The patriarch Heraclius quarrels with the king of England—He returns to Palestine without succour—The disappointment and gloomy forebodings of the Templars—They prepare to resist Saladin—Their defeat and slaughter—The valiant deeds of the Marshal of the Temple—The fatal battle of Tiberias—The captivity of the Grand Master and the true cross—The captive Templars are offered the Koran or death—They choose the latter, and are beheaded—The fall of Jerusalem—The Moslems take possession of the Temple—They purify it with rose-water, say prayers, and hear a sermon—The Templars retire to Antioch—Their letters to the king of England and the Master of the Temple at London—Their exploits at the siege of Acre.

“The foes of the Lord break into his holy city, even into that glorious tomb where the virgin blossom of Mary was wrapt up in linen and spices, and where the first and greatest flower on earth rose up again.”—S. Bernardi, epist. cccxxii.

The Grand Master, Arnold de Torroge, who died on his journey to England, as before mentioned, was succeeded by Brother Gerard de Riderfort.[60]

On the 10th of the calends of April, a month after the consecration by the patriarch Heraclius of the Temple church, the grand council or parliament of England, composed of the bishops, earls, and barons, assembled in the house of the Hospitallers at Clerkenwell in London. It was attended by William king of Scotland and David his brother, and many of the counts and barons of that distant land. The august assembly was acquainted, in the king’s name, with the object of the solemn embassy just sent to him from Jerusalem, and with the desire of the royal penitent to fulfil his vow and perform his penance; but the barons were at the same time reminded of the old age of their sovereign, of the bad state of his health, and of the necessity for his presence in England. They accordingly represented to King Henry that the solemn oath taken by him on his coronation was an obligation antecedent to the penance imposed on him by the pope; that by that oath he was bound to stay at home and govern his dominions, and that, in their opinion, it was more wholesome for the king’s soul to defend his own country against the barbarous French, than to desert it for the purpose of protecting the distant kingdom of Jerusalem.[61]

Fabian, in his chronicle, gives the following quaint account of the king’s answer to the patriarch, taken from the Chron. Joan Bromton: “Lasteley the kynge gaue answere, and sayde that he myghte not leue hys lande wythoute kepynge, nor yet leue yt to the praye and robbery of Frenchemen. But he wolde gyue largely of hys own to such as wolde take upon theym that vyge. Wyth thys answere the patryarke was dyscontente, and sayde, ‘We seke a man, and not money; welnere euery crysten regyon sendyth unto us money, but no land sendyth to us a prince. Therefore we aske a prynce that nedeth money, and not money that nedeth a prynce.’ But the kynge layde for hym suche excuses, that the patryarke departed from hym dyscontentyd and comforteless, whereof the kynge beynge aduertysed, entendynge somwhat to recomforte hym with pleasaunte words, folowed hym to the see syde. But the more the kynge thought to satysfye hym with hys fayre speche, the more the patryarke was dyscontentyd, in so myche that at the last he sayde unto hym, ‘Hytherto thou haste reygned gloryously, but here after thou shalt be forsaken of hym whom thou at thys tyme forsakeste. Thynke on hym what he hath gyuen to thee, and what thou haste yelden to him agayne: howe fyrste thou were false unto the kynge of Fraunce, and after slewe that holy man Thomas of Caunterburye, and lastely thou forsakeste the proteccyon of Crystes faith.’ The kynge was amoued wyth these wordes, and sayde unto the patryarke, ‘Though all the men of my lande were one bodye, and spake with one mouth, they durste not speke to me such wordys.’ ‘No wonder,’ sayde the patryarke, ‘for they loue thyne and not the; that ys to meane, they loue thy goodes temporall, and fere the for losse of promocyon, but they loue not thy soule.’ And when he hadde so sayde, he offeryd hys hedde to the kynge, sayenge, ‘Do by me ryghte as thou dyddest by that blessed man Thomas of Caunterburye, for I had leur to be slayne of the, then of the Sarasyns, for thou art worse than any Sarasyn.’ But the kynge kepte hys paycence, and sayde, ‘I may not wende oute of my lande, for myne own sonnes wyll aryse agayne me whan I were absente.’ ‘No wonder,’ sayde the patryarke, ‘for of the deuyll they come, and to the deuyll they shall go,’ and so departyd from the kynge in great ire.”[62]

According to Roger de Hoveden, however, the patriarch, on the 17th of the calends of May, accompanied King Henry into Normandy, where a conference was held between the sovereigns of France and England concerning the proposed succour to the Holy Land. Both monarchs were liberal in promises and fair speeches; but as nothing short of the presence of the king of England, or of one of his sons, in Palestine, would satisfy the patriarch, that haughty ecclesiastic failed in his negotiations and returned in disgust and disappointment to the Holy Land. On his arrival at Jerusalem with intelligence of his ill success the greatest consternation prevailed amongst the Latin Christians: and it was generally observed that the true cross, which had been recovered from the Persians by the Emperor Heraclius, was about to be lost under the pontificate, and by the fault of a patriarch of the same name. A cotemporary writer of Palestine tells us that the patriarch was a very handsome person, and, in consequence of his beauty, the mother of the king of Jerusalem fell in love with him, and made him archbishop of CÆsarea. He then describes how he came to be made patriarch, and how he was suspected to have poisoned the archbishop of Tyre. After his return from Rome he fell in love with the wife of a haberdasher who lived at Naplous, twelve miles from Jerusalem. He went to see her very often, and, not long after the acquaintanceship commenced, the husband died. Then the patriarch brought the lady to Jerusalem, clothed her in rich apparel, bought her a house, and furnished her with an elegant retinue.[63]

Baldwin the fourth, who was the reigning sovereign of the Latin kingdom at the period of the departure of the patriarch Heraclius and the Grand Master of the Temple for Europe, was afflicted with a frightful leprosy, which rendered it unlawful for him to marry, and he was consequently deprived of all hope of having an heir of his body to inherit the crown. Sensible of the dangers and inconvenience of a female succession, he selected William V. marquis of Montferrat, surnamed “Long-sword,” as a husband for his eldest sister Sibylla. Shortly after his marriage the marquis of Montferrat died, leaving by Sibylla an infant son named Baldwin. Sibylla’s second husband was Guy de Lusignan, a nobleman of a handsome person, and descended of an ancient family of Poitou in France. Her choice was at first approved of by the king, who received his new brother-in-law with favour, loaded him with honours, and made him regent of the kingdom. Subsequently, through the intrigues of the count of Tripoli, the king was induced to deprive Guy de Lusignan of the regency, and to set aside the claims of Sibylla to the throne, in favour of her son the young Baldwin, who was then about five years of age. He gave orders for the coronation of the young prince, and resigned his authority to the count of Tripoli, who was appointed regent of the kingdom during the minority of the sovereign, whilst all the fortresses and castles of the land were committed to the safe keeping of the Templars and Hospitallers. The youthful Baldwin was carried with vast pomp to the great church of the Holy Sepulchre, and was there anointed and crowned by the patriarch in the presence of the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital. According to ancient custom he was taken, wearing his crown, to the Temple of the Lord, to make certain offerings, after which he went to the Temple of Solomon, where the Templars resided, and was entertained at dinner, together with his barons, by the Grand Master of the Temple and the military friars. Shortly after the coronation (A.D. 1186) the ex-king, Baldwin IV., died at Jerusalem, and was buried in the church of the Resurrection, by the side of Godfrey de Bouillon, and the other Christian kings. His death was followed, in the short space of seven months, by that of the infant sovereign Baldwin V., and Sibylla thus became the undoubted heiress to the throne. The count of Tripoli refused, however, to surrender the regency, accusing Sibylla of the horrible and improbable crime of poisoning her own child. But Gerard de Riderfort, the Grand Master of the Temple, invited her to repair to Jerusalem, and gave orders for the coronation. He sent letters, in the queen’s name, to the count of Tripoli and the rebellious barons who had assembled with their followers in arms at Naplous, (the ancient Shechem,) requiring them to attend at the appointed time to do homage, and take the oath of allegiance, but the barons sent back word that they intended to remain where they were; and they despatched two Cistercian abbots to the Grand Master of the Temple, and the patriarch Heraclius, exhorting them for the love of God and his holy apostles to refrain from crowning Isabella countess of Jaffa, as long as she remained the wife of Guy de Lusignan. They represented that the latter had already manifested his utter incapacity for command, both in the field and in the cabinet; that the kingdom of Jerusalem required an able general for its sovereign; and they insisted that Sibylla should be immediately divorced from Guy de Lusignan, and should choose a husband better fitted to protect the country and undertake the conduct of the government.

As soon as this message had been received, the Grand Master of the Temple directed the Templars to take possession of all the gates of the city of Jerusalem, and issued strict orders that no person should be allowed to enter or withdraw from the Holy City without an express permission from himself. Sibylla and Guy de Lusignan were then taken, guarded by the Templars, to the great church of the Resurrection, where the patriarch Heraclius and all his clergy were in readiness to receive them. The crowns of the Latin kingdom were kept in a large chest in the treasury, fastened with two locks. The Grand Master of the Temple kept the key of one of these locks, and the Grand Master of the Hospital had the other. On their arrival at the church, the key of the Grand Master of the Temple was produced, but the key of the Grand Master of the Hospital was not forthcoming, nor could that illustrious chieftain himself anywhere be found. Gerard de Riderfort and Heraclius at last went in person to the Hospital, and after much hunting about they found the Grand Master, and immediately demanded the key in the queen’s name.

The powerful Superior of the Hospitallers at first refused to produce it, but being pressed by many arguments and entreaties, he at last took out the key and flung it upon the ground, whereupon the patriarch picked it up, and proceeding to the treasury, speedily produced the two crowns, one of which he placed upon the high altar of the church of the Resurrection, and the other by the side of the chair upon which the countess of Jaffa was seated. Heraclius then performed the solemn ceremony of the coronation, and when he had placed the crown on the queen’s head, he reminded her that she was a frail and feeble woman, but ill fitted to contend with the toil and strife in which the beleaguered kingdom of Palestine was continually involved, and he therefore exhorted her to make choice of some person to govern the kingdom in conjunction with herself; whereupon her majesty, taking up the crown which had been placed by her side, and calling for her husband, Guy de Lusignan, thus addressed him:—“Those whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder. Sire, receive this crown, for I know none more worthy of it than yourself.” And immediately Guy de Lusignan was crowned king of Jerusalem, and received the blessing of the patriarch.

Great was the indignation of the count of Tripoli and the barons, when they received intelligence of these events. They raised the standard of revolt, and proclaimed the princess Isabella, the younger sister of Sibylla, who had been married, at the early period of eight years, to Humphrey de Thoron, queen of Jerusalem. As soon as Humphrey de Thoron heard of the proceedings of the count of Tripoli and the barons, he hurried with the princess to Jerusalem, and the two, throwing themselves at the feet of the king and queen, respectfully tendered to them their allegiance. This loyal and decisive conduct struck terror and dismay into the hearts of the conspirators, most of whom now proceeded to Jerusalem to do homage; whilst the count of Tripoli, deserted by his adherents, retired to the strong citadel of Tiberias, of which place he was the feudal lord, and there remained, proudly defying the royal power.[64]

The king at first sought to avail himself of the assistance of the Templars against his rebellious vassal, and exhorted them to besiege Tiberias; but they refused, as it was contrary to their oaths, and the spirit of their institution, for them to undertake an aggressive warfare against any christian prince. The king then gave orders for the concentration of an army at Nazareth; the count of Tripoli prepared to defend Tiberias, and it appears unquestionable that he sent to Saladin for assistance, and entered into a defensive and independent alliance with that monarch. The citadel of Tiberias was a place of great strength, the military power of the count was very considerable, and the friends of the king, foreseeing that the infidels would not fail to take advantage of a civil war, earnestly besought his majesty to offer terms of reconciliation to his powerful vassal. It was accordingly agreed that the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital should proceed with the archbishop of Tyre, the Lord Balian d’Ibelin, and the Lord Reginald of Sidon, to Tiberias, and attempt to bring back the count to his allegiance. These illustrious personages set out from Jerusalem, and slept the first night at Naplous, of which town Balian d’Ibelin was the feudal lord, and the next day they journeyed on towards Nazareth. As they drew near that place, the Grand Master of the Temple proceeded to pass the night at a neighbouring fortress of the Knights Templars, called “the castle of La Feue,” and was eating his supper with the brethren in the refectory of the convent, when intelligence was brought to him that a strong corps of the Mussulman cavalry, under the command of Malek al Afdal, one of Saladin’s sons, had crossed the Jordan at sunrise, and was marching through the territories of the count of Tripoli.

