At the death of King Baldwin the personal unpopularity of his brother among the barons caused at first some hesitation as to his election, but this was overruled by the influence of the clergy, and Amaury was duly crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He was at the time of his succession to the crown twenty-seven years of age. He had been named by his brother first Count of Jaffa, and afterwards, when the place was taken, Count of Ascalon. He was a man somewhat above the middle height; like his brother he had an aquiline nose, brown hair falling back from his forehead, and would have been as handsome as Baldwin but for his premature corpulence. He was inordinately fat, in spite of extreme temperance in eating and drinking. As for his faults, they were many. He was morose and taciturn, rarely speaking to any one, and never showing any desire to cultivate friendships; he was avaricious, always trying to accumulate treasure, a habit which he defended, honestly enough, on the ground that it was the duty of a king to provide for emergencies, a duty which he was the first King of Jerusalem to recognise. At the same time, he was always ready with his money in cases of necessity. He seldom laughed, and when he did, he seemed to laugh all over, in a manner as undignified as it was ungraceful. He had, too, a slight impediment in his speech, which prevented him from speaking freely, and was probably the main cause of his taciturnity. He was unchaste, and made no secret of his incontinence. He was a violent enemy of what his biographer calls the liberty of the Church—in other words, he insisted on the property of the Church bearing the burden of taxation equally with all other property. He had little education, but loved reading, especially the reading of history, and was fond of asking questions on curious and recondite questions. Thus, he once startled William of Tyre by asking him if there was any proof, apart from revelation, of the doctrine of a future world. The priest proved to him, by the Socratic method, he says, that there was; but he confesses that he was greatly exercised in spirit at the king’s asking such a question. He was well versed in all questions of law, and in military matters was generally a prudent leader, and always patient of fatigue and suffering. “Being so fat,” we are told, “the rigours of cold and heat did not trouble him”—a very odd result of corpulence. He obeyed all the ordinances of the Church, and showed his magnanimity by never taking the least notice of things said in his disfavour, when they were reported to him. He loved not dice or gambling, and had, indeed, but one sport of which he was really fond, that of falconry. Evidently a gloomy kind of prince, with his mind overwhelmed by all sorts of doubts and questions of morality and religion, perplexed by the cares and anxieties of his position, void of enthusiasm for the crown which he wore, but resolute to do the best he could for his kingdom; more prudent and far-seeing than any who had preceded him, but without the dash and vigour of his ancestors, slow of thought, and consequently liable to ill-success for want of promptness, a man something like our William III., who had a few who admired and respected him, but who, to the many, was unpopular and distasteful.

He had married Agnes, the daughter of Jocelyn the younger, by whom he had three children, Baldwin, afterwards king, Sybille and Isabelle. On his accession it was discovered, one wonders why the Church had not interfered earlier, that the marriage was unlawful, because his own and his wife’s grandfather, Baldwin du Bourg, and Jocelyn the elder, had been first cousins. He was therefore compelled to get a divorce from Agnes, who married again, first Hugh of Ibelin, a gallant fighting man, and afterwards Renaud of Sidon, also a marriage within the limits, only this time the Church did not think proper to interpose her authority.

Like all the kings of Jerusalem, Amaury began his reign with an expedition, by way of winning the spurs of gallantry. The Egyptians—the Fatemite dynasty being now in its last stage of decay—failed to pay the tribute which had been agreed upon after the taking of Ascalon. Amaury led an army to Pelusium, which he took and plundered, and returned home laden with spoils and glory.

The Fatemite Caliphs, degenerate now, and sunk in sloth, left the whole government of their rich empire to their viziers, who had taken the title of sultan. Dhargam, the vizier at this time, had a powerful rival named Shawer, whom he managed to turn out of his government and banish from the kingdom. Shawer repaired to Damascus, and representing to NÛr-ed-dÍn the weakened state of the kingdom, urged him to send an army which should in the first instance place himself in the seat of Dhargam, and in the next make Egypt a sort of appanage to Damascus. The project was tempting. If Egypt could be made even an ally of Damascus, or more properly speaking, of Baghdad, to which Caliphate NÛr-ed-dÍn belonged, the way was clear for united action against the Christian kingdom on three sides at once. NÛr-ed-dÍn did not hesitate long. Deputing his ablest general, ShÍrkoh, to lead his forces, he despatched a formidable army to Egypt, to support the rebellious claims of Shawer. But Dhargam in his turn was not idle. He sent messengers to King Amaury, offering conditions, almost any which the king might dictate, in return for assistance. But while the negotiations were pending, and Amaury was making up his mind how to act, ShÍrkoh and his army were already in Egypt. Dhargam led his troops to meet the enemy, and in a first engagement entirely routed the Syrians. The next day, however, these rallied, and the unfortunate Dhargam was killed by a chance arrow in the battle. Shawer entered into Cairo in triumph, killed all Dhargam’s relations—a summary and efficacious way of preventing any possible future claims on the part of his descendants—and allowed ShÍrkoh to establish himself in Pelusium, where the Syrians settled down, and refused either to quit the kingdom, or to acknowledge the authority of the caliph. Shawer found himself thus in the position of one seeking to be delivered from his friends, and saw no way of escape but by the intervention of the Christians. He sent ambassadors to Amaury, making overtures similar to those proposed by his late rival, even offering greater advantages if the previous terms were not sufficiently liberal; but Amaury accepted them, and marched with all his forces into Egypt. These allied forces of Shawer and Amaury besieged ShÍrkoh in Pelusium, but were not strong enough to get more than a conditional surrender, the Syrian general being allowed to depart with all the honours of war, and to return to Damascus. And at the same time NÛr-ed-dÍn received a defeat near Tripoli, which raised the spirit of the Christians to the highest point. Next year, however, he avenged himself by defeating young Bohemond of Antioch, Raymond of Tripoli, the Greek governor of Cilicia, and the Armenian prince Toros. It was a shameful rout. “No one bethought him of his former courage, or of the deeds of his ancestors; no one sought to avenge the insults of the enemy, or to fight gloriously for the liberty and honour of his country. Each, on the other hand, hastening to throw away his arms, endeavoured by indecent supplications to preserve a life which it would have been a thousand times better to sacrifice by fighting valiantly for his country. Toros the Armenian got away by flight: Bohemond and the rest were all taken prisoners, while they were shamefully running away.” In the midst of the consternation produced by this disaster, Thierry, Count of Flanders, who was continually coming into the country like a Deus ex machin in the midst of calamities, arrived opportunely with a small following of knights. He could not, however, prevent NÛr-ed-dÍn from taking the Castle of Banias, which in the absence of its seigneur, Humphrey, who was away in Egypt, had been consigned to the care of one Walter of Quesnet. Walter gave up the place, which he was too weak to defend, and in these degraded times was of course accused of having received bribes for the purpose from NÛr-ed-dÍn. Perhaps he did.

