“Sir Simon the Righteous”--a man of high endowments and principles of
rectitude unusual in his age. His devotion was sincere, his charities
extensive, his conduct always merciful--no slight merit in one bred up
among the savage devastators of Provence--and his household accounts
prove the order and religious principle that he enforced. His friends
were among the staunch supporters of the English Church, and, unlike
his father, who thought to merit salvation as the instrument of the
iniquities of Rome, he disregarded such injunctions and threats of hers
as disagreed with the plain dictates of conscience. Thinking for himself
at length led to contempt of lawful authority; but it was an age when
the shepherds were fouling the springs, and making their own profit of
the flock; and what marvel was it if the sheep went astray?
He was enthusiastically loved by the English, especially the commonalty,
who, excommunicate as he was, believed him a saint, imputed many
miracles to his remains, and murmured greatly that he was not canonized.
After-times may judge him as a noble character, wrecked upon great
temptations, and dying as befitted a brave and resigned man drawn into
fatal error.
“If ever, in temptation strong,
Thou left’st the right path for the wrong,
If every devious step thus trode
Still led thee further from the road,
Dread thou to speak presumptuous doom
On noble ‘Montfort’s’ lowly tomb;
But say, ‘he died a gallant knight,
With sword in hand, for England’s right.’”
For, though the rebellion cannot be justified, it was by the efforts and
strife of this reign that Magna Charta was fixed, not as the concession
wrung for a time by force from a reluctant monarch, but as the basis of
English law.
Prince Edward, in the plenitude of his victory, did not attempt to
repeal it; but, at a parliament held at Marlborough, 1267, led his
father to accept not this only, but such of the regulations of the
Barons as were reasonable, and consistent with the rigid maintenance of
the authority of the Crown.
Evesham was the overthrow of the Montfort family. Henry was there slain
with his father--though, according to ballad lore, he had another
fate--the blow only depriving him of sight, and he being found on the
field by a “baron’s faire daughter,” she conveyed him to a place of
safety, tended him, and finally became his wife, and made him “glad
father of pretty Bessee.” For years he lived and throve (as it appears)
as the blind beggar of Bethnal Green, till his daughter, who had been
brought up as a noble lady, was courted by various suitors. On her
making known, however, that she was a beggar’s daughter,
“‘Nay, then,’ quoth the merchant, ‘thou art not for me.’
‘Nor,’ quoth the inn-holder, ‘my wiffe shalt thou be.’
‘I lothe,’ said the gentle, ‘a beggar’s degree;
And therefore adewe, my pretty Bessee.’”
However, there was a gentle knight whose love for “pretty Bessee” was
proof against the discovery of her father’s condition and the entreaties
of his friends; and after he had satisfied her by promises not to
despise her parents, the blind beggar counted out so large a portion,
that he could not double it, and on the wedding-day the beggar revealed
his own high birth, to the general joy.
Unfortunately, it does not appear as if Henry de Montfort might not have
prospered without his disguise. His mother was generously treated by
the King and Prince, and retired beyond sea with her sons Amaury and
Richard; and her daughter Eleanor, and his brother Simon, a desperate
and violent man, held out Kenilworth for some months, which was with
difficulty reduced; afterward he joined his brother Guy, and wandered
about the Continent, brooding on revenge for his father’s death.
The last rebel to be overcome was the brave outlaw, Adam de Gourdon,
who, haunting Alton Wood as a robber after the death of Leicester, was
sought out by Prince Edward, subdued by his personal prowess, and led to
the feet of the King.
The brave and dutiful Prince became the real ruler of the kingdom, and
England at length reposed.
CAMEO XXXI. THE LAST OF THE CRUSADERS. (1267-1291.)
_Kings of England_.
1216. Henry III.
1272. Edward I.
_Kings of Scotland_.
1249. Alexander III.
1285. Margaret.
(Interregnum.)
_Kings of France_.
1226. Louis IX.
1270. Philippe III.
1285. Philippe IV.
_Emperor of Germany_.
1273. Rodolph I.
_Popes_.
