalage. In company with both these Princes, he then attended the Emperor to Antioch, where the Imperial sovereignty was asserted by the exercise of all its rights; and where Renaud’s homage and oath of allegiance for his wife’s principality were received. The character of sovereign was not, however, the only one in which Manuel exhibited himself at Antioch. Baldwin chanced one day, whilst hunting with him, to be thrown by his horse, and  break his arm. The Emperor instantly alighted, with his own hands set and bandaged the fractured limb, according to the surgical skill of the day, and undertook the entire care of his royal patient, until the cure was complete.

But from Antioch affairs of the Empire, superior in importance to those of Syria, imperatively recalled Manuel to Constantinople. Instead, therefore, of overwhelming Noureddin with the combined armies of the Empire and of the Syro-Franks, as the Atabeg had anticipated, he concluded a truce with him, the main condition of which was the release of prisoners. By this convention, Blanquefort and his eighty knights regained their liberty without breach of their rules.

This treaty appears to have been held little binding even upon the vassals of the Emperor: for not only is Baldwin, who might esteem himself a free agent, found immediately afterwards engaged in hostilities with Nou­reddin as before; but Renaud, just received as a vassal, is marauding, as though no truce existed, upon the Atabeg’s territories. In one of his expeditions of this nature, Renaud was made prisoner by the Turks, and Antioch left to the mismanagement of Constance. Baldwin hereupon interfered, whether as head of her family—her mother, it will be recollected, was Melisenda’s younger sister—or as sovereign, is not clear; deprived her of the authority she knew not how to wield, and com­mitted the regency, during the captivity of her husband, and the minority of her son by her first marriage, to the Patriarch. The next year, Manuel having lost his German Empress, sent an embassy to Syria to choose him a bride amongst Baldwin’s cousins, the youthful Princesses of Antioch and of Tripoli. Their choice fell upon the beautiful Melusina of Tripoli, whom her brother, in the pride of his heart, equipped as might beseem an Empress, and she embarked for Constantinople. But either violent sea-sickness or an alarming illness forced her to re-land, and the envoys waited awhile patiently for her recovery, but relapse followed relapse, and Melusina lost her beauty. Then, fearing that their choice could not now be satis­factory to the Emperor, and irritated by the arrogance in which the Earl, as brother-in-law to the Emperor, indulged, they abruptly declared the engagement cancelled by the lady’s want of health, and repaired to Antioch, whence they carried off the Princess Maria as their Empress. The Earl of Tripoli, resenting the slight put upon his sister, sought vengeance in piratical inroads upon the territories of the Eastern Empire.

In the year 1162, at the early age of 33, died Baldwin III, poisoned, according to the best Palestine authorities, by the Arab physician of the Earl of Tripoli, at whose instigation is not stated, the deed being apparently ascribed to bigotry; meaning, the desire to free the Mohammedans from a dangerous enemy. Baldwin’s merits were of the kind that insure popularity, and he was deeply regretted by his subjects, whilst his enemies paid a tribute to his memory. Noureddin, being urged to invade Palestine during this moment of confusion and depression, is said to have replied: “We must have compassion on the sorrow of the Christians, for they have lost a King who had not his fellow.” A generous forbearance, which surely acquits him of participation in the murder, if murder there were.

The generosity was most chivalrous in the highest sense of the word, for the opportunity was extraordinarily tempting. Baldwin had been preceded to the grave by his mother Melisenda, by whose advice, as before said, he had been mainly guided as soon as he ceased to be jealous of her authority; and, his marriage having proved un­fruitful, he was succeeded by his brother Amalric, who, possessing few of his good qualities, but all his faults exaggerated, with the addition of avarice, was as much disliked as the deceased King had been beloved. Indeed, such was the aversion felt for Amalric that, at one moment, his accession was likely to excite a rebellion : a calamity that was averted by the earnest remonstrances of the aged Grand-Master of the Hospital, Raymond du Puy, who represented to the malcontent Barons that a civil war must perforce throw the kingdom into Noureddin’s hands, and they would all be deemed disciples of Judas. To this fear they yielded, and Amalric was crowned.