The king came back glorious with his Egyptian exploit, only to hear of these reverses, and to march north in hopes of repairing them. He could do no more than place the best men he had in the fortresses, while ShÍrkoh gained possession of a stronghold named the Grotto of Tyre, by treachery, as was alleged—at least the Christian governor was hanged for it at Sidon. The fortress of Montreal, in Moab, fell at the same time, and the king was so indignant that he hung up twelve of the Templars who had been among the besieged, and had consented to its capitulation. Nothing, in fact, can explain the continual reverses of the Christians except the fact of their utter demoralization and cowardice, and the dwindling away of that full stream of pilgrim soldiers who had formerly flocked yearly to the East. The Second Crusade, indeed, was productive of the greatest harm in this respect to the Christian kingdom. It drained the West of all the men who wished to become pilgrims; and the fact that so few returned deterred effectually those who would otherwise have wished to go. Other causes, of course, were at work. Of these, the chief were the crusades against the Moors in Spain and the Pagans in Germany, and the development of pilgrimages to local shrines and saints. It was much easier and a great deal pleasanter, though not so glorious, to ride across a friendly country to a saint not many hundreds of miles away, than to journey in peril and privation along the long and weary road which led to Jerusalem.

But there was a lull in the incursions of NÛr-ed-dÍn. He and ShÍrkoh had other and vaster projects on hand. They sent to the caliph at Baghdad, and pointed out the manifest advantages which would accrue from the extinction of the Fatemite power, the union of both caliphates into one, and the possession of a country so rich and so fertile as Egypt, the people of which were enervated by pleasure and luxury, and absolutely unfitted for any kind of resistance. The caliph listened. Surrounded as he was by every luxury that the heart of man could desire, it mattered little to him whether another rich country was added to his nominal rule or not. But it mattered greatly that the divided allegiance of Islam should be made to run again in one stream, and he consented to give all his influence provided the war were made a religious war. To this NÛr-ed-dÍn and his general eagerly assented, and the caliph wrote to all the princes who owned his sway, commanding them to assist ShÍrkoh in his intended invasion of Egypt.

Amaury possessed prudence enough to know that if the Syrians conquered Egypt his own position would be far worse than before; and he collected his forces and marched southwards, in hopes of intercepting the Syrian army in the desert. He missed them; but Shawer, full of admiration for the good faith which seemed to him to have actuated the Christians, welcomed them with every demonstration of gratitude when they arrived in Egypt, and placed, to use the phrase of the historian, all the treasures of the country at their disposal. Amaury established his camp near Cairo, on the banks of the Nile, and then held counsel what next to do. He determined to make another attempt to intercept ShÍrkoh, and though he again missed the main army, he came upon a small rear-guard, which he either killed or made prisoners. From the prisoners he learned that a great disaster had befallen the Turks on their way across the desert, South of Moab there had arisen a frightful storm and whirlwind, in which the sand was driven about like the waves of the sea. To escape it, the troops dismounted and crouched behind the beasts, covering their faces; they lost all their camels, most of their provisions, and a vast number of their men. Amaury came back again in good spirits at this intelligence, and thinking of returning home again, the tempest having done the work of his own sword. But he overrated the power of the Egyptians, and Shawer, knowing how utterly unable his own forces were to cope with those of ShÍrkoh, shattered as these were, implored the king to remain in Egypt and help him to drive off the invader. He undertook to give the Christians a sum of four hundred thousand gold pieces, half to be paid on the spot, half when the work was done, provided that the king undertook not to leave Egypt till the enemy had been driven out. The terms were agreed to; the king gave his right hand, in token of fidelity, and sent Hugh of CÆsarea, accompanied by a Templar named Foucher, to receive the personal promise of the great and mysterious caliph himself, whom no one had yet seen.