The chronicle of the Holy Land, written by Radolph, abbot of the monastery of Coggleshale in Essex, forms the most important and trustworthy account now in existence of the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin, for the writer was, as he tells us, an eye-witness of all the remarkable events he relates. Radolph was an English monk of the Cistercian order, and a man of vast learning and erudition. He went on a pilgrimage to Palestine, and was there on the breaking out of the war which immediately preceded the loss of the Holy City. He was present at the siege of Jerusalem, and was wounded by an arrow, “which,” says the worthy abbot, “pierced through the nose of the relator of these circumstances; the wood was withdrawn, but a part of the iron barb remains to this day.” His chronicle was published in 1729, by the fathers Martene and Durand, in their valuable collection of ancient chronicles and manuscripts. It commences in the year 1187, and finishes in 1191.

As soon as the Grand Master of the Temple heard that the infidels had crossed the Jordan and were ravaging the christian territories, he sent messengers to a castle of the Templars called “The Convent of Caco,” situate four miles distant from La Feue, commanding all the knights that could be spared from the garrison at that place to mount and come to him with speed. The knights had retired to rest when the messengers arrived, but they arose from their beds, and at midnight they were encamped with their horses around the walls of the castle of La Feue. The next morning, as soon as it was light, the Grand Master, at the head of ninety of his knights, rode over to Nazareth, and was joined at that place by the Grand Master of the Hospital and forty knights of the garrison of Nazareth. The Templars and Hospitallers were accompanied by four hundred of their foot soldiers, and the whole force, under the command of the two Grand Masters, amounted to about six hundred men. With this small but valiant band, they set out in quest of the infidels, and had proceeded about seven miles from Nazareth in the direction of the Jordan, when they came suddenly upon a strong column of Mussulman cavalry amounting to several thousand men, who were watering their horses at the brook Kishon. Without waiting to count the number of their enemies, the Templars raised their war cry, unfolded the blood-red banner, and dashed into the midst of the astonished and terrified Mussulmen, dealing around them, to use the words of Abbot Coggleshale, “death and damnation.” The infidels, taken by surprise, were at first thrown into confusion, discomfited, and slaughtered; but when the smallness of the force opposed to them became apparent, they closed in upon the Templars, overwhelmed them with darts and missiles, and speedily thinned their ranks with a terrific slaughter. An eye-witness tells us that the military friars were to be seen bathed with blood and sweat; trembling with fatigue; with their horses killed under them, and with their swords and lances broken, closing with the Mussulman warriors, and rolling headlong with them in the dust. Some tore the darts with which they had been transfixed from their bodies, and hurled them back with a convulsive effort upon the enemy; and others, having lost all their weapons in the affray, clung around the necks of their opponents, dragged them from their horses, and endeavoured to strangle them under the feet of the combatants. Jacqueline de Mailly, Marshal of the Temple, performed prodigies of valour. He was mounted on a white horse, and clothed in the white habit of his order, with the blood-red cross, the symbol of martyrdom, on his breast; he became, through his gallant bearing and demeanour, an object of admiration, even to the Moslems. Radolph compares the fury and the anger of this warlike monk, as he looked around him upon his slaughtered brethren, to the wrath of the lioness who has lost her whelps; and his position and demeanour in the midst of the throng of infidels, he likens to that of the wild boar when surrounded by dogs whom he is tearing with his tusks. Every blow of this furious man, says the worthy abbot, “despatched an infidel to hell;” but with all his valour Jacqueline de Mailly was slain.

In this bloody battle perished the Grand Master of the Hospital and all the Templars excepting the Grand Master, Gerard de Riderford, and two of his knights, who broke through the dense ranks of the Moslems, and made their escape to Nazareth. The Mussulmen severed the heads of the slaughtered Templars from their bodies, and attaching them with cords to the points of their lances, they marched off in the direction of Tiberias. This disastrous engagement was fought on Friday, the 1st of May, the feast of St. James and St. Philip. “In that beautiful season of the year,” says Abbot Coggleshale, “when the inhabitants of Nazareth were wont to seek the rose and the violet in the fields, they found only the sad traces of carnage, and the lifeless bodies of their slaughtered brethren. With mourning and great lamentation they carried them into the burial-ground of the blessed Virgin Mary at Nazareth, crying aloud, ‘Daughters of Galilee, put on your mourning clothes, and ye daughters of Zion, bewail the misfortunes that threaten the kings of Judah.’”

Whilst this bloody battle was being fought, the Lord Balian d’Ibelin was journeying with another party of Templars from Naplous to join the Grand Master at Nazareth, and the following interesting account is given of their march towards that place. “When they had travelled two miles, they came to the city of Sebaste. It was a lovely morning, and they determined to march no further until they had heard mass. They accordingly turned towards the house of the bishop and awoke him up, and informed him that the day was breaking. The bishop accordingly ordered an old chaplain to put on his clothes and say mass, after which they hastened forwards. Then they came to the castle of La Feue, (a fortress of the Templars,) and there they found, outside the castle, the tents of the convent of Caco pitched, and there was no one to explain what it meant. A varlet was sent into the castle to inquire, but he found no one within but two sick people who were unable to speak. Then they marched towards Nazareth, and after they had proceeded a short distance from the castle of La Feue, they met a brother of the Temple on horseback, who galloped up to them at a furious rate, calling out, ‘Bad news, bad news;’ and he informed them how that the Master of the Hospital had had his head cut off, and how of all the brothers of the Temple there had escaped but three, the Master of the Temple and two others, and that the knights whom the king had placed in garrison at Nazareth, were all taken and killed.” “If Balian d’Ibelin,” says the chronicler, “had marched straight to Nazareth, with his knights, instead of halting to hear mass at Sebaste, he would have been in time to have saved his brethren from slaughter.” As it was, he arrived just in time to hear the funeral service read over their dead bodies by William, archbishop of Tyre.[65]

The Grand Master of the Temple, who was at Nazareth, suffering severely from his wounds, hastened to collect together a small force at that place to open the communications with Tiberias, which being done, the Lord Balian d’Ibelin and the archbishop of Tyre proceeded to that place to have their interview with the count of Tripoli. The Grand Master accompanied them as far as the hill above the citadel, but not liking to trust himself into the power of the count, he then retraced his steps to Nazareth. Both the Moslem and the Christian writers agree in asserting that the count of Tripoli had at this period entered into an alliance with Saladin; nevertheless, either smitten with remorse for his past conduct, or moved by the generous overtures of the king, he consented to do homage and become reconciled to his sovereign, and for this purpose immediately set out from Tiberias for Jerusalem. The interview and reconciliation between the king and the count took place at Joseph’s well, near Naplous, in the presence of the Templars and Hospitallers, and the bishops and barons. The count knelt upon one knee and did homage, whereupon the king raised him up and kissed him, and they then both returned together to Naplous to take measures for the protection of the country.

Saladin, on the other hand, was concentrating together a large army and rapidly maturing his plans for the reconquest of the Holy City—the long-cherished enterprise of the Mussulmen. Whilst discord and dissensions had been gradually undermining the strength of the Christian empire, Saladin had been carefully extending and consolidating his power. He had reduced the various independent chieftains of the north of Syria to submission to his throne and government; he had conquered the cities of Mecca and Medina, and the whole of Arabia Felix; and his vast empire now extended from Tripoli, in Africa, to the Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. The Arabian writers enthusiastically recount his pious exhortations to the true believers to arm in defence of Islam, and describe with vast enthusiasm his glorious preparations for the holy war. Bohadin, son of Sjeddadi, his friend and secretary, and great biographer, before venturing upon the sublime task of describing his famous and sacred actions, makes a solemn confession of faith, and offers up praises to the one true God. “Praise be to God,” says he, “who hath blessed us with Islam, and hath led us to the understanding of the true faith beautifully put together, and hath befriended us; and, through the intercession of our prophet, hath loaded us with every blessing. I bear witness that there is no God but that one great God who hath no partner, (a testimony that will deliver our souls from the smoky fire of hell,) that Mohammed is his servant and apostle, who hath opened unto us the gates of the right road to salvation. These solemn duties being performed, I will begin to write concerning the victorious DEFENDER of the FAITH, the tamer of the followers of the cross, the lifter up of the standard of justice and equity, the saviour of the world and of religion, Saladin Aboolmodaffer Joseph, the son of Job, the son of Schadi, Sultan of the Moslems, ay, and of Islam itself; the deliverer of the holy house of God (the Temple) from the hands of the idolaters, the servant of two holy cities, whose tomb may the Lord moisten with the dew of his favour, affording to him the sweetness of the fruits of the faith.”[66]

Crowds of Mussulmen from all parts of Asia crowded round the standard of Saladin, and the caliph of Bagdad and all the imauns put up daily prayers for the success of his arms. After protecting the return of the caravan from Mecca, Saladin marched to Ashtara, probably the Ashtaroth Karnain of scripture, belonging to the tribe of Manasseh, not far from Damascus. He was there met by his son, Al Malek al Afdal, “Most excellent Prince,” and Moh-hafferoddin ibn Zinoddin, with the army under their command. Being afterwards joined by the forces of Al Mawsel, commanded by MÀsÛd al Zaf’arÂni, Maredin, and Hamah, he reviewed his army, first on the hill called Tel Taisel, and afterwards at Ashtara, the place of general rendezvous. Whilst completing his preparations at this place, Saladin received intelligence of the reconciliation of the count of Tripoli with the king of Jerusalem, and he determined instantly to lay siege to Tiberias. For this purpose, on Friday the 17th of the month Rabi, he advanced in three divisions upon Al Soheira, a village situate at the northern end of the Lake of Tiberias, where he encamped for the night. The next day he marched round to the western shore of the lake, and proceeded towards Tiberias in battle array. On the 21st Rabi, he took the town by storm, put all who resisted to the sword, and made slaves of the survivors. The place was then set on fire and reduced to ashes. The countess of Tripoli retired with the garrison into the citadel, and from thence she sent messengers to her husband and the king of Jerusalem, earnestly imploring instant succour.

The king had pitched his tents at Sepphoris, and all the chivalry of the Latin kingdom were hastening to join his standard and make a last effort in defence of the tottering kingdom of Jerusalem. The Templars and Hospitallers collected together a strong force from their different castles and fortresses,[67] and came into the camp with the holy cross which had been brought from the church of the Resurrection, to be placed in the front of the christian array. The count of Tripoli joined them with the men of Tripoli and Galilee. Prince Reginald of Mount Royal, made his appearance at the head of a body of light cavalry. The Lord Balian of Naplous came in with all his armed retainers, and Reginald, Lord of Sidon, marched into the camp with the men from the sea coast.

The Grand Master of the Temple had brought with him the treasure which had been sent to the Templars by the king of England, to be employed in the defence of the Holy Land, in expiation of the murder of St. Thomas À Becket, and it was found very acceptable in the exhausted condition of the Latin treasury. Whilst the christian forces were assembling at Sepphoris, Saladin sent forward a strong corps of cavalry, which ravaged and laid waste all the country around the brook Kishon, from Tiberias to Bethoron, and from the mountains of Gilboa and Jezreel to Nazareth. From all the eminences nought was to be seen but the smoking ruins of the villages, hamlets, and scattered dwellings of the christian population. The whole country, before the very noses of the warriors of the cross, was enveloped in flame and smoke, and the christian camp was filled with fugitives who had fled with terror before the merciless swords of the Moslems. To complete the misfortunes of the Latins, the king was irresolute and continually giving contradictory commands, and the christian chieftains, having lost all confidence in their leader, and despairing of being able to contend with success against the vast power of Saladin, seemed to be preparing for a retreat to the sea coast, rather than for a desperate struggle with the infidels for the preservation of Jerusalem. Upon this ground only can be explained the long delay of the christian army at Sepphoris. This place, the ancient capital of Galilee, is situate between Nazareth and Acre, and an army could at any time secure an easy and safe retreat from it to the port of the last-named city. Here, then, the Christians remained, quietly permitting Saladin to occupy a strong position from whence he could pour his vast masses of cavalry into the great plain of Esdraelon, and open for himself a direct road to the Holy City, either through the valley of the Jordan, or through the great plain along the bases of the mountains of Gilboa.

