MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

BOOK III.

HENRY VI—PHILIP—OTHO IV.

CHAPTER VIII.

PHILIP - OTHO. [1197—1203.

Affairs of the Eastern Empire—Of the Syro-Frank States— Of Armenia—Of Egypt—Henry VPs Crusaders—Preparations for Fourth Crusade—Transactions at Venice— Diversion of Crusade—Siege of Constantinople—Isaac restored.

The uninterrupted continuity of German narrative, consequent upon the uninterrupted continuity of the contest between Philip and Otho for the Empire, has necessarily suffered the condition of the non-German world to fall into arrear. Even the history of the Sicilian kingdom, under the rightful heir of the Norman and the Swabian dynasties, blended in Frederic Roger, has perforce been thus neglected: and still, ere this important part of the subject of these volumes can be brought down to the epoch of Philip's assassination, other transactions claim attention. During these ten years a Crusade, in result the most memorable of any, except the first, had not only been organized, but run its course. And, considering how large a portion of the pontificate of Innocent III is comprised in these years, his proceedings in regard both to sovereigns he would spiritually rule and to heresy, should, chronologically and psychologically, naturally precede the gradual change of his views relative to his royal ward and his Welf protege. The Crusade, as completed, coming first, must be introduced by a survey of its theatre, as well the real as the intended.

At Constantinople, Alexius III thought himself secure upon his stolen throne. The brother whom he had despoiled of empire and of eyesight, and that brothers son, called Alexius the Younger to distinguish him from his usurping uncle, were his prisoners; and, now that death had relieved him from all fear of Henry VI, he, in his turn, tyrannized, or rather revelled undisturbed. But Alexius the Younger, a boy of thirteen, managed to escape in disguise, and stealing on board a Pisan ship, was by it carried to Italy. Once there, he flew to Rome, and solicited of the Pope such assistance as would replace his blind father on the throne, in whose name, he promised to repay the kindness, by bringing the Eastern Empire back to the pale of the Roman Catholic Church. To no pontiff, could the separation of the Greek from the Latin Church be a source of deeper grief or of bitterer mortification than to Innocent III, with his exalted ideal of the Papal office and dignity; to none, the reunion of the dissident an object of more intense desire. That reunion he had endeavoured to accomplish by argument, through the agency of a Greek convert, one Nicolo di Otranto; he had hoped it from the promises by which Alexius III had courted his favour and countenance: and doubly had he been disappointed. But, for the moment, he did not hold himself at liberty to renew the attempt by arms. The recovery of Jerusalem was the one triumph, by which he hoped to glorify his pontificate: as the first step towards the attainment of that splendid as hallowed triumph, he was labouring to pacify Europe, at least sufficiently to render a Crusade feasible; and from this object he would not be diverted by any other, how momentous soever—even if practicable; and he might well distrust the juvenile diplomatist’s power to fulfil his engagements. He received the royal fugitive kindly, but professed himself unable, under existing circumstances, to afford him assistance. Alexius then sought the German Court of his sister. Irene, where he was certain of finding at least cordial sympathy with his views, and every inclination to promote his wishes. Philip endeavoured to support and give weight to his brother-in-law’s abortive attempts at negotiation with the Pope, by offering his own guarantee for the reunion of the Greek Church by Alexius, whenever he should succeed to the Eastern empire, and solemnly pledging himself to effect it, should the crown, by the untimely death of the young prince, devolve upon Irene. But the intervention of Philip at that time was not beneficial to his father-in-law; Innocent persisted in his refusal, Philip struggling for his own crown, could no otherwise assist; and at his court, Alexius awaited a more favourable opportunity. For this he looked to Philip’s final victory over Otho, and undisputed pos­session of the Holy Roman Empire: but it loomed in another quarter.

Innocent’s persuasion of the instant need of a new Crusade, if the very name of a Christian kingdom of Jerusalem were to be preserved, if any of the Syro-Frank states were to survive, was fully borne out by the changes, then daily taking place, amongst their Moslem neighbours. The Moslem power, so formidable when wielded by Saladin, so insignificant when dispersed amongst many, was again gradually converging into one hand. In the year 1196, Malek-el-Adel, his power augmented by the follies and the vices of his younger kinsmen, judged himself equal to a bold act of usurpation. He formed a close alliance with his nephew Aziz, Sultan of Egypt; and conjointly attacking Saladin’s eldest son, Afdal, they expelled him from Damascus, which Malek-el-Adel occupied as his own capital. Two years later, Aziz died, leaving an infant heir; when many of the Emirs and Mameluke chiefs, invited the dethroned and despoiled Afdal to Cairo, there to assume the regency during his nephew’s minority. But Malek-el-Adel was similarly invited by another party of Egyptian Emirs and Mamelukes; and in the contest for this temporary sovereignty, the able uncle again vanquished the very inferior nephew. Malek-el-Adel was thus in possession of power only less formidable than Saladin’s, and perhaps Noureddin’s; superior to that of any of their recent predecessors.

Of the previous weakness of the Mohammedans, when Saladin’s empire was broken up, Henry King of Jerusalem, feeling himself at once bound and protected by his lion-hearted uncle’s truce, had not attempted to take advantage. The inferior Syro-Frank states, whose rulers might have been less scrupulous, were embroiled with each other, and with Lesser Armenia in Asia Minor, respecting the right of succession to Antioch. An intimate, and generally amicable intercourse, had arisen betwixt the Armenian princes and their Syro-Frank neighbours, as far back as the reign of Amalric, when a brother of Toros, Prince of Armenia, became a Templar. And, although upon the early death of Toros, the Templar had renounced his vows, to usurp his infant nephew’s heritage, the act almost appeared to have strengthened the connexion, it might have been expected to break. Both Orders had interested themselves in his success or failure j and they continued to interest themselves in all Armenian feuds and other affairs. During the recent usurpations and palace revo­lutions at Constantinople, the Armenian princes had thrown off all subjection, or vassalage to the Eastern Empire; Leo, the reigning prince, who, with the consent of Henry of Jerusalem and Champagne, had assumed the title of king, sought the confirmation of his royalty from the Pope and the Emperor (Celestin III and Henry VI); trusting thus to secure European support. In compliance with his petition, the Archbishop of Mainz, when, a.d. 1197, he led the Crusaders sent by Henry VI to Palestine, appears to have been commissioned to confer the desired title upon Leo; in the character of Arch-Chancellor and the Emperor’s representative, receive the homage of the new King, as a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire; and in that of Papal Legate, admit him, with his people, into the pale of the Roman Catholic Church—the Armenians being schismatics of neither the Greek nor the Latin Church.

