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I.

stratagems of his general, CÆSAR ALEXIUS, be-C EN T., came master of Constantinople, and forced the p Latin emperor, BALDWIN II. to abandon that city, and save himself by flight in Italy. Thus fell the empire of the Franks at Constantinople after a duration of fifty-seven years [b].

dertaken.

IV. Another sacred expedition was undertaken Another in the year 1217, under the pontificate of HoNo- crusade unRIUS III. by the confederate arms of Italy and Germany. The allied army was commanded in chief by ANDREW, king of Hungary, who was joined by LEOPOLD duke of Austria, LEWIS of Bavaria, and several other princes. After a few months absence, ANDREW returned into Europe. The remaining chiefs carried on the war with vigour, and in the year 1220, made themselves masters of Damietta, the strongest city in Egypt; but their prosperity was of a short duration, for the year following, their fleet was totally ruined by that of the Saracens, their provisions cut off, and their army reduced to the greatest straits and difficulties. This irreparable loss was followed by that of Damietta, which blasted all their hopes, and removed the flattering prospects which their successful beginnings had presented to their expectations [i].

K 4

V.

[b] See, for a full account of this empire, Du FRESNE, Histoire de l'Empire de Constantinople sous les Empereurs Francoise; in the former part of which we find the Histoire de la Conquête de la Ville de Constantinople par les Francois, written. by GODFREY DE VILLE HARDUIN, one of the French chiefs concerned in the expedition. This work makes a part of the Byzantine history. See also CLAUDE FONTENAY, Histoire de Eglise Gallicane, tom. x. p. 216.-GUNTHERI Monachi Histor. capta à Latinis Constantinopoleos, in HENR. CANISII Lectiones Antique, tom. iv. p. 1.-INNOCENTII III. Epistol. à Baluxio editas, passim.

[i] See JAC. DE VITRIACO, Histor. Oriental. & MARTIN SANCTUS, Secret. fidel. crucis inter Bangarsianos de sacris belliş scriptores, seu gesta Dei per Francos.

CENT.

PART.I.

V. The legates and missionaries of the court XIII. of Rome still continued to animate the languishing zeal of the European princes in behalf of the An histori- Christian cause in Palestine, and to revive the the other spirit of crusading, which so many calamities and crusades, disasters had almost totally extinguished. At their order. length, in consequence of their lively remon

cal view of

each in

strances, a new army was raised, and a new expedition undertaken, which excited great expectations, and drew the attention of Europe, and that so much the more, as it was generally believed, that this army was to be commanded by the emperor FREDERIC II. That prince had, indeed, obliged himself by a solemn promise, made to the Roman pontif, to také upon him the direction of this expedition; and what added a new degree of force to this engagement, and seemed to render the violation of it impossible, was the marriage that FREDERIC had contracted, in the year 1223, with JOLANDA, daughter of JOHN, count of Brienne, and king of Jerusalem, by which alliance that kingdom was to be added to his European dominions. Yet, notwithstanding all this, the emperor put off his voyage from time to time under various pretexts, and did not set out until the year 1228, when, after having been excommunicated on account of his delay, by the incensed pontif GREGORY IX. [k], he followed

[k] This papal excommunication, which was drawn up in the most outrageous and indecent language, was so far from exciting FREDERIC to accelerate his departure for Palestine, that it produced no effect upon him at all, and was, on the contrary, received with the utmost contempt. He defended him-` self by his ambassador at Rome, and shewed that the reasons of his delay were solid and just, and not mere pretexts, as the pope had pretended. At the same time, he wrote a remarkable letter to HENRY III. king of England, in which he complains of the insatiable avarice, the boundless ambition, the perfidious and hypocritical proceedings of the Roman pontifs. See FLEURY, Histoire Ecclesiastique, livr. lxxix. tom, xvi. p. 601. edit Bruxelles.

XIII.

lowed with a small train of attendants the troops,C EN T. who expected, with the most anxious impatience, PARTI. his arrival in Palestine. No sooner did he land in that disputed kingdom, than, instead of carrying on the war with vigour, he turned all his thoughts towards peace, and, without consulting the other princes and chiefs of the crusade, concluded, in the year 1229, a treaty of peace, or rather a truce of ten years, with MELIC-CAMEL, sultan of Egypt. The principal thing stipulated in this treaty was, that FREDERIC should be put in possession of the city and kingdom of Jerusalem: this condition was immediately executed; and the emperor, entering into the city with great pomp, and accompanied by a numerous train, placed the crown upon his head with his own hands; and, having thus settled matters in Palestine, he returned without delay into Italy, to appease the discords and commotions which the vindictive and ambitious pontif had excited there in his absence. So that, in reality, notwithstanding all the reproaches that were cast upon the emperor by the pope and his creatures, this expedition was by far the most successful of any that had been yet undertaken against the infidels [7].