1265. Clement IV.
1271. Gregory X.
1276. Innocent V.
1277. John XXI.
1277. Nicholas III.
1281. Martin IV.
1285. Honorius IV.
1288. Nicholas IV.
A hundred and seventy years had elapsed since the hills of Auvergne had
re-echoed the cry of _Dieu le veult_, and the Cross had been signed on
the shoulders of Godfrey and Tancred. Jerusalem had been held by the
Franks for a short space; but their crimes and their indolence had led
to their ruin, and the Holy City itself was lost, while only a few
fortresses, detached and isolated, remained to bear the name of the
Kingdom of Palestine. The languishing Royal Line was even lost, becoming
extinct in Conradine, the grandson of Friedrich II. and of Yolande of
Jerusalem, that last member of the house of Hohenstaufen on whom the
Pope and Charles of Anjou wreaked their vengeance for the crimes of his
fore-fathers. Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis, but of utterly
dissimilar character, had seized Conradine’s kingdom of the two
Sicilies, and likewise assumed his title to that of Jerusalem, thus
acquiring a personal interest in urging on another Crusade for the
recovery of Palestine.
Less and less of that kingdom existed. Bibars, or Bendocdar
Elbondukdari, one of the Mameluke emirs, who had become Sultan of Egypt
during the confusion that followed the death of Touran Chah, was so
great a warrior that he was surnamed the Pillar of the Mussulman
Religion and the Father of Victories--titles which he was resolved to
merit by exterminating the Franks. Cesarea, Antioch, Joppa, fell into
his hands in succession, and Tripoli and Acre alone remained in the
possession of the Templars and Hospitallers, who appealed to their
brethren in Europe for assistance.
The hope of a more effective crusade than his first had never been
absent from the mind of Louis IX.; he had carried it with him through
court and camp, dwelt on it while framing wise laws for his people,
instructing his nobles, or sitting to do justice beneath the spreading
oak-tree of Vincennes. Since his return from Damietta, he had always
lived as one devoted, never wearing gold on his spurs nor in his robes,
and spending each moment that he could take from affairs of state in
prayer and reading of the Scripture; and though his health was still
extremely frail and feeble, his resolution was taken.
On the 23d of March, 1267, he convoked his barons in the great hall of
the Louvre, and entered the assembly, holding in his hand that sacred
relic, the Crown of Thorns, which had been found by the Empress Helena
with the True Cross. He then addressed them, describing the needs of
their Eastern brethren, and expressing his own intention of at once
taking the Cross. There was a deep and mournful silence among his
hearers, who too well remembered the sufferings of their last campaign,
and who looked with despair at their beloved King’s worn and wasted
form, so weak that he could hardly bear the motion of a horse, and yet
bent on encountering the climate and the labors that had well-nigh
proved fatal to him before.
The legate, the Cardinal Ottoboni, then made an exhortation, after which
Louis assumed the Cross, and was imitated by his three sons, Philippe,
Tristan, and Pierre, and his son-in-law, Thibault, King of Navarre, with
other knights, but in no great numbers, for the barons were saying to
each other, that it was one of the saddest days that France had ever
seen. “If we take the Cross,” they said, “we lose our King; if we take
it not, we lose our God, since we will not take the Cross for Him.” The
Sire de Joinville absolutely refused on account of his vassals, and
openly pronounced it a mortal sin to counsel the King to undertake such
an expedition in his present state of health; but Louis’ determination
was fixed, and in the course of the next three years he collected a
number of gallant young Crusaders.
He had always had a strong influence over his nephew, Edward of England,
and the conclusion of the war with Montfort, as well as a personal
escape of his own, had at this period strongly disposed the Prince to
acts of devotion. While engaged in a game at chess with a knight at
Windsor Castle, a sudden impulse seized him to rise from his seat. He
had scarcely done so, when a stone, becoming detached from the groined
roof over his head, fell down on the very spot where he had been
sitting. His preservation was attributed by him to Our Lady of
Walsingham, and the beautiful church still existing there attests the
veneration paid to her in consequence, while he further believed himself
marked out for some especial object, and eagerly embraced the proposal
of accompanying the French King on his intended voyage.