Leo’s niece, Alice, eldest daughter of his deceased brother Rupin, to whom he had succeeded, was married to the eldest son of Bohemund III of Antioch, that Raymond, who had so strangely succeeded, as a collateral heir, to Raymond Earl of Tripoli, because their two utterly unconnected grandfathers, the reigning Princes of Antioch and Tripoli, had married two sisters, daughters of Baldwin II of Jerusalem. This Raymond, Earl of Tripoli, and heir of Antioch, died young, leaving an infant son, named Rupin, after his maternal grandfather; and his dying request to his father, was that he would immediately proclaim this, his infant grandson, his heir; whilst he endeavoured to secure the acquiescence of his younger brother, another Bohemund, in the arrangement, by bequeathing him Tripoli. The right of an elder son’s son in preference to a younger son, was not yet fully established, though in Germany, a judicial combat had decided in favour of right by representation, against right by nearness of relationship. Bohemund III, according to his promise, proclaimed Rupin his heir; but his second son, Bohemund, advanced his claim to be his father’s heir, using the principality bequeathed him, to defeat the bequeather’s wishes. A civil war ensued, in which Leo naturally championed the right of his brother’s grandchild; and the military Orders took part, the Templars in favour of the younger Bohemund, Earl of Tripoli, the Hospitallers and Marians of the elder Bohemund, Prince of Antioch, and his grandson Rupin. The Earl of Tripoli then invited the Sultan of Iconium to invade Armenia, hoping thus to compel the recall of Leo’s forces from Antioch. But the success of his nefarious scheme was short-lived; the Hospitallers and the Marians flying to Leo’s aid, after a sharp struggle, expelled the Turks, and were rewarded by Leo with estates in his dominions.

In such a posture of affairs, the Crusaders despatched by the Emperor expected to be received with rapturous gratitude. But since the loss of nine tenths of the kingdom, the view’s of the Syro-Franks were changed. They no longer looked upon war with the Mohammedans and conquest, or at least booty, as identical. They knew7 that these champions of the Cross, after breaking the truce, which secured present tranquillity to the kingdom, and making, if successful, some small conquests from the Saracens, would hold their crusading vow fulfilled, their utmost duty towards the Holy Land discharged; and return home, leaving the inhabitants involved in war, for the sake of some trifling acquisition, that they were too weak to preserve. They desired no crusading expedition, short of such a Crusade as could recover the kingdom, won by the first.

In addition to these general feelings with respect to crusaders, distrust of Henry VI—the jailer of the Lion­heart—had been awakened in the minds of the King, his Barons, and the Grand Masters: they suspected him of schemes, for compelling the Syro-Frank states to acknowledge themselves vassals of his crown. And this distrust, awakened, perhaps, by the somewhat singular, if purely accidental circumstance, that the leaders of these Crusaders were the Archbishop of Mainz, Arch-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Bishop of Wurzburg, the Emperor’s acting Chancellor, would not be allayed by the conduct of one of these high functionaries, even upon his way to Palestine.

The fleet, touching at Cyprus, now a hospitable land to pilgrims, found King Guy just dead. His brother, Amalric de Lusignan, claimed the kingdom as his natural heir, but, although no one appears to have dreamt of disputing his right, he had as yet neither assumed the government nor been proclaimed king. Under these circumstances, the Bishop of Wurzburg officiously tendered his services to crown him. Now as Cyprus was indisputably, if not an independent kingdom, a dependency, either, still, as for ages, of the East-Roman Empire, or of England,—whose King had conquered, and given the island to Guy—every way unconnected with Germany or the West-Roman Empire, this seemed indicative of a design to extend the German Emperor’s sovereignty, over all the Latin states in the East; and, weak as was the remaining fragment of the kingdom of Jerusalem, the idea of such vassalage revolted the pride of monarch and subject. Henry, a French peer and Asiatic king, bore to the Germans a Frenchman’s innate, contemptuous dislike, especially detesting the Emperor Henry VI, as the enemy of his half-worshipped uncle, Richard. To the Templars and Hospitallers, who, as has been observed, had very few Germans in their ranks, German sovereignty seemed the more peculiarly repugnant, from the existence of a distinct Teutonic Order; which, again, was as yet too young and feeble for its sympathies at all to countervail this national jealousy. A sentiment fully shared by those Italian, French, and English Crusaders, who, having remained in Palestine since the last Crusade, saw, with misgivings enhanced by dislike, a crusading army wholly German. The two Chancellors soon perceived the ill will entertained towards them, and reciprocated the distrust, suspecting the King of secretly counteracting them; a suspicion to rebut which, as regarded their warfare against the Mohammedans, his own interest, when once the truce had been actually broken, was surely argument sufficient.

Meanwhile the main body of the Crusaders, leaving the Bishop of Wurzburg at Cyprus, had hastened forward. Arriving at Acre in the midst of such internal broils and consequent weakness, they declared themselves unbound by treaties, of either English or Syro-Frank King, with misbelievers; and, without further ceremony, attacked Sidon. The Mohammedans, relying upon the truce, were surprised unprepared. The military Orders, despite the ill will they bore their new auxiliaries, of course joined the assailants of their natural enemies; and the town was taken, almost before it was known to be threatened. But the King of Jerusalem could no longer either counteract or cooperate with his allies. A strange accident, as though to increase the confusion, terminated the reign and life of King Henry. The accident is diversly related. According to the most generally received account, he was either upon the roof, or in a balcony of his palace, having selected so unusual a locality for the performance of his ablutions, when incautiously stooping forward he overbalanced himself, and fell headlong to the ground. The more likely version of one old Chronicler, adopted by one modern Orientalist sends him to the roof or balcony, for the appropriate purpose of watching the departure of his own troops, upon their march to join the Crusaders, against whom Malek-el-Adel was now in motion. That of another states that he was washing his hands in a room, when a noise in the street induced him, in order to see what was the matter, to lean against a window, which being imperfectly fastened, gave way and he fell out. Whilst yet another old Chronicler makes him in the act of haranguing the people when the fall occurred. Whichever way the extraordinary as fatal accident happened, Henry of Champagne and Jerusalem was killed upon the spot. All the French Crusaders, hitherto remaining in Palestine, went home upon the loss of their compatriot King.

This disaster befell in the autumn of 1197; and as the sceptre of Jerusalem was not to be wielded by female hands, the Barons immediately looked round for a fourth husband of their Queen. Their choice was not as suddenly made upon this, as upon the former occasion; but, after some contention and some caballing, very judiciously settled upon Amalric, King of Cyprus; a connexion calculated by uniting, to strengthen both small kingdoms. And as Amalric had tox be invited from Cyprus, the indecent precipitation of Isabel's third marriage, in the first week of her widowhood and in a state of pregnancy, was precluded upon this occasion. Henry's singular and premature end was, by many persons, deemed the judgment of Heaven upon that indecency. Even Innocent spoke of the untimely deaths, of both Henry and his predecessor Conrad, as divine judgments, not indeed for indecorous haste, but, for their adulterous pretended marriages with the wife of a living husband. This offence, likewise, was now obviated; Humphrey de Thoron had died since his wife’s third marriage, and Isabel was now really a widow.