Hostilities with the Atabeg—Noureddin never assumed a higher title, although disclaiming any subjection to the Seljuk Sultan of Persia, he now acknowledged no sovereign save the orthodox Bagdad Caliph—ere long proceeded as before. The Atabeg now took Paneas, of which Amalric’s parsimony prevented the active relief; but was soon afterwards defeated by a body of European Crusaders and Templars, when he himself escaped with some difficulty. Amalric neglected to profit by this opportunity, and Noureddin, at the head of, a fresh army, defeated the Christians in his turn, making Bohemund III of Antioch, who was now of age, Raymond Earl of Tripoli, and Toros of Lesser Armenia, his prisoners. In all this Amalric took little share, but he endeavoured to prove his energy by putting to death not only the Governor of a castle that had surrendered to Noureddin, but twelve Templars who had formed part of its garrison. He more­over vehemently urged the Pope to preach a Crusade for his protection, calumniating both the Emperor Manuel and the Syro-Frank great vassals. Wars with, or in Egypt, were the chief business of Amalric’s reign; but ere proceeding to them, or the circumstances in which they originated, it may be briefly stated that Baldwin’s Greek widow, Queen Theodora, early eloped with her profligate kinsman, Andronicus Commenus, whose political crimes are known to the reader. She eloped, not as his wife; for he had just married and deserted Princess Philippa of Antioch, a sister of the young Empress Maria. As his paramour she wandered with him from one Saracen court to another till they settled amongst the Seljuks of Iconium. There Andronicus made himself so inconvenient a neigh­bour to Constantinople, that Manuel endeavoured to have him kidnapped. He secured only Theodora : but to recover her, Andronicus ventured upon a return to the capital, where, to propitiate the Emperor, he presented himself with a chain about his neck; by which chain, at his earnest entreaty, his relation, Isaac Angelus, a Commenus by his mother, dragged him to the foot of the throne. Manuel again pardoned him, but relegated him to a town upon the Euxine, whither Queen Theodora again accompanied him. And thence it was that Manuel’s daughter summoned him, as has been related, to her aid, against her step-mother.

The degraded state of Egypt, tributary to Jerusalem, and offering in its helplessness a tempting prize to the rapacity of its neighbours, has already been mentioned; and it only remains to explain how the position of the Sultan-Viziers created the opportunity for which they were looking. Murder had, as usual, interrupted the hereditary succession of these ministers. Soon after Amalric’s succession, in 1163, the Sultan-Vizier Shawer—an enfranchised slave of the deceased Sultan-Vizier Razik, who had obtained his former master’s office by the assassination of that master’s son and heir Sultan-Vizier Adel—was violently despoiled of his post, though not of his life, by another enfranchised slave, named Dargam. The usurper followed up this unexpected symptom of humanity, by inviting seventy of the principal Egyptian Emirs to a banquet, at which he had them massacred. The new Sultan-Vizier was now uncontrolled master of Egypt and of the Caliph Adhed; and he might perhaps have continued so to be, had he neither spared his predecessor’s life, nor when slaughtering Emirs, rested content with such half measures, but fairly extinguished the title in Egypt.

Whilst the surviving Emirs were meditating retaliation, Shawer had fled to Noureddin’s court, there to seek safety and vengeance. He offered the Atabeg, as the guerdon of his own reinstalment in his post, one third of the reve­nues of Egypt. Money was no temptation to Noureddin, yet was the offer irresistible. He saw, in the possession of a controlling power over the rulers of Egypt, prodigious additional facilities for the conquest of Palestine, which would thus be open to his attacks from the South as well as from the East; and he likewise saw in it a hope of recalling the Sheah country to the orthodox faith. In this view the Caliph of Bagdad, to whom the pro­posal was communicated, eagerly concurred. A com­pact was therefore quickly made with Shawer, and an armament equipped to escort him back and expel his triumphant rival.

Whilst Noureddin was deliberating and preparing, Amalric, allured by the prospect of possible conquest, and almost certain booty in a country so situated, put forward a claim to a large sum of money, as arrears of the tribute promised his deceased brother, and as he affirmed unpaid. Dargam denied that any arrears were owing; and Amalric invaded Egypt. The Sultan-Vizier was of course coldly supported by the Emirs, who detested him; and the invaders recited Belbeis, the ancient Pelusium, unopposed: there Dargam met him, gave battle, and was defeated. Amalric then besieged Belbeis, which he thought himself upon the point of taking; when Dargam, by cutting down dykes and embankments, inundated that part of the country and fairly flooded him out of his camp. Amalric returned disappointed to Palestine.

