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.