The new Crusaders meanwhile, under the Duke of Brabant and the Earl of Holstein, were besieging Berytus, the modern Beyrout, and there occurred their first serious conflict with the Saracens. The place was resolutely defended, and the castle still held out, long after the city was in the possession of the Christians. But the ultimate capture is very variously described, in all save one point; to wit, that the Moslem Governor, returning from a suc­cessful sally, fell into an ambuscade and was slain. During the confusion that ensued, according to some accounts, the Christian slaves and prisoners in the castle—of whom, Beyrout being a favourite port, there were numbers, diversly estimated anywhere from 14,000 to 300,000—rising tumultuously, overpowered the small remaining garrison, and delivered up the castle to their fellow Christians; whilst, according to others, only three Christian slaves, or even one singly, managed to place it in Amalric’s hands; and again, according to others, the whole body merely made signals of encouragement, to the camp of the besiegers and to the blockading squadron, which at that moment was taking up a more menacing position; when, the consternation of the besieged being complete, they evacuated the castle and fled, dispersing in all directions. The immense booty found in Berytus, was insufficient to satisfy the Crusaders, whose pious zeal for the recovery of the Holy City seldom dulled their sense of their own interest. They are said to have actually tortured many of their prisoners to death, to extort from them the disclosure of the supposed receptacles of treasures, still undiscovered. And here again we have another account, saying that the Crusaders tortured Christian slaves in the town for this purpose, which provoked those in the castle to deliver it up to Amalric individually, and not to the Crusaders. Arnold of Lubeck, in his narrative of this expedition, mentions the conveyance of intelligence by carrier-pigeons, as something previously unheard of and scarcely credible. A curious illus­tration of the slowness with which information in those ages circulated; carrier-pigeons having, it will be recol­lected, been employed for this purpose by Noureddin.

The exulting Crusaders now rested upon their oars, to enjoy their success; whilst the Archbishop of Mainz, leaving them, repaired to Armenia, there to execute his twofold commission. The Saracens, alarmed by the fall of Berytus, surrendering two or three places, the communication between Acre and Antioch was open; and the castle of Thoron, the only stronghold left to the Mohammedans upon this line of sea coast, besieged. The leaders of the Crusade confidently anticipated the recovery of Jerusalem, when their triumphant career was interrupted, by the unexpected tidings of the death of Henry VI. The Rhine Palsgrave and the Landgrave of Thuringia immediately embarked for Europe, accompanied by all, who either desired to turn the unavoidable confusion of the moment to account, or were anxious to defend their pos­sessions against those whom they suspected of such desires. Many, however, with the Bishop of Wurzburg at their head—the Archbishop of Mainz was still absent in Armenia —at once taking the oath of allegiance to the son of the deceased Emperor, remained in Palestine to prosecute their conquests.

But their course of victory was run. Thoron offered, indeed, to capitulate, but the booty gathered at Berytus had stimulated the cupidity of the Crusaders; rapaciously eager to sack the place, they paused, upon the offer. Whilst the Christian camp was divided upon this question, the approach of a mighty Syro-Egyptian army was announced, and the siege raised in a panic. The Crusaders strove to excuse their failure, by charging the Bishop of Wurzburg and the Templars with being bribed by the Mahommedans, and, according to the oft told tale, cheated with brass under a layer of gold. In the month of March, 1198, the bulk of those who had staid behind, embarked for Europe;—the Duke of Austria, the son of Richard Coeur de Lion’s gaoler, died whilst preparing so to do;— but a part only of the returning Palmers reached their homes. Many were wrecked, plundered, and enslaved, on the Greek coast; others, wrecked upon the Apulian, were slaughtered, in gratification of the anti-Germanism created by Henry VI’s tyranny.

If through the union of Cyprus with the fragment of Palestine retained by the Christians, the new King, thus thrown upon his own resources, was stronger than his predecessor, still, what hope could he entertain of recovering the lost provinces by the forces of a kingdom, in which Knights, Templars, and Hospitallers, Patriarch and Barons, all acted as independent powers; warring with each other, and making or breaking treaties with the Moslem at their pleasure ? He was only too happy to renew the armistice that the German Crusaders had broken.

Antioch and Armenia, being less immediately threatened by the again tolerably concentrated power of the Mohammedans, could hardly be expected to set, the more endangered Jerusalemites, an example of profiting by the respite, to strengthen the Christian cause in Western Asia.

They were fighting for the conflicting claims to the principality of nephew and uncle, or rather, of father and son, for the younger Bohemund, as if exasperated by the honour done to his nephew’s ablest champion, Leo, now no longer confined his demand to being acknowledged his father’s heir. Supported by the Templars, and even by the Hospitallers,—whom their common ill will to the Germans had induced temporarily to join their rivals against Leo, a German vassal,—he deposed his aged father, and Antioch swore allegiance to him.

Such a state of weakness from internal dissensions, in a country liable, at any moment, to be inundated by misbelievers, alarmed Innocent, and vigorously did he endeavour to provide a remedy. He cancelled the excommunication illegally pronounced by the Archbishop of Sidon, as a friend of old Bohemund III, against the Templars, whom only their own Grand-Master, or the Pope, was entitled to excommunicate. He commanded the two Orders (whose ephemeral alliance the departure of the Germans had dissolved), to lay aside their enmity and unite for the defence of the Holy Land. He censured the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch, for their contest respecting the supremacy over the archbishopric of Tyre; appointing them a day upon which to appear before him, and explain their several pretensions; further censuring the former for sundry acts of rapacity and versatility. He interposed at Antioch, for the protection of church property, whether father or son, nephew or uncle were Prince. He mediated a reconciliation between Leo of Armenia and the two Orders ; which effected, Leo reinstalled Bohemund III in his principality of Antioch and compelled Bohemund the son to retire to his county of Tripoli; both conjointly referring the question of right of inheritance, to the Pope. Leo appears to have faithfully observed this treaty; but the younger Bohemund, even whilst, as Earl of Tripoli, he was soliciting the Pope to procure him European protection against the Saracens, resisted his intervention in the succession question. The war was, in consequence, repeatedly renewed, without decisive result. But Innocent rewarded Leo, and gained the good will of Armenia, by sending the archiepiscopal pall to the Katholikos, or Head of the Armenian hierarchy, and to the monarch, a consecrated banner, with the requested declaration, that only the Pope or his legate had authority over the King of Armenia; thus tacitly relieving him from his lately accepted vassalage to the Western Emperor. Innocent is said to have also found means of appeas­ing the wrath of Alexius Angelus, at the severance of Cyprus from the Eastern Empire; which wrath he had apprehended as an impediment to his projected Crusade.