Ottoboni preached the Crusade at Northampton on the 25th of June, 1269,
after which he gave the Cross to King Henry, to the Princes Edward and
Edmund, to their cousin Henry of Almayne, son to Richard of Cornwall,
and to about one hundred and fifty knights. The King intended as little
to go on the expedition as on any of the former ones, and he soon made
over his Cross to his son. Edward, who was fully in earnest, made every
arrangement for the safety of the realm in his absence, taking with
him the turbulent Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and appointing
guardians for his two infant sons, John and Henry, in case the old King
should die during his absence. His wife, Eleanor of Castile, insisted on
accompanying him; and when the perils of the expedition were represented
to her, she replied, “Nothing ought to part those whom God hath joined
together. The way to heaven is as near, if not nearer, from Syria as
from England or my native Spain.”
The last solemnity in which Edward assisted before his departure was the
translation of the remains of Edward the Confessor to their new tomb in
Westminster Abbey, the shrine of gold and precious stones being borne
upon the shoulders of King Henry himself, after which the princes took
leave of their father, and commenced their expedition, meeting on the
way their uncle, the King of the Romans, who was bringing home a young
German wife, Beatrice von Falkmart. Embarking at Dover on the 20th of
August, 1270, the princes made all speed to hasten across France, so as
to come up with Louis, who had set sail from Aigues Mortes on the 1st of
July, with his three sons, his daughter Isabelle, and her husband the
King of Navarre, and Isabelle the wife of his eldest son Philippe, as
well as a gallant host of Crusaders. He had appointed Cagliari as the
place of meeting with Edward of England, and with his brother Charles,
King of Sicily; but he found his sojourn there inconvenient; the Pisans,
who held Sardinia, were unfriendly, provisions were scarce, and the
water unwholesome, and he became desirous of changing his quarters.
The reasons which conduced to his fatal resolution have never been
clearly ascertained: whether he was influenced by his brother, the King
of Sicily, who might reasonably wish to see the Moors of Tunis, his near
neighbors, overpowered; or whether he was drawn along by the impatience
of his forces, who were weary of inaction, and thought the plunder of
any Mahometan praiseworthy; or whether he had any hope of converting
the King of Tunis, Omar, with whom he had at one time been in
correspondence. When some ambassadors from Tunis were at his court, a
converted Jew had been baptized in their presence, and he had said to
them, “Tell your master that I am so desirous of the salvation of his
soul, that I would spend the rest of my life in a Saracen prison, and
never see the light of day, if I could render your King and his people
Christians like that man.” It does not seem improbable that Louis might
have hoped that his arrival might encourage Omar to declare himself a
Christian. But be this as it might, he sailed from Cagliari, and on the
17th of June appeared upon the coast of Africa, close to the ruins of
ancient Carthage.
All the inhabitants fled to the mountains, and the shore was deserted,
so that the French might have disembarked at once; but Louis hesitated,
and waited till the next morning, when they found the coast covered
with Moors. However, the landing proceeded, the Moors all taking
flight--happily for the Christians, for their disorder was so great,
that a hundred men might have prevented their disembarkation. A
proclamation was then read, taking possession of the territory in the
name of our Lord, and of Louis, King of France. His servant.
The spot where the army had landed was a sandy island, a league in
length, and very narrow, separated from the mainland by a channel
fordable at low water, without any green thing growing on it, and with
only one spring of fresh water, which was guarded by a tower filled with
Moorish soldiers. A hundred men would have been sufficient to dislodge
them; but few horses had been landed, and those were injured by their
voyage, and the knights could do nothing without them. The men who
went in search of water were killed by the Moorish guard, and thirst,
together with the burning heat of the sun reflected by the arid sand,
caused the Christians to suffer terribly.
As to the King of Tunis, far from fulfilling Louis’ hopes, he sent him
word that he was coming to seek him at the head of 100,000 men, and that
he would only seek baptism on the field of battle; and at the same time
he seized and imprisoned every Christian in his dominions, threatening
to cut off all their heads the instant the French should attack Tunis.
After three days’ misery in the island, the Christians advanced across
the canal, and entered a beautiful green valley, where Carthage once had
stood, full of rich gardens, watered by springs arranged for irrigation.