The two knights, with Shawer, proceeded to the palace. They were preceded by a number of trumpeters and swordsmen, and led through dark passages where gates, at each of which were Ethiopian guards, continually barred the way. Having passed through these, they found themselves in an open place, surrounded by galleries with marble columns, with panels of gold, and pavements of curious mosaic. There, too, were basins of marble filled with pure and sparkling water; the cries and calls of birds unknown to Europeans, of strange shape and glorious plumage, saluted their ears; and going farther on they found themselves in a menagerie of strange beasts, “such as the painter might imagine, or the poet, with his lying license, might invent, or the imagination of a sleeper could fancy in dreams of the night.”

Passing on still through more corridors, and along other passages, they arrived at last in the palace itself, where were armed men, and guards whose arms and martial bearing proclaimed the power, even as the splendour of the place proclaimed the wealth, of the sovereign who owned it. They were shown into an apartment one end of which was hidden by curtains, embroidered with gold and precious stones. Before the curtain Shawer, the sultan, prostrated himself twice, and then took the sword which hung from his neck and humbly laid it on the ground. At that moment the curtains drew apart, and disclosed the caliph himself, seated on a golden throne, in robes more splendid than those of kings, and surrounded by a small number of his domestics and favourite eunuchs. Then the sultan advanced and explained the object of this visit, and the reasons which had led to the treaty with the Christians. The caliph replied in a few words that he agreed to the treaty, and promised to interpret all the conditions in the manner most favourable to the king.

But Hugh demanded that the caliph should ratify the treaty by giving his hand, after the manner of the Christians, a proposition which was received with the greatest horror; nor was it till the sultan had urged the point with vehemence that the caliph consented, presenting his right hand covered with a handkerchief. Again the sturdy Hugh expostulated. “Sir,” said he to the caliph, who had never been addressed in such a manner before; “loyalty knows no concealments. Let everything between princes be bare and open.... Give me your uncovered hand, or I shall be constrained to think that you have some secret design, and possess less sincerity than I wish to experience from you.” The caliph yielded, smiling, and with a good grace, while his courtiers were dumb with amazement, and repeated, in the same words as Hugh, the oath to adhere to the conditions in good faith, without fraud or evil intention.

“The caliph was in the flower of youth, tall, and of handsome appearance; he had an infinite number of wives, and was named El ‘?dhid li dÍn illah. When he sent away the deputies, he gave them presents whose abundance and value served at the same time to honour him who gave them, and to rejoice those who received them from so illustrious a prince.”

The terms of alliance being thus agreed upon, Amaury proceeded with his campaign. But ShÍrkoh was too wary to give him an opportunity of fighting, and after playing with him a little, withdrew into the desert, and the Christians occupied the city of Cairo, where they were allowed to go everywhere, even into the palace of the caliph, a mark of the highest favour. ShÍrkoh returned, and trusting to his superiority of numbers, forced on a battle. He had with him—of course the numbers must be taken with some reserve—twelve thousand Turks and ten thousand Arabs, the latter armed with nothing but the lance. The Christians had three hundred and sixty knights, a large body of Turcopoles, and the Egyptian army, the numbers of which are not given.

The battle was fought at a place called Babain, “the two gates,” about two leagues from Cairo, on the borders of the desert, where sand-hills encroach steadily on the cultivated soil, and form valleys between themselves, in which the Christians had to manoeuvre. No ground could have been worse for them. The battle went against them. At the close of the day Hugh of CÆsarea had been taken prisoner, the Bishop of Bethlehem, Eustace Collet, Jocelyn of Samosata, and many other knights, were killed, the Christians, fighting still, were scattered about the field, and the king found himself on one of the sand-hills, master of the position for which he had fought, but with a very few of his men round him. He raised his banner to rally the Christians, and then began to consider how best to get away from the field, for the only way was through a narrow pass, threatened on either side by a hill on which the Turks were crowded in force. They formed in close array, placing on the outside those who were the best armed. But the Turks made no attack upon them, probably from ignorance of the result of the day, or from fatigue, and the Christians marched all through the night. It was four days before they all came back to the camp, and it was then found they had lost a hundred knights on the field.

ShÍrkoh, whose losses had been very much greater, rallying his men, marched northwards on Alexandria, which surrendered without striking a blow. By Amaury’s advice, an Egyptian fleet was sent down the river to intercept all supplies, and as Alexandria was without any stores of corn and provisions, it was not long before ShÍrkoh, starved out, left the city in the charge of his nephew, afterwards the great and illustrious Saladin, with a thousand horse, while he himself took up his old position near Cairo. Thereupon Amaury moved north to invest Alexandria. The Egyptian fleet held the river and commanded the port; the allied armies blocked up all the avenues of approach; the orchards and gardens round the walls, which had been the delight and pride of the Alexandrians, were ruthlessly destroyed: fresh recruits poured in from all parts of Palestine, and the besieged began to suffer from all kinds of privation. Saladin sent messengers to his uncle, urging him to bring assistance. ShÍrkoh, too weak to send any, thought it best to make favourable terms while he could. Sending for his prisoner Hugh of CÆsarea, he made proposals of peace. “Fortune,” he said, “has not been favourable to me since I came into this country. Would to God I could see my way out of it! You are noble, a friend of the king, and weighty in counsel; be a mediator of peace between us. Say to the king, ‘We are losing our time here; it passes without bringing any profit to us, while there is plenty for us to do at home.’ And why should the king lavish his strength upon these cowardly Egyptians, to whom he is trying to secure the riches of the country? Let him have back all the prisoners whom I hold in irons; let him raise the siege, and give me back my men who are in his hands, and I will go out of the country.”