When the messengers from the countess of Tripoli arrived in the christian camp, with intelligence that Saladin had burnt and stormed the town of Tiberias, and that the countess had retired into the citadel, the king called a council of war. This council assembled in the royal tent, on the evening of the 2nd of July, A.D. 1187, and there were present at it, Gerard de Riderfort, the Grand Master of the Temple, the newly-elected Grand Master of the Hospital, the archbishop of Tyre, the count of Tripoli, Balian d’Ibelin, lord of Naplous, and nearly all the bishops and barons of Palestine. The count of Tripoli, although his capital was in flames, his territories spoiled by the enemy, and his countess closely besieged, advised the king to remain inactive where he was; but the Grand Master of the Temple, hearing this advice, rose up in the midst of the assembly, and stigmatized the count as a traitor, urging the king instantly to march to the relief of Tiberias. The barons, however, sided with the count of Tripoli, and it was determined that the army should remain at Sepphoris. The council broke up; each man retired to his tent, and the king went to supper. But the Grand Master of the Temple, agitated by a thousand conflicting emotions, could not rest. At midnight he arose and sought the presence of the king. He reproached him for remaining in a state of inaction at Sepphoris, whilst the enemy was ravaging and laying waste all the surrounding country, and reducing the Christian population to a state of hopeless bondage. “It will be an everlasting reproach to you, sire,” said he, “if you quietly permit the infidels to take before your face an important christian citadel, which you ought to feel it your first duty to defend. Know that the Templars will sooner tear the white mantle from their shoulders, and sell all that they possess, than remain any longer quiet spectators of the injury and disgrace that have been brought upon the christian arms.”

Moved by the discourse of the Grand Master, the king consented to march to the relief of Tiberias, and at morning’s dawn the tents of the Templars were struck, and the trumpets of the order sounded the advance. In vain did the count of Tripoli and the barons oppose this movement, the king and the Templars were resolute, and the host of the cross soon covered, in full array, the winding road leading to Tiberias. The count of Tripoli insisted upon leading the van of the army, as the christian forces were marching through his territories, and the Templars consequently brought up the rear. The patriarch Heraclius, whose duty it was to bear the holy cross in front of the christian array, had remained at Jerusalem, and had confided his sacred charge to the bishops of Acre and Lidda, a circumstance which gave rise to many gloomy forebodings amongst the superstitious soldiers of Christ.

As soon as Saladin heard of the advance of the christian army, he turned the siege of the citadel of Tiberias into a blockade, called in his detachments of cavalry, and hastened to occupy all the passes and defiles of the mountains leading to Tiberias. The march of the infidel host, which amounted to 80,000 horse and foot, over the hilly country, is compared by an Arabian writer, an eye-witness, to mountains in movement, or to the vast waves of an agitated sea. Saladin encamped on the hills beyond Tiberias, resting his left wing upon the lake, and planting his cavalry in the valleys. When the Latin forces had arrived within three miles of Tiberias, they came in sight of the Mussulman army, and were immediately assailed by the light cavalry of the Arabs. During the afternoon of that day a bloody battle was fought. The Christians attempted, but in vain, to penetrate the defiles of the mountains; and when the evening came they found that they had merely been able to hold their ground without advancing a single step. Instead of fighting his way, at all hazards, to the lake of Tiberias, or falling back upon some position where he could have secured a supply of water, the king, following the advice of the count of Tripoli, committed the fatal mistake of ordering the tents to be pitched. “When the Saracens saw that the Christians had pitched their tents,” says the chronicler, “they came and encamped so close to them that the soldiers of the two armies could converse together, and not even a cat could escape from the Christian lines without the knowledge of the Saracens.” It was a sultry summer’s night, the army of the cross was hemmed in amongst dry and barren rocks, and both the men and horses, after their harassing and fatiguing march, threw themselves on the parched ground, sighing in vain for water. During the livelong night, not a drop of that precious element touched their lips, and the soldiers arose exhausted and unrefreshed, for the toil, and labour, and fierce warfare of the ensuing day.

At sunrise the Templars formed in battle array in the van of the Christian army, and prepared to open a road through the dense ranks of the infidels to the lake of Tiberias. An Arabian writer, who witnessed the movement of their dense and compact columns at early dawn, speaks of them as “terrible in arms, having their whole bodies cased with triple mail.” He compares the noise made by their advancing squadrons to the loud humming of bees! and describes them as animated with “a flaming desire of vengeance.”[68] Saladin had behind him the lake of Tiberias, his infantry was in the centre, and the swift cavalry of the desert was stationed on either wing, under the command of Faki-ed-deen (teacher of religion). The Templars rushed, we are told, like lions upon the Moslem infidels, and nothing could withstand their heavy and impetuous charge. “Never,” says an Arabian doctor of the law, “have I seen bolder or more powerful soldiers; none more to be feared by the believers in the true faith.” Saladin set fire to the dry grass and dwarf shrubs which lay between both armies, and the wind blew the smoke and the flames directly into the faces of the military friars and their horses. The fire, the noise, the gleaming weapons, and all the accompaniments of the horrid scene, have given full scope to the descriptive powers of the oriental writers. They compare it to the last judgment; the dust and the smoke obscured the face of the sun, and the day was turned into night. Sometimes gleams of light darted like the rapid lightning amid the throng of combatants; then you might see the dense columns of armed warriors, now immoveable as mountains, and now sweeping swiftly across the landscape like the rainy clouds over the face of heaven. “The sons of paradise and the children of fire,” say they, “then decided their terrible quarrel; the arrows rustled through the air like the wings of innumerable sparrows, the sparks flew from the coats of mail and the glancing sabres, and the blood spurting forth from the bosom of the throng deluged the earth like the rains of heaven.”... “The avenging sword of the true believers was drawn forth against the infidels; the faith of the UNITY was opposed to the faith of the TRINITY, and speedy ruin, desolation, and destruction, overtook the miserable sons of baptism!”

The lake of Tiberias was two miles distant from the Templars, and ever and anon its blue and placid waters were to be seen calmly reposing in the bright sun-beams, or winding gracefully amid the bosom of the distant mountains; but every inch of the road was fiercely contested; the expert archers of the Mussulmen lined all the eminences, and the thirsty soil was drenched with the blood of the best and bravest of the christian warriors. After almost superhuman exertions, the Templars and Hospitallers halted, and sent to the king for succour. At this critical juncture the count of Tripoli, who had always insisted on being in the van, and whose conduct, from first to last, had been most suspicious, dashed with a few followers through a party of Mussulmen, who opened their ranks to let him pass, and fled in safety to Tyre. The flight of this distinguished nobleman gave rise to a sudden panic, and the troops that were advancing to the support of the Templars were driven in one confused mass upon the main body. The military friars, who rarely turned their backs upon the enemy, maintained, alone and unaided, a short, sharp, and bloody conflict, which ended in the death or captivity of every one of them excepting the Grand Master of the Hospital, who clove his way from the field of battle, and reached Ascalon in safety, but died of his wounds the day after his arrival.

The Christian soldiers now gave themselves up to despair; the infantry, which was composed principally of the native population of Palestine, men taken from the plough and the pruning-hook, crowded together in disorder and confusion, around the bishops and the holy cross. They were so wedged together that they were unable to act against the enemy, and they refused to obey their leaders. Brother Terric, Grand Preceptor of the Temple, who had been attached to the person of the king, the Lord Reginald of Sidon, Balian d’Ibelin, lord of Naplous, and many of the lesser barons and knights, collected their followers together, rushed over the rocks, down the mountain sides, pierced through the enemies’ squadrons, and leaving the infantry to their fate, made their escape to the sea coast. The Arab cavalry dashed on, and surrounding, with terrific cries, the trembling and unresisting foot soldiers, they mowed them down with a frightful carnage.

In vain did the bishops of Ptolemais and Lidda, who supported with difficulty the Holy Cross in the midst of the disordered throng, attempt to infuse into the base-born peasantry some of that daring valour and fiery-religious enthusiasm which glowed so fiercely in the breasts of the Moslems. The Christian fugitives were crowded together like a flock of sheep when attacked by dogs, and their bitter cries for mercy ever and anon rent the air, between the loud shouts of Allah acbar—“God is victorious.” The Moslem chieftains pressed into the heart of the throng, and cleft their way towards the Holy Cross; the bishop of Ptolemais was slain, the bishop of Lidda was made captive, and the cross itself fell into the hands of the infidels. The king of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of the Temple, the Marquis of Montferrat, the Lord Reginald de Chatillon, and many other nobles and knights, were at the same time taken prisoners and led away into captivity. “Alas, alas,” says Abbot Coggleshale, “that I should have lived to have seen in my time these awful and terrible calamities.” When the sun had sunk to rest, and darkness had put an end to the slaughter, a crowd of Christian fugitives, who survived the long and frightful carnage, attempted to gain the summit of Mount Hittin, in the vain hope of escaping from the field of blood, under cover of the obscurity of the night. But every pass and avenue were strictly watched, and when morning came they were found cowering on the elevated summit of the mountain. They were maddened with thirst and exhausted with watching, but despair gave them some energy; they availed themselves with success of the strength of their position, and in the first onslaught the Moslems were repulsed. The sloping sides of Mount Hittin were covered with dry grass and thistles, which had been scorched and killed by the hot summer’s sun, and the Moslems again resorted to the expedient of setting fire to the parched vegetation. The heat of a July sun, added to that of the raging flames, soon told with fearful effect upon the weakened frames of the poor Christian warriors, who were absolutely dying with thirst; some threw away their arms and cast themselves upon the ground; some cried for mercy, and others calmly awaited the approach of death.

The Moslem appetite for blood had at this time been slaked; feelings of compassion for the misfortunes of the fallen had arisen in their breasts, and as resistance had now ceased in every quarter of the field, the lives of the fugitives on Mount Hittin were mercifully spared. Thus ended the memorable battle of Tiberias, which commenced on the afternoon of the 3rd of July, and ended oh the morning of Saturday, the 5th. The multitude of captives taken by the Moslems was enormous; cords could not be found to bind them, the tent ropes were all used for the purpose, but were insufficient, and the Arabian writers tell us, that on seeing the dead, one would have thought that there could have been no prisoners, and on seeing the prisoners, that there could be no dead. “I saw,” says the secretary and companion of Saladin, who was present at this terrible fight, and is unable to restrain himself from pitying the disasters of the vanquished—“I saw the mountains and the plains, the hills and the valleys, covered with their dead. I saw their fallen and deserted banners sullied with dust and with blood. I saw their heads broken and battered, their limbs scattered abroad, and the blackened corpses piled one upon another like the stones of the builders. I called to mind the words of the Koran, ‘The infidel shall say, What am I but dust?’... I saw thirty or forty tied together by one cord. I saw in one place, guarded by one Mussulman, two hundred of these famous warriors gifted with amazing strength, who had but just now walked forth amongst the mighty: their proud bearing was gone: they stood naked with downcast eyes, wretched and miserable.... The lying infidels were now in the power of the true believers. Their king and their cross were captured, that cross before which they bow the head and bend the knee; which they bear aloft and worship with their eyes; they say that it is the identical wood to which the God whom they adore was fastened. They had adorned it with fine gold and brilliant stones; they carried it before their armies; they all bowed towards it with respect. It was their first duty to defend it; and he who should desert it would never enjoy peace of mind. The capture of this cross was more grievous to them than the captivity of their king. Nothing can compensate them for the loss of it. It was their God; they prostrated themselves in the dust before it, and sang hymns when it was raised aloft!”

As soon as all fighting had ceased on the field of battle, Saladin proceeded to a tent, whither, in obedience to his commands, the king of Jerusalem, Gerard de Riderfort, the Grand Master of the Temple, and Reginald de Chatillon had been conducted. This last nobleman had greatly distinguished himself in various daring expeditions against the caravans of pilgrims travelling to Mecca, and had become on that account particularly obnoxious to the pious Saladin. The sultan, on entering the tent, ordered a bowl of sherbet, the sacred pledge amongst the Arabs of hospitality and security, to be presented to the fallen monarch of Jerusalem, and to the Grand Master of the Temple; but when Reginald de Chatillon would have drunk thereof, Saladin prevented him, and reproaching the christian nobleman with perfidy and impiety, he commanded him instantly to acknowledge the prophet whom he had blasphemed, or to be prepared to meet the death he had so often deserved. On Reginald’s refusal, Saladin struck him with his scimitar, and he was immediately despatched by the guards. Bohadin, Saladin’s friend and secretary, an eye-witness of the scene, gives the following account of it: “Then Saladin told the interpreter to say thus to the king, ‘It is thou, not I, who givest drink to this man!’ Then the sultan sat down at the entrance of the tent, and they brought Prince Reginald before him, and after refreshing the man’s memory, Saladin said to him, ‘Now then, I myself will act the part of the defender of Mohammed!’ He then offered the man the Mohammedan faith, but he refused it; then the king struck him on the shoulder with a drawn scimitar, which was a hint to those that were present to do for him; so they sent his soul to hell, and cast out his body before the tent door!”