The Moors buzzed round them, throwing their darts, but galloping off
on their advance without doing any harm. There was a garrison in the
citadel, which was all that remained of the once mighty town; and the
Genoese mariners, supported by the cavalry, undertook to dislodge them.
This was effected, and the ruinous city was in the hands of the French.
A number of the inhabitants had hidden themselves, with their riches, in
the extensive vaults and catacombs, and, to the shame of the Crusaders,
their employment was to search these wretches out and kill them, often
by filling the vaults with smoke.
Louis had promised his brother Charles to wait for him before marching
against Tunis, and messengers daily arrived with intelligence that the
Sicilian troops were embarking; but, as the days passed on, the malaria
of the ruined city and the heat of the climate were more fatal to the
French army than would have been a lost battle. The desert winds which
swept over them were hot as flame, and brought with them clouds of sand,
which blinded the men and choked up the wells, while the water of the
springs swarmed with insects, and all vegetable food failed. Disease
could not be long wanting in such a situation, and a week after the
taking of Carthage the whole camp was full of fever and dysentery, till
the living had not strength to bury the dead, but heaped them up in the
vaults and the trenches round the camp, where their decay added to the
infection of the air. The Moors charged up to the lines, and killed the
soldiers at their posts every day; and a poet within Tunis made the
menacing verses: “Frank, knowest thou not that Tunis is the sister of
Cairo? Thou wilt find before this town thy tomb, instead of the house
of Lokman; and the two terrible angels, Munkir and Nekir, will take the
place of the eunuch Sahil.”
Lokman and Sahil had been Louis’ guards in his Egyptian captivity, and
the Moorish poet contrasts them with the two angels whom the Mahometans
believed received and interrogated the dead.
As long as his strength lasted, Louis went about among the tents,
encouraging and succoring the sufferers; but nearly at the same time
himself and his two sons, Philippe and Tristan, were attacked by the
malady. On Tristan, a boy of sixteen, born in the last Crusade, the
illness made rapid progress, and the physicians judged it right to carry
him from his father’s tent and place him on board ship. His strength
rapidly gave way, and he expired soon after the transit. Louis
constantly inquired for his son, but was met by a mournful silence until
the eighth day, when he was plainly told of his death, and shed many
tears, though he trusted soon to rejoin his young champion of the Cross
in a better world. The Cardinal of Alba, the papal legate, was the next
to die; and Louis’ fever increasing, so that he could no longer attend
to the government of the army, he sent for his surviving children,
Philippe and Isabelle, and addressed to them a few words of advice,
giving them each a letter written with his own hand, in which the same
instructions were more developed. They were beautiful lessons in holy
living, piety, and justice, such as his descendant, the Dauphin, son of
Louis XV., might well call his most precious inheritance. He bids his
daughter to “have one desire that should never part from you--that is to
say, how you may most please our Lord; and set your heart on this, that,
though you should be sure of receiving no guerdon for any good you may
do, nor any punishment for doing evil, you should still keep from doing
what might displease God, and seek to do what may please Him, purely
for love of Him.” He desires her, in adornment, to incline “to the less
rather than the more,” and not to have too great increase of robes and
jewels, but rather to make of them her alms, and to remember that she
was an example to others. His parting blessing is, “May our Lord make
you as good in all things as I desire, and even more than I know how to
desire. Amen.”
To her he gave two ivory boxes, containing the scourge and hair-cloth
which he used in self-discipline, and which she afterward employed for
the same purpose, though unknown even to her confessor, until she
mentioned it at her death.
To Philippe he said much of justice and mercy, desiring him always to
take part against himself, and to give the preference to the weak over
the strong. He exhorted him to be careful in bestowing the benefices of
the Church, and to keep a careful watch over his nobles and governors,
lest they should injure the clergy or the poor. To reverence in church,
and to guarded language, he also exhorted him. Indeed, Joinville
records, that in all the years that he knew the King, he never heard
from him one careless mention of the name of God, or of the saints,
nor did he hear him ever lightly speak of the devil; and in this the
Seneschal so followed his example, that a blow was given in the Castle
of Joinville for every profane word, so that he hoped the ill habit was
there checked.
