CHAPTER XIV

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THE NINTH CRUSADE.

[Sidenote: Comparison of the earlier and later crusades.]

Throughout the history of the crusades the wisdom of the general or the statesman is conspicuous by its absence; and we may fairly compare the long series of these wild enterprises with the erratic course and fitful splendour of a comet which at the moment of its greatest brilliancy rushes off into an ocean of darkness. They carried with them, as we have seen (p. 107), not one of the elements of permanent success, while they lasted long enough to impoverish myriads and carry misery and grief to the homes of millions. But the qualities which had won for the earlier crusaders whatever renown they may have acquired, were exhibited in full measure to the end. Their absolute fearlessness, their firm persistence in the faith which alone they could allow to be true, their heroic endurance of the suffering which in hours of triumph they seldom hesitated to inflict on others, are beyond question; but all these are virtues which apart from the sagacity of the wise ruler may be brilliant but must be eminently useless.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1259. Battle between the Templars and Hospitallers.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1263. Invasion of Palestine by the Mameluke Sultan Bibars.]

This wisdom the Latin Christians of Palestine were destined never to learn. Disunion ran perpetually into quarrels,—quarrel sometimes into open warfare. Between the Venetians and the men of Pisa and Genoa there was but at best but a hollow truce. The side which the Templars might take in a dispute was not that which would be taken by the Hospitallers or the Teutonic knights; and the schism of the two former of these orders led in 1259 to a pitched battle from which scarcely a Templar escaped alive. From slaughtering each other the champions of the cross passed to the slaughter-houses of Saracen executioners. The savage warriors of the Mameluke sultan Bibars seized Nazareth and Acre, torturing to death those who had not been happy enough to fall on the battle-field. Ninety Hospitallers held the fortress of Azotus! the last of them died when at length their enemies stormed the walls. The castle of Saphouri was surrendered by the Templars on the condition that the garrison, numbering 600 men in all, should be safely conveyed to the next Christian town. The sultan flung the treaty to the winds, and gave them a few hours to make their choice between death and apostasy. The prior and two Franciscan monks besought their companions to stand fast in their faith; and when the sultan demanded their answer, not a man shrunk from the penalty of refusal. All were slaughtered, the prior with the two monks being flayed alive.

[Sidenote: Loss of Antioch.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1268.]

At length the tidings reached Europe that Bohemond VI. had been driven from Antioch and that his city had passed into the hands of the unbelievers. The saintly Louis still yearned for the rescue of the holy places; but the memory of his past disasters led him to fear that his sinfulness or his bad generalship might again bring disgrace on the Christian arms. His diffidence called forth the encouragement of pope Clement IV., who with greater importunity urged Henry III. of England to do his duty by taking the cross. Three years had passed since the fatal defeat of Simon of Montfort, earl of Leicester, at Evesham: but the country, although not in actual war, was by no means in a state of repose, and we might wonder why at such a time the prince who was afterwards to reign as Edward I. should pledge himself to the new crusade, were it not clear that the enterprise was one which might be used for the purpose of drawing away from England men who might be troublesome or dangerous to his father or to himself. Edward took good care that the earl of Gloucester whom he feared the most should share his perils, if not his glory, in the East.

[Sidenote: Second crusade of Louis IX.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1270.]

[Sidenote: Death of the king.]

With sixty thousand men, Louis IX., accompanied by the counts of Flanders, Brittany, Champagne, and other barons, left France to return to it no more. A storm drove the fleet to Sardinia; and there it was decided that the crusaders should in the first instance go to Tunis. Charles of Anjou, the sovereign of Sicily, was anxious to maintain the rights of Christendom by exacting a tribute paid formerly to his predecessors: the devout Louis remembered, it is said, the messages by which the king of Tunis had expressed his wish to embrace Christianity, and thought that the presence of a large army would give him courage to make open confession of the true faith. The army landed and had encamped, we are told, on the site of Carthage, when a plague broke out, and amongst its crowd of victims struck the king. His whole life had been a prayer: it remained to the last a prayer for others rather than for himself. With serene submission to the divine counsels he stretched himself on his couch of ashes, and as he uttered the words, ‘I will enter Thy house, O Lord, I will worship in Thy sanctuary,’ he died.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1271. Capture of Nazareth by Edward, son of Henry III. of England.]