The next day Saladin proceeded in cold blood to enact the grand concluding tragedy. The warlike monks of the Temple and of the Hospital, the bravest and most zealous defenders of the christian faith, were, of all the warriors of the cross, the most obnoxious to zealous Mussulmen, and it was determined that death or conversion to Mahometanism should be the portion of every captive of either order, excepting the Grand Master of the Temple, for whom it was expected a heavy ransom would be given. Accordingly, on the christian Sabbath, at the hour of sunset, the appointed time of prayer, the Moslems were drawn up in battle array under their respective leaders. The Mamlook emirs stood in two ranks clothed in yellow, and, at the sound of the holy trumpet, all the captive knights of the Temple and of the Hospital were led on to the eminence above Tiberias, in full view of the beautiful lake of Gennesareth, whose bold and mountainous shores had been the scene of so many of their Saviour’s miracles. There, as the last rays of the sun were fading away from the mountain tops, they were called upon to deny him who had been crucified, to choose God for their Lord, Islam for their faith, Mecca for their temple, the Moslems for their brethren, and Mahomet for their prophet. To a man they refused, and were all decapitated in the presence of Saladin by the devout zealots of his army, and the doctors and expounders of the law. An oriental historian, who was present, says that Saladin sat with a smiling countenance viewing the execution, and that some of the executioners cut off the heads with a degree of dexterity that excited great applause. “Oh,” say Omad’eddin Muhammed, “how beautiful an ornament is the blood of the infidels sprinkled over the followers of the faith and the true religion!”[69] If the Mussulmen displayed a becoming zeal in the decapitation and annihilation of the infidel Templars, these last manifested a no less praiseworthy eagerness for martyrdom by the swords of the unbelieving Moslems. The Knight Templar, Brother Nicolas, strove vigorously, we are told, with his companions to be the first to suffer, and with great difficulty accomplished his purpose. It was believed by the Christians, in accordance with the superstitious ideas of those times, that heaven testified its approbation by a visible sign, and that for three nights, during which the bodies of the Templars remained unburied on the field, celestial rays of light played around the corpses of those holy martyrs.

Immediately after this fatal battle, the citadel of Tiberias surrendered to Saladin, and the countess of Tripoli was permitted to depart in safety in search of her fugitive husband. There was now no force in the Latin kingdom capable of offering the least opposition to the victorious career of the infidels, and Saladin, in order that he might overrun and subjugate the whole country with the greatest possible rapidity, divided his army into several bodies, which were to proceed in different directions, and assemble at last under the walls of Jerusalem. One strong column, under the command of Malek el Afdal, proceeded to attack La Feue or Faba, the castle of the Knights Templars. Nearly all the garrison had perished in the battle of Tiberias, and after a short conflict the infidels walked into the fortress, over the dead bodies of the last of its defenders. From thence they crossed the great plain to Sebaste, and entered the magnificent church erected by the empress Helena, over the prison in which St. John the Baptist was beheaded, and over the humble grave where still repose the remains of St. John and of Zacharias and Elizabeth his parents. The terrified bishop and clergy had removed all the gold and silver vessels from the altars and the rich copes and vestments of the priests, to conceal them from the cupidity of the Moslems, whereupon these last caused the bishop to be stripped naked and beaten with rods, and led away all his clergy into captivity. The wild Turcoman and Bedouin cavalry then dashed up the beautiful valley of Succoth to Naplous, the ancient Shechem; which they found deserted and desolate; the inhabitants had abandoned their dwellings and fled to Jerusalem, and the Mussulmen planted their banners upon the gray battlements of the castle, and upon the lofty summit of Mount Gerizim. They then pitched their tents around the interesting well where our Saviour spoke with the woman of Samaria, and pastured their cavalry in the valley where Joseph’s brethren were feeding their flocks when they sold him to the wandering Ishmaelites. Here they remained to gather some tidings of the operations of their fellow-soldiers on the other side of the Jordan, and then proceeded to ravage and lay waste all the country between Naplous and Jerusalem, “continuing,” says Abbot Coggleshale, “both by night and by day to slaughter every living thing that they met.”

The column which was to proceed through the valley of the Jordan, entered the great plain of Esdraelon by Mount Thabor, and taking the direction of Nain and Endor to Jezreel, they crossed the mountains of Gilboa to Beisan, and descended the valley of the Jordan, as far as Jericho. Thence they proceeded to lay siege to a solitary castle of the Templars, seated upon that celebrated mountain where, according to tradition, our Saviour was tempted by the Devil with the visionary scene of “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.” In this castle the Templars maintained a garrison, for the protection of the pilgrims who came to bathe in the Jordan, and visit the holy places in the neighbourhood of Jericho. From the toppling crag, whereon it was seated, the eye commanded an extensive view of the course of the Jordan, until it falls into the Dead Sea, also of the eastern frontier of the Latin kingdom, and of the important passes communicating with Jerusalem. The place was called Maledoim, or “the Red Mountain,” on account of the blood that had been shed upon the spot. Fifty Tyrian dinars had been offered by Saladin, for the head of every Knight Templar that was brought him, and the blood-thirsty infidels surrounded the doomed castle eager for the reward. The whole garrison was put to the sword, and the place was left a shapeless ruin. The infidels then marched off in the direction of Jerusalem, and laid waste all the country between Jericho and the Holy City. They pitched their tents at Bethany, upon the spot where stood the houses of Simon the leper, and of Mary Magdalene and Martha, and they destroyed the church built over the house and tomb of Lazarus. The wild Arab cavalry then swept over the Mount of Olives; they took possession of the church constructed upon the summit of that sacred edifice, and extended their ravages up to the very gates of Jerusalem.

In the mean time Saladin’s valiant brother Saifeddin, “sword of the faith,” had crossed the desert from Egypt, to participate in the plunder and spoil of the christian territories. He laid waste all the country from Daron and Gerar to Jerusalem. In front of his fierce warriors were to be seen the long bands of mournful captives tied together by the wrists, and behind them was a dreary desert, soaked with christian blood. Saifeddin had besieged the strong town of Mirabel, and placed his military engines in position, when the terrified inhabitants sent a suppliant deputation to implore his clemency. He agreed to spare their lives in return for the immediate surrender of the place, and gave them an escort of four hundred Mussulmen, to conduct them in safety to Jerusalem. Accompanied by their wives and little ones, the miserable Christians cast a last look upon their once happy homes, and proceeded on their toilsome journey to the Holy City. On their arrival at an eminence, two miles from Jerusalem, their Arabian escort left them, and immediately afterwards a party of Templars dashed through the ravine, charged the retiring Moslems, and put the greater part of them to the sword.

The great Saladin, on the other hand, immediately after the battle of Tiberias, hastened with the main body of his forces to Acre, and the terrified inhabitants threw open their gates at his approach. From thence he swept the whole sea coast to Jaffa, reducing all the maritime towns, excepting the city of Tyre, which manfully resisted him. The savage Turcomans from the north, the predatory Bedouins, the fanatical Arabians, and the swarthy Africans, hurried across the frontiers, to share in the spoil and plunder of the Latin kingdom. Radolph, our worthy abbot of Coggleshale, one of those who fled before the ruthless swords of the infidels, gives a frightful picture of the aspect of the country. He tells us that the whole land was covered with dead bodies, rotting and putrifying in the scorching sun-beams. At early morning you might see the rich and stately church, with the bright and happy dwellings scattered around it, the blooming garden, the silvery olive grove, and the rich vineyard; but the fading rays of the evening sun would fall on smoking masses of shapeless ruins, and on a dreary and solitary desert. The holy abbot mourns over the fall of Nazareth, and the desecration by the infidels of the magnificent church of the Holy Virgin at that place. Sidon, Caiphas, Sepphoris, Nazareth, CÆserea, Jaffa, Lidda, and Rama, successively fell into the hands of the Moslems; the inhabitants were led away into captivity, and the garrisons were put to the sword. The infidels laid waste all the country about Mount Carmel and Caiphas, and they burnt the celebrated church of Elias, on the mountain above the port of Acre, which served as a beacon for navigators.

The government of the order of the Temple, in consequence of the captivity of the Grand Master Gerard de Riderfort, who was detained in prison, with Guy, king of Jerusalem, at Damascus, devolved upon Brother Terric, the Grand Preceptor of Jerusalem, who addressed letters to all the brethren in the west, imploring aid and assistance. One of these letters was duly received by Brother Geoffrey, Master of the Temple at London, as follows:—“Brother Terric, Grand Preceptor of the poor house of the Temple, and every poor brother, and the whole convent, now, alas! almost annihilated, to all the preceptors and brothers of the Temple, to whom these letters shall come, salvation through him to whom our fervent aspirations are addressed, through him who causeth the sun and the moon to reign marvellous.

“The many and great calamities wherewith the anger of God, excited by our manifold sins, hath just now permitted us to be afflicted, we cannot for grief unfold to you, neither by letters nor by our sobbing speech. The infidel chiefs having collected together a vast number of their people, fiercely invaded our Christian territories, and we, assembling our battalions, hastened to Tiberias to arrest their march. The enemy having hemmed us in among barren rocks, fiercely attacked us; the holy cross and the king himself fell into the hands of the infidels, the whole army was cut to pieces, two hundred and thirty of our knights were beheaded, without reckoning the sixty who were killed on the 1st of May. The Lord Reginald of Sidon, the Lord Ballovius, and we ourselves, escaped with vast difficulty from that miserable field. The pagans, drunk with the blood of our Christians, then marched with their whole army against the city of Acre, and took it by storm. The city of Tyre is at present fiercely besieged, and neither by night nor by day do the infidels discontinue their furious assaults. So great is the multitude of them, that they cover like ants the whole face of the country from Tyre to Jerusalem, and even unto Gaza. The holy city of Jerusalem, Ascalon, and Tyre, and Beyrout, are yet left to us and to the christian cause, but the garrisons and the chief inhabitants of these places, having perished in the battle of Tiberias, we have no hope of retaining them without succour from heaven and instant assistance from yourselves.”[70] Saladin, on the other hand, sent triumphant letters to the caliph. “God and his ANGELS,” says he, “have mercifully succoured Islam. The infidels have been sent to feed the fires of HELL! The cross is fallen into our hands, around which they fluttered like the moth round a light; under whose shadow they assembled, in which they boldly trusted as in a wall; the cross, the centre and leader of their pride, their superstition, and their tyranny.”...

Saladin pursued his rapid conquests along the sea coast to the north of Acre, and took by storm several castles of the Templars. After a siege of six days, the strong fortress of Tebnin, on the road to Beirout, was taken by assault, the garrison was put to the sword, and the fortifications were razed to the ground. On the 22nd, Jomada, the important city of Beirout, surrendered to Saladin, and shortly afterwards the castles of Hobeil and Bolerum. The old chronicle published by Martene, has the following strange passage concerning the last named castle. “To this castle belonged the lady whom the count of Tripoli refused to give up to Gerard de Riderfort, the Grand Master of the Temple, whence arose the great quarrel between them, which caused the loss of the Holy Land.” After the reduction of all the maritime towns between Acre and Tripoli, Saladin ordered his different detachments to concentrate before Jerusalem, and hastened in person to the south to complete the conquest of the few places which still resisted the arms of the Mussulmen. He sat down before Ascalon, and whilst preparing his military engines for battering the walls, he sent messengers to the Templars at Gaza, representing to them that the whole land was in his power, that all further efforts at resistance were useless, and offering them their lives and a safe retreat to Europe, if they would give up to him the important fortress committed to their charge. But the military friars sent back a haughty defiance to the victorious sultan, and recommended him to take Ascalon before he ventured to ask for the surrender of Gaza. The season was now advancing—vague rumours were flying about of stupendous preparations in Europe for the recovery of Palestine, and Saladin was anxious to besiege and take Jerusalem ere the winter’s rains commenced. When, therefore, his military engines were planted under the walls of Ascalon, he once more, as the place was strong, summoned the inhabitants to surrender, and they then agreed to capitulate on receiving a solemn promise from Saladin that he would forthwith set at liberty the king of Jerusalem and the Grand Master of the Temple, and would respect both the persons and the property of the inhabitants. These terms were acceded to, and on the 4th of September the gates of Ascalon were thrown open to the infidels.[71]

The inhabitants of this interesting city appear to have been much attached to their king, Guy de Lusignan, and his queen Sibylla. They had received them when they came from Jerusalem, as fugitives from the wrath of Baldwin IV., and protected them against the power of that monarch. The sultan imposed such conditions upon the prisoners as were necessary for his own security. They were to quit Palestine never more to return, and were in the mean time, until a fitting opportunity for their embarkation to Europe could be found, to take up their abode at Naplous, under the surveillance of the Moslem garrison. Immediately after the capture of Ascalon, Saladin pitched his tents beneath the walls of Gaza, the great fortress of the Knights Templars. He had been repulsed by the military friars with great loss in a previous attack upon this important station, and he now surrounded it with his numerous battalions, thirsting for vengeance. The place surrendered after a short siege; the fortifications were demolished, but the fate of the garrison has not been recorded.

