However, there was a gentle knight whose love for “pretty Bessee” was proof against the discovery of her father's condition and the entreaties CAMEO XXX. of his friends; and after he had satisfied her by promises not to despise The Sons of her parents, the blind beggar counted out so large a portion, that he | Montfort. could not double it, and on the wedding-day the beggar revealed his own high birth, to the general joy. Unfortunately, it does not appear as if Henry de Montfort might not have prospered without his disguise. His mother was generously treated by the King and Prince, and retired beyond sea with her sons Amaury and Richard; and her daughter Eleanor, and his brother Simon, a desperate and violent man, held out Kenilworth for some months, which was with difficulty reduced; afterwards he joined his brother Guy, and wandered about the Continent, brooding on revenge for his father's death. The last rebel to be overcome was the brave outlaw, Adam de Gourdon, who, haunting Alton Wood as a robber after the death of Leicester, was sought out by Prince Edward, subdued by his personal prowess, and led to the feet of the King. The brave and dutiful prince became the real ruler of the kingdom, and England at length reposed. CAMEO The last CAMEO XXXI. THE LAST OF THE CRUSADERS. Kings of England. 1216. Henry III. (1267—1291.) 1273. Rodolph I. Kings of Scotland. Kings of France. Emperor of Germany. 1265. Clement IV. 1271. Gregory X. 1276. Innocent V. 1277. Nicholas III. 1285. Honorius IV. A HUNDRED and seventy years had elapsed since the hills of Auvergne had re-echoed the cry of Dieu le veult, and the cross had been signed on the shoulders of Godfrey and Tancred. Jerusalem had been held by the Franks for a short space; but their crimes and their indolence had led to their ruin, and the holy city itself was lost, while only a few fortresses, detached and isolated, remained to bear the name of the Kingdom of Palestine. The languishing Royal line was even lost, becoming extinct in Conradine, the grandson of Friedrich II. and of Yolande of Jerusalem, that last member of the house of Hohenstaufen on whom the Pope and Charles of Anjou wreaked their vengeance for the crimes of his forefathers. Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis, but of utterly dissimilar character, had seized Conradine's kingdom of the two Sicilies, and likewise assumed his title to that of Jerusalem, thus acquiring a personal interest in urging on another crusade for the recovery of Palestine. Less and less of that kingdom existed. Bibars, or Bendocdar Elbondukdari, one of the Mameluke emirs, who had become Sultan of Egypt during the confusion that followed the death of Touran Chah, was so great a warrior that he was surnamed the Pillar of the Mussulman Religion and the Father of Victories, titles which he was resolved to merit by exterminating the Franks. Cesarea, Antioch, Joppa, fell into his hands in succession, and Tripoli and Acre alone remained in the possession of the Templars and Hospitallers, who appealed to their brethren in Europe for assistance. The hope of a more effective crusade than his first had never been absent from the mind of Louis IX.; he had carried it with him through court and camp, dwelt on it while framing wise laws for his people, CAMEO XXXI. instructing his nobles, or sitting to do justice beneath the spreading oaktree of Vincennes. Since his return from Damietta, he had always lived as one devoted, never wearing gold on his spurs nor in his robes, Louis IX and spending each moment that he could take from affairs of state in prayer and reading of the Scripture; and though his health was still extremely frail and feeble, his resolution was taken. On the 23d of March, 1267, he convoked his Barons in the great hall of the Louvre, and entered the assembly, holding in his hand that sacred relic, the Crown of Thorns, which had been found by the Empress Helena with the True Cross. He then addressed them, describing the needs of their eastern brethren, and expressing his own intention of at once taking the cross. There was a deep and mournful silence among his hearers, who too well remembered the sufferings of their last campaign, and who looked with despair at their beloved King's worn and wasted form, so weak, that he could hardly bear the motion of a horse, and yet bent on encountering the climate and the labours that had well-nigh proved fatal to him before. The legate, the Cardinal Ottoboni, then made an exhortation, after which Louis assumed the cross, and was imitated by his three sons, Philippe, Tristan, and Pierre, and his son-in-law, Thibault, King of Navarre, with other knights, but in no great numbers, for the barons were saying to each other, that it was one of the saddest days that France had ever seen. "If we take the cross," they said, we lose our King; if we take it not, we lose our God, since we will not take the cross for Him." The Sire de Joinville absolutely refused on account of his vassals, and openly pronounced it a mortal sin to counsel the King to undertake such an expedition in his present state of health; but Louis' determination was fixed, and in the course of the next three years he collected a number of gallant young Crusaders. He had always had a strong influence over his nephew, Edward of England, and the conclusion of the war with Montfort, as well as a personal escape of his own, had at this period strongly disposed the Prince to acts of devotion. While engaged in a game at chess with a knight at Windsor Castle a sudden impulse seized him to rise from his seat. He had scarcely done so, when a stone, becoming detached from the groined roof over his head, fell down on the very spot where he had been sitting. His preservation was attributed by him to our Lady of Walsingham, and the beautiful church still existing there attests the veneration paid to her in consequence, while he further believed himself marked out for some especial object, and eagerly embraced the proposal of accompanying the French King on his intended voyage. Ottoboni preached the Crusade at Northampton on the 25th of June, 1269, after which he gave the cross to King Henry, to the Princes Edward and Edmund, to their cousin Henry of Almayne, son to Richard of Cornwall, and to about one hundred and fifty knights. The King intended as little to go on the expedition as on any of the former ones, and he soon made over his cross to his son. Edward, who was takes the Cross. 