Hugh took the message, and gave the advice that the Saracen wished. A council was held, and the terms were agreed to. The gates were thrown open, provisions taken in, and besiegers and besieged mingled on those friendly terms which were now common in the East. Saladin went to the camp of Amaury, who received him as a friend, and the Vizier Shawer entered into the city, and began the administration of justice; that is to say, he hanged all those who were unlucky enough to be in power when ShÍrkoh entered the city, and who had surrendered a place they had no means whatever of holding. Examples such as these, common enough in the Middle Ages, might have been expected to bring civic distinctions into disrepute. Ambition, however, was probably stronger than terror.

All being finished, the king returned to Ascalon, not entirely covered with glory, but not without credit.

On his arrival he learned that a bride was waiting for him at Tyre, Maria, niece of the Greek Emperor, who had been wooed and won for him—the young lady’s wishes were not probably much consulted in the matter—by the Archbishop of CÆsarea. He hastened to Tyre, and on the 29th of the month, nine days after his arrival at Ascalon, he was married in great state and ceremony. And now there was peace in Palestine for a brief space. The young Count of Nevers arrived in Jerusalem, with a numerous following, intending to offer his arms to the king, and dedicate his life to fighting the Mohammedans. But a sudden illness struck him down, and after languishing a long time, he died. A secret embassy was also sent to Amaury from Constantinople. The emperor had learned the feeble and enervated state of Egypt, and ignorant that NÛr-ed-dÍn, a greater than he, had his eyes upon the same country, sent to expose his own ambition to Amaury, and to propose terms of common action. The idea was not new to the long-sighted king, the most clear-headed of all the kings of Jerusalem. He had had plenty of opportunities, during his Egyptian campaign, of contrasting the riches of Cairo with the poverty of Jerusalem, the fertility of Egypt with the sterility of Palestine. Little as he cared about the Church, of which he was the sworn defender, it could not but occur to him to contrast Jerusalem with Mecca, and to consider that while Mecca was the Holy City, Baghdad and Cairo were the capitals of the sovereign caliphs. Why should not Cairo be to Jerusalem what Baghdad was to Mecca? Why should not he, the caliph of Christianity, sit in that gorgeous palace behind the gold-embroidered curtains, dressed in robes of purple and satin, with his guards, his life of indolence and ease, and—his seraglio? For the customs of the East had struck the imaginations of these descendants of the Crusaders. They, too, longed for the shady gardens, the fountains, the sweet scent of roses—and the houris of the world with whom the happy Turks anticipated the joys of heaven. Many of them, in their castles far away in the country, imitated, so far as they were able, the customs of their enemies; notably young Jocelyn of Edessa. Some of them became renegades, and going over to the Saracens, got riches, and therefore luxury, at the point of the sword. All of them—except perhaps the Templars and Hospitallers, who might do so in secret—openly maintained friendly relations with the Mohammedans, and partook freely of their hospitality.

And now Amaury was guilty of an act of perfidy which brought about, or rather accelerated, the final fall of the Christian kingdom. Tormented by his own ambitious designs, and the thought of that rich Empire of Egypt, which seemed to wait for the first hand strong enough to seize it—without waiting for the Greek Emperor, perhaps, however, acting in secret concert with him—he declared that Shawer had been sending secret messages to NÛr-ed-dÍn, and had thereby infringed the treaty of alliance. For this reason, as he alleged, he proclaimed war against Egypt, and led his army against Pelusium. One voice only was raised against the enterprise. Cruel, ambitious, avaricious, and haughty as the Templars were, they were never capable of deliberately breaking their word. The Grand Master of the Order, Bertrand de Blanquefort, spoke loudly against the expedition. He, for one, would not allow his knights to join an army which set out to carry war into a kingdom friendly to their own, bound by acts of solemn treaty, which had committed no offence, which had continued loyal and true to its engagements. The Templars remained behind at Jerusalem. The Hospitallers went with Amaury and his host, one of the finest armies that the kingdom had ever produced. They began by taking Pelusium, after a ten days’ march through the desert along a road which they knew well by this time. The resistance made by Pelusium was very short, lasting only three days, when the Christians took the place, and slaughtered, at first, every man, woman, and child who fell into their hands.

The Vizier, Shawer, was thrown, at first, into the wildest terror. In the disorganised state of his army there was absolutely nothing to prevent the Christians from marching directly upon Cairo, and gaining possession by a single assault of the whole realm of Egypt. All seemed lost, and Shawer was already preparing for flight, when it occurred to him to tempt the king, whose cupidity was notorious, by the offer of money.

