496 DEATH OF REGINALD. [CH. LIX. father, by a former marriage, of our English Plantagenets.* Their two sons, Baldwin the Third, and Amaury, waged a strenuous, and not unsuccessful war, against the infidels; but the son of Amaury, Baldwin the Fourth, was deprived by the leprosy, a gift of the crusades, of the faculties both of mind and body. His sister Sybilla, the mother of Baldwin the Fifth, was his natural heiress; after the suspicious death of her child, she crowned her second husband, Guy of Lusignan, a prince of a handsome person, but of such base renown, that his own brother Jeffrey was heard to exclaim, "Since they have made him a king, surely they would have me a god!" The choice was generally blamed; and the most powerful vassal, Raymond count of Tripoli, who had been excluded from the succession and regency, entertained an implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honour and conscience to the temptations of the sultan. Such were the guardians of the holy city; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward, and a traitor; yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some supplies from Europe, by the valour of the military orders, and by the distant or domestic avocations of their great enemy. At length, on every side the sinking state was encircled and pressed by a hostile line; and the truce was violated by the Franks, whose existence it protected. A soldier of fortune, Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a fortress on the edge of the desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans, insulted Mahomet, and threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin condescended to complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice; and at the head of fourscore thousand horse and foot, invaded the Holy Land. The choice of Tiberias for his first siege was suggested by the count of Tripoli, to whom it belonged; and the king of Jerusalem was persuaded to drain his garrisons, and to arm his people, for the relief of that important place. By the advice of the perfidious Raymond, the [Geoffrey, the son of Fulk, was the father of our Plantagenets, by his marriage with Matilda, daughter of Henry I., and widow of the emperor Henry V. The name of Plantagenet originated in the preceding century, with another Fulk. William of Malmsbury, 265, 481, edit. Bohn.-ED.] + Templarii ut apes bombabant, et Hospitalarii ut venti stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli (the Christian light troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant (Ispahani de Expugnatione Kudsiticâ, p. 18, apud Schultens); a specimen of Arabian eloquence Christians were betrayed into a camp destitute of water; he fled on the first onset, with the curses of both nations; Lusignan was overthrown, with the loss of thirty thousand men; and the wood of the true cross, a dire misfortune! was left in the power of the infidels. The royal captive was conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as he fainted with thirst and terror, the generous victor presented him with a cup of sherbet, cooled in snow, without suffering his companion, Reginald of Chatillon, to partake of this pledge of hospitality and pardon. "The person and dignity of a king, said the sultan," are sacred; but this impious robber must instantly acknowledge the prophet, whom he has blasphemed, or meet the death which he has so often deserved." On the proud or conscientious refusal of the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him on the head with his scimitar, and Reginald was dispatched by the guards.† The trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus to an honourable prison and speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution of two hundred and thirty knights of the Hospital, the intrepid champions and martyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left without a head; and of the two grand masters somewhat different from the style of Xenophon. [The Turcopoli, according to Taaffe's account (pp. 215-222) were Turkish mercenaries, generally a light cavalry, serving under the Hospitallers. They were always commanded by a knight of that order, called Turcopolier, whose office was often united to that of the master at arms, or marshal. He is said (p. 215) to have been always an Englishman. -ED.] * The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the treason of Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he would have been a saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter. [Taaffe (p. 328-338) rebuts the charges against "the high-minded and too-injured Tripoli," as a wicked falsehood. He says, that the irresolute Guy was urged by the Grand Master of the Temple to hazard a battle, against the advice of Raymond, who led the vanguard, performed prodigies of valour, cut his way through the Saracens, and in a few days died of grief. Wilken says the same. Vol. iii. part 2, p. 276.-ED.] + Renaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is celebrated by the Latins in his life and death; but the circumstances of the latter are more distinctly related by Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville (Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70), alludes to the practice of Saladin, of never putting to death a prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of the companions of Arnold had heen slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, in a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur. (Abulfeda, p. 32.) [Reginald had made himself obnoxious to Saladin by his incursions. On one of these forays he was 2 K VOL. VI. 498 SALADIN'S CONQUEST [CH. LIX. of the military orders, the one was slain, and the other was a prisoner. From all the cities, both of the sea-coast and the inland country, the garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field; Tyre and Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; and three months after the battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms before the gates of Jerusalem.