KING BALDWIN THE LEPER. A.D. 1173-1186.
“Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so,
For what is in this world but grief and woe?”
_King Henry VI._
The only son of Amaury, by his first wife Agnes, daughter of the
younger Jocelyn of Edessa, was placed, at the age of nine years,
under the charge of William of Tyre. He was a studious bright boy,
and at first raised the highest hopes of his future. But his tutor
discovered by accident that he was afflicted with that dreadful and
incurable disease which was beginning to be so prevalent among the
Syrian Christians. In his boyish sports with the children of his own
age, his tutor remarked that when the boys pinched each other in the
arm, little Baldwin alone was able to bear the pain without any cry
or apparent emotion. This awakened his suspicions, and he took the
child to be examined by physicians. It was found that his right arm,
of which he had appeared to have perfect command, was half
paralysed. All sorts of fomentations and frictions were tried, but
all proved fruitless, and it was soon apparent that the future king
was a confirmed leper. Day by day the disease gained ground, seizing
on his hands and feet, and gradually gaining hold of his whole body.
He was handsome, too, and an accomplished horseman, passionately
fond of reading history and hearing the stories of valiant knights,
like his father and uncle. In person he exactly resembled his
father, and, like him, he was troubled with an impediment of speech.
He was thirteen when his father died, and four days after that event
he was crowned in the Church of the Sepulchre with all the
ceremonies customary at this important event. The regency was at
first confided to Milo de Plancy, in spite of the opposition made by
Raymond, who pleaded vainly his relationship to the king, his long
services, and the importance of his dignity as Count of Tripoli.
Milo was a native of Champagne, and a distant cousin of King Amaury.
He was popular, because he was prodigal of promises, and full of
that _bravoure_ which catches the eyes of the people. But he was
arrogant, presumptuous, and full of ambition. Drawing upon himself
the hatred of all the barons by his manifest contempt for them, he
was set upon one night, by order of some unknown person, probably
one of the barons, and murdered, after which Raymond succeeded as
regent with no opposition. Raymond had spent nine years of his life
in prison at Aleppo, and had employed the dreary years of his
captivity in study, so that he was learned above the generality of
laymen. He was a man of courage in action, of prudence, and of
extreme sobriety in life. To strangers he was generous and affable:
to his own people he was neither one nor the other.
An important change had meantime occurred in the fortunes of
Saladin. The death of Nûr-ed-dín left his kingdom to a boy, named
Malek-es-Saleh, who was received as his successor, while the Emir,
Abu-Mokaddem, was appointed regent. But the new regent gave little
satisfaction to the people, and a secret message was sent to Saladin
urging him to come to Damascus and take the regency. He went,
Abu-Mokaddem himself yielding to the storm, and inviting him to take
the reins of office. He very soon became master of the situation,
and, marrying the widow of Nûr-ed-dín, he assumed the title of
Sultan, and henceforward ruled the East. During the settlement of
his affairs there was comparative peace for the kingdom, what little
fighting went on being mostly in favour of the Christians. The
Emperor of Constantinople, however, experienced, near Iconium, a
defeat so disastrous that any help from that quarter was not to be
looked for, and Manuel himself, heart-broken at the loss of his
splendid army, and the capture and ill-treatment of his brother,
never recovered his cheerfulness: the memory of his misfortune
perpetually troubling him and depriving him of all repose and
tranquillity of spirit.
In the third year of the king’s reign arrived in Jerusalem William
Longsword, son of the Marquis of Montferrand. He had been invited to
marry Sybille, sister of the king, and a few weeks after his arrival
the marriage was celebrated. The greatest hopes were entertained of
this prince. He was strong, brave, and generous. He was of the
noblest descent, his father having been maternal uncle to King
Philip of France, and his mother being the sister of Conrad. He had
grave faults, however: he could not keep any counsel, but was
perpetually telling of his projects; he was passionate and irascible
to the last degree, and he was addicted to intemperance in eating
and drinking. This probably proved fatal to him, for he died three
or four months after his marriage, leaving his wife pregnant.
This was another calamity to the kingdom, which was sorely in want
of a man strong enough to organize a combined stand against the
rising power of Saladin. Philip, Count of Flanders, who came to make
an expiatory pilgrimage, was next received with hope, and the king
offered him the command of all his forces; but Philip failed in the
single enterprise he undertook, and returned home with little
addition to his glory. While Raymond, the regent, was with Philip in
the north, Saladin, who had returned to Egypt, led one of his
periodical incursions into Palestine, and fell to ravaging and
pillaging the south country. Baldwin, leper as he was, did not want
courage. If he could not fight, he could at least go out with his
men. He had with him Raymond, who had hastened to join him; Count
Jocelyn, his uncle, son of Jocelyn the younger, and three hundred
and seventy-five knights in all. It was judged prudent at first to
retire to Ascalon, but the people growing so infuriated at the sight
of the destruction of their property, the little Christian army went
out to attack the mighty force of Saladin. It was the last of those
wonderful battles where the Christians, frightfully overmatched,
bore down their enemies by sheer bodily strength, and carried the
day in spite of numbers. The historian puts down Saladin’s army at
twenty-six thousand, besides many thousands of light armed men. Of
course, the number is exaggerated, but there can be no doubt of the
paucity of the Christian army and the victory won by Baldwin.