1267. CAMEO Eduard embarks. 1270. fully in earnest, made every arrangement for the safety of the realm in his absence, taking with him the turbulent Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and appointing guardians for his two infant sons, John and Henry, in case the old King should die during his absence. His wife, Eleanor of Castile, insisted on accompanying him; and when the perils of the expedition were represented to her, she replied, "Nothing ought to part those whom God hath joined together. The way to Heaven is as near, if not nearer, from Syria as from England or my native Spain." The last solemnity in which Edward assisted before his departure was the translation of the remains of Edward the Confessor to their new tomb in Westminster Abbey, the shrine of gold and precious stones being borne upon the shoulders of King Henry himself, after which the princes took leave of their father, and commenced their expedition, meeting on the way their uncle, the King of the Romans, who was bringing home a young German wife, Beatrice von Falkmart. Embarking at Dover, on the 20th of August, 1270, the princes made all speed to hasten across France, so as to come up with Louis, who had set sail from Aigues Mortes on the 1st of July, with his three sons, his daughter Isabelle, and her husband the King of Navarre, and Isabelle the wife of his eldest son Philippe, as well as a gallant host of Crusaders. He had appointed Cagliari as the place of meeting with Edward of England, and with his brother Charles, King of Sicily; but he found his sojourn there inconvenient; the Pisans, who held Sardinia, were unfriendly, provisions were scarce and the water unwholesome, and he became desirous of changing his quarters. The reasons which conduced to his fatal resolution have never been clearly ascertained: whether he was influenced by his brother, the King of Sicily, who might reasonably wish to see the Moors of Tunis, his near neighbours, overpowered; or whether he was drawn along by the impatience of his forces, who were weary of inaction and thought the plunder of any Mahometan praiseworthy; or whether he had any hope of converting the King of Tunis, Omar, with whom he had at one time been in correspondence. When some ambassadors from Tunis were at his court, a converted Jew had been baptized in their presence, and he had said to them, "Tell your master that I am so desirous of the salvation of his soul, that I would spend the rest of my life in a Saracen prison, and never see the light of day, if I could render your King and his people Christians like that man. It does not seem improbable that Louis might have hoped that his arrival might encourage Omar to declare himself a Christian. But be this as it might, he sailed from Cagliari, and on the 17th of June appeared upon the coast of Africa, close to the ruins of ancient Carthage. All the inhabitants fled to the mountains, and the shore was deserted, so that the French might have disembarked at once; but Louis hesitated, and waited till the next morning, when they found the coast covered with Moors. However, the landing proceeded, the Moors all taking flight, happily for the Christians, for their disorder was so great, that a hundred men might have prevented their disembarkation. A proclamation was then read, taking possession of the territory in the name of our Lord, and of Louis, King of France, His servant. The spot where the army had landed was a sandy island, a league in length, and very narrow, separated from the mainland by a channel fordable at low water, without any green thing growing on it, and with only one spring of fresh water, which was guarded by a tower filled with Moorish soldiers. A hundred men would have been sufficient to dislodge them; but few horses had been landed, and those were injured by their voyage, and the knights could do nothing without them. The men who went in search of water were killed by the Moorish guard, and thirst, together with the burning heat of the sun reflected by the arid sand, caused the Christians to suffer terribly. As to the King of Tunis, far from fulfilling Louis' hopes, he sent him word that he was coming to seek him at the head of 100,000 men, and that he would only seek baptism on the field of battle; and at the same time he seized and imprisoned every Christian in his dominions, threatening to cut off all their heads the instant the French should attack Tunis. After three days' misery in the island, the Christians advanced across the canal, and entered a beautiful green valley, where Carthage once had stood, full of rich gardens, watered by springs arranged for irrigation. The Moors buzzed round them, throwing their darts, but galloping off on their advance without doing any harm. There was a garrison in the citadel, which was all that remained of the once mighty town; and the Genoese mariners, supported by the cavalry, undertook to dislodge them. This was effected, and the ruinous city was in the hands of the French. A number of the inhabitants had hidden themselves, with their riches, in the extensive vaults and catacombs, and, to the shame of the Crusaders, their employment was to search these wretches out and kill them, often by filling the vaults with smoke. Louis had promised his brother 'Charles to wait for him before marching against Tunis, and messengers daily arrived with intelligence that the Sicilian troops were embarking; but, as the days passed on, the malaria of the ruined city and the heat of the climate were more fatal to the French army than would have been a lost battle. The desert winds which swept over them were hot as flame, and brought with them clouds of sand, which blinded the men and choked up the wells, while the water of the springs swarmed with insects, and all vegetable food failed. Disease could not be long wanting in such a situation, and a week after the taking of Carthage the whole camp was full of fever and dysentery, till the living had not strength to bury the dead, but heaped them up in the vaults and the trenches round the camp, where their decay added to the infection of the air. The Moors charged up to the lines, and killed the soldiers at their posts every day; and a poet within Tunis made the menacing verses: "Frank, knowest thou not that Tunis is the sister of Cairo? Thou wilt find before this town CAMEO XXXI. Camp of 1270. |