* He might expect, that the siege of a city so venerable on earth and in heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle the last sparks of enthusiasm; and that of sixty thousand Christians, every man would be a soldier, and every soldier a candidate for martyrdom. But queen Sybilla trembled for herself and her captive husband; and the barons and knights, who had escaped from the sword and chains of the Turks, displayed the same factious and selfish spirit in the public ruin. The most numerous portion of the inhabitants was composed of the Greek and Oriental Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the Mahometan before the Latin yoke;† and the holy sepulchre attracted a base and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who subsisted only on the charity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and hasty efforts were made for the defence of Jerusalem; but in the space of fourteen days, a victorious army drove back the sallies of the besieged, planted their engines, opened the wall to the breadth of fifteen cubits, applied their scaling ladders, and erected on the breach twelve banners defeated near Mecca, and the Saracens cut the throats of their prisoners, instead of a sacrifice of sheep or lambs, which it was their custom to offer every year. Saladin pursued the marauder to the gates of Petra, where he granted him a truce. Reginald's perfidious breach of this treaty led to the fatal war which followed, and caused the indignant Saladin to vow, that he would put the perjured traitor to death, if ever he fell into his hands. Taaffe (from Arab. Chron.), i. p. 312. 315. 324-341.-ED.] * Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom and city (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. 1. 2, p. 226-278), inserts two original epistles of a knight-templar. [Saladin's harangue to his emirs, urging them to rescue the Holy City from the hands of the infidels, with the alteration of a few words, might have been addressed by Godfrey to his knights. Taaffe (i. 346) says, that after the siege began, in less than four days, the citizens were driven to capitulate. He adds in a note, "Michaud seems for thirteen days; but the Arab. Chron. says decidedly four."-ED.] † Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545. of the prophet and the sultan. It was in vain that a barefoot procession of the queen, the women, and the monks, implored the Son of God to save his tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope was in the mercy of the conqueror, and to the first suppliant deputation that mercy was sternly denied. "He had sworn to avenge the patience and long-suffering of the Moslems; the hour of forgiveness was elapsed, and the moment was now arrived to expiate, in blood, the innocent blood which had been spilt by Godfrey and the first crusaders." But a desperate and successful struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that his triumph was not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn adjuration in the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment of human sympathy mollified the rigour of fanaticism and conquest. He consented to accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants. The Greek and Oriental Christians were permitted to live under his dominion; but it was stipulated that in forty days all the Franks and Latins should evacuate Jerusalem, and be safely conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt; that ten pieces of gold should be paid for each man, five for each woman, and one for every child; and that those who were unable to purchase their freedom, should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of some writers it is a favourite and invidious theme to compare the humanity of Saladin with the massacre of the first crusade. The difference would be merely personal; but we should not forget that the Christians had offered to capitulate, and that the Mahometans of Jerusalem sustained the last extremities of an assault and storm. Justice is indeed due to the fidelity with which the Turkish conqueror fulfilled the conditions of the treaty; and he may be deservedly praised for the glance of pity which he cast on the misery of the vanquished. Instead of a rigorous exaction of his debt, he accepted a sum of thirty thousand byzants for the ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three thousand more were dismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves was reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In his interview with the queen, his words, and even his tears, suggested the kindest consolations; his liberal alms were distributed among those who had been made orphans or widows by the fortune of war; and while the knights of the Hospital were in arms bann 500 THIRD CRUSADE, BY SEA. [CH. LIX. against him, he allowed their more pious brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and service of the sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our admiration and love; he was above the necessity of dissimulation, and his stern fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than to affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the strangers, the sultan made his triumphant entry, his banners waving in the wind, and to the harmony of martial music. The great mosch of Omar, which had been converted into a church, was again consecrated to one God and his prophet Mahomet; the walls and pavement were purified with rose water; and a pulpit, the labour of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary. But when the golden cross, that glittered on the dome, was cast down, and dragged through the streets, the Christians of every sect uttered a lamentable groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of the Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected the crosses, the images, the vases, and the relics, of the holy place; they were seized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting the caliph with the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was persuaded, however, to intrust them to the patriarch and prince of Antioch; and the pious pledge was redeemed by Richard of England, at the expense of fifty-two thousand byzants of gold.* The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final expulsion of the Latins from Syria; which was yet delayed above a century after the death of Saladin. In the career of victory, he was first checked by the resistance of Tyre; the troops and garrisons, which had capitulated, were imprudently conducted to the same port; their numbers were adequate to the defence of the place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat inspired the disorderly crowd with confidence and union. His father, a venerable pilgrim, had been made prisoner in the battle of Tiberias; but that dis * For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67–75) and Abulfeda (p. 40-43), are our Moslem witnesses. Of the Christian, Bernard Thesaurarius (c. 151-167) is the most copious and authentic; see likewise Matthew Paris (p. 120-124). + The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously described by Bernard Thesaurarius (de Acquisitione Terre Sanctæ, c. 167-179), the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana (p. 1150-1172, in Bongarsius), Abulfeda (p. 43-50), and Bohadin (p. 75—179). |