For Innocent was well aware that even if united among themselves, wisely governed, and in cordial friendship with Armenia, the Syro-Franks would still be unable, without European succours, to maintain their strip of sea coast, far more to recover Jerusalem; and he continued to labour indefatigably, and judiciously as zealously, to organize a new Crusade for their assistance. He addressed pathetically vehement epistles to the princes of Europe, imploring them to lay aside private differences and enmities, in order to defend their brethren in Palestine, and again wrest the land, hallowed by the passion of their Redeemed, from the enemies of their holy religion. He sought to provide the funds necessary for a Crusade; himself with his Cardinals setting the example of liberality, by subscribing a tenth of their revenues. He laid a specific tax upon church property, regulating the percentage upon income to be paid by the several orders of regular, and ranks of secular clergy; and for this hallowed object he called upon all temporal princes in like manner to tax the laity. To guard against the possible misapplication or embezzlement of the funds so raised, their custody and distribution was everywhere to be committed to the bishop of the diocese, jointly with a knight Templar and a knight Hospitaler. Whoever, as a Crusader, received any portion thereof, was bound at his return, to produce a certificate of his having fulfilled his crusading vows, signed by the King of Jerusalem, the Patriarch, one of the Grand­Masters, or the Papal Legate. Whoever died upon the Crusade, was to transfer his share of the fund to a survivor. No one who had taken the Cross, could be released from the performance of the duty to which he had thus pledged himself, without the strictest investigation of his motives; and when they were pronounced lawful, the excused Crusader was bound to contribute the sum his expedition would have cost him, to the general fund. By a sort of sumptuary law, Innocent prohibited tournaments, festivals, and all unnecessary expenditure in dress and the table—limiting even the number of dishes at a meal for nobleman and citizen respectively—until the object of the Crusade should be accomplished. He forbade Venice, under pain of an interdict, to trade with Moslem states for the same period; but upon her representation, that, having no land, she depended for bread upon her trade with corn-growing countries, he limited the prohibition to supplying them with what is now termed contraband of war. And he augmented the spiritual indulgences, and the temporal protection of person and property, usually granted to pilgrims and crusaders.

But Innocent, like Urban II, could find no royal leader for his Crusade. The times were unpropitious. France was under an interdict for Philip II’s persistence in bigamy, and moreover engrossed by a war with England, equally engrossing English attention and resources. Germany was torn by the contention of Philip and Otho for the crown; Frederic of Sicily a mere child; the princes of the western peninsula were, as usual, engaged in hostilities with the Moslem at home; the northern and eastern European potentates, for the most part, occupied with internal broils and civil wars. But if the Pope’s energetic measures were thus grievously counteracted, they were effectually aided by the passionate predication of a French parish priest, Foulque, pastor of Neuilly; who, after some years of indulgence in the gross sensuality, to which the ecclesiastics of his country, and especially of the Parisian diocese, are said to have been then prone, in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, after due penance and penitential scourging, devoted himself to crusade-preaching. Whether he undertook this duty by the immediate command of Innocent III, or as a sort of bequest from his own converter and spiritual guide, Peter, a chorister of Notre Dame at Paris, to whom Innocent or Celestin had assigned it, may be questioned. But, however commissioned, Foulque, emulating Peter the Hermit, traversed the country in all directions, preaching, commuting the minds of men, and awakening their sympathies, and religious zeal; still no palpable result appeared. It should seem that, in the absence of any new catastrophe in the Holy Land, the excitement of one of those favourite festivals, always denounced by the Popes, and now, in the supposed interest of the desired crusade, positively prohibited, was requisite to stimulate these feelings into action.

It was at a tournament held at Ecry, in the autumn of the year 1199 by Theobald Earl of Champagne, brother and, in his county, heir of Henry King of Jerusalem, that Foulque found the opportunity of enkindling the enthusiasm of an assemblage of nobles, powerful enough, conjointly, to raise a really efficient Crusade. The princely giver of the tournament himself took the Cross; his cousin-german, Lewis, Earl of Blois—similarly nephew to the Kings of France and England—and his sister’s husband, Baldwin, Earl of Flanders and Hainault followed his example, as did the less powerful Earls, Simon and Guy de Montfort, Gaultier and Jean de Brienne, the Bishop of Soissons, with many other nobles, knights, and prelates, there present: all these Crusaders at once chose the Earl of Champagne for their leader. This was the spark wanting to light the fire. The flame now spread; on all sides the Cross was taken, and no fear remained of the Crusade failing for want of numbers. Councils—shall they be termed of war or of policy?—met to arrange future proceedings, when a new course was suggested and adopted; it was resolved to conquer Egypt prior to attempting the recovery of Jerusalem, thus to give the feebler kingdom support and stability. The preparation, as usual, consumed much time; and only in February, 1201, were six Barons—Villehardouin Marshal of Champagne, the Chronicler of this Crusade, being one—despatched to Italy, there to arrange with the great mercantile cities, the conveyance of the army to Egypt.

The Envoys repaired to Venice, already superior to her rivals Pisa and Genoa, whilst of the southern monarchial rival of all three, Sicily, the naval energies appeared to have expired with the last, in the direct male line, of her Norman kings, William II. She showed none during Tancred’s usurpation, or the short and troubled reign of Constance and her despotic consort. Venice was steadily advancing towards the zenith of her maritime and commercial greatness. By habitually acknowledging the sovereignty of the East-Roman emperors, who were in no condition to interfere with her perfect independence, she at once guarded herself against the assumption of sovereignty by the more formidable western emperors (whom she acknowledged when her interest required), and greatly benefited her trade;—throughout the Eastern Empire, as a part thereof, she enjoyed the privileges of nationality. The first use she had made of her independence was to elect her own despot, in her Duke or Doge; but even in the eleventh century, the opulent merchants and nobles, growing impatient of his arbitrary authority, had begun to place restraints, in the form of Councils, upon its exercise. Of these Councils, in the twelfth century, there were two; namely, the Great Council, and a smaller, called I Pregadi, literally the Invited, because the Doge, selecting them himself, invited them to help him with their advice. Both these bodies consisted solely of nobles. At the opening of the thirteenth century, the Pregadi had become a Senate, regularly elected by the Great Council; and as a further control upon the Doge, a still smaller council, analogous to the Credenza of the Lombard cities, was created. But if the Doge had thus lost much of his pristine despotism, he was still far removed from his later puppethood; and his power was, generally speaking, proportionate to his individual talents and popularity. The blind nonagenarian, Enrico Dandolo, with whom the Barons had to treat, was wellnigh absolute.

He and his three Councils readily undertook the transpor­tation of the crusading host to Egypt; but—deeply interested as was Venice, by commercial rather than religious considerations, in the existence of the kingdom of Jerusalem— not gratuitously. The Doge and Councils proposed, for the sum of 85,000 marks of silver, of Cologne weight, to provide 4500 knights with their 9000 esquires or men at arms and their horses, as also 20,000 infantry, with conveyance and nine months’ subsistence; the money to be paid upon the 1st of April of the next year, 1202, and the fleet to sail with the Crusaders, by the ensuing Midsummer day, at the latest. The Barons agreed to the terms, borrowed 2000 marks in Venice, which, by way of clenching the bargain, they paid to the Doge as earnest; and returning, reported their arrangements to their employers. The Doge at their departure observed to them, that he should not be disinclined to join the expedition with fifty ships, on account of the republic, if assured of half the expected conquests.