This was but the prologue to the piece, during the performance of which, Noureddin’s army had been in course of preparation; and being now ready, was placed under the command of his best general, Shirkuh. But as this expedition produced the first ascertained public appearance of one, among the most remarkable characters of the epoch, who will for some time occupy the scene, a few words concerning his origin may as well precede the narrative of the campaign.

Nojmeddin Eyub, a Kurd of the highest family, had, with his brother Asadeddin Shirkuh and a body of their followers, some years back entered, the service of the Seljuk Sultan of Bagdad, who rewarded their prowess with the Government of Takrit upon the Tigris, where, in the year 1137, Eyub’s son, Yussuf or Joseph, better known as Saladin, was born. During the civil wars caused by disputed successions amongst the Seljuk princes, the Kurd brothers had occasion to confer a signal benefit upon the Atabeg Zenghi. Defeated, wounded, and a fugitive, he came to Takrit, when they dressed his hurts and lent him boats to carry himself and his people across the river, thus enabling them to escape pursuit. In return, when, Shirkuh having in a fit of passion stabbed a Cadi, the whole family was obliged to fly, Zenghi, then a potent prince, received them into his dominions and confidence, immediately appointing the two brothers to the government of his most important towns. In all affairs requiring prudence or valour they w ere thenceforward confidentially employed by him, and subsequently by Noureddin. Once only was this high favour endangered. When the report of Noureddin’a death awoke, as before mentioned, all subaltern Moslem ambitions, Shirkuh is believed to have meditated possessing himself of Damascus; but the prudence of Eyub prevented any precipitate step, and the Atabeg either did not hear of the project, or chose to appear ignorant of it. At the moment when Shawer’s proposals were accepted, Shirkuh was employed in conquering some Christian districts east of the Jordan; whence Noureddin recalled him, to lead his army into Egypt; and upon this occasion Shirkuh desired to be accompanied by his nephew Saladin. The young man, who is described as delicately beautiful in person, prone to blushing and tears, was then leading a very retired life, in his father’s house. In his adolescence he had been addicted to sen­sual pleasures, even to hard drinking with his uncle Shirkuh; whose Mohammedanism failed before the wine­cup, and whose military merits are proved, by the austere Noureddine’s closing his eyes to such a transgression of the laws of Islam. But, when the family became resident at the court of Noureddin, if the uncle were incurable, the nephew seems to have been impressed with such profound reverence for the ascetic virtues of his Prince, that he at once renounced all vicious habits, all enervating indul­gences, and became truly, not hypocritically—his whole subsequent career refutes such a suspicion—devout and abstemious, dedicating himself to study. This philosophic or pious seclusion he refused to leave at Shirkuh’s invitation; but Eyub, aware, it may be presumed, of his great abilities, was determined to force him into active public life; and, in obedience to his father’s commands, Saladin accompanied his uncle.

The object of the expedition was easily accomplished: although, whether Shirkuh defeated Dargam, or Dargam Shirkuh, the reader may be surprised to learn, is a question upon which Moslem historians differ amongst themselves. It seems, at the first blush, one that the course of events must answer, but it was not to victory that Shirkuh’s success was due. Dargam was assassinated; perchance by a son or brother of one of the massacred Emirs; and Shawer—whether victorious or defeated, and whether he had or had not instigated the murder, which again is matter of dispute—profited by the crime. He forthwith recovered his post.

This reinstalment of the Sultan-Vizier took place a.d. 1163; but the auxiliary army did not withdraw upon accomplishing its task. Shirkuh alleged that Shawer intended to defraud both the Atabeg and the troops of their promised reward, and swore he would not stir without it. Shawer, on the other hand, accused Shirkuh of meditating the conquest of Egypt; and both parties are likely enough to have been in the right in their suspicions. There is little reason to suppose Shawer particularly honest; and, without accusing Noureddin of having actually given instructions for the occupation of Egypt, Shirkuh, in addition to the glory and the private gain he would anticipate from such a conquest, must have known how much the acquisition of this realm would promote his master’s views, as well patriotic as religious.

