CHAPTER XII
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THE SEVENTH CRUSADE.
[Sidenote: Richard, earl of Cornwall, king of the Romans.]
The number of the crusades might be largely extended if we gave the name to all the minor expeditions to the Holy Land in the intervals between the greater enterprises to which the term has been commonly applied. Yet the expedition led by Richard, earl of Cornwall, king of the Romans and brother of Henry III. of England, as being scarcely less remarkable than that of Frederick II., and for the same reason, may fairly be reckoned as the seventh of these extravagant and ill-starred enterprises.
[Sidenote: Charges of peculation against the papal collectors.]
Time had softened in some degree the spirit which had animated the first crusaders; but in the events which follow the return of Frederick we see something like an honest reaction against the diversion to other purposes of money contributed for the deliverance of Palestine. These diversions had become so frequent that the papal collectors regarded it as an annoyance or an insult if any refused to commute by money payments their engagements as crusaders.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1230. Opposition of the pope and the emperor to the new crusade.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1236-1239.]
[Sidenote: Arrival of the French crusaders at Acre.]
[Sidenote: Their complete failure.]
The peace which the Egyptian sultan Kameel had made with Frederick was little more than a truce. It was to last for ten years; but even during that term the compact was kept with no rigid strictness perhaps on either side. Thousands of Christians were slain, it is said, on their passage from Acre to Jerusalem, and envoys were sent to Gregory IX. and to Frederick, with whom he had been reconciled at Anagni, to entreat the equipment of another crusade. The crusade was enjoined, accordingly, but, as it seemed, with little sincerity; and when the French barons, headed by Theobald, count of Champagne and king of Navarre, and Hugh, duke of Burgundy, met in council at Lyons, they were commanded by the papal legate to adjourn their discussions and to return home. The request was peremptorily refused; but when their plans seemed to be in all respects matured, the ambassadors of Frederick himself besought them to wait until he could give them effectual help. Even to this appeal they turned a deaf ear: and although Frederick charged his officers to withhold all aid from the crusaders, these barons still insisted on carrying out their design and found their way to Acre. Before they reached it, Kameel had seized Jerusalem and dismantled the tower of David; and the crusaders had before them a task not less arduous than that which Godfrey of Bouillon and his followers had to encounter. Their failure was complete; it can scarcely be said that they even attempted to grapple with it.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1240. The English crusade.]
[Sidenote: Treaty between Richard of Cornwall and the Egyptian sultan.]
The English crusade which under Richard of Cornwall and William Longsword (son of the earl of Salisbury, but not earl of Salisbury himself) embarked at Dover for France, and having journeyed across France set sail from Marseilles in spite of a papal prohibition, was followed by results far more solid. On reaching Acre, they found the affairs both of Christians and Moslems in a state of strange confusion through treaties which neither side was able strictly to carry out. But the quarrel which had broken out afresh between the sultans of Egypt and Damascus told greatly in their favor. The march of Richard to Jaffa led to negotiations, and by the treaty which followed them the Egyptian sultan granted him terms even more favourable than those which had been conceded to Frederick II.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1242. Invasion of the Korasmians.]
[Sidenote: Alliance of the Templars and the Syrians.]
Palestine was once more virtually in the hands of the Christians, and in their hands it virtually remained, until, two years later, the Latin kingdom was again swept away by a foe more merciless than any which the crusaders had yet encountered. The brutal hordes, which Genghis Khan had set in motion from the remote wilds of Tartary, drove out from the Korasmian territories myriads of myriads scarcely less brutal than themselves. The fugitive Korasmians burst into Palestine. Jerusalem was deserted by its garrison, and the savages hastened to glut themselves with blood. The living were cut down, the dead torn from their graves, and thousands of pilgrims, decoyed back to the city by the display of crusading banners from the walls, furnished fresh victims for the awful sacrifice. In this desperate strait the Templars made common cause with the Syrians. A battle was fought in which the grand-masters of the Templars and Hospitallers were slain, the only survivors being thirty-three Templars, sixteen Hospitallers, and three Teutonic knights. The Korasmians were for the present in league with the Egyptian sovereign; but this harmony was soon followed by enmity. The Korasmians were defeated and scattered, and the tempest of barbarian invasion came to an end.
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