Having subjugated all the country bordering upon the sea coast, Saladin moved forward in great triumph towards the sacred city of Jerusalem. He encamped the first night at Bersabee, the ancient Beersheba, around the well digged by Abraham, in the land of the Philistines, and on the spot where Abraham delivered the seven ewe lambs, and made the covenant with Abimelech, and planted a grove, and called “on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.” The next day Saladin marched towards Bethlehem, halting on the way before a castle of the Hospitallers, which he summoned to surrender, but in vain. Leaving a party of horse to watch the place, he pitched his tents the same evening around Bethlehem, and the next morning at sunrise, the Moslem soldiers might be seen pouring into the vast convent and the magnificent church erected by the empress Helena and her son Constantine, over the sacred spot where the Saviour of the world was born. They wandered with unbounded admiration amid the unrivalled Corinthian colonnade, formed by a quadruple row of forty ancient columns, which support a barn-roof constructed of the cedar of Lebanon. They paused to admire the beautiful mosaics which covered the lofty walls, the richly carved screen on either side of the high altar, and the twenty-five imperial eagles. Saladin was present in person, and no serious disorders appear to have been committed. The inhabitants of the town had all fled to Jerusalem, with whatever property they could carry with them, and in the afternoon, after establishing a garrison in the place, the sultan commenced his march towards the Holy City.

At the hour of sunset, when the bells of the churches of Jerusalem were tolling to vespers, the vast host of Saladin crowned in dark array the bleak and desolate eminences which surround the city of David. The air was rent with the loud Mussulman shouts El Kods, El Kods—“The Holy City, the Holy City!” and the green and yellow banners of the prophet, and the various coloured emblems of the Arabian tribes, were to be seen standing out in bold relief upon the lofty ridges of the hills, and gleaming brightly in the last trembling rays of the setting sun. The Arabian writers descant with enthusiasm upon the feelings experienced by their countrymen on beholding “the long lost sister of Mecca and Medina,” on gazing once more upon the swelling domes of the Mosque of Omar, and on the sacred eminence from whence, according to their traditions, “Mahomet ascended from earth to heaven.” It must have been, indeed, a strange, and an awful scene. The Moslem host took up their stations around the Holy City at the very hour when the followers both of the Christian and Mahometan religion were wont to assemble to offer up their prayers to the one Great God, the common Father of us all. On the one hand, you might hear the sound of the sweet vesper bells from the towers of the Christian churches wafted softly upon the evening breeze, the hoarse chant of the monks and priests, and the loud swelling hymn of praise; while on the other, over all the hills and eminences around Jerusalem, stole the long shrill cry of the muezzins, loudly summoning the faithful to their evening devotions. Within the walls, for one night at least, the name of Christ was invoked with true piety and fervent devotion; while without the city, the eternal truth and the Moslem fiction were loudly proclaimed, “There is but one God, and Mahomet is his apostle.”

That very night, when the Mussulmen had finished their prayers, and ere darkness spread its sable shroud over the land, the loud trumpets of Saladin summoned the Christians to surrender “the house of God” to the arms of the faithful: but the Christians returned for answer, that, please God, the Holy City should not be surrendered. The next morning at sunrise, the terrified inhabitants were awakened by the clangour of horns and drums, the loud clash of arms, and the fierce cries of the remorseless foe. The women and children rushed into the churches, and threw themselves on their knees before the altars, weeping and wailing, and lifting up their hands to heaven, whilst the men hastened to man the battlements. The Temple could no longer furnish its hundreds and thousands of brave warriors for the defence of the holy sanctuary of the Christians; a few miserable knights, with some serving brethren, alone remained in its now silent halls and deserted courts. For fifteen days did the Christians successfully resist the utmost efforts of the enemy; the monks and the canons, the bishops and the priests, took arms in defence of the Holy Sepulchre, and lined in warlike array the dark gray battlements and towers of Jerusalem. But the Mussulman archers soon became so numerous and so expert, that the garrison durst not show themselves upon the walls “Their arrows fell,” says our worthy countryman, abbot Coggleshale, one of the brave defenders of the place, “as thick as hail upon the battlements, so that no one could lift a finger above the walls without being maimed. So great indeed was the number of the wounded, that it was as much as all the doctors of the city and of the Hospital could do to extract the weapons from their bodies. The face of the narrator of these events was lacerated with an arrow which pierced right through his nose; the wooden shaft was withdrawn, but a piece of the iron head remains there to this day.”[72]

Jerusalem was crowded with fugitives who had been driven into the Holy City from the provinces. The houses could not contain them, and the streets were filled with women and children, who slept night after night upon the cold pavement. At the expiration of a fortnight, Saladin finding his incessant attacks continually foiled, retired from the walls, and employed his troops in the construction of military engines, stationing ten thousand cavalry around the city to intercept fugitives, and prevent the introduction of supplies. When his engines were completed, he directed all his efforts against the northern wall of the city, which extends between St. Stephen’s gate and the gate of Jaffa. Ten thousand soldiers were attached to the military engines, and were employed day and night in battering the fortifications. Barefoot processions of women, monks, and priests were made to the holy sepulchre, to implore the Son of God to save his tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. The females, as a mark of humility and distress, cut off their hair and cast it to the winds; and the ladies of Jerusalem made their daughters do penance by standing up to their necks in tubs of cold water placed upon Mount Calvary. But it availed nought, “for our Lord Jesus Christ,” says the chronicler, “would not listen to any prayer that they made, for the filth, the luxury, and the adultery which prevailed in the city did not suffer prayer or supplication to ascend before God.”

To prevent the garrison from attempting to break the force of the battering-rams, Saladin constructed vast mangonels and machines, which cast enormous stones and flaming beams of timber, covered with pitch and naptha, upon the ramparts, and over the walls into the city. He moreover employed miners to sap the foundations of the towers, and on the 16th of October the angle of the northern wall, where it touches the valley of Gehinnon, was thrown down with a tremendous crash. The appalling intelligence spread through the city, and filled every heart with mourning. Friends embraced one another as it were for the last time; mothers clung to their little ones, anticipating with heart-rending agony the fearful moment when they would be torn from them for ever; and the men gazed around in gloomy silence, appalled and stupified. Young mothers might be seen carrying their babes in their arms to Mount Calvary, and placing them before the altars of the church of the Resurrection, as if they thought that the sweet innocence of these helpless objects would appease the wrath of heaven. The panic-stricken garrison deserted the fortifications, but the infidels fortunately deferred the assault until the succeeding morning. During the night attempts were made, but in vain, to organize a strong guard to watch the breach. “With my own ears,” says abbot Coggleshale, “I heard it proclaimed, between the wall and the counterscarp, by the patriarch and the chief men of the city, that if fifty strong and valiant foot soldiers would undertake to guard for one night only the angle which had been overthrown, they should receive fifty golden bezants; but none could be found to undertake the duty.”

In the morning a suppliant deputation proceeded to Saladin to implore his mercy, but ere they reached the imperial tent the assault had commenced, and twelve banners of the prophet waved in triumph upon the breach. The haughty sultan accordingly refused to hear the messengers, and dismissed them, declaring that he would take Jerusalem from the Franks as they had taken it from the Moslems, that is say, sword in hand. But some spirit of resistance had at last been infused into the quailing garrison, the few Templars and Hospitallers in Jerusalem manned the breach, and in a desperate struggle the Moslems were repulsed, and the standards of the prophet were torn down from the walls. The messengers then returned to Saladin, and declared that if he refused to treat for the surrender of Jerusalem, the Christians would set fire to the Temple or Mosque of Omar, would destroy all the treasures they possessed in the city, and massacre their Moslem prisoners. The announcement of this desperate determination, which was accompanied with the offer of a very considerable ransom, induced Saladin to listen to terms, and a treaty was entered into with the Christians to the following effect. The Moslems were immediately to be put into possession of all the gates of Jerusalem, and the liberty and security of the inhabitants were to be purchased in the following manner. Every man was to pay to Saladin ten golden bezants as a ransom, every woman five, and every child under seven years was to pay one bezant.

When these terms, so disgraceful to the christian negotiators, were known in the Holy City, nothing could exceed the grief and indignation of the poorer classes of people, who had no money wherewith to pay the ransom, and had consequently been delivered up to perpetual bondage by their richer christian brethren. All resistance on their part, however, to the treaty was then hopeless; the poor had been betrayed by the rich; the infidels were already in possession of the tower of David, and their spears were gleaming in the streets of the Holy City. It is recorded to the praise of the few Templars and Hospitallers who were then in Jerusalem, that they spent all the money they possessed in ransoming their poor christian brethren, whom they escorted in safety to Tripoli. The number of those who, being unable to pay the ransom, were reduced to a state of hopeless slavery, is estimated at fourteen thousand, men, women, and children. They were sold in the common slave-markets, and distributed through all the Mussulman countries of Asia. The women became the concubines and the handmaids of their masters, and the children were educated in the Mohammedan faith.

The Arabian writers express their astonishment at the number of the christian captives, and give a heart-rending account of their sorrows and misfortunes. One of them tells us that he saw in his native village a fair European woman, bright as the morning star, who had two beautiful children. She seldom spoke, but remained the live-long day absorbed in melancholy contemplation; there was, says he, such a sweetness and gentleness in her deportment, that it made one’s heart ache to see her. “When I was at Aleppo,” says the historian, Azz’eddin Ali Ibn-Al’atsyr, who fought in Saladin’s army, and was present at the battle of Tiberias, “I had for a slave one of the christian women taken at Jaffa. She had with her a little child, about a year old, and many a bitter tear did she shed over this tender infant. I did my best to comfort her, but she exclaimed, ‘Alas, sir, it is not for this child that I weep; I had a husband and two sisters, and I know not what has become of them. I had also six brothers, all of whom have perished.’ This is the case of one person only. Another day I saw at Aleppo a christian slave accompanying her master to the house of a neighbour. The master knocked at the door, and another Frank woman came to open it; the two females immediately give a loud cry; they rush into each other’s arms; they weep; they sit down on the ground and enter into conversation. They were two sisters who had been sold as slaves to different masters, and had been brought without knowing it to the same town.”[73]

Thus fell the holy city of Jerusalem, eighty-eight years after its conquest by Godfrey de Bouillon and the crusaders. Our excellent chronicler, Radolph, abbot of Coggleshale, who was redeemed from bondage by payment of the ten golden bezants, throws a pitying glance upon the misfortunes and miseries of the poor captives, but attributes the fall of Jerusalem, and all the calamities consequent thereon, to the sins and iniquities of the inhabitants. “They honoured God,” says he, “with their lips, but their hearts were far from him.” He speaks of the beautiful women who thronged Jerusalem, and of the general corruption of the city, and exclaims, in the words of the prophet, “The Lord hath said unto the heathen, Go ye up against her walls and destroy, take away her battlements, for they are not the Lord’s.”