Upon the ground of distrusting Noureddin and Shirkuh, the Sultan-Vizier now applied to the recent invader of Egypt, the King of Jerusalem, to protect both him and the Caliph against the ally to whom he owed the recovery of his vizierate, offering liberal remuneration for the succours he solicited. The request was most welcome; the Syro-Franks fully appreciating the danger with which the addition of Egypt to Noureddin’s dominions was fraught to them; inclosed as Palestine would then be within a crescent, resting upon the sea at its southern extremity and nearly so at its northern, with Egypt menacing the whole line of coast. The rapacious Amalric chose, nevertheless, to be well paid for serving his own interest, and Shawer, ever lavish in promises, agreed to his terms. The King now entered Egypt at the head of his army; but he distrusted the Sultan-Vizier’s word, and required, before he would strike a blow, that the Caliph himself should ratify the treaty. This was an awkward demand; inasmuch as the intense veneration due to the descendant of the Prophet, which prohibited the disturbance of his repose by any kind of worldly business, was the very foundation upon which the absolute power of the Sultan-Vizier rested. But fear of Noureddin and Shirkuh was just then predominant; Shawer engaged that the Caliph should comply with the King’s demand, and the Syro-Frank historian of the Crusades and of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, subsequently Archbishop of Tyre, and related, it is said, but not how, to the royal family, has described the scene from the very lips of the chief Christian actor.

Amalric, whether from difficulties as to etiquette, or from fears for his safety should he trust himself in the Caliph’s palace, did not, as might be expected, visit in person the potentate he came to protect, and would not in person receive the solemn personal pledge he required. He deputed Hugh Baron of Caesarea as his representative, to perform that office; and the Baron, as he told the historian, was conducted through a seemingly endless display of the pomp and wealth of the palace—he saw a pearl equal in size to a pigeon’s egg and an emerald a palm and a half long—and of its strength—passing through a formidable array of the Nubian and Saracenic guards. At the further end of the hall of audience, when he entered it, hung a curtain, thickly wrought with gold and pearls; it was drawn aside, and discovered the Caliph Adhed reclining upon a splendid throne, half encircled by his household officers. When, amidst the prostrations of his introducers, the bold warrior stated the demand of the King of Jerusalem, that the Caliph should ratify the treaty by striking hands, a cry of horror, at the idea of such profanation of the sacred person of the Prophet’s descendant and representative, burst from the attendants. Adhed had, however, been assured that only Amalric could save him from Noureddin, that Amalric must therefore be satisfied; and with a smiling countenance he offered the Christian his hand. But the hand was covered; and without touching it, the Lord of Caesarea said, “In striking a bargain all must be frank and open. The Christians will distrust the Caliph’s intentions if he plight his faith with a shrouded hand.” The Commander of the Faithful, with a deep sigh, as if despoiling himself of his high dignity, removed the covering, placed his bare hand in the hand of the Christian Noble, and took the oath he dictated.

The Caliph’s submission to the pressure of necessity was repaid, and for two years the designs of Shirkuh, if the Kurd really did then entertain any, were baffled. But it was suspected that, reluctant too early to end a war so pecuniarily profitable, Amalric wilfully missed some opportunities of actually destroying his antagonist. Neither friend nor foe of Shawer had decidedly the advantage, and Alexandria, of which Shirkuh had obtained possession and committed the defence to Saladin, though reduced to extremities by famine, still held out; when the affairs of Palestine imperatively recalling the King, he made overtures, and the three parties negotiated. Amalric and Shirkuh agreed simultaneously to evacuate Egypt, both amply remunerated by the Sultan-Vizier, the one for coming, the other for his departure.

Upon this occasion Amalric discovered a sense of honour and humanity, too rare unfortunately among the Syro- Franks, whether monarchs or subjects, to be omitted. Arab historians relate that when, upon the conclusion of the treaty, Saladin opened the gates of Alexandria, he visited the Christian camp. Friendly intercourse took place, and the King offered him the use of his ships to convey the sick and wounded of the garrison to Acre, with a free passage through Palestine when landed. The offer was thankfully accepted; and Saladin, being himself upon the sick list, embarked with them. To the Governor of Acre, however, a batch of enemies, whom a simple breach of faith would make his prisoners, was a prize irresistibly tempting, and, as prisoners, he detained them; but the King, hearing of their capture, commanded their instantaneous release, and safe escort to their own frontier.