The treaty was communicated to the Pope, who well knowing both the improvidence of the noble Crusaders—which was likely to impoverish them—and the grasping disposition of the Republic, refused to sanction the terms, without the addition of a clause, abjuring all idea of aggression upon any Christian state, and binding the Venetians neither to take any advantage of the pilgrims, nor upon any pretext, to hinder or delay their voyage. The Venetians positively refused to insert a clause that implied mistrust of their honour; and Innocent, in his anxiety to forward the expedition, did not persist in the demand. But he endeavoured to supply the place of the rejected clause, and marked his unaltered opinion of the contracting parties, by prohibiting, under pain of excommunication, any act of hostility against a Christian state.

The diplomatist Barons, meanwhile, heedless or ignorant of the Pope’s fears and disapproval, were welcomed by their employers as skilful negotiators. But they found their chosen Chief ill, and their tidings if they cheered, could not cure him. In the month of May he died, leaving much of the sum he had gathered together for the expenses of the Crusade, to individual Crusaders, whom he judged unable to pay their way. Another leader now had to be found. The Duke of Burgundy and the Earl of Bar, severally and successively, declined the proffered honour; whereupon the zealous Villehardouin, a person of weight, as Marshal of Champagne, proposed the Marquess of Montferrat, brother of Marquesses William and Conrad, husbands respectively of Sibylla and of Isabel, Queens of Jerusalem. The idea was well received, the only objection to Marchese Bonifazio being, that he had not taken the Cross; which, Villehardouin alleged was a recommendation, since by tempting him with the supreme command they might gain a powerful confederate. And he was in the right; after a short hesitation, the Marquess accepted the post of Commander-in-Chief, took the Cross, and repaired to the Council of Crusaders, to settle in detail the plan of operations. This done, he returned to Italy to make his own preliminary arrangements.

At length all preparations were complete; the funds raised for the poorer pilgrims, duly distributed, and in the early spring of 1202, the Crusaders set forth. Earl Baldwin divided his contingent; leaving a considerable body to proceed by sea with his Countess, when she should have recovered from her expected confinement; and many of the Lower Lorrain Crusaders attached themselves to this division. The Earl himself, his brother Henry, and many French noblemen, led the main body of the army, chiefly French, Flemish, and Hainaulters, through Savoy, over Mount Cenis, and across the plain of Lombardy, to Venice. There they were met by one division of Germans, under the Bishop of Halberstadt and the Earl of Katzenellenbogen, who traversed the Tyrol; and by a second, under the active and zealous Martin, Abbot of the Cistercian abbey of Paris, in Alsace. But numbers, in detached bands, declaring the voyage from Venice too perilous, either embarked at Marseilles for Acre, or proceeded, as of old, through the whole length of Italy to take shipping in an Apulian port. Innocent condemned this dissemination of the crusading army, as calculated both to weaken its efficiency on landing, and to occasion difficulties at Venice; where conveyance would be provided for all, and a certain sum claimed, of which the shares of those who followed other roads would be wanting. These detached bands proved, in the end, almost the only part of the host, who struck a blow for the Holy Land.

Upon reaching Venice, the Crusaders found everything ready for immediate sailing; but a large portion of the money to be paid was deficient, both through the failure of those who took other routes, and through the less wealthy pilgrims having already spent what was to have served them for the whole expedition. Great perplexity now prevailed in the army; of those destitute of money, some proposed to be left behind until they could procure means to pay their passage, those who had paid, proceeding without them; others, required that the Venetians should, if not transport them gratuitously, at least give them credit, till they should, in Egypt, have collected booty sufficient to meet their engagements; and others, again, that the rich should pay for the poor. The first two proposals were at once rejected; the leaders not choosing to go without their troops, the Venetians refusing any sort of compromise, and declaring that not an anchor should be weighed, till the whole 85,000 marks was paid. In answer to the third demand, the leaders acted with becoming liberality; they gave what cash they had left; they sent plate, gold ornaments, and jewellery, to the Doge’s palace; but still, it is asserted, though hardly credible, that the deficiency amounted to nearly half the covenanted sum. No prospect of a move appeared; and the Venetians, alarmed at the numbers of their warlike guests, required them to confine themselves to the island of San Nicolao, where they rapidly lost their horses.

And now it was, that glimpses of the blind old Doge’s scheme began to transpire, justifying Innocent’s mistrust. Ninety-four winters had not impaired Dandolo’s intellect, courage, ambition, or even his activity; and his blindness, which might have been expected to diminish, if not destroy, the last of these qualities, had, perhaps, rather quickened them all, by the keen stimulus of vengeance. Against whom his vindictive passions burned, is indeed doubtful; some accounts imputing his loss of sight to one of the Constantinopolitan usurpers, during a casual quarrel between the Greeks and the Venetians; others to the Emperor Manuel’s resentment at the co-operation of Venice with the Germans, in the siege of Ancona; whilst others, acquitting the Greeks, assert that he thus suffered— whether accidentally or of set purpose—at Zara, during an insurrection of that city, against the hated yoke of a rival commercial state, whose superior power could be really resisted only by incorporation with Hungary. Be this as it may, Dandolo had from the first, anticipated the inability of the Crusaders, to produce the large sum stipulated; and, thoroughly indifferent to the papal menace of excommunication, he had projected making the gallant warriors discharge their debt, by military service to the republic. Whether he and his Councils had since received a bribe from the Egyptian Sultan to divert the storm from his realm, and if they had, whether that bribe were in the form of money, or, the less gross, of commercial monopoly—great were the commercial advantages enjoyed by Venice in Egypt—are questions upon which historians have ever been, still are, and are likely to continue, divided. Nor, save as taking a bribe from a Moslem to obstruct Christian policy, would yet further degrade the character of a republic, ever unscrupulous as selfish, do they much signify; since the line of conduct, to purchase which the bribe would be given, coincided with the Doge’s project; believed, even by some of the latest writers, to have always embraced the placing a creature of Venice upon the Constantinopolitan throne.

The position of affairs now being what he expected, the Doge assembled his Privy Council, and represented to this august body, that Venice would incur the reprobation of Christendom, should she, for the sake of a few marks of silver, prevent the recovery of the Holy City. He therefore proposed, by way of compromise, to give the Crusaders time for the payment of their debt, upon condition of their assisting the republic to regain the Dalmatian city of Zara, then held by the King of Hungary. The Crusaders, in general, were too happy to relieve the pressure of an inconvenient debt, and extricate themselves from a position of great difficulty, by doing that in which they most delighted, to wit, fighting; hence those who conscientiously objected to disobeying the Pope, by turning arms, consecrated to the service of the Cross, against fellow Christians, were speedily overpowered. Some few, indeed, abandoned the enterprise upon this change of purpose, and went home; but this was equally a breach of their vow, and one altogether dishonourable. The great body prepared to serve Venice. Marchese Bonifazio was not then with the army, but at Rome, whither he had gone to consult Innocent upon the difficulty that had occurred, and also upon a proposal recently made to the Crusaders: Alexius the Younger, having implored them to reinstall his father, and offered to repay the service, by joining the Crusade with the forces of the East-Roman Empire.