Immediately after the surrender of the city (October 11, A.D. 1187) the Moslems rushed to the Temple (Templum Domini, ante p. 12) in thousands. “The imauns and the doctors and expounders of the wicked errors of Mahomet,” says Abbot Coggleshale, “first ascended to the Temple of the Lord, called by the infidels Beit Allah, (the house of God,) in which, as a place of prayer and religion, they place their great hope of salvation. With horrible bellowings they proclaimed the law of Mahomet, and vociferated, with polluted lips, Allah acbar—Allah acbar (God is victorious). They defiled all the places that are contained within the Temple; i. e. the place of the presentation, where the mother and glorious Virgin Mary delivered the Son of God into the hands of the just Simeon; and the place of the confession, looking towards the porch of Solomon, where the Lord judged the woman taken in adultery. They placed guards that no Christian might enter within the seven atria of the Temple; and as a disgrace to the Christians, with vast clamour, with laughter and with mockery, they hurled down the golden cross from the pinnacle of the building, and dragged it with ropes throughout the city, amid the exulting shouts of the infidels and the tears and lamentations of the followers of Christ.” When every Christian had been removed from the precincts of the Temple, Saladin proceeded with vast pomp to say his prayers in the Beit Allah, the holy house of God, or “Temple of the Lord,” erected by the Caliph Omar. He was preceded by five camels laden with rose-water, which he had procured from Damascus, and he entered the sacred courts to the sound of martial music, and with his banners streaming in the wind. The Beit Allah, “the Temple of the Lord,” was then again consecrated to the service of one God and his prophet Mahomet; the walls and pavements were washed and purified with rose-water; and a pulpit, the labour of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary.[74]

The following account of these transactions was forwarded to Henry the Second, king of England. “To the beloved Lord Henry, by the grace of God, the illustrious king of the English, duke of Normandy and Guienne, and count of Anjou, Brother Terric, formerly Grand Preceptor of the house of the Temple at Jerusalem, sendeth greeting,—salvation through him who saveth kings. Know that Jerusalem, with the citadel of David, hath been surrendered to Saladin. The Syrian Christians, however, have the custody of the holy sepulchre up to the fourth day after Michaelmas, and Saladin himself hath permitted ten of the brethren of the Hospital to remain in the house of the hospital for the space of one year, to take care of the sick.... Jerusalem, alas, hath fallen; Saladin hath caused the cross to be thrown down from the summit of the Temple of the Lord, and for two days to be publicly kicked and dragged in the dirt through the city. He then caused the Temple of the Lord to be washed within and without, upwards and downwards, with rose-water, and the law of Mahomet to be proclaimed throughout the four quarters of the Temple with wonderful clamour....”[75]

Bohadin, Saladin’s secretary, mentions as a remarkable and happy circumstance, that the holy city was surrendered to the sultan of most pious memory, and that God restored to the faithful their sanctuary on the 27th of the month Regeb, on the night of which very day their most glorious prophet Mahomet performed his wonderful nocturnal journey from the Temple of the Lord, through the seven heavens, to the throne of God. He also describes the sacred congregation of the Mussulmen gathered together in the Temple and the solemn prayer offered up to God; the shouting and the sounds of applause, and the voices lifted up to heaven, causing the holy buildings to resound with thanks and praises to the most bountiful Lord God. He glories in the casting down of the golden cross, and exults in the very splendid triumph of Islam. Saladin restored the sacred area of the Temple to its original condition under the first Mussulman conquerors of Jerusalem (ante, p. 12). The ancient christian church of the Virgin (the mosque Al Acsa, and “Temple of Solomon”) was washed with rose-water, and was once again dedicated to the religious services of the Moslems. On the western side of this venerable edifice the Templars had erected, according to the Arabian writers, an immense building in which they lodged, together with granaries of corn and various offices, which enclosed and concealed a great portion of the edifice. Most of these were pulled down by the sultan to make a clear and open area for the resort of the Mussulmen to prayer. Some new erections placed between the columns in the interior of the structure were taken away, and the floor was covered with the richest carpets. “Lamps innumerable,” says Ibn Alatsyr, “were suspended from the ceiling; verses of the Koran were again inscribed on the walls; the call to prayer was again heard; the bells were silenced; the exiled faith returned to its ancient sanctuary; the devout Mussulmen again bent the knee in adoration of the one only God, and the voice of the imaun was again heard from the pulpit, reminding the true believers of the resurrection and the last judgment.”[76]

The Friday after the surrender of the city, the army of Saladin, and crowds of true believers, who had flocked to Jerusalem from all parts of the East, assembled in the Temple of the Lord to assist in the religious services of the Mussulman sabbath. Omad, Saladin’s secretary, who was present, gives the following interesting account of the ceremony, and of the sermon that was preached. “On Friday morning at daybreak,” says he, “everybody was asking whom the sultan had appointed to preach. The Temple was full; the congregation was impatient; all eyes were fixed on the pulpit; the ears were on the stretch; our hearts beat fast, and tears trickled down our faces. On all sides were to be heard rapturous exclamations of ‘What a glorious sight! What a congregation! Happy are those who have lived to see the resurrection of Islam.’ At length the sultan ordered the judge (doctor of the law) Mohieddin Aboulmehali-Mohammed to fulfil the sacred function of imaun. I immediately lent him the black vestment which I had received as a present from the caliph. He then mounted into the pulpit and spoke. All were hushed. His expressions were graceful and easy, and his discourse was eloquent and much admired. He displayed the virtue and sanctity of Jerusalem; he spoke of the purification of the Temple; he alluded to the silence of the bells, and to the flight of the infidel priests. In his prayer he named the caliph and the sultan, and terminated his discourse with that chapter of the Koran in which God orders justice and good works. He then descended from the pulpit, and prayed in the Mihrab. Immediately afterwards a sermon was preached before the congregation.”

This sermon was delivered by Mohammed Ben Zeky. “Praise be to God,” saith the preacher, “who by the power of his might hath raised up Islamism on the ruins of polytheism; who governs all things according to his will; who overthroweth the devices of the infidels, and causeth the TRUTH to triumph! I praise God, who hath succoured his elect, who hath rendered them victorious and crowned them with glory, who hath purified his holy house from the filthiness of idolatry.... I bear witness that there is no God but that one great God who standeth alone and hath no PARTNER; sole, supreme, eternal; who begetteth not and is not begotten, and hath NO EQUAL. I bear witness that Mahomet is his servant, his envoy, and his prophet, who hath dissipated doubts, confounded polytheism, and put down LIES! O men, declare ye the blessings of God, who hath restored to you this holy city, after it has been left in the power of the infidels for a hundred years. This HOLY HOUSE of the Lord hath been built, and its foundations have been established, for the glory of God. This sacred spot is the dwelling-place of the prophets, the kebla (place of prayer) towards which you turn at the commencement of your religious duties, the birth-place of the saints, the scene of the revelation. It is thrice holy, for the angels of God spread their wings over it. This is that blessed land of which God hath spoken in his sacred book. In this house of prayer, Mahomet prayed with the angels who approach God. It is to this spot that all fingers are turned after the two holy places. This conquest, O men, hath opened unto you the gates of heaven; the angels rejoice, and the eyes of the prophets glisten with joy.” The preacher proceeds, in a high strain of enthusiasm, to enlarge upon the merits of the holy war. “The holy war, the holy war!” says he, “is better than religious worship; it is the noblest of your occupations. Aid God, and he will assist you; protect the Lord, and he will protect you; remember him, and he will have you in remembrance; do good to him, and he will do good to you. Cut off the branches of iniquity; purify the earth from unbelievers, and destroy the nations who have excited the wrath of God and his apostle, &c....”[77]

Omad informs us that the marble altar and chapel which had been erected over the sacred rock in the Temple of the Lord, or Mosque of Omar, was removed by Saladin, together with the stalls for the priests, the marble statues, and all the abominations which had been placed in the venerated building by the Christians. The Mussulmen discovered with horror that some pieces of the holy stone or rock had been cut off by the Franks, and sent to Europe. Saladin caused it to be immediately surrounded by a grate of iron. He washed it with rose-water, and Malek-Afdel covered it with magnificent carpets. Saladin, in his famous letter to the caliph, giving an account of the conquest of Jerusalem, exclaims—“God hath at length turned towards the supporters of the true faith; he hath let loose his wrath against the infidels, and hath driven them from his sanctuary.... The infidels have erected churches in the holy city, and the great houses of the Templars and Hospitallers. In these structures are rich marbles and many precious things. Thy servant hath restored the Mosque Al-Acsa (the Temple of the Knights Templars, ante p. 12) to its ancient destination. He hath appointed imauns to celebrate divine service, and on the 14th chaaban they preached, the khotbeh (sermon). The heavens are rent with joy and the stars dance with delight. The word of God hath been exalted, and the tombs of the prophets, which the infidel hath defiled, have been purified.”[78] Saladin restored the fortifications of Jerusalem; he founded several schools, and converted the great house of the Hospitallers into a college. He then quitted the Holy City to pursue his military operations in the field.

The Templars still maintained themselves in some of the strongest castles of Palestine, and the maritime city of Tyre continued to resist all the attacks of the Moslems. This important sea-port was preserved to the Christians by the valour and military talents of the young Conrad, marquis of Montferrat, who digged a ditch across the isthmus which connects Tyre with the main land, repaired the fortifications and planted catapults and balistÆ in boats, so as to command the only approach to the town. Saladin proceeded in person to Tyre, to conduct the operations against this important place. He was on horseback from morn till night, and was assisted by his sons, his brother, and his nephew, all of whom commanded in the field under the eye of the sultan, and animated the troops by their example. The following account of the state of affairs in Palestine is contained in a letter from Brother Terric, Grand Preceptor of the Temple, and Treasurer General of the order, to Henry the Second, king of England. “The brothers of the hospital of Belvoir as yet bravely resist the Saracens; they have captured two convoys, and have valiantly possessed themselves of the munitions of war and provisions which were being conveyed by the Saracens from the fortress of La Feue. As yet, also, Carach, in the neighbourhood of Mount Royal, Mount Royal itself, the Temple of Saphet, the hospital of Carach, Margat, and Castellum Blancum, and the territory of Tripoli, and the territory of Antioch, resist Saladin.... From the feast of Saint Martin, up to that of the circumcision of the Lord, Saladin hath besieged Tyre incessantly, by night and by day, throwing into it immense stones from thirteen military engines. On the vigils of St. Silvester, the Lord Conrad, the marquis of Montferrat, distributed knights and foot soldiers along the wall of the city, and having armed seventeen galleys and ten small vessels, with the assistance of the house of the Hospital and the brethren of the Temple, he engaged the galleys of Saladin, and vanquishing them he captured eleven, and took prisoners the great admiral of Alexandria and eight other admirals, a multitude of the infidels being slain. The rest of the Mussulman galleys, escaping the hands of the Christians, fled to the army of Saladin, and being run aground by his command, were set on fire and burnt to ashes. Saladin himself, overwhelmed with grief, having cut off the ears and the tail of his horse, rode that same horse through his whole army in the sight of all. Farewell!”[79] Tyre continued to be valiantly defended until the winter had set in, and then the disappointed sultan, despairing of taking the place, burnt his military engines and retired to Damascus.

The king of Jerusalem, and the Grand Master of the Temple, who had, as before mentioned, been residing at Naplous, under the surveillance of Saladin’s officers, were now set at full liberty, pursuant to the treaty of Ascalon, on the understanding that they would immediately proceed to Tyre and embark for Europe. Queen Sibylla, who was in Jerusalem at the time of its surrender to Saladin, had been permitted to join her royal husband at Naplous, and the king, the queen, and the Grand Master of the Temple, consequently proceeded together to Tyre. On their arrival at that place, they found the gates shut against them. The young Conrad declared, that as the city had been preserved solely by the swords of himself and his followers, it justly belonged to him, and that neither the king nor the queen of Jerusalem any longer possessed authority within it. Cruelly repelled from Tyre, the king and queen, with their infant children, the Grand Master of the Temple, and the patriarch Heraclius, proceeded to Antioch.

