“Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so, For what is in this world but grief and woe?” King Henry VI. The only son of Amaury, by his first wife Agnes, daughter of the younger Jocelyn of Edessa, was placed, at the age of nine years, under the charge of William of Tyre. He was a studious bright boy, and at first raised the highest hopes of his future. But his tutor discovered by accident that he was afflicted with that dreadful and incurable disease which was beginning to be so prevalent among the Syrian Christians. In his boyish sports with the children of his own age, his tutor remarked that when the boys pinched each other in the arm, little Baldwin alone was able to bear the pain without any cry or apparent emotion. This awakened his suspicions, and he took the child to be examined by physicians. It was found that his right arm, of which he had appeared to have perfect command, was half paralysed. All sorts of fomentations and frictions were tried, but all proved fruitless, and it was soon apparent that the future king was a confirmed leper. Day by day the disease gained ground, seizing on his hands and feet, and gradually gaining hold of his whole body. He was handsome, too, and an accomplished horseman, He was thirteen when his father died, and four days after that event he was crowned in the Church of the Sepulchre with all the ceremonies customary at this important event. The regency was at first confided to Milo de Plancy, in spite of the opposition made by Raymond, who pleaded vainly his relationship to the king, his long services, and the importance of his dignity as Count of Tripoli. Milo was a native of Champagne, and a distant cousin of King Amaury. He was popular, because he was prodigal of promises, and full of that bravoure which catches the eyes of the people. But he was arrogant, presumptuous, and full of ambition. Drawing upon himself the hatred of all the barons by his manifest contempt for them, he was set upon one night, by order of some unknown person, probably one of the barons, and murdered, after which Raymond succeeded as regent with no opposition. Raymond had spent nine years of his life in prison at Aleppo, and had employed the dreary years of his captivity in study, so that he was learned above the generality of laymen. He was a man of courage in action, of prudence, and of extreme sobriety in life. To strangers he was generous and affable: to his own people he was neither one nor the other. An important change had meantime occurred in the fortunes of Saladin. The death of NÛr-ed-dÍn left his kingdom to a boy, named Malek-es-Saleh, who was received as his successor, while the Emir, Abu-Mokaddem, was appointed regent. But the new regent gave little satisfaction to the people, and a secret message was sent to Saladin urging him to come to Damascus and take the regency. He went, Abu-Mokaddem himself yielding to the storm, and inviting him to take the reins of office. In the third year of the king’s reign arrived in Jerusalem William Longsword, son of the Marquis of Montferrand. He had been invited to marry Sybille, sister of the king, and a few weeks after his arrival the marriage was celebrated. The greatest hopes were entertained of this prince. He was strong, brave, and generous. He was of the noblest descent, his father having been maternal uncle to King Philip of France, and his mother being the sister of Conrad. He had grave faults, however: he could not keep any counsel, but was perpetually telling of his projects; he was passionate and irascible to the last degree, and he was addicted to intemperance in eating and drinking. This probably proved fatal to him, for he died three or four months after his marriage, leaving his wife pregnant. This was another calamity to the kingdom, which was sorely in want of a man strong enough to organize a combined stand against the rising power of Saladin. Philip, Count of Flanders, who came to make an expiatory pilgrimage, was next received with hope, and the king offered him the command of all his forces; but Philip failed in the single enterprise he undertook, and returned home with little addition to his glory. While Raymond, Renaud de Chatillon, the restless adventurer who had married Constance of Antioch, was the actual cause of the fall of the kingdom. His wife being dead, and her son become the Count of Antioch, he married again, this time the widow of Humphry the Constable. By his second marriage he became the seigneur of Kerak and other castles situated beyond the Jordan. He had with him a large number of Templars, and when the treaty with Saladin was concluded, he announced his intention of not being bound by it, and continued his predatory excursions. Saladin complained to Baldwin, but the hapless Guy, meantime, too weak for the position he held, had not been able to prevent Saladin’s ravages in Galilee, and when the sultan attacked the fortress of Kerak could not go out to the assistance of Renaud. Yielding to the pressure of his barons, the king deprived Guy of the regency, and associated his nephew, a child of five years old, with him on the throne, under the title of Baldwin the Fifth. Poor little Baldwin the Fifth died very soon after, however, and had very little enjoyment of his dignity. He was the son of William Longsword and Sybille. Baldwin then summoned Guy de Lusignan before him to answer for his many sins of omission. Guy refused to obey, and took refuge in Ascalon, of which he was count. The king, who was now quite blind, was carried to that city, and personally summoned him to surrender. The gates were closed. Baldwin, thinking they would not dare to refuse him admission, knocked at the gate with his own helpless hands. But no answer was given. Then the poor blind king, impotent in his rage, called Heaven to witness the outrage to his authority, and was carried back to Jerusalem, swearing to punish the audacity of Guy. All he could do was to deprive him of his dignities, and to hand the regency over to Raymond of Tripoli. In the desolated state of the country, nothing could be thought of but, as usual, to send to Europe for help. The As for the kingdom of Jerusalem, it was fast tottering to its fall. The country 68. See Michaud, Vol. ii., p. 306. The Crusaders had embarked upon an enterprise which rested on religious enthusiasm. Religion was the salt of the kingdom which they founded. While this lasted—it lasted till the reign of Baldwin the Third—there was hope. When this died—it died in the reign of Amaury—the kingdom was lost. Every baron and every soldier was in a sense a special soldier of Christ, a kind of lay priest of the altar. He had ever before his eyes those sacred places at sight of which his fathers had wept aloud. But the handling of sacred things is profitable only so long as the heart is open to their influences. To the impure the most holy things are a mockery, the highest aims are a subject of derision. And just as a worthless priest is generally worse than a worthless layman, because he has Our history of the Christian kingdom draws to a close. In the midst of these troubles, the miserable king, who had mercifully been deprived of his senses, for the disease, when it has devoured the fingers and toes, and eaten into the vigour and strength of a man, fastens mysteriously on his intellect, and devours that too, died, or rather ceased to breathe, and was buried with his fathers. We are not told what epitaph was chosen for him. Surely, of all men, on Baldwin’s tomb might have been carved the word, “Miserrimus.” Little Baldwin the Fifth died a day after his uncle, poisoned, as was supposed, by his mother and Guy de Lusignan. It is possible. The women whom Baldwin the Second left behind him, his daughters Milicent, Alice, Hodierne, were bad themselves, and the mothers of worse daughters. Of Sybille we can say little, except that she was known to have had a guilty love for Guy before their marriage—the king was actually uncertain at one time whether to stone to death his sister’s paramour, or to make him her husband!—that she was completely under his rule, and that she was ambitious, bold, and intriguing. |