Everything is preserved, if only forethought remains. Shawer sent his messengers. Amaury listened to them. At the same time, as a last resource, Shawer sent couriers in hot haste to NÛr-ed-dÍn, exposing the critical state of the kingdom. To keep the Christians from advancing, he kept his messengers backwards and forwards, offering, declining, renewing, increasing the advantages of his terms. Amaury was to have a quarter of a million, half a million, a million, two million pieces of gold, on condition that he would give him back his son and nephew, and quit the kingdom. All this time, the negotiations being entirely secret, the king was pretending to advance, but very slowly, and the Christians, not knowing the cause of the delay, were eager to be led. After eight or nine days of negotiations, which the sultan had occupied in getting into Cairo every fighting man upon whom he could reckon, the king moved his forces to a village five or six miles from Cairo, where he pitched his camp. Here messengers from Shawer met him, imploring him not to advance nearer the city, as he was engaged in collecting, with all possible speed and diligence, the sum of money which he had promised. Shawer had already got back his son and nephew, giving in return two grandchildren—children of tender age. Amaury was completely deceived. Lulled by the assurances of Shawer, dazzled by his own golden dreams, he saw himself, the successful violator of a solemn treaty, returning laden with a treasure of gold such as no king of the West could boast; with this he would bring knights from Europe; with this he would beat off the Saracens, conquer Damascus, reconquer Edessa and the strong places of the north; and having successfully used this mighty treasure, he would violate another solemn treaty, return to Egypt with a larger and more powerful army and make himself master of Cairo and all its wealth. There was plenty of time; he was not yet thirty; life was all before him, and many years of enjoyment.

But there came a rude awakening to the dream. NÛr-ed-dÍn, hearing of the expedition of Amaury, and getting the messengers of Shawer, had for himself two courses open to him. He might take advantage of Amaury’s absence, and pour all his troops together into Palestine, so as either to annihilate the kingdom of Jerusalem, or cripple it beyond power of recovery; or he might send ShÍrkoh again to Egypt, this time as the ally of Shawer, and with secret instructions as to the nature of the alliance. He preferred the latter course. Egypt was a prey that required courage and promptness; Palestine could wait; like an over-ripe pear, it was certain, sooner or later, to drop at his feet. ShÍrkoh arrived in Egypt. Shawer dropped the veil, and laughed at Amaury. The king, in an agony of rage and mortification, hastily broke up his camp and retired to Pelusium. Thence, seeing that there was nothing more to be done, he returned in disgrace and confusion to his own kingdom.

As for ShÍrkoh, he had no intention whatever of going home again without getting something substantial out of the expedition. He established his camp before Cairo, and encouraged Shawer to look on him as one of his best friends, inviting him to enter his camp at all times, and come without escort. And one day, when Shawer, relying on the friendliness of his ally, rode in accompanied only by two or three of his sons and friends, he was seized by the guards of ShÍrkoh and beheaded, without any resistance being possible. ShÍrkoh, meantime, was taking a walk on the banks of the Nile, so as to be able to say that he was innocent of the murder. Shawer’s sons fled to the caliph. But the caliph could do nothing; the house of Shawer were all cut off, like the house of Saul; and the representative of the Fatemites was compelled to acknowledge the servant of his rival as his sultan and vizier, the real master of Egypt.

“Oh, blind cupidity of men!” cries William of Tyre; “all the treasures of Egypt were lying at our feet.... There was safety for those who travelled by sea; there was trade for those who wished to enrich themselves in Egypt; there was no enemy for us in the south; the Egyptians brought us their merchandize, and spent their gold in our country. And now all is changed; sad are the notes of our harps; the sea refuses us peaceful navigation; all the countries around us obey our enemies; every kingdom is armed for our ruin. And the avarice of one man has done this; his cupidity has covered over with clouds the clear bright sky which the goodness of the Lord had given us.”

It was some comfort to the Christians to hear that ShÍrkoh, a year after his accession to power, was gone out of the world. But a mightier than ShÍrkoh came after him, his nephew, Saladin.

And now, indeed, the situation of the Christian kingdom was precarious. With the exception of Tyre and the towns to the north, the kingdom consisted of nothing but Palestine between Tiberias on the north and Ascalon on the south. All the outlying forts, or nearly all, were already gone. The prestige of Amaury, which had been raised by his first successful expedition, was entirely gone by the ill-success of the second. Moreover, Egypt, which had been a friendly power, was now hostile. By means of a fleet from Egypt the country might be menaced from the sea as well as from the land; reinforcements, supplies, might be cut off; pilgrims intercepted. Under these circumstances, it was resolved to send letters at once to all the Western kings and princes, calling for assistance. The patriarch, the Archbishop of CÆsarea, and the Bishop of Acre were selected to be the bearers of these. The deputies, armed with these despatches, embarked in a single ship. A frightful storm overtook them; the oars were broken; the masts all went by the board; and on the third day, more dead than alive with sickness and fright, the unlucky ambassadors put back to port, and refused to venture themselves again upon the sea. The Archbishop of Tyre took their place, and went away, under better auspices, accompanied by the Bishop of Banias, who died in France. He was away for two years, but did not effect anything. Europe, in fact, was growing tired of pouring assistance into a country, which, like the sea, swallowed everything, gave nothing back, and still demanded more.