At Venice, meanwhile, Dandolo having succeeded in the first step of his scheme, prepared to take the second. He wanted the actual command of the expedition against Zara, thus to steal into the direction of the future course of the Crusaders—as they still entitled themselves, retaining the Cross upon their garments, whilst proceeding to shed Christian blood, in defiance of the anathema denounced by him, whom they revered as the Vicegerent of Christ, against any deviation from the crusading vow. To achieve this object, the Doge, upon the following Sunday, ascended the pulpit in St. Mark’s church, and thence, prior to the celebration of Mass, thus addressed the congregated leaders of the warrior-pilgrims: “My Lords, I am, as you see, old, blind, and infirm, such as might well desire repose. Yet, would you permit me, fain would I share, whether for life or for death, in this noblest of enterprises, to be executed in fellowship with the best and bravest knights in existence. Moreover, well am I assured that, in the present subsidiary expedition, at least, despite my infirmities, ye cannot have a better leader than myself.’

The bold words of the sightless veteran touched every heart. Whilst from every eye burst tears, an unanimous cry of, “In God’s name be thou our comrade, our leader!” arose. Dandolo allowed no time for change; descending from the pulpit, he hastened to the high altar, and there kneeling, received the Cross. Many Venetians instantly followed the example of their Doge. The Republic, by the unprecedented compliment of permitting him to appoint his own son his deputy in his high office, during his absence, marked the extraordinary veneration felt for him.

These and some other negotiations consumed the whole summer; one of the last relating to the Papal Legate. Cardinal Pietro di San Marcello, arriving in that capacity to assume the conduct of the Crusade, of course vehemently insisted upon sailing, as originally intended, direct for Alexandria; protesting against any diversion of Crusaders to mere worldly objects. He was received with due reverence but Dandolo refused to relinquish at his bidding the advantage he had gained, or, to admit him on board, in any authoritative character, though, as an additional crusading prelate, most welcome. The Cardinal-Legate, on the other hand, refused to accompany a body of Crusaders who disowned his authority; but directed the Bishop of Halberstadt and four Cistercian Abbots, who were about to withdraw from the perverted Crusade, to remain with the army, lest it should disperse after taking Zara; and to use their utmost exertions to avert both the spilling of Christian blood, and the further luring of the Crusade from its proper object. The Cardinal, after some little delay, repaired to an Apulian port, where he embarked for Palestine. The Marquess of Montferrat, declining to take part in an attack upon Christians, returned home; but promised to rejoin the Crusaders, when they should be ready to resume the Crusade. Gaultier de Brienne had earlier, and less honourably, left his comrades. Even pending the original negotiations at Venice, he led a band to Apulia, there to enforce his wife Albina’s claim to hex brother’s inheritance, promising to join the Crusaders at their place of embarkation. This promise he had not kept.

Upon the 8th of October, 1202, the Crusaders embarked, and the fleet, amounting to 430 vessels, of various sizes and descriptions, adapted to the conveyance of men, horses, machinery, and provisions, including, and headed by, 50 galleys, set sail, amidst the acclamations and prayers of an immense concourse of people. So formidable an array did this combination of a crusading army with the naval force of Venice present, that the rebellious subjects and hostile neighbours of the republic trembled. Trieste and Muggia, which Dandolo, when fairly at sea, had prevailed upon the Crusaders to attack, preliminarily to Zara, sent deputies with tribute and professions of obedience, to the advancing armament. Dandolo was satisfied with their submission, and steered for Zara, where, on the 10th of November, the troops landed. The sight of the strong position and fortifications of this town, situated at the point of a projecting tongue of land, gave weight to the protestations of the Cistercian Abbots against this aggression upon a king, who still bore the Cross, if dilatory in the performance of his vow. Those who had uniformly resisted the change of plan, and those who had reluctantly suffered themselves to be dragged into it, gained strength. The inhabitants, indeed, alarmed, like those of Trieste and Muggia, at the host that threatened them, early made overtures to the Doge; but the hope, awakened by the dissentients from this enterprise among the Crusaders, that the bulk of the army would recoil from attacking the King of Hungary’s dominions, broke the negotiation.

The incensed Doge vehemently reproached the Crusaders, for thus robbing him of the bloodless triumph he had nearly secured; threatening to set sail and leave them where they were, if they did not, by at once besieging Zara, make good the injury they had done him. Fear of being deserted by the vessels that were to bear them onward, prevailed over dread of incurring a confirmed sentence of excommunication by violating their vow: the Pope’s commands were again disobeyed, and the Crusaders laid siege to Zara. Upon the sixth day, November 24th, the city of a Christian King and professed Crusader, was taken by his fellow Crusaders. The booty was immense, and its division gave birth to quarrels, fraught, seemingly, with the dissolution of the armament. These, the opponents of the enterprise called proofs of the Divine wrath, at such perversion of a Crusade from the service of the Cross. The danger was, however, averted, the division effected, and the Crusaders paid, out of their share, an instalment of their debt to Venice. The Marquess of Montferrat now joined them, and all united in urging Dandolo to proceed, without further delay, to Alexandria. He replied that to undertake the voyage so late in the season, were downright insanity; spring must perforce be awaited in Dalmatia.

Meanwhile Emmeric complained to the Pope, both of this invasion of his territories, and of the outrages perpetrated upon his subjects at the capture of Zara. Innocent at once excommunicated all participators in the offence, Venetians as well as Crusaders, commanding them to restore the town to the King of Hungary, and the booty to the plundered. The Council of Princes resolved to conceal this sentence—lest, by disheartening the Crusaders, it should lead to their disbanding—whilst they sued for its revocation. To this end they sent a deputation, headed by Abbot Martin, to Rome, apologetically to represent their absolute dependence for conveyance upon the Venetians, who heeded neither remonstrance nor supplication; upon this ground, humbly imploring their pardon of the Holy Father. Innocent felt the force of the plea, and revoking the excommunication of all but the Venetians, even permitted the Crusaders—the evil being inevitable—to associate with their still anathematized confederates, until they should reach the intended theatre of war; but he strictly charged them to maintain a penitent and mourning frame of mind, during this season of pollution; and, upon landing, to break off all intercourse with those who had betrayed them into guilt. He added, that no excuse whatever could be admitted, for any further delay in the fulfilment of their vow. Abbot Martin would not return to a crusading army so dependent upon worldly-minded allies, and proceeded direct to Palestine.

But the winter’s sojourn at Zara was not favourable to the obedience readily, and no doubt honestly promised, to these injunctions. It gave time and opportunity both for Venetian intrigue, and for the renewal, in a more distinct and effective form, of the proposals, made some months before by Alexius the Younger; to which a vague answer, desiring to know what assistance Philip could afford, towards either the Crusade or the proposed enterprise, had then been returned. The reply was brought before the close of the year 1202, to Zara, by envoys from Philip and Alexius, who earnestly solicited the aid of the assembled princes. They dwelt upon the crimes of Alexius III; urging that the chastisement of flagrant guilt, and the relief of the injured and oppressed, were duties incumbent upon Christian knights. Finally, they represented that, so far from impeding the proper object of the Crusade, the preliminary expedition proposed would in fact advance it; since Alexius the Younger would pledge himself, if the imperial power were placed by them in his hands, to pay, in guerdon of such services, 100,000 marks to the Crusaders, and another 100,000 to the Venetians, besides 30,000, as damages for Venetian losses by confiscation, at the period of persecution; further, to supply the army with provisions during the whole Crusade, to reinforce the invaders of Egypt with 10,000 men for a year; to maintain constantly, even till the end of his life, 500 knights in Palestine, and to subject his empire to the spiritual supremacy of the Roman See.