In the

VI. The expeditions that followed this were. less important and also less successful. year 1239, THEOBALD VI. [m], count of Champagne and king of Navarre, set out from Marseilles for the Holy Land, accompanied by several French and German princes, as did also, the year following, RICHARD, earl of Cornwal, brother to HENRY III. king of England. The issue of these

[1] See the writers that have composed the History of the Holy Wars, and of the Life and Exploits of FREDERIC II. See also MURATORI Annales Italia, and the various authors of the Germanic History.

[m] Dr MOSHEIM calls him, by a mistake, THEOBALD V. unless we are to attribute this fault to an error of the press.

PARTI

CEN T. these two expeditions was by no means answerXIII: able to the preparations which were made to render them successful. The former failed through the influence of the emperor's [n] ambassadors in Palestine, who renewed the truce with the Mahometans; while, on the other hand, a considerable body of Christians were defeated at Gaza, and such as escaped the carnage returned into Europe. This fatal event was principally owing to the discords that reigned between the templars and the knights of St JOHN of Jerusalem. Hence it came to pass, that the arrival of RICHARD, which had been industriously retarded by GREGORY IX. and which had revived, in some degree, the hopes of the vanquished, was ineffectual to repair their loss; and all that this prince could do, was to enter, with the consent of the allies, into a truce upon as good conditions as the declining state of their affairs would admit of. This truce was accordingly concluded with the sultan of Egypt in the year 1241, after which RICHARD 'immediately set sail for Europe [o].

The expe

dition of

VII. The affairs of the Christians in the east Lewis IX. declined from day to day. Intestine discords and ill-conducted expeditions had reduced them almost to the last extremity, when LEWIS IX. king of France, who was canonised after his death, and is still worshipped with the utmost devotion, attempted their restoration.

It was in consequence

[] FREDERIC II. who had still a great party in Palestine, and did not act in concert with the clergy and the crea tures of his bitter enemy, GREGORY IX. from which division the Christian cause suffered much.

[o] All these circumstances are accurately related and illustrated by the learned GEORGE CHRIST. GEBAVERUS, in his Historia Richardi Imperatoris, lib. i. p. 34.-It appears however by the Epistola Petri de Vineis, that RICHARD was created by FREDERIC II. his lord-lieutenant of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and this furnishes a probable reason why GREGORY IX. used all possible means to retard RICHARD's voyage.

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consequence of a vow, which this prince had CENT. made in the year 1248, when he was seized with PARTI a painful and dangerous illness, that he undertook this arduous task, and, in the execution of it, he set sail for Egypt with a formidable army and a numerous fleet from a notion that the conquest of this province would enable him to carry on the war in Syria, and Palestine, with more facility and success. The first attempts of the zealous monarch were crowned with victory; for Damietta, that famous Egyptian city, yielded tỏ his arms; but the smiling prospect was soon changed, and the progress of the war presented one uniform scene of calamity and desolation. The united horrors of famine and pestilence overwhelmed the royal army, whose provisions were cut off by the Mahometans, in the year 1250; ROBERT, earl of Artois, the king's own brother, having surprised the Saracen army, and, through an excess of valour, pursued them too far, was slain in the engagement; and, a few days after, the king himself, with two more of his brothers [p], and the greatest part of his army, were taken prisoners in a bloody action, after a bold and obstinate resistance. This valiant monarch, who was endowed with true greatness of mind, and who was extremely pious, though after the manner that prevailed in this age of superstition and darkness, was ransomed at an immense price [9], and after having spent about four

Arjou.

[] ALPHONSUS earl of Poitiers, and CHARLES earl of

[2] The ransom, which, together with the restoration of Damietta, the king was obliged to pay for his liberty, was eight hundred thousand gold bezants, and not eighty thousand as COLLIER erroneously reckons *. This sum, which was equal then to 500,000 livres of French money, would, in our days, amount to the value of four millions of livres, that is, to about 190,000 pounds sterling.

See COLLIER's Eccles. Histor. Cent. xiii. vol. i. p. 456.

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