Page 115 of 155

     [* Ypod. Neust. p. 451.]

     [** Benedict. Abbas, p 383. Diceto, p.617.]

The king with some difficulty composed this difference; but immediately found his eldest son engaged in conspiracies, and ready to take arms against himself. While the young prince was conducting these criminal intrigues, he was seized with a fever at Martel,

1183.

a castle near Turenne to which he had retired in discontent; and seeing the approaches of death, he was at last struck with remorse for his undutiful behavior towards his father. He sent a message to the king, who was not far distant; expressed his contrition for his faults; and entreated the favor of a visit, that he might at least die with the satisfaction of having obtained his forgiveness. Henry, who had so often experienced the prince’s ingratitude and violence, apprehended that his sickness was entirely feigned, and he durst not intrust himself into his son’s hands: but when he soon after received intelligence of young Henry’s death, and the proofs, of his sincere repentance, this good prince was affected with the deepest sorrow; he thrice fainted away; he accused his own hard hearted ness in refusing the dying request of his son; and he lamented that he had deprived that prince of the last opportunity of making atonement for his offences, and of pouring out his soul in the bosom of his reconciled father.[*] This prince died in the twenty-eighth year of his age.

The behavior of his surviving children did not tend to give the king any consolation for the loss. As Prince Henry had left no posterity, Richard was become heir to all his dominions; and the king intended that John, his third surviving son and favorite, should inherit Guienne as his appanage; but Richard refused his consent, fled into that duchy, and even made preparations for carrying on war, as well against his father as against his brother Geoffrey, who was now put in possession of Brittany. Henry sent for Eleanor, his queen, the heiress of Guienne, and required Richard to deliver up to her the dominion of these territories; which that prince, either dreading an insurrection of the Gascons in her favor, or retaining some sense of duty towards her, readily performed; and he peaceably returned to his father’s court. No sooner was this quarrel accommodated, than Geoffrey, the most vicious perhaps of all Henry’s unhappy family, broke out into violence; demanded Anjou to be annexed to his dominions of Brittany; and on meeting with a refusal, fled to the court of France, and levied forces against his father.[**]

1185.

Henry was freed from this danger by his son’s death who was killed in a tournament at Paris.[***]

     [* Benedict. Abbas, p. 393. Hoveden, p. 621.
     Trivet, vol. i. p. 84,]

     [** Gul. Neubr. p. 422.]

     [*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 451. Gervase, p. 1480.]

The widow of Geoffrey, soon after his decease, was delivered of a son who received the name of Arthur, and was invested in the duchy of Brittany, under the guardianship of his grandfather, who, is duke of Normandy, was also superior lord of that territory. Philip, as lord paramount, disputed some time his title to this wardship; but was obliged to yield to the inclinations of the Bretons, who preferred the government of Henry.

But the rivalship between these potent princes, and all their inferior interests, seemed now to have given place to the general passion for the relief of the Holy Land and the expulsion of the Saracens. Those infidels, though obliged to yield to the immense inundation of Christians in the first crusade, had recovered courage after the torrent was past; and attacking on all quarters the settlements of the Europeans, had Deduced these adventurers to great difficulties, and obliged them to apply again for succors from the west. A second crusade, under the emperor Conrade, and Lewis VII., king of France, in which there perished above two hundred thousand men, brought them but a temporary relief; and those princes, after losing such immense armies, and seeing the flower of their nobility fall by their side, returned with little honor into Europe. But these repeated misfortunes, which drained the western world of its people and treasure, were not yet sufficient to cure men of their passion for those spiritual adventures; and a new incident rekindled with fresh fury the zeal of the ecclesiastics and military adventurers among the Latin Christians. Saladin, a prince of great generosity, bravery, and conduct, having fixed himself on the throne of Egypt, began to extend his conquests over the East; and finding the settlement of the Christians in Palestine an invincible obstacle to the progress of his arms, he bent the whole force of his policy and valor to subdue that small and barren, but important territory. Taking advantage of dissensions which prevailed among the champions of the cross, and having secretly gained the count of Tripoli, who commanded their armies, he invaded the frontiers with a mighty power and, aided by the treachery of that count, gained over them at Tiberiade a complete victory, which utterly annihilated the force of the already languishing kingdom of Jerusalem

1187.

The holy city itself fell into his hands after a feeble resistance; the kingdom of Antioch was almost entirely subdued and except some maritime towns, nothing considerable remained of thope boasted conquests, which, near a century before, it had cost the efforts of all Europe to acquire.

The western Christians were astonished on receiving this dismal intelligence. Pope Urban III., it is pretended, died of grief; and his successor, Gregory VIII., employed the whole time of his short pontificate in rousing to arms all the Christians who acknowledged his authority. The general cry was, that they were unworthy of enjoying any inheritance in heaven, who did not vindicate from the dominion of the infidels the inheritance of God on earth, and deliver from slavery that country which had been consecrated by the foot-steps of their Redeemer.

1188.

William, archbishop of Tyre, having procured a conference between Henry and Philip near Gisors, enforced all these topics; gave a pathetic description of the miserable state of the eastern Christians; and employed every argument to excite the ruling passions of the age, superstition, and jealousy of military honor. The two monarchs immediately took the cross; many of their most considerable vassals imitated the example; and as the emperor Frederic I. entered into the same confederacy, some well-grounded hopes of success were entertained; and men flattered themselves that an enterprise, which had failed under the conduct of many independent leaders, or of imprudent princes, might at last, by the efforts of such potent and able monarchs, be brought to a happy issue.

The kings of France and England imposed a tax, amounting to the tenth of all movable goods, on such as remained at home; but as they exempted from this burden most of the regular clergy, the secular aspired to the same immunity; pretended that their duty obliged them to assist the crusade with their prayers alone; and it was with some difficulty they were constrained to desist from an opposition, which in them who had been the chief promoters of those pious enterprises, appeared with the worst grace imaginable. This backwardness of the clergy is perhaps a symptom that the enthusiastic ardor which had at first seized the people for crusades, was now by time and ill success considerably abated; and that the frenzy was chiefly supported by the military genius and love of glory in the monarchs.