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.