As soon as the winter rains had subsided, Saladin took the field, and attempted to reduce various strong castles of the Templars and Hospitallers. The most formidable of these were the castles of Saphet and Kowkab (the star); the one belonging to the order of the Temple, and the other to the order of the Hospital of Saint John. Saphet is one of the four holy cities of the Talmud, and is held in peculiar veneration by the Jews. The castle of the Templars crowned the summit of a lofty mountain, along the sides of which extended the houses and churches of the town. It was the strongest fortress possessed by the order in Palestine. From the ramparts the eye ranged over a rich prospect of luxuriant vineyards and smiling villages, and embraced a grand panoramic view of lofty mountains. Through the valley below rolled the Jordan; to the southward extended the vast blue expanse of the lake of Tiberias; and in the north-east the snowy summits of Anti-Lebanon might be seen piercing the skies. This important fortress commanded the greater part of Galilee; it had always been a great check upon the incursions of the infidels, and was considered one of the bulwarks of the Latin kingdom. Saladin’s exertions, consequently, for the capture of the place were strenuous and incessant. He planted a large body of troops around it, under the command of his brother Saifeddin; but the season was not far enough advanced for their operations to be carried on with any chance of success. The tents of the besiegers were blown off the mountain by the furious whirlwinds, and the operation of the military engines was impeded by heavy rains. The Templars made continued sallies upon the works, burnt the military engines, butchered the soldiers in their sleep, and harassed them with incessant alarms in the dead of night. The siege was consequently turned into a blockade, and Saladin drew off the greater part of his forces to attack the Christian possessions in the principality of Antioch. He divided his army into several detachments, which were sent in different directions, with orders to ravage all the neighbouring country, drive away the oxen, sheep, and cattle, and collect the booty together in the plain of the Orontes, along the banks of the lake of Kades. He crossed the vast mountain ranges which extend between the Orontes and the sea-coast, and appeared in arms before the gates of Tripoli. Strenuous preparations had been made to receive him, and the sultan contented himself with reconnoitering the place and examining its defences; having done which, he directed his march upon Tortosa. The Grand Master of the Temple, who was anxiously watching Saladin’s movements, immediately threw himself into the strong castle of the Templars at that place, and prepared to defend the town; but the fortifications were weak, the inhabitants were panic-stricken, and the Templars, after a short struggle, were compelled to abandon the city, and retire behind their fortifications. There they maintained a fierce and bloody contest with the Moslems, and during the various assaults and sallies the town was set on fire and burnt to the ground. Bohadin gives a fearful account of the destruction by fire of the great cathedral church, and of the roaring and crackling of the flames as they burst through the huge cedar beams and timbers of the roof. He says that thousands of faithful Mussulmen gathered around the vast and venerable pile, and raised exulting shouts as they witnessed the progress of the fire, lifting up their voices to heaven, and returning thanks to the most bountiful Lord God!

Having failed in all his attempts to take the castle of the Templars, Saladin drew off his forces, leaving the once populous and flourishing town of Tortosa a dreary desert. He then besieged and took the city of Gabala, and then approached in warlike array the far-famed Laodicea. The panic-stricken inhabitants refused to defend the town, and abandoned the fortifications, but some Templars and other knights, throwing themselves into the citadel with their followers, boldly resisted the attacks of the infidels. After a desperate defence a capitulation was signed, the garrison marched out with all the honours of war, and the banners of Islam were then planted upon the towers and battlements. Both Ibn Alatsyr and Bohadin give an enthusiastic description of the town and its environs. They speak of its noble harbour, its beautiful houses, elegant villas, rich marbles, luxuriant gardens, and shady groves. All these became the prey of the fierce Mussulman soldiery, who committed great excesses. They broke to pieces the choice specimens of ancient sculpture, considering them hated evidences of idolatry; they stripped all the churches of their ornaments, and sold the sacred vestments of the priests. From Laodicea, Saladin marched to Sohioun or Sekyun, a fortress of prodigious strength, situate amongst the mountains midway between Gabala and the Orontes. It was almost entirely surrounded by a deep precipitous ravine, the sides of which were in many places perpendicular. After a siege of five days, a part of the Mussulman soldiers clambered over some rocks which were thought to be inaccessible, climbed the outer wall of the town, and opened the gates to their companions; the second and third walls were then carried by assault, and the citadel surrendered after a short siege. Many other important cities and castles speedily fell into the hands of the victorious Saladin. Among these were the city of Bakas, or Bacas, on the banks of the Orontes, and the castle of Al Shokhr, which was connected with the town by a bridge over the river; the castle of Al JahmÀhÛnÎn, near Gabala; Blatanous, near Antioch; Sarminiah, or Sarmaniya, a fortress, a day’s journey N. E. of Aleppo; and many other places of note. All the towns and castles between Sarminiah and Gabala surrendered to the Moslems. “Glory be to God,” says Ibn Alatsyr, “who hath made easy that which appeared to be difficult.”

Saladin then recrossed the Orontes, and laid siege to Berzyeh, or Borzya, a fortress which commanded the high road from Antioch to Emesa, or Hems, and was, therefore, a place of very great importance. During a very hot day, when the garrison had been fighting from sunrise till noon, Saladin suddenly called up his reserve, placed himself at their head, scaled the fortifications, and entered the town sword in hand. The houses were set on fire, the streets were drenched with blood, and all the inhabitants who escaped the general massacre, were made slaves. From Berzyeh, Saladin marched down the vast and fertile plain of the Orontes, to the famous iron bridge over that river, about six or seven miles from Antioch, with a view of besieging the strong castle of the Knights Templars, called DerbazÂc, or DarbÊsak. On the 8th Regeb, having collected his forces together, and procured a vast number of powerful military engines, he moved forward and invested the place. The walls were surrounded with wooden towers, filled with expert archers, who swept the battlements with their arrows. Under cover of these towers, battering-rams were placed in position, and a vast breach was made in the walls. Saladin’s body-guard moved forward to the assault, supported by crowds of archers on either flank, but the Templars filled up the breach with their bodies, and after a bloody contest the Mussulmen were driven back, leaving the ground covered with their dead. The Templars repaired the breach, and the sultan shifted his ground of attack. Hurdles covered with raw hides were advanced against the walls, and an expert party of miners were employed, under cover of these hurdles, to undermine a huge tower, which was considered to be the key of the fortifications. The tower was so well and strongly built, that it resisted for a length of time all the efforts of the miners; they dug away a great part of the foundations, and the tower appeared, says Ibn Alatsyr, to be suspended in the air. At last, however, it fell with a tremendous crash, carrying along with it into the ditch a vast portion of the walls on either side, so that a large yawning gap was opened in the fortifications. Again the Mussulmen rushed to the assault with loud shouts, and again they were hurled back by the stout arms of the Templars, leaving the heaps of stone, and the vast masses of shattered walls around them, crimsoned with the blood of their best men. Bohadin, who witnessed the assault, declares that he never saw such an obstinate defence. As soon as any one of the Templars fell, another, he tells us, would immediately take his place, and thus they remained upon the breach immoveable as a rock. At last, it was agreed that if the fortress was not succoured by the prince of Antioch, within a given period, the Templars should surrender it, and march out with their arms in their hands. No succour arrived by the appointed time, and the place was consequently given up to the Mussulmen.[80]

Immediately after the surrender of DarbÊsak, Saladin marched upon Bagras, a town situate at the foot of Mount Al Locam, and pushed on his advanced guard to the environs of the vast and populous city of Antioch, but he contented himself with the mere sight of the place, and declined to undertake the siege of it. He remained for some time in observation before the city, and sent out detachments in different directions to lay waste the surrounding country, and collect spoil. The population of Antioch was estimated at 150,000 souls: nearly all the surviving Templars of the principality were collected together within the walls, under the command of their valiant Grand Master, and the Prince Bohemond was at the head of a numerous and well-organized force, fully prepared for a desperate struggle in defence of his rich and princely city. Saladin consequently preferred entering into a truce to continuing the war, and concluded a treaty with Bohemond, whereby a suspension of arms was agreed upon for the term of eight months, to commence from the first of the approaching month of November, and it was stipulated that all the Moslem prisoners detained in Antioch should be set at liberty. Saladin then returned by the valley of the Orontes to Damascus, and his troops became very impatient to be dismissed to their homes for the winter, but he reminded them of the brevity and uncertainty of human life, told them that there was plenty of work before them, and that they ought not to leave for to-morrow that which could be done to-day. He accordingly set out from Damascus at the head of a large body of forces, and proceeded to lay siege to Saphet, the strong and important castle of the Knights Templars. Bohadin accompanied the sultan, and gives an interesting account of his incessant exertions for the capture of the place. During a windy and tempestuous night, he superintended the planting of five besieging engines. To every soldier he allotted a specific task, and turning to his secretary he said, “Let us not go to bed to-night, until these five engines are completed.” Every now and then messengers came in to narrate the progress of the work, and Saladin spent the intermediate time in cheerful converse with his friend. The night was dark and long, the weather miserably wet and cold, and the ground covered with mud. Bohadin ventured to address some observations to his royal master, upon the imprudence of exposing himself to the inclemency of the season, and to so much watching and fatigue, but the pious sultan reminded him of the words of the prophet, “The fire of hell shall not prevail against the eye that wakes and watches in the service of God, and the eye that weeps through fear of God.”

The Templars manfully defended themselves, and their brethren in Tyre made an attempt to send them succour. Two hundred valiant and determined soldiers set out from that city, and marched through the country by night, sheltering themselves in the day-time in caverns and solitary places amongst the mountains. They reached Saphet, and attempted to conceal themselves in the neighbourhood of the castle, until they could find an opportunity of communicating with their beleaguered brethren. Unfortunately one of their number strayed from his place of concealment, and was seen by a Mussulman emir, who immediately called out a strong guard, searched the neighbourhood, and took the whole party prisoners. They were brought into Saladin’s presence and condemned to death; but before the sentence was carried into execution negotiations were entered into for the surrender of Saphet. The Templars in the fortress were ill provided with provisions; they had now lost all hope of succour, and they agreed to surrender, on condition that they should be permitted to march out with their arms to Tyre, in company with the prisoners whom Saladin had just taken. These terms were acceded to, and the fortifications of the strong castle of Saphet were speedily demolished by the infidels.[81]

In the mean time all Europe had been thrown into consternation by the dismal intelligence of the fall of Jerusalem. Public prayers were put up in the churches, and fasts were ordered, as in times of great national calamities. Pope Urban III. is said to have died of grief, and the cardinals made a solemn resolution to renounce all kinds of diversions and pleasures, to receive no presents from any one who had causes depending in the court of Rome, and never to mount a horse as long as the Holy Land was trodden under foot by the infidels. Pope Gregory VIII. addressed apostolical letters to the sovereigns, bishops, nobles, and people of all christian countries, painting in pathetic terms the miserable disasters of the Latin Christians, the capture of the holy cross, the slaughter of the Templars and Hospitallers, and the fall of Jerusalem, and exhorting all faithful Christians immediately to assume the cross, and march to the deliverance of the Holy City. Crowds of armed pilgrims again quitted the shores of Europe for Palestine, and the Templars, obedient to the pressing calls of their brethren, hurried from their preceptories to the seaports of the Mediterranean, and embarked in the ships of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. The Grand Master of the Temple, and the king of Jerusalem, placed themselves at the head of the newly arrived battalions, and established their head quarters at Ras el Ain, a small village on the main land opposite Tyre. Many valiant Templars from the Temple at London, and the different preceptories of England, Scotland, and Ireland, joined their chief, and brought with them arms, horses, clothing, and munitions of war, with a vast amount of treasure, which had been collected in the churches. They were the bearers likewise of a large sum of money which had been sent by king Henry the Second for the defence of Tyre. This money was delivered to the Grand Master, but as the siege of Tyre had been raised before its arrival, and the young Conrad claimed the sovereignty of the city, and set up his authority in opposition to that of the king of Jerusalem, Gerard de Riderfort very properly refused to deliver the money into his hands; whereupon Conrad wrote letters filled with bitter complaints to the archbishop of Canterbury and to king Henry.[82]

At the commencement of the summer, the king and the Grand Master took the field at the head of an army of 9,000 men, and marched along the coast with the intention of laying siege to the important city of Acre. Saladin wrote to all the governors of the Moslem provinces, requiring them to join him without delay, and directed his army to concentrate at Sepphoris. From thence he marched to Keruba, and then moved in order of battle to Tel Kaisan, where the plain of Acre begins. The city of Acre had been regularly invested for some days previous to his arrival, and after reconnoitering the position of the christian army, he encamped, extending his left wing to Al Nahr Al Halu, “the sweet river,” and his right to Tel Al’AyÂdhiya, in such a manner, that the besiegers themselves became the besieged. He then made a sudden attack upon the weakest part of the christian camp, broke through the lines, penetrated to the gate of Acre, called KarÀkÛsh, which he entered, and threw into the city a reinforcement of 5,000 warriors, laden with arms, provisions, clothing, and everything necessary for the defence of the place. Having accomplished this bold feat, Saladin made a masterly retreat to his camp at Tel Al’AyÂdhiya.