Saladin escaped with a hundred horsemen in all, mounted on a camel:
his men were dispersed in all directions: heavy storms of rain and
an intensity of cold, to which they were unaccustomed, fell upon
them in the desert, and the Bedawín, learning their misfortunes,
plundered and murdered them. But the Christians were too weak to
follow up the victory by invading Egypt, and contented themselves
with building a fort at the ford over the Jordan. They also took the
opportunity of a little leisure to repair the walls of Jerusalem,
which were falling down with age. And at this time died stout old
Humphry, Constable of the kingdom, after a life spent in incessant
conflicts. His death was a great loss to the kingdom, which could
not now spare a single man. And after a grievous defeat near Banias,
where Odo, the Grand Master of the Templars, was taken prisoner, the
king concluded a treaty of peace with Saladin.
Baldwin’s disease had now assumed its most violent form. He could
use neither hand nor foot, he was half blind, and rapidly losing his
eyesight altogether. But he clung to the crown, and learning that
the Count of Tripoli was coming to Jerusalem with a large following,
he feared that his intention was to depose him, and hastened to
marry his sister Sybille, widow of William Longsword, to Guy of
Lusignan. It was an unfortunate marriage, for Guy had no virtue of
any kind. He was handsome and personally courageous, but quite unfit
for the burden that this position threw upon him. And now everything
went wrong. There was no longer any self-restraint, any concord, any
noble aims among the Christian knights. The patriarch himself,
Heraclius, led openly a life of flagrant immorality; the Count of
Antioch, Bohemond, a degraded descendant of the great Bohemond,
divorced his wife without any grounds, and married a woman of ill
repute: Raymond of Tripoli quarrelled with the king; on all sides
were drinking, dicing, vice, and self-indulgence. Nothing was more
certain than that the fall of the kingdom was a matter of time only,
and Saladin, taking advantage of the treaty, which was as useful to
him as it was necessary to the Christians, was training his men for
the final effort by which he was to win Jerusalem.
Renaud de Chatillon, the restless adventurer who had married
Constance of Antioch, was the actual cause of the fall of the
kingdom. His wife being dead, and her son become the Count of
Antioch, he married again, this time the widow of Humphry the
Constable. By his second marriage he became the seigneur of Kerak
and other castles situated beyond the Jordan. He had with him a
large number of Templars, and when the treaty with Saladin was
concluded, he announced his intention of not being bound by it, and
continued his predatory excursions. Saladin complained to Baldwin,
but the hapless king was powerless. Then Saladin arrested eighteen
hundred pilgrims, who had been wrecked on the shores of Egypt, and
declared his intention of keeping them in irons until Renaud gave up
his Mohammedan prisoners. Renaud and the Templars only laughed at
the threats of Saladin, and went on as before. The treaty being thus
openly broken, Saladin had no other course open but to recommence
hostilities, but after ravaging Galilee and laying siege to Beyrout,
the affairs of his own kingdom compelled him to retire, in order to
make war with the Attabegs, masters of Mossoul.
Guy, meantime, too weak for the position he held, had not been able
to prevent Saladin’s ravages in Galilee, and when the sultan
attacked the fortress of Kerak could not go out to the assistance of
Renaud. Yielding to the pressure of his barons, the king deprived
Guy of the regency, and associated his nephew, a child of five years
old, with him on the throne, under the title of Baldwin the Fifth.
Poor little Baldwin the Fifth died very soon after, however, and had
very little enjoyment of his dignity. He was the son of William
Longsword and Sybille. Baldwin then summoned Guy de Lusignan before
him to answer for his many sins of omission. Guy refused to obey,
and took refuge in Ascalon, of which he was count. The king, who was
now quite blind, was carried to that city, and personally summoned
him to surrender. The gates were closed. Baldwin, thinking they
would not dare to refuse him admission, knocked at the gate with his
own helpless hands. But no answer was given. Then the poor blind
king, impotent in his rage, called Heaven to witness the outrage to
his authority, and was carried back to Jerusalem, swearing to punish
the audacity of Guy. All he could do was to deprive him of his
dignities, and to hand the regency over to Raymond of Tripoli.