Amalric was not always as observant of his engagements with misbelievers, and of the three parties to the treaty for the evacuation of Egypt, Shawer alone seems to have meant honestly. The wealth and helplessness of the land were actual invitations to the spoiler, and Amalric dreamt of a second kingdom and booty, Shirkuh perhaps of the first for his master, certainly of the last for himself, and perhaps of that only; whilst the Atabeg, less amenable to worldly lures, was urged by the orthodox Commander of the Faithful to extinguish the heretic, Sheah Caliphate.

Amalric was the first to act. He, like Baldwin III, was connected by marriage with Manuel, to wed whose niece he had, at his accession, repudiated his wife, Agnes de Courtenay, daughter of his unfortunate relation, Joselyn, the despoiled Earl of Edessa, upon the usual plea of consanguinity. A true one, but an impediment as well known at the marriage as at its dissolution. To his Imperial uncle, the King now proposed the immediate joint conquest of Egypt; to which Manuel at once agreed, promising the co-operation of a fleet and army. But the attention of the Constantinopolitan Court was divided by the necessity of repulsing inroads of northern tribes, of suppressing rebellions of Danubian provinces; and at the time appointed, the armament was not ready. Amalric, who for some time had been, in imagination, master of half Egypt, was impatient to realize his dream, and yet more so to feel the wealth he had there seen his own; whilst the royal impatience, which needed no spur, was hourly stimulated by Gilbert de Sailly, or de Assalit, the new Grand-Master of the Hospital, a brave, generous, but loosely principled man, who had involved his Order in debt, and hoped to escape censure by satisfying the creditors out of his share of Egyptian plunder, and adding Belbeis, of which he obtained a promise, to the pos­sessions of the offended Order. In vain the Templars, seized with sudden scruples, refused to concur in a breach of faith, which they pronounced disgraceful to a Christian King; to be committed, moreover, in order to embark in an enterprise that, under the circumstances, was most hazardous. Amalric persisted. Without Greek co-operation, without support from the Templars, without a declaration of war, merely alleging that the Sultan-Vizier was intriguing with the enemy of Palestine, Noureddin, he, within three months after signing the convention by which he quitted Egypt well paid, re-entered it as an invader. As usual, it was defenceless, and the Syro-Franks overran the land, ravaging plundering, and burning, more like banditti than conquerors designing permanent acquisition. At Belbeis—where, though on the 3d of November it fell, nearly unresisting, men, women, children, babies, are averred to have been massacred-they captured a son and a nephew of Shawer’s. He immediately offered for their ransom a sum large enough to tempt the cupidity of Amalric, by whom it would be monopolized:—the Hospitalers appropriating to themselves a far larger portion of the general booty than he thought their due. He demanded more, however, than Shawer offered.

Shawer now made difficulties, and dexterously prolonged the negotiation, in order to give time for the arrival of succours from Damascus, ere hostilities should be resumed, or the Christian army approach Cairo. The arrival of such succours he confidently expected, because the form in which they had been solicited, made it, amongst Mohammedans, disgraceful to refuse or to hesitate. The moment Amalric’s invasion was known, Adhed, again driven by desperation to steps cruelly humiliating to the descendant of the Prophet, wrote with his own hand to Noureddin, and inclosing in his letter locks of the hair of all his wives, implored aid for their behoof and in their names. The habitual sanctity of the harem—implied in its very name to which it is indecorous even to allude in conversation, renders the bringing wives thus forward in extremity an irresistible adjuration. The rigidly orthodox Atabeg felt it so; and now despatched Shirkuh to protect the heretic Caliph. 