The Emperor of Constantinople, however, who was perfectly aware of the importance of keeping the Turks employed in fighting against Palestine, and knew well that, Jerusalem once gone, Asia Minor was at their mercy, and Constantinople would be the object of their ambitions, sent a fleet of a hundred and fifty galleys of war, with sixty large transports, and ten or twelve dromons, filled with all sorts of instruments of war. It would have been better for King Amaury had this gift, a white elephant, which had to be fed, never been sent. As it was come, however, he proceeded to make use of it by invading Egypt a third time. And this time they determined on besieging Damietta, and Amaury led his army from Ascalon, on the 10th October, 1169, on the most useless expedition that he had yet undertaken.

A bar, formed by an iron chain, ran across the river, which prevented the Christian fleet from advancing to the town; they therefore took up their station outside. The troops on land formed the siege in regular form, and, if Amaury had given the word, the town might have been carried by assault; but he let the moment pass, and reinforcements of Turks poured into the place by thousands. Towers were constructed and sorties made by the besieged, but no advantage on either side was gained. But now began the misfortunes of the Christians. The Greeks had no provisions. They subsisted for a while by eating that portion of the palm which is cut from the top of the trunk at the branching out of the leaves, no bad food provided enough can be obtained, the worst of it being that each palm contains no more than enough for a single salad (as the palmiste is now used), and costs the life of a tree. And when the forest of palms was cut down round Damietta there was no more food of any kind to be had, while the soldiers of Amaury were unable to help their allies, having to consider the probability of being in a few days without food themselves. Then heavy rains fell and swamped the tents, and even a broad ditch round each one did not wholly keep out the water. The Greek fleet, too, was nearly destroyed by a fire boat, which was sent down the river. It set fire to six of the galleys, and would have destroyed all the rest but for the king himself, who mounted his horse, half dressed, and rode down to the bank shouting to the sailors. The assaults were continued, but there was no longer any heart in the Christian camp, and Amaury signed a treaty of peace and withdrew his troops to Ascalon, which he reached on the 21st of December, having been engaged for two months in convincing the Saracens of his feebleness even when backed by the Greeks. The fleet was overtaken by a storm, most of the ships were lost, and of all the magnificent array of galleys that sailed from Constantinople in the spring, but very few remained after the campaign of Damietta. The failure of the expedition was probably due to the fact that the Greek Emperor, who had promised a large sum of money sufficient for the maintenance of the army, allowed it to go without any. And the Greek generals, the first to find themselves in want of provisions, not only had no money to buy them, but could find no one to lend them money.

The following year was marked by disasters of quite another kind. A great earthquake, or rather a succession of earthquakes, passed through Palestine, and by its violence and the frequency of its attacks, for it returned again and again during a space of three or four months, filled all men’s hearts with fear; hundreds perished in the ruin of their houses; grief and consternation spread everywhere. Antioch, with nearly its whole population, was entirely destroyed, even its strong walls and towers being all thrown down; Laodicea, Emesa, Aleppo, and Hamath shared the fate of Antioch. Tripoli presented the appearance of a heap of stones, and Tyre, more fortunate than the rest, had yet some of its towers overthrown. Amid these disasters there was no thought of war, and for some months, at least, there was peace. But in December, news came that Saladin was invading Christian territory in the south. Amaury hastened to Ascalon, and called all his chivalry together. They assembled at Gaza, and he found that he could muster two hundred and fifty knights and two thousand foot. Saladin was besieging the fort of Daroum, which the king had himself built. But leaving Daroum, Saladin advanced to Gaza. The Christian army fought their way through to the citadel, and Saladin, after pillaging the city, retired with his forces. Probably his object was to accustom his men by small successes with overwhelming forces for the greater efforts he intended to make when the prestige of the Christians should have sunk lower, and the dread which the Saracens still felt for the strong-armed knights in steel should have wholly, or in great measure, passed away.

Early in the following year Amaury called a council of his barons to deliberate on the precarious state of the kingdom. Every day the number of the enemy increased, every day their own resources diminished. There was, of course, but one way to meet the dangers which menaced them, the only way which the kingdom had ever known, the arrival of aid from Europe. It was resolved to send ambassadors with the most urgent letters to all the powers, and to Constantinople a special ambassador begging for instant aid. Who was to go? The king, after a short parley with his advisers, declared that he would go himself. The barons cried out, on hearing this announcement, that they could not be deprived of their king, that the realm would fall to pieces without him—to all appearance seriously alarmed at the prospect of being left alone, or else every man hoping himself to be appointed as ambassador. But Amaury terminated the discussion in a manner characteristic of himself. “Let the Lord,” he said, “defend His own kingdom. As for me, I am going.” It is tolerably clear that the sovereign who could permit himself to have doubts on the subject of a future world, might well have doubts as to whether a kingdom, so harassed as his own, so devoured by greed, selfishness, and ambition, so corrupted by lust and licence, was really the kingdom of the Lord. If it was, of course the Lord would look after His own; if not, why then Amaury’s hands were well washed of the responsibility. He went to Constantinople, where he was received with every demonstration of friendship, and William of Tyre exhausts himself in describing the favour shown to him. One thing is noticeable, that the splendour of the Greek emperor rivalled that of the caliph. On the occasion of the first interview of Amaury with the emperor, there were suspended before the hall of audience curtains of precious stuff and rich embroidery, exactly like what we are told of the Caliph of Cairo, and as soon as the king arrived the curtains were withdrawn and the emperor disclosed sitting on a throne of gold, and dressed in the Imperial robes. Great fÊtes were given to celebrate the arrival of Amaury and his train; all the sacred relics, including the wood of the Cross, the nails, the lance—was this the lance found by Peter at Antioch, or another?—the sponge, the reed, the crown of thorns, the sacred shroud and the sandals, were shown to the Latins; games and spectacles were invented for their amusement, including choruses of young girls and theatrical displays, in which, says the Archbishop of Tyre, careful lest the king’s example should be taken as a precedent among his own flock, the greatest propriety was observed; and at last, treaties having been signed and promises made, Amaury departed, laden with valuable presents of gold and other valuables. Alas! it was not gold that he wanted, but stout hearts and strong hands, and of these he brought back none but his own.