On the 4th of October, the newly-arrived warriors from Europe, eager to signalize their prowess against the infidels, marched out of their intrenchments to attack Saladin’s camp. The holy gospels, wrapped in silk, were borne by four knights on a cushion, before the king of Jerusalem, and the patriarch Heraclius and the western bishops appeared at the head of the christian forces with crucifixes in their hands, exhorting them to obtain the crown of martyrdom in defence of the christian faith. The Templars marched in the van, and led the assault; they broke through the right wing of the Mussulman army, which was commanded by Saladin’s nephew, and struck such terror into the hearts of the Moslems, that some of them fled, without halting, as far as Tiberias. The undisciplined masses of the christian army, however, thinking that the day was their own, rushed heedlessly on after the infidels, and penetrating to the imperial tent, abandoned themselves to pillage. The Grand Master of the Temple, foreseeing the result, collected his knights and the forces of the order around him. The infidels rallied, they were led on by Saladin in person, and the Christian army would have been annihilated but for the Templars. Firm and immoveable, they presented for the space of an hour an unbroken front to the advancing Moslems, and gave time for the discomfited and panic-stricken crusaders to recover from their terror and confusion; but ere they had been rallied, and had returned to the charge, the Grand Master Gerard de Riderfort, was slain; he fell, pierced with arrows, at the head of his knights, the seneschal of the order shared the same fate, and more than half the Templars were numbered with the dead.[83]

To Gerard de Riderfort succeeded (A.D. 1189) the Knight Templar, Brother Walter.[84] Never did the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer or more destructive power than at this famous siege of Acre. Nine pitched battles were fought, with various fortune, in the neighbourhood of Mount Carmel, and during the first year of the siege a hundred thousand Christians are computed to have perished. The tents of the dead, however, were replenished by new-comers from Europe; the fleets of Saladin succoured the town, the Christian ships brought continual aid to the besiegers, and the contest seemed interminable. Saladin’s exertions in the cause of the prophet were incessant. The Arab authors compare him to a mother wandering with desperation in search of her lost child, to a lioness who has lost its young. “I saw him,” says his secretary Bohadin, “in the fields of Acre afflicted with a most cruel disease, with boils from the middle of his body to his knees, so that he could not sit down, but only recline on his side when he entered into his tent, yet he went about to the stations nearest to the enemy, arranged his troops for battle, and rode about from dawn till eve, now to the right wing, then to the left, and then to the centre, patiently enduring the severity of his pain.” Having received intelligence of the mighty preparations which were being made in Europe for the recovery of Jerusalem, and of the march of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa through Hungary and Greece to Constantinople, with a view of crossing the Hellespont, into Asia, Saladin sent orders to the governors of SenjÂr, Al JazÎra, Al Mawsel, and Arbel, ordering them to attend him with their troops, and directed his secretary Bohadin to proceed to the caliph Al NÂssr Deldin’illah, at Bagdad, humbly to request the Mussulman pontiff to use his spiritual authority and influence to induce all the Moslem nations and tribes to heal their private differences and animosities, and combine together against the Franks, for the defence of Islam. Bohadin was received with the greatest distinction and respect by the caliph and the whole divan at Bagdad, and whilst the pope was disseminating his apostolical letters throughout Christendom, calling upon the western nations to combine together for the triumph of the CROSS, the Mussulman pontiff was addressing, from the distant city of Bagdad, his pious exhortations to all true believers, to assemble under the holy banners of the prophet, and shed their blood in defence of Islam.

Shortly after the commencement of the new year, (586, Hejir which began Feb. 9th, A.D. 1190,) Saladin collected his troops together, to raise the siege of Acre. He moved from Al KherÛba to Tel Al AjÛl, where he pitched his camp. He was there joined by his son Al Malek, Al Daher GayÂtho’ddÎn GÂzi, the governor of Aleppo, with a select body of cavalry, and by Mohaffero’ddÎn I’Bn Zinoddin, with his light horse. The Templars and the crusaders, during the winter, had not been idle; they had dug trenches around their camp, thrown up ramparts, and fortified their position in such a way that it would have been difficult, says the Arabian writer, for even a bird to get in. They had, moreover, filled up the ditch around the town, and constructed three enormous towers, the largest of which was much higher than the walls, was sixty cubits in length, and could contain from five to six hundred warriors, with a proper quantity of arms and military engines. These towers were covered with the raw hides of oxen soaked in vinegar and mud, to render them incombustible; they were strengthened from top to bottom with bands of iron, and were each divided into five platforms or galleries filled with soldiers and military engines. They were rolled on wheels to the walls, and the Templars and the crusaders were about to descend from the platforms and galleries upon the battlements of the city, when the towers, and all the warriors upon them, were consumed by some inextinguishable inflammable composition, discharged out of brass pots by a brazier from Damascus. “We were watching,” says Bohadin, who was standing in the Moslem camp by Saladin’s side, “with intense anxiety the movements of the soldiers upon the towers, and thought that the city must inevitably be taken, when suddenly we saw one of them surrounded with a blaze of light, which shot up into the skies; the heavens were rent with one joyous burst of acclamation from the sons of Islam, and in another instant another tower was surrounded with raging flames and clouds of black smoke, and then the third; they were ignited one after the other in the most astonishing and surprising manner, with scarce an interval of a minute between them. The sultan immediately mounted his horse, and ordered the trumpets to sound to arms, exclaiming with a loud voice, in the words of the prophet, ‘When the gate of good fortune is thrown open, delay not to enter in.’”

At the commencement of the summer Saladin detached a considerable portion of his forces to the north, to oppose the progress of the German crusaders and Templars, who were advancing from Constantinople, under the command of the emperor Frederic Barbarossa. These advancing Templars were the especial favourites of Barbarossa, and after his melancholy death, from the effects of a cold bath in the river Cydnus, they formed part of the body-guard of his son the duke of Suabia.

In the month of July the Templars suffered severe loss in another attack upon Saladin’s camp. The christian soldiery, deceived by the flight of the Mussulmen, were again lured to the pillage of their tents, and again defeated by the main body of Saladin’s army, which had been posted in reserve. The Templars were surrounded by an overpowering force, but they fought their way through the dense ranks of the infidels to their own camp, leaving the plain of Acre strewed with the lifeless bodies of the best and bravest of their warriors. “The enemies of God,” says Bohadin, “had the audacity to enter within the camp of the lions of Islamism, but they speedily experienced the terrible effects of the divine indignation. They fell beneath the sabres of the Mussulmen as the leaves fall from the trees during the tempests of autumn. Their mangled corpses, scattered over the mountain side, covered the earth even as the branches and boughs cover the hills and valleys when the woodsman lops the forest timber.” “They fell,” says another Arabian historian, “beneath the swords of the sons of Islam as the wicked will fall, at the last day, into the everlasting fire of HELL. Nine rows of the dead covered the earth between the sea-shore and the mountains, and in each row might be counted the lifeless bodies of at least one thousand warriors.”

The Moslem garrison continued manfully to defend the town; they kept up a constant communication with Saladin, partly by pigeons, partly by swimmers, and partly by men in small skiffs, who traversed the port in secresy, by favour of the night, and stole into the city. At one period the besieged had consumed nearly all their provisions, and were on the point of dying with famine, when Saladin hit upon the following stratagem, for the purpose of sending them a supply. He collected together a number of vessels at Beirout laden with sacks of meal, cheese, onions, sheep, rice, and other provisions. He disguised the seamen in the Frank habit, put crosses on their pendants, and covered the decks of the vessels with hogs. In this way the little fleet sailed safely through the blockading squadron of the Christians, and entered the port of Acre. On another occasion Saladin sent 1,000 dinars to the garrison, by means of a famous diver named Isa; the man was unfortunately drowned during his passage to the city, but the money, being deposited in three bladders, tied to his body, was a few days afterwards thrown ashore near the town, and reached the besieged in safety. At the commencement of the winter the garrison was again reduced to great straits for want of food, and was on the point of surrendering, when three vessels from Egypt broke through the guard-ships of the Christians, and got safely into the harbour with a copious supply of provisions, munitions of war, and everything requisite to enable the city to hold out until the ensuing spring.

To prevent the further introduction of succours by sea, the crusaders endeavoured to take possession of the tower of Flies, a strong castle, built upon a rock in the midst of the sea at the mouth of the harbour, which commanded the port. The Templars employed one of their galleys upon this service, and crowds of small boats, filled with armed men, military engines, and scaling-ladders, were brought against the little fortress, but without effect. The boats and vessels were set on fire by the besieged and reduced to ashes, and after losing all their men, the Christians gave over the attempt. On the land side, the combats and skirmishes continued to be incessant. Wooden towers, and vast military machines, and engines, were constantly erected by the besiegers, and as constantly destroyed by the sallies and skilful contrivances of the besieged. The Templars, on one occasion, constructed two battering machines of a new invention, and most enormous size, and began therewith furiously to batter the walls of the town, but the garrison soon destroyed them with fire-darts, and beams of timber, pointed with red-hot iron.[85]

At the commencement of the next year, (587, Hejir. which began Jan. 29th, A.D. 1191,) a tremendous tempest scattered the fleet of the crusaders, and compelled their ships to take refuge in Tyre. The sea being open, Saladin hastily collected some vessels at Caiphas, threw a fresh body of troops into Acre, and withdrew the exhausted garrison, which had already sustained so many hardships and fatigues in defence of the town. This exchange of the garrison was most happily timed, for almost immediately after it had been effected, the walls of the city were breached, and preparations were made for an assault. The newly-arrived troops, however, repulsed the assailants, repaired the walls, and once more placed the city in a good posture of defence. The scarcity and famine in the christian camp continued to increase, and a vast many of the crusaders, utterly unable to withstand the hardships and difficulties of their position, deserted to Saladin, embraced the Mohammedan faith, and were employed by him, at their own request, in cruising off the coast against their quondam friends. Bohadin tells us that they met with vast success in their employment. On board one of their prizes was found a silver table, and a great deal of money and plate, which the captors brought to the sultan, the 13th Dhu’lhajja, but Saladin returned the treasure to them, saying, that it was a sufficient satisfaction to him and the Moslems, to see that the Franks pillaged and plundered one another with such alacrity.

Famine and disease continued to make frightful ravages amongst the crusaders. The duke of Suabia, Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, the patriarch Heraclius, four archbishops, twelve bishops, forty counts, and five hundred other nobles and knights, besides common soldiers, fell victims to the malady. From two to three hundred persons died daily, and the survivors became unequal to the task of burying the dead. The trenches which the Christians had dug for their protection, now became their graves. Putrefying corpses were to be seen floating upon the sea, and lining the sea-shore, and the air was infected with an appalling and intolerable effluvia. The bodies of the living became bloated and swollen, and the most trifling wounds were incurable. In addition to all this, numbers of the poorer class of people died daily from starvation. The rich supported themselves for a time upon horse-flesh, and Abbot Coggleshale tells us, that a dinner off the entrails of a horse cost 10d. Bones were ground to powder, mixed with water, and eagerly devoured, and all the shoes, bridles, and saddles, and old leather in the camp, were boiled to shreds, and greedily eaten.

Queen Sibylla, who appears to have been sincerely attached to the unpopular husband she had raised to the throne, was present in the christian camp with four infant daughters. She had wandered with the king, Guy de Lusignan, from one place to another, ever since his liberation from captivity, and had been his constant companion through all the horrors, trials, and anxieties of the long siege of Acre. Her delicate frame, weakened by sorrow and misfortune, was unable to contend with the many hardships and privations of the christian camp. She fell a victim to the frightful epidemic which raged amongst the soldiers, and her death was speedily followed by that of her four children. The enemies of the king now maintained that the crown of the Latin kingdom had descended upon Isabella, the younger sister of Sibylla, and wife of Humphrey de Thoron, Lord of Montreal, or Mount Royal; but the latter seemed to think otherwise, and took no steps either to have his wife made queen, or himself king. The enterprising and ambitious Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, accordingly determined to play a bold game for the advancement of his own fortunes. He paid his addresses to Isabella, and induced her to consent to be divorced from Humphrey de Thoron, and take him for her husband. He went to the bishop of Beauvais, and persuaded that prelate to pronounce the divorce, and immediately after it had been done, he carried off Isabella to Acre, and there married her. As soon as the nuptials had been performed, Conrad caused himself and his wife to be proclaimed king and queen of Jerusalem, and forthwith entered upon the exercise of certain royal functions. He went to the christian camp before Acre, and his presence caused serious divisions and dissensions amongst the crusaders. The king, Guy de Lusignan, stood upon his rights; he maintained that, as he had been once a king, he was always a king, and that the death of his wife could not deprive him of the crown which he had solemnly received, according to the established usage of the Latin kingdom. A strong party in the camp declared themselves in his favour, and an equally strong party declared in favour of his rival, Conrad, who prepared to maintain his rights, sword in hand. The misfortunes of the Christians appeared, consequently, to have approached their climax. The sword, the famine, and the pestilence, had successively invaded their camp, and now the demon of discord came to set them one against the other, and to paralyse all their exertions in the christian cause.[86]