The good King thus concludes: “Dear son, I give thee all the blessing
that father can and ought to give to son. May God of His mercy guard and
defend thee from doing aught against His will; may He give thee grace to
do His will; so that He may be honored and served by thee; and this may
our Lord grant to me and thee by His great largesse, in such manner
that, after this mortal life, we may see and laud and love Him without
end.”
His children then took leave of him, and he remained with his
confessors, after which he received the last rites of the Church,
and was so fully conscious, that he made all the responses in the
penitential Psalms. When the Host was brought in, he threw himself out
of bed, and received it kneeling on the ground, after which he refused
to be replaced in bed, but lay upon a hair-cloth strewn with ashes. This
was on Sunday, at three o’clock, and from that time, while voice lasted,
he never ceased praising God aloud, and praying for his people. “Lord
God,” he often said, “give us grace to despise earthly things, and to
forget the things of this world, so that we may fear no evil;” or, “Make
Thy people holy, and watch over them.” On Monday he became speechless;
but he often looked around him _débonnairement_, and fixed his eyes on
the cross planted at the foot of his bed, while sometimes his attendants
caught a faint whisper of “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!”
It was the heavenly Jerusalem that was before him now; and after lying
as if asleep for half an hour, he joined his hands, saying, “Good Lord,
have mercy on the people that remain here, and bring them back to their
own land, that they may not fall into the hands of their enemies, nor
be forced to deny Thy holy name!” Soon after, “Father, into Thy hands I
commend my spirit,” and, looking up to heaven, “I will enter into Thy
house, and worship in Thy tabernacle.”
It was three o’clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, when Louis
drew his last breath, and his chaplains were still standing round his
bed of ashes, when, the sound of trumpets fell on their ears. The
Sicilian fleet had anchored, and the troops had landed while all the
French were hanging in suspense on each report of the failing strength
of their King, and had not even watched for that long-delayed arrival.
The dead silence that met the newcomers was their first intimation of
the calamity; and when Charles of Anjou reached his brother’s tent, and
saw his calm features fixed in death, he threw himself on his knees, and
bitterly reproached himself for his tardiness in coming to his aid.
The Sicilian troops gained some advantages over the Moors, and it was
proposed to finish the enterprise St. Louis had begun; but sickness
still made great ravages in the army, and the new King, Philippe III.,
was so ill, that a speedy departure could alone save his life: a peace
was therefore concluded with the Tunisians, which was hardly signed when
Edward, with his English force, arrived upon the coast. He accompanied
the melancholy remains of the French army to Trapani in Sicily, whither
misfortunes still followed them. The young wife of Philippe III. was
thrown from her horse, and died in consequence; and his sister Isabelle,
and her husband the King of Navarre, both sank under the disorders
brought from Carthage. Broken in health and spirit, Philippe resolved to
desist from the Crusade, and both he and his uncle would have persuaded
the English to do the same, since their small force alone could effect
nothing; but Edward was undaunted. “I would go,” said he, “if I had no
one with me but Fowen, my groom.”
Philippe set out on his return to France, carrying with him five
coffins--those of his father, his brother, his wife, his sister, and
brother-in-law. Henry d’Almayne took the opportunity of his escort to
return to England, since the failing health of Henry III., and of his
brother Richard, made his presence desirable. He had arrived at Viterbo,
when he entered a church to hear mass. The Host had just been elevated,
when a loud voice broke on the solemnity of the service, “Henry, thou
traitor, thou shalt not escape!”
Henry turned, and beheld his cousins, Simon and Guy de Montfort,
the latter of whom had married the daughter of the Italian Count
Aldobrandini, and was living in the neighborhood. Their daggers were
raised, and Henry was unarmed. He sprang to the altar, and the two
officiating priests interposed; but the sacrilegious Montforts killed
one, and left the other for dead, and, piercing Henry again and again,
slew him at the foot of the altar. Then going to the church-door, where
their horses awaited them, one of them said, “I have satisfied my
vengeance.”
“What!” said an attendant, “was not your father dragged through the
streets of Evesham?”
At these words the savages returned, and dragged the corpse by the hair
to the door of the church, after which they rode safely off.
Henry’s body was carried home, and buried in the Abbey of Hales. His
father probably never was aware of his death, for his own took place a
few months after.