He returned for more fighting and more disappointment. NÛr-ed-dÍn was reported near Banias with an army, and Amaury had to fix his camp in Galilee to watch his movements. The object of the sultan, however, seems to have been, like that of Saladin, to accustom his men to face the Christians, and not yet to force on a decided engagement.

The Archbishop of Tyre at this time returned from his embassy. Nothing had been effected. The princes of the West would promise no help, would give no help. He brought with him Stephen, son of Count Thibaut of Blois, whom the king intended to make his son-in-law. But Stephen, after coming to Jerusalem, declined the king’s offer, led a wild and licentious life for a few months, to the general scandal, and then returned to Europe.

Then followed three years of war. Toros, the Armenian prince, and the firm ally of the Christians, died, and was succeeded by his nephew, Thomas. His brother, Melier, wishing to obtain the dominion for himself, repaired to NÛr-ed-dÍn, obtained his help on certain conditions, and expelled his nephew, with all the Latin Christians who were in Armenia and Cilicia. The prince of Antioch declared war against him, and the king marched his army north. But while he was on the road, news came that NÛr-ed-dÍn was attacking Kerak in Moab. Before Amaury could get to Jerusalem, whither he hastened on receipt of this news, the Saracens were defeated, and the siege raised by Humphrey the Constable.

Then came Saladin with a large force. It was decided that the Christian army was not strong enough to meet him, and the troops were marched, on pretence of seeking the Saracens, to Ascalon, where they remained, while Saladin went round the south of the Dead Sea and laid siege to the fortress of Montreal. This proved too strong for him, and he returned to Egypt. The year after he made another unsuccessful attempt in Moab, in which, however, he burned the vineyards and ravaged the country, the king not being strong enough to follow him. And now follows the most extraordinary and inexplicable story in the whole history of Jerusalem. We give it in the words of the historian himself (an account of the sect of Assassins will be found p. 322).

“During forty years the Assassins followed the faith of the Saracens, conforming to their traditions with a zeal so great that, compared with them, all other people would be esteemed prevaricators, they alone exactly fulfilling the law. At this time they had for chief a man endowed with eloquence, ability, and enthusiasm. Forgetting all the customs of his predecessors, he was the first who had in his possession the books of the Gospels and the Apostolic code: he studied them incessantly and with much zeal, and succeeded at length, by dint of labour, in learning the history of the miracles and precepts of Christ, as well as the doctrine of the Apostles.

“Comparing this sweet and fair teaching of Christ with that of the miserable seducer, Mohammed, he came in time to reject with scorn all that he had been taught from the cradle, and to hold in abomination the doctrines of him who had led the Arabs astray. He instructed his people in the same manner, ceased the practices of a superstitious worship, removed the interdiction from wine and pork, abolished the Mohammedan fasts, and overthrew the oratories. He then sent a messenger, one Boaldel, to King Amaury with the following offer. If the Templars, who possessed strong places in his neighbourhood, would remit an annual tribute of two thousand pieces of gold which they exacted from the people round their castles, he and his would be converted to the faith of Christ, and would all receive baptism.

“The king received the ambassador with a lively joy. He went so far, in his readiness to close with the offer, as to hold himself prepared to indemnify the Templars for the sum which they would lose. And after keeping the messenger a long time in order to conclude an arrangement with him, he sent him back to his master, with a guide to watch over the security of his person. They had already passed the city of Tripoli, and were on the point of entering into the country of the Assassins, when suddenly certain men, brethren of the Temple, drawing their swords and rushing upon the traveller, who advanced without fear and under the protection of the king, massacred the messenger of the sheikh.”