Tempting as these offers were the Cistercian Abbots, led by Abbot Guy of Vaux-Sernay, earnestly protested against such a second deviation from their prefixed course, as an attack upon Constantinople; and were warmly supported by the de Montforts, with all the more zealous Crusaders. But the Doge pronounced it suicidal in Crusaders, to reject offers of such assistance in their hallowed enterprise. The Marquess of Montferrat, the Earls of Flanders, Blois and St. Pol were influenced by his eloquence, or captivated by the dazzling prospect; some of the prelates were caught, by the hope of reuniting the Greek, to the Roman Catholic Church; and the German leaders liked not to oppose the restoration of Irene’s father. In spite of the vehement opposition of the Abbot of Vaux-Sernay, and his party, Dandolo, and Marchese Bonifazio, sanctioned by most of the leaders, concluded a treaty with the envoys of Alexius, upon the terms proposed. Soon after Easter the young Prince repaired to Zara, and was received by the Crusaders, as the heir of the Eastern Empire.

Pending these negotiations, the army had been much weakened, by the desertion of those who disapproved of conduct, which they thought degraded the Champions of the Cross, into mercenaries of selfish states and princes. Numbers returned home, whilst the more zealous watched for opportunities of making their way, singly or in parties, to Palestine; Egypt being, for small bands, out of the question. Amongst these last were Abbot Guy and the de Montforts.

In the beginning of May, the army, and the Imperial Prince, embarked, touched at Dyrrachium, now Durazzo, which at once declared for Isaac and Alexius, and proceeded to Corcyra, now Corfu. Here they obtained only a promise to acknowledge Isaac if he should be restored to power; but they landed, and, tempted seemingly by the fertility and luxury of the island, wasted three weeks there.

During this sojourn, a large body of those who had rather yielded than agreed to the attempt then in hand, announced their determination to address themselves, without further deviation or procrastination, to the performance of their crusading vow; and, separating from the rest, they encamped in a retired valley. Dandolo and the partisans of Alexius were alarmed. In a body the Crusader-Princes sought the separate camp, and urged upon these seceders the arguments that had prevailed with themselves. But in vain. The staunch Crusaders refused to disobey the Pope, by longer neglecting their vow, for any mere worldly consideration. It was not till they beheld the leaders whom they had chosen and sworn to obey, with their kinsmen, friends, and brothers in arms, upon their knees, till they heard them imploring with tears, that they would not, by withdrawing, so weaken the army as, ultimately, to foil the grand object—which these seeming deviations would really promote—that the firmness of the single-minded Crusaders gave way. They agreed to assist until Michaelmas in these extraneous schemes, as they still deemed them, upon a clear understanding that then, without delay or evasion, and whatever were the position relative to Constantinople, vessels sufficient for their conveyance to their destination, should be assigned them. To this compromise both parties solemnly swore; and at Whitsuntide, the armament left Corfu for Constantinople.

Upon the voyage, another island, Andros, was secured for Isaac and Alexius the Younger, and by the 23d of June the fleet entered the Propontis. But as the splendours and beauties of Constantinople opened upon the eyes of the Crusaders, so did its size, strength, and populousness upon their apprehensions. They perceived the inadequacy of their means to the adventure in which they had engaged, and dejection pervaded the fleet. Dandolo, informed of this despondency, assembled the leaders, and, by his assurances of success, supported by instructions as to the means of obtaining it, founded upon intimate knowledge, topographical and moral, of Constantinople and the vicinity, revived their drooping spirits. Early in the morning of the 24th, the fleet weighed anchor, sailing past the city and close in shore. The walls were crowded with armed men; stones, darts, and arrows, rattled about the ships; but the knights, forming with their shields, an iron rampart along each vessel’s side, that protected deck and crew, they passed unharmed. The army landed upon the Asiatic shore, occupying the fruitful district of Scutari, then still called Chalcedon.

Here a Lombard, named Rossi, domiciliated at Con­stantinople, presented himself as an envoy from Alexius III. His mission was to express, in the Emperor’s name, his surprise, that Christian pilgrims should turn aside from their hallowed task, to invade the dominions of a Christian monarch; and his willingness to assist the crusading Princes, whom he admitted to be the highest beneath the rank of kings, in the conquest of the Holy Land; first, however, insisting upon their immediate evacuation of his territories and his seas, under pain of being swept away and annihilated by his irresistible might. And scarcely could this description of his power be deemed hyperbolical; for Alexius III was not taken by surprise. When informed of the altered destination of the crusading fleet, though he disdained to take other measures of precaution, he had collected troops in and about the city, to the amount, it is said, of 60,000 horse, and countless swarms of foot. The Princes answered his messenger, by the mouth of the good knight, Conon de Bethune, that they had invaded no Christian monarch’s dominions, the East Roman empire belonging, not to Alexius, but Isaac; to whom, if he would quietly restore the sceptre, they would pledge themselves to obtain him a full pardon, with a handsome allowance; but if he persevered in his usurpation, they desired to have no more messages.

The Envoy dismissed with this answer, the leaders of the Crusade proceeded to give their words weight, by placing Prince Alexius, in imperial array, on the poop of the admiral ship, thus exhibiting him to Constantinople as her sovereign, whilst, as before, sailing along the city walls. From their decks they shouted to the Greeks, who again thronged the battlements,—though now in pacific guise—"Behold your lawful Emperor! Obey him, and forsake the vile usurper who has expelled him! We come, not to make war upon you, but to help you to right yourselves. Unless, indeed, you choose to fly in the face of justice, of reason, and of God; in which case we will do you all the harm we can.”

Not a hand, not a voice, was raised for the pretender; the Greeks, who felt secure in their numerical superiority behind their walls, being little disposed to risk life and property, for one despot rather than another; and in fact preferring Alexius III to Isaac, as less sanguinary. The Crusaders, to their surprise and disappointment, saw that only by the sword could aught be done; whilst, to the unskilful engineers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the city appeared impregnable; and indeed with ordinary courage and judgment in its defenders, must, to their numbers, have been so. Constantinople, in the form of a triangle, occupies one of the projecting arms inclosing the bay; the well fortified base alone being accessible by land; one side is washed by the waters of the harbour, the mouth of which, commanded by the castle of Galata upon the opposite extremity, was closed by a strong chain; and the other, guarded both by fortifications and by the Propontis, the strong currents of which, rendered it difficult, if not dangerous, for a fleet to lie close enough under the outer walls, to attack from the ship-towers.

