The Historians' History of the World 08

Before the news of the capture of Antioch reached Europe, the people of the West had contemplated a new crusade. St. Louis thought that his first expedition to the Holy Land brought more shame on France than good on the Christian cause; and he feared that his own personal fame had withered. The pope encouraged his inclinations for a new attempt. England was at that time in a state of repose, and her martial youth were impatient of indolence. Prince Edward, with the earls of Warwick and Pembroke, received the holy ensign. The assumption of the cross by the heir of the English throne spread great joy throughout France. He was invited to Paris; the co-operation of the English and French was determined upon; and Louis lent his youthful ally thirty thousand marks on the security of the customs of Bordeaux. The prelates and clergy of England agreed to contribute a tenth of their revenue for three years; and by a parliamentary ordinance, a twentieth part was taken from the corn and movables which the laity possessed at Michaelmas. A crusade had for many years been popular in England. During the first expedition of St. Louis, and soon after the departure of William Longsword, Henry III engaged to fight under the sacred banners. But he was slow in preparing to go to the Holy Land; and the public murmured the suspicion that he had only assumed the cross as a pretence for collecting money. It was found that five hundred knights had been crossed; and the number of inferior people could not be counted. The holy warriors resolved to commence their voyage at midsummer; but the king had anticipated all their proceedings; and he declared that if they dared to march without him the thunders of the Vatican should be hurled against them. Some people submitted to, and others clamoured at this menace of papal interference; and the religious ardour of the most enthusiastic was cooled by the king’s delays, and the news of the disastrous events in Egypt. The pope and king were deaf to the reproaches of the French nation that indifference to Christianity could be the only motive for obstructing the pious wishes of the English people.[78] The king’s poverty was ever the alleged cause of his remissness; and two years after his dissolution of the association of English knights, he endeavoured to extort money from the clergy on the pretence of a journey to Syria. But they resisted his demands; and reproached him with his avarice and violation of oaths.

DEATH OF ST. LOUIS

Anticipating the laurel of victory, or the crown of martyrdom, St. Louis spread his sails for the Holy Land in 1270. Sixty thousand soldiers were animated by their monarch’s feelings of religious and military ardour; and we may remark among the leaders the lords of Flanders, Champagne, and Brittany. The fleet was driven into Sardinia; and at that place a great change was made in the plan of operations. The king of Tunis had formerly sent ambassadors to Louis, and expressed a wish to embrace the only true religion. Northern Africa had formerly paid a pecuniary tribute to the sovereign of the Two Sicilies; and Charles of Anjou, the reigning monarch, concealing his selfishness under the garb of piety and justice, strongly urged his brother to restore the rights of Christendom. The soldiers too, now more greedy of plunder and revenge than zealous in bigotry, entreated to be led to Tunis. The subjugation of the Mussulmans in Africa was declared to be a necessary preliminary to successes in Palestine; the French soon reached the first object of their hopes; and the camp and town of Carthage were the earliest rewards of victory. But every sanguine expectation was damped when a pestilential disease spread its ravages through the Christian ranks.

The great stay of the Crusades fell August, 1270. During his illness Louis ceased not to praise God, and supplicate for the people whom he had brought with him. He became speechless; he then gesticulated what he could not utter; he perpetually made signs of the cross, stretched himself on the floor, which was covered with ashes; and in the final struggle of nature he turned his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, “I will enter thy house, I will worship in thy sanctuary.”

PRINCE EDWARD LEAVES ENGLAND

Before this calamitous event Prince Edward, Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster, four earls, four barons, and the English division, had not only arrived in Africa, but had left it for Sicily, in despair that their French compeers would ever march to Palestine. The winter season was passed by Prince Edward in military exercises, and in the various occupations of chivalry, and in the following spring he turned his prow up the Mediterranean and arrived at Acre.