In the desolated state of the country, nothing could be thought of
but, as usual, to send to Europe for help. The patriarch Heraclius,
the Grand Master of the Temple, and the Grand Master of the
Hospitallers, were sent on an urgent embassy to ask for help. They
went first to Rome. The pope had been driven out of Rome and was now
at Verona, trying to re-establish peace throughout the whole of
Christendom. With him was Frederic, Emperor of Germany. They next
went to France. Philip Augustus received them with every kind of
distinction, but would promise no help. He had only recently mounted
the throne, and his own affairs required care. Next, and as a last
resource, they went to England. Henry II. was full of domestic
trouble at the time. He had taken, he acknowledged, an oath to
defend the kingdom of Jerusalem, but he could not go now, it was
impossible; he would, however, help them with treasure. The
patriarch lost his temper at this, the last of the repeated
refusals. “You were sworn,” he cried, “to take your army to the Holy
Land. Ten years have passed without your doing anything to redeem
your promise. You have deceived God: know you not what God reserves
for those who refuse to serve him? I see,” he went on, “that I am
exciting your wrath; but you may treat me as you treated my brother,
Thomas of Canterbury; it is all the same to me whether I die in
Syria by the hand of infidels, or whether I am murdered by you, more
cruel than any Saracen.” Henry took no notice of these angry words,
and declared his resolution not to abandon the kingdom, and allowed
those of his subjects who wished to take the Cross. But the zeal for
crusading had died out, and very few went to defend the Church of
the Sepulchre.
As for the kingdom of Jerusalem, it was fast tottering to its fall.
The country[68] was dotted over with castles and strongholds, the
owners of which had learned, since the death of Amaury, to despise
the authority of the king. Moreover, the pride and power of the
Templars set up a sort of rival authority. Every baron fought for
his own land and for his own aggrandisement. There was no more
thought of conquest and glory; they fought now for plunder only.
When pilgrims arrived from the West they were made use of by the
Syrian barons for their own purposes; and when they were strong
enough to fight the Saracens, no treaty was sacred, no convention
was kept. The cities, especially those of the sea-shore, were
divided into nations, such as the Pisans, the Genoese, and the
Venetians, all of whom contended with each other over their
privileges, and often fought out their quarrels in the streets. The
Templars and the Hospitallers bargained for their arms by demanding
the cession of half a town, or a fort, in return for their services.
They quarrelled with each other, with the Church, and with the king.
And with the depravation of morals had come a total neglect and
contempt of religion, with—of which there are a few traces—the birth
of the spirit of infidelity. Men had begun to question and to
compare. There were not wanting renegades to be found among the
Mohammedan armies. Islam received its converts from the Christians,
but it gave back none in return.
Footnote 68:
See Michaud, Vol. ii., p. 306.
The Crusaders had embarked upon an enterprise which rested on
religious enthusiasm. Religion was the salt of the kingdom which
they founded. While this lasted—it lasted till the reign of Baldwin
the Third—there was hope. When this died—it died in the reign of
Amaury—the kingdom was lost. Every baron and every soldier was in a
sense a special soldier of Christ, a kind of lay priest of the
altar. He had ever before his eyes those sacred places at sight of
which his fathers had wept aloud. But the handling of sacred things
is profitable only so long as the heart is open to their influences.
To the impure the most holy things are a mockery, the highest aims
are a subject of derision. And just as a worthless priest is
generally worse than a worthless layman, because he has deadened his
conscience more, and religion, a familiar thing, has no longer any
power to move his soul, so the degenerate soldiers of Jerusalem were
worse than their fellows, coarse, rude, and sensual though these
might be, beyond the sea, because for them there was nothing left
which was able to touch their hearts.
Our history of the Christian kingdom draws to a close. In the midst
of these troubles, the miserable king, who had mercifully been
deprived of his senses, for the disease, when it has devoured the
fingers and toes, and eaten into the vigour and strength of a man,
fastens mysteriously on his intellect, and devours that too, died,
or rather ceased to breathe, and was buried with his fathers. We are
not told what epitaph was chosen for him. Surely, of all men, on
Baldwin’s tomb might have been carved the word, “Miserrimus.”
Little Baldwin the Fifth died a day after his uncle, poisoned, as
was supposed, by his mother and Guy de Lusignan. It is possible. The
women whom Baldwin the Second left behind him, his daughters
Milicent, Alice, Hodierne, were bad themselves, and the mothers of
worse daughters. Of Sybille we can say little, except that she was
known to have had a guilty love for Guy before their marriage—the
king was actually uncertain at one time whether to stone to death
his sister’s paramour, or to make him her husband!—that she was
completely under his rule, and that she was ambitious, bold, and
intriguing.