Shirkuh again desired to be accompanied by the nephew he had found so valuable an assistant; he again refused; and now the paternal authority failed to conquer his resolution. Eyub had recourse to Noureddin; and against even his command, enhanced by a gift of money to equip himself—the want of which had been one of his excuses—Saladin remonstrated. He declared that the whole realm of Egypt would be no compensation for what he had undergone in the last campaign, when defending Alexandria against the Chris­tians, and against a worse enemy—famine. Noureddin insisted, feeling that to associate the ascetic nephew with the often intoxicated uncle was placing some check upon the anti-Moslem propensities that, degrading his otherwise invaluable general, might afford the Sheahs a triumph over the Orthodox. To the Atabeg’s repeated, positive commands, Saladin ultimately yielded obedience, but often afterwards remarked: “I went as to my death”

The drama was now the same as before, with the parts reversed; Shirkuh and Saladin appearing as the protectors of their former adversary, against his former protector. The contest was of shorter duration, Shirkuh not having Amalric’s motives for procrastination; and the forces of Jerusalem, singly, being unequal to those of Noureddin and Egypt combined and ably wielded. But let not the reader dream of the hundreds of thousands of modern war. The usual army of Palestine consisted of 1500 horse and 5000 foot, to which Tripoli could add 600 horse and 2000 foot. But whether upon this occasion the Tripolitan forces were present, or, like the Templars, wanting, may be doubted; and, at all events, of course the kingdom could not be denuded of defenders for a foreign expedition. Thus so small was the invading Christian army, that, notwithstanding the acknowledged individual superiority of the Frank warriors, and although Shirkuh’s numbers did not exceed some 8000 men. Amalric was so alarmed by the tidings of his having set forth, that, without risking an encounter, he at once evacuated Egypt. Gilbert de Sailly, as the main adviser of an enterprise which had proved as unsuccessful as it was dishonourable and Imprudent, was obliged to abdicate his grand-mastership.

Over the transactions of the next four months in Egypt considerable obscurity hangs, but thus much is clear, that Shawer had little cause to rejoice in this rapid success. Shirkuh, loaded with presents, and honoured with an audience of the Caliph, discovered no intention of removing his camp from the environs of Cairo. Before long he accused the Sultan-Vizier of plotting the murder of himself, his nephew, and his Turkish Emirs, at a banquet to which he had invited them. Some Arab writers admit the truth of this accusation, simply as here Stated; others add, that Shawer had imparted his design to the Caliph as a politic mode of getting rid of troublesome, if not dangerous, friends, and that the Caliph revealed it to the chief of the intended visitors; whilst others, again, call it a calumny, devised by Shirkuh, and approved by the Caliph, who had long disliked Shawer, or who was then exasperated against him by Shirkuh’s disclosure of the Sultan-Vizier’s having asked his assistance to dethrone him, the Caliph, supplying his place by an infant. Whichever of these be the true version of the accusation, the consequent catastrophe is thus related. Upon the plea of the intended murder were based the orders that Shirkuh, when setting forth on a pilgrimage to the not distant tomb of a Soonee Saint, left with Sdadin. In pursuance of these orders, when the Sultan-Vizier, igno­rant of Shirkuh’s absence, visited the camp as usual, Saladin, in company with the chief Emir, advanced re­spectfully to receive him. They managed to separate him from his train, and then dragging him from his horse, made him a prisoner. His escort took to flight. Shirkuh instantly returning to his camp, reported the seizure and its motive to the spiritual and temporal Sovereign of Egypt, who, in reply, far from expressing any resentment at this treatment of his prime-minister, urgently recom­mended, if he did not command, his immediate execution. The advice or mandate was welcome to Shirkuh, who, forthwith obeying, sent the Sultan-Vizier’s head to the Caliph. Shawer’s sons, said to be their father’s accomplices, and who were in Adhed’s, not Shirkuh’s power, disappeared altogether. The end of the business was Shirkuh’s appointment as Sultan-Vizier, by a document professing to be drawn up in the most honourable and flattering terms ever employed for such a purpose, and conferring the amplest powers ever held by vizier.

Shirkuh did not enjoy his exaltation more than two months, during which he left all the duties and business of his office to his nephew. At the end of that time, having, thus remote from Noureddin’s eye, indulged, ay, revelled, beyond all bounds, in his besetting sin, he died its victim. Upon his death, the Caliph, much to the dissatisfaction of the Egyptian Emirs, transferred the vizierate, with the same extraordinary powers, to Saladin, who had, of course, succeeded to his uncle in the command of the Turkish army. The honours and dignities profusely showered upon him by the Sheah Caliph could not shake the new Sultan­Vizier’s steady adherence to the Soonee creed, or the fealty he still professed to Noureddin; who, upon this occasion, gave him the name of Salaheddin, or Safeguard of the Faith, contracted by Europeans into Saladin.