When the English Edward at last arrived in the camp, he saw that the idea of reaching Palestine before the winter was impracticable, and made up his mind to return to Sicily until the spring. When at length he reached Acre, he found that his name carried with it much of the terror associated with that of Richard Plantagenet. The Christians hastened to his standard, and with 7,000 men he attacked and took Nazareth, slaying the people with a massacre as pitiless as any which had sullied the chronicles of the crusades. It was his first and his last victory in Palestine. His campaign was cut short by sickness, and the dagger of an assassin sent by the emir of Joppa as a bearer of letters touching his conversion to Christianity well nigh cut short his life. Edward hurled the murderer to the floor and stabbed him to the heart. But the dagger was undoubtedly poisoned; and it needed more than ordinary skill on the part of the surgeons to arrest the progress of the venom. The sides of the wound were carefully pared away; and the strength of youth with the tender nursing of his wife Eleanor did the rest. The romancers of a later age framed the tale that he must have died, had she not with her lips sucked the poison from the wound.

[Sidenote: A. D. 1272. Return of Edward to Europe.]

[Sidenote: Vain efforts of Gregory X. to stir up a crusade.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1274.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1276.]

It was clear that nothing more could be done in the Holy Land, and Edward knew not how soon his presence might become indispensable in England. A peace was made for ten years, and the English crusaders set out on their homeward voyage. For a long series of years Europe had been making vigorous efforts, and the result of these efforts had been nothing more substantial or permanent than the lines left on the sea sand by an ebbing tide. For one moment it seemed that the spirit of the dream might be changed, when Theobald, archdeacon of Liege, the friend of the English Edward, was summoned from Acre to fill the chair of St. Peter as Gregory X. Theobald had been an eye-witness of the desperate calamities which were crushing the Latins of Palestine, and he called the princes of Europe to the rescue with a zeal worthy of Innocent III. or of Urban II. A council held at Lyons decreed a new crusade. Rodolph of Hapsburg, not yet firm in his imperial dignity, pledged himself to join it; and his example was followed by Michael Paleologos who thirteen years earlier (1287) had put down the Latin dynasty in Constantinople. But Gregory died in less than two years after the assembly at Lyons, and his visions of renewed conquests in Palestine died with him.

[Sidenote: Claims to the titular kingdom of Jerusalem.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1289.]

In the Holy Land itself the miserable Christian remnant adhered to its old tradition of fighting about shadows when the substance had been already lost. Hugh III. of Cyprus had had himself crowned at Tyre as king of Jerusalem. The Templars urged the claims of Charles of Anjou; the Hospitallers insisted with more sense that the dispute might be postponed until they had recovered the kingdom the title to which they were debating. A few years later, when Henry II. of Cyprus held this shadowy dignity, the grand-master of the Templars pleaded before Nicholas IV. the wrongs of the Latins which could be avenged only by the blood of the Saracens. But the power of the ancient spell was broken. Nicholas was ready to furnish some men, but these were ruffians and criminals, the very offscourings of the people: money he obstinately refused to give. The grand-master was not more successful elsewhere; and the Italian robbers formed the whole force with which he returned to Palestine.

[Sidenote: Loss of Acre.]

[Sidenote: A. D. 1291.]

The last forlorn struggle was made at Acre. Here, as elsewhere, the valour of the Templars shone conspicuous. The grand-master rejected the bribes of the sultan; but the latter cared little whether he could work on the venality of his enemies or whether he could not. His Mamelukes were not less courageous than the Templars, and their numbers were overwhelming. The assault began; the titular king of Jerusalem, Henry II. of Cyprus, besought the Teutonic knights to occupy his post, promising to return the next morning. His request was granted: but before the morning came, Henry was on his way to Cyprus. The attack was renewed with greater fury; but the Christians had lost all heart. The master of the Templars had been killed by a poisoned arrow, and seven Knights Hospitallers sailed away, the last remnant of the magnificent order which had braved successfully a thousand dangers. The city was lost: but the horrors of the siege were not ended. The people had hurried to the shore; a storm prevented them from embarking; and the very sea was reddened by the blood of the last victims of a wild and fanatical superstition.

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