But the stalwart champions of Alexius the Younger, when once resolved to execute a purpose, were not to be daunted by obstacles, which the Greeks deemed insuperable. In the night, the Crusaders confessed, received absolution, took the sacrament, armed, and re-embarked. The first beams of the rising sun, as they gilded the dome of St. Sophia, saw them steering for Galata. The Greek troops, in terrific numbers and warlike array, occupied this suburb. The sight of an enemy fired the assailants, and without waiting for the lowering of the drawbridges, designed to facilitate landing, or storming walls, knights, squires, men-at-arms, and archers, impatient to engage, leaped into the sea, and through water rising up to their middle, waded ashore. This exploit sufficed, and engagement there was none : the mere sight of such impetuous warriors being enough for the degenerate Greeks. They fled without striking a blow, and the Crusaders were now firmly established in a suburb, on the European side of the strait, but with the harbour between them and the city. 

The following day they, almost as easily, possessed themselves of the castle of Galata, whilst their largest ship, named the Eagle, broke the chain closing the entrance of the harbour. The whole fleet then sailed quietly in, passed close along the hitherto unapproachable side of the city, and anchored in the innermost recess of the port. The Crusaders, repairing a bridge destroyed by the Greeks, then passed from Galata to a position menacing the north-western extremity of Constantinople; here they encamped, strongly entrenching themselves. So near were they to the celebrated Blachernae palace, that their arrows flew in through the windows, to the no small affright of the inhabitants; but so inadequate were their numbers to the operation they had undertaken, that they could blockade only one gate of the besieged city.

For the degree of success thus achieved, the Crusaders were indebted at least as much to the negligence, corruption, and arrogance of their enemies as to their own valour; and Alexius the Younger continued to profit alike by the opposite qualities of friend and foe. Fleet to oppose the Venetian, there was none; the Admiral Stryphinios, married to the Emperor’s sister, instead of equipping one with the stores accumulated for that purpose in the Arsenal, had either sold, or suffered others to purloin them, even to the dismantling of ships, supposed ready for service. The Emperor, though he had assembled troops, refused to order any measure for the prevention of the Crusaders’ landing; expressing his disdain of the paucity of their numbers, and consequent confidence in their subsequent discomfiture, without need of effort on his part, in words too coarsely indecent to defile an English page. And in such contemptuous negligence he persisted, whilst the Crusaders on shore, and the Venetians afloat, were diligently preparing their various warlike engines.

When all was ready, the leaders of the Crusade, undeterred by the failure of some slight desultory attempts, determined upon making a simultaneous assault, the Crusaders on the land side, the Venetians from the harbour; and Dandolo offered prizes to whoever should first scale the walls. From the very beginning of the siege Theodore Lascaris, the more energetic son-in-law of the inert Alexius III, had been vainly soliciting permission to lead the troops then in Constantinople—not Greeks but mercenaries, the old Varangians from all European countries, and some Asiatic,—against the handful of Crusaders; he had at last extorted a reluctant assent, and, on the 17th of July, was preparing for a sally, when the walls of the city were assailed. He was thus ready to meet and cheek the storm. With some hard fighting, he twice repulsed the Crusaders; anil the Emperor, who is believed to have grudged his son-in-law such triumphs, was excited into leading in person the projected sally, which immediately followed the repulse of the besiegers. The Imperial troops were to the Crusaders in the proportion of at least ten to one. The Crusaders fought with their accustomed gallantry; but neither valour nor prowess can counterbalance such disparity of numbers, unless aided by arrant cowardice in the enemy. The defeat of Alexius the Younger3s friends seemed inevitable.

Afloat, meanwhile, the blind old Doge, armed cap-a-pie, had taken his post at the prow of his own ship, with the banner of St. Mark in his hand. Waving it over his head, he, in accents unweakened by age, ordered his helmsman to steer right on shore. He was obeyed, and the whole fleet followed. If Constantinople really could boast a second Theodore Lascaris, he—of whom later—was helping to overpower the Crusaders; and the Venetians encountered little resistance. They forced a landing, scaled the walls, and had mastered several of the towers, when their triumphant progress was checked by news of the imminent danger of their allies. Dandolo felt that his success, if accompanied by the defeat of the land army, would, at best, be ephemeral and nugatory. He therefore merely set the houses within his reach on fire, and at once withdrew to his ships; the fierce conflagration engrossing the thoughts of those who might have hampered his movements. Being thus at liberty, he with his sailors hastened to reinforce the struggling Crusaders. They were already relieved: either the sight of the conflagration, or intolerance of prolonged exertion, and jealous reluctance to allow Lascaris a triumph, won singly, having determined the Emperor to abandon the victory in his grasp. Even united, the Venetians and Crusaders felt themselves no match for the Constantinopolitan army in the open field; and both parties retreated, the one behind their walls, the other to their entrenchments, and their ships.

Thus, on the morning of the 18th, either belligerent appeared to be in the same position as on the preceding morning; the only result of the combined attacks and of the formidable sally, being loss of life and destruction of property. But the appearance was illusory; one change was wrought, the parent of many. Alexius III had been more terrified by the temporary success of the Venetian fleet, than encouraged by that of his own army. During the night, he fled with part of his family, and next morning, his young rival and the Crusaders were agreeably surprised by a message from the blind Isaac, importing that he, the Emperor on his throne, impatiently expected his son, and his magnanimous allies.

Dandolo, however, taught by bitter experience of Greek faith, placed no reliance upon the gratitude of either father or son. It was the interest of Venice, not compassion, that had induced him to undertake the restoration of Isaac; and he now prevented the departure of his imperial protégé. In his stead, a mission, headed by Marshal Geoffroi de Villehardouin, was despatched, to present the congratulations of the Doge and the crusading Princes to the restored Emperor, and to inform him that, until he should have ratified the treaty concluded with his son, they could not permit the Prince to leave them.

The Emperor, somewhat startled, inquired what the terms of the treaty might be. The Marshal stated the terms; and ended by repeating his demand for their ratification and execution. Isaac replied, “Of a truth so burthensome are these conditions that how they are to be executed I do not see. Nevertheless, so much have you done for my son and for me, that had he promised you the whole empire, ’twere but what ye deserve.”

Thus from fear, combining with a transient sense of gratitude, and the young heir’s detention as an hostage for the fulfilment of his engagements, Isaac ratified the onerous treaty. This being announced, Alexius, amidst the martial display of the Crusaders, the courtly pomp of the Greeks, and the loud acclamations of all, was escorted to the arms of his parent. The meeting of the long fugitive son with the sightless father, in restored power and splendour, after their perils and sufferings, touched every heart. Upon the 1st of August, Alexius was solemnly crowned, as that sightless father’s colleague. Peace prevailed; and a free, mutually beneficial trade, was established between the Constantinopolitans and the Crusaders; who, as a measure of precaution against sudden broils, were quartered on the opposite side of the harbour, at Pera. Alexius IV began to pay a first instalment of his debt.

CHAPTER IX.

PHILIP OTHO. [1203—1208.