The evident danger to Palestine, from so prodigious an extension of Noureddin’s power as this virtual conversion of a mighty, often hostile, realm, into a subordinate ally, induced a revival of the project of a joint invasion of Egypt by the Greek and Syro-Frank forces: Manuel’s own interest in the preservation of the kingdom of Jeru­salem, as an outwork of the Eastern Empire, inducing him to overlook Amalric’s conduct upon the previous occa­sion,—his attempt to get Egypt for himself. He even supplied him with money for his preparations; and success was the more confidently anticipated, as the King had auxiliaries in Cairo in the very palace of the Caliph. Egypt had latterly swarmed with Nubians, some brought thither as slaves for sale, others flocking thither as adventurers in search of fortune. By various arts, numbers of them, both slaves and freemen, had risen to power; they formed a large part of the army, they held some of the chief offices of the State, as well as of the Palace and Harem. Saladin had offended the self-importance of these black dignitaries; who thereupon made overtures to his Christian enemies, proposing to fall, 50,000 strong, upon the Sultan-Vizier’s rear, when he should be engaged with the invaders. It seems so strange that Shawer, with such an army at his disposal, should have felt the fate of the realm dependent upon Shirkuh’s 8000 men, that it is impossible not to believe both that the Negro traitors exaggerated their numbers to give themselves consequence, and that Oriental magniloquence has, in recording it, exaggerated that exaggeration to exalt Saladin, by enhancing the difficulties and perils of his position. However that may be, an intercepted letter from the chief of the sable officials of the Harem to the King of Jerusalem revealed the plot. Saladin ordered the ringleaders to be executed, and the Negroes in general to be expelled the country. They resisted, and the streets of Cairo presented the image of a field of battle. But in the end, Saladin, with his 8000 Turks, Kurds, or Saracens, triumphed, and the Nubians, everywhere defeated, were either slaughtered or driven out of Egypt before their Christian allies were ready to profit by their revolt.

Amalric, upon this occasion, again sought to obtain a crusade to assist the projected invasion, and despatched the Archbishop of Tyre to excite one. But Alexander III was occupied with the schism, which alone would have sufficed to prevent any European union or concert. Henry II of England and Lewis VII of France were engrossed with their own broils and contests: whilst neither the latter monarch nor the Emperor Frederic had forgotten what they deemed the treachery of the Syro-Franks, in their former crusade. Frederic had, besides, too much upon his hands in his struggle with the Lombards and his support of anti-popes, to have time or thought to spare for distant evils; and in Sicily, the treatment of their dowager Countess by a King of Jerusalem, was angrily remembered; whilst William II was actually at war with one of his proposed allies, Manuel. The embassy failed, and the invasion was left to the Greek Emperor and the King of Jerusalem.

This time, it took place as preconcerted, but the only result was increased alienation betwixt the invaders. Manuel sent an army; Amalric headed his, and at every move offended the Constantinopolitan general. He idly wasted the efforts of the allied troops; he made no exertion to promote the capture of Damietta, which, by agreement, was, when taken, to belong to the Eastern Empire; and if he did not, as the Greek alleged, accept bribes from Saladin to betray his allies, he certainly neglected their interests and even those of his own kingdom, in his anxiety, by shortening the campaign, to save part of the Greek subsidy, as an addition to his hoards. He retorted the accusations, and the allies, mutually dissatisfied, again evacuated Egypt.

The remainder of Amalric’s reign—the last two months excepted—was passed in constant dread of subjugation by Noureddin. Protection he had none to expect; Manuel’s anger, at the conduct and issue of the late campaign, overpowering, for the moment, his politic desire to make a statesman’s use of the Syro-Franks. And the kingdom of Jerusalem appears to have owed the prolongation of its existence to the reciprocal distrust of Noureddin and Saladin, and the growing, but cautious, ambition of the latter. 

CHAPTER XI.

KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.

AMALRIC — BALDWIN IV — BALDWIN V — SIBYLLA AND GUY.