Thus was lost the most splendid opportunity that ever Christian king of Jerusalem had. There cannot be the least doubt that, had the messenger arrived home in safety, a large army of men devoted to any cause which their chief embraced, sworn to obey or to die, trained in close discipline, fanatic to the last degree, would have been transferred to the Christian camp. Moreover, there would have been a precedent which history lacks of the conversion of a whole tribe or nation from Islamism to Christianity. What sort of religion the sheikh of the Assassins contemplated is difficult to tell. But he could not have been a worse Christian than the defenders of Palestine. And then comes the question, why did the Templars kill the messenger? what reason had they for thwarting the sheikh and the king? why, considering the indemnity they were to receive, should they wish to prevent the arrangement? And what could have been their motive for preventing the conversion of the Assassins to their own religion? One answer only occurs to us. It has always seemed to us that the Templars, towards the close of the Christian rule in Palestine, were actuated by a deep and firmly rooted ambition. They proposed, seeing the weakness of the kingdom, and the worthlessness of its barons, to acquire for themselves castle after castle, strong place after strong place, till, when King Amaury was dead, and his son, already known to be tainted with leprosy, was on the throne, the kingdom would drop quietly into their own hands, the only strong hands left in the country. With this end in view they were acquiring forts in Cilicia and Armenia, all over Phoenicia, and across the Jordan. Palestine proper was dotted with their manors and fiefs. Nor was this all. In Europe their broad lands increased every day, and their income, even now, one hundred and fifty years before their dissolution, was enormous. There can be no doubt that the Templars, had they chosen to concentrate their forces, and to get together all the knights they could muster, might have deferred for long, and perhaps altogether, the final fall of the kingdom. But they did not perceive the immediate danger, and while the Mohammedan forces were uniting and concentrating, they probably still believed them to be divided and dissentient.

On no other ground than the hypothesis of this ambition can we explain the singular murder of this ambassador. The Templars did not wish to see the king’s hands strengthened.

As this strange association, the Order of Assassins, played a most important part in the political events of the period of which we are speaking, a more detailed account of their origin and tenets may not be out of place here.

The national aversion of the Persians from the religion of their Mohammedan conquerors gave rise to a number of secret sects and societies having for their object the subversion of Islam, and in the hatred which already existed between the two great divisions of that creed, the SunnÍs and Shiahs, the leaders and originators of these sects found a ready means of securing proselytes and adherents. In the year 815, a chief named Babek founded a new religious order and waged an open war against the Caliphs, by whom he was, however, defeated and exterminated. But while his partisans fell beneath the sword of the executioner there was living at Ahwas, in the south of Persia, a certain ‘Abdallah, grandson of DaisÁn the dualist, who had inherited the hatred which his grandfather had sworn against the faith and power of the Arabs. Warned by the fate of Babek’s followers, he determined to undermine insidiously what he could not with safety openly attack. He accordingly formed a society into which proselytes were only admitted upon proof, and after being sworn to the profoundest secrecy. The initiation consisted of seven degrees, in the last of which he taught—that all religions were mere chimeras and human actions indifferent. His missionaries spread over the whole of the East, and carried their peculiar doctrines into Syria, where one of them, named Ahmed ibn Eshk‘as el CarmatÍ, founded the sect of Carmathians, whose history has been already traced. ‘Obeid allah el MehdÍ, the founder of the Fatemite dynasty, was a follower of El CarmatÍ, and from the moment when El MehdÍ made himself master of Egypt the Carmathian tenets prevailed in that country, under the name of the IsmÁ?ilÍyeh. They were propagated by official agents, of whom the chief was named dÁi? ed do‘Át, “missionary of missionaries,” and cÁdhÍ el codhÁt, “judge of judges.” In the year 1004, they held public assemblies in Cairo under the presidency of the last-mentioned officer. These meetings were called mejÁlis el hikmeh, or “scientific meetings,” and were devoted to instructing those present in the mathematical and other sciences; but such as were considered worthy, were admitted to a more intimate participation in their mysteries, and were taught the secret doctrines of the sect, consisting of a strange mÉlange of Persian and Gnostic ideas.

We have already seen how this institution was made to subserve the interests and pander to the mad fanaticism of El HÁkem bi amri ’llah, and indirectly gave birth to the powerful sect of the Druzes.

During the last half of the eleventh century one of the Ismaelite missionaries, Hassan ibn SubÁh el HomÁirÍ, became the founder of the new sect of the Ismaelites of the East, or Assassins. Hassan was born in Khorassan; in his youth he contracted an intimate friendship with NizÁm el Mulk and ‘Omar el KheiyÁm, and the three associates took a solemn oath mutually to advance each other’s prospects in after life. ‘Omar el KheiyÁm became celebrated as an astronomer and poet;^[65] and NizÁm el Mulk attained to the office of grand vizier, under the Seljukian SultÁn Melik shÁh. HassÁn es Subah sought and obtained the assistance of his former companion, and was promoted to high office in the court. Prompted, however, by ambition, he endeavoured to supplant his benefactor, but NizÁm el Mulk discovered and counteracted his designs, and Hassan was driven in disgrace from the kings presence. Not long afterwards he founded the order of Assassins, and Melik ShÁh and his vizier were among the first of his victims. In 1090, he made himself master of the fortress of AlamÚt, built on the summit of a lofty mountain, with steep escarpments, a little distance from CasbÍn in the Persian province of ‘IrÁk. This castle he fortified and supplied with water, partly from artificial and partly from natural springs, and, by compelling the inhabitants to cultivate the surrounding land and store the produce in the subterranean granaries of the castle, he rendered it capable of sustaining a protracted siege.

65. His ‘Quatrains,’ stanzas of exquisite polish, but breathing the most sensual and atheistic philosophy, have been recently published by M. Nicholas, Paris, 1867.