A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (56 page)

But Sibylla held Jerusalem and the seaports.
The troops of the Seneschal Joscelin and the Constable Amalric, Guy’s brother,
were on her side, and Reynald had brought his men from Oultrejourdain. The
Patriarch Heraclius, her mother’s old lover, assured her of the support of the
Church organization. The Grand Master of the Temple, Gerard of Ridfort, would
do anything to spite his old enemy Raymond. Alone in Jerusalem the Grand Master
of the Hospital was true to the oath that had been sworn. Amongst the people of
Jerusalem there was much sympathy for Sibylla. She represented hereditary
right; and though the throne was still nominally elective the claims of the
heir could not be easily ignored. At the time of her mother’s divorce Sibylla’s
legitimacy had been confirmed. Her brother had been King, and her son. Her one
disadvantage was that her husband was disliked and despised.

The Patriarch and the Templars closed the gates
of Jerusalem and posted guards, to prevent any attack from the barons at
Nablus. They then made arrangements for the coronation. The royal insignia was
kept in a coffer with three locks whose keys were in the care of the Patriarch
and the two Grand Masters, each holding one. Roger of the Hospital refused to
surrender his key for a purpose that he considered contrary to his oath; but at
last, with a gesture of disgust, he threw it from his window. Neither he nor
any of his knights would take part in the ceremony; which was held as soon as
everything could be made ready. In view of Guy’s unpopularity the Patriarch
crowned Sibylla alone. But a second crown was placed by her side; and Heraclius
after crowning her bade her use it to crown whatever man she thought worthy to
govern the realm. She summoned Guy to approach her and kneel before her and
placed the crown on his head. The assembled company then did homage to their
new King and Queen. As he passed out of the church Gerard of Ridfort cried out
aloud that this crown paid back the marriage of Botrun.

1186: King Guy’s
First Assembly

Against the fact of the coronation the High
Court at Nablus could do little. Baldwin of Ibelin rose in the assembly to say
that he for one would not stay in a country to be ruled by such a king and he
advised all the barons to do likewise. But Raymond answered that all was not
yet lost. They had with them, he said, the Princess Isabella and her husband
Humphrey of Toron. Let them be crowned and brought to Jerusalem. Their rivals
could not stand up against the united armies of all the barons, save only
Reynald of Chatillon, and the sympathy of the Hospital. Raymond added that so
long as he was Regent he could guarantee that Saladin would keep the truce. The
barons agreed with him and swore to support him, even though it might mean
civil war. But they counted without one of the principal actors. Humphrey was
terrified at the fate in store for him; he had no wish to be king. He slipped
away at once from Nablus and rode to Jerusalem. There he asked to see Sibylla.
She spurned him at first, but as he stood sheepishly before her, scratching his
head, she relented and let him pour out his story. She listened graciously and
herself took him to see Guy, to whom he paid homage.

Humphrey’s defection defeated the barons.
Raymond released them from their oath, and one by one they went to Jerusalem
and offered their submission to Guy. Even Balian of Ibelin, the most respected
of them all, saw that nothing else could now be done. But his brother Baldwin
repeated his decision to abandon the realm rather than accept Guy; and Raymond
of Tripoli retired to his wife’s lands in Galilee, vowing that he, too, would
never pay homage to the new King. He would have loyally accepted Isabella as
Queen; but Humphrey’s cowardice convinced him that he himself was now the only
worthy candidate for the throne.

Soon afterwards King Guy held his first
assembly of barons at Acre. Raymond did not appear; and Guy announced that
Beirut, which Raymond had held as regent, was taken from him, and he sent to
tell him to render accounts for public money that he had spent during his
regency. Baldwin of Ibelin, who was present, was summoned to pay homage by
Reynald of Chatillon standing at the King’s side. He merely gave the King a
formal salute, telling him that he left his lands of Ramleh for his son Thomas
who would pay homage when he was old enough; he himself would never do so. He
left the kingdom a few days later and took service under Bohemond of Antioch,
who welcomed him gladly and gave him a fief larger than that which he had left.
Other lesser lords joined him there; for Bohemond made no secret of his
sympathy with Raymond and his party.

With the kingdom so torn into embittered
factions it was as well that the truce with the Saracens held firm. Guy would
have maintained it; but he reckoned without his friend Reynald of Chatillon.
Protected by the truce the great caravans that travelled between Damascus and
Egypt had been passing again without hindrance through Frankish lands. At the
end of 1186 an enormous caravan was journeying up from Cairo, with a small convoy
of Egyptian troops to protect it from Bedouin raiders. As it moved into Moab
Reynald suddenly fell on it, slaying the soldiers and taking the merchants and
their families with all their possessions to his castle of Kerak. The booty was
larger than he had ever taken before. News soon reached Saladin of the outrage.
Respectful of the treaty, he sent to Reynald to demand the release of the
prisoners and compensation for their losses. Reynald refused to receive the
envoys; who went on to Jerusalem to complain to King Guy. Guy listened
sympathetically and ordered Reynald to make reparations. But Reynald, knowing
that it was to his support that Guy owed and kept his throne, paid no attention
to his order; and Guy could not or would not force his obedience.

1187: Raymond’s
Treason

So shameless a breach of the truce made war
inevitable, a war which the divided country was ill-fitted to face. Bohemond of
Antioch hastened to renew his truce with Saladin. Raymond of Tripoli made a
truce for his county and extended it to cover his wife’s principality of
Galilee, even though its suzerain the King might be at war with the Moslems. At
the same time he secured Saladin’s sympathy and promise of support in his aim
of making himself king. Wise though Raymond’s policy may have been it was
undoubtedly treasonable. Encouraged by Gerard of the Temple, Guy summoned his
loyal vassals and marched north to Nazareth, to reduce Galilee to submission
before the Moslem attack should begin. Civil war was only averted by the
intervention of Balian of Ibelin, who when he arrived at the camp roughly asked
the King what he was doing. When Guy replied that he was going to besiege
Tiberias, Balian pointed out the folly of the plan; for Raymond, with the
Saracen help on which he could call, would have stronger forces than the King.
Balian asked that instead he should be sent to talk to Raymond. But his appeal
for unity had no effect on the Count, who would only submit to Guy if Beirut
was returned to him. It was a price that Guy thought too dear. But as news came
of Saladin’s preparations for the coming war, Balian pleaded once again with
the King for reconciliation with Raymond. ‘You have lost your best knight in
Baldwin of Ramleh,’ he said, mentioning his brother with pride. ‘If you lose
the help and counsel of Count Raymond too, you are finished.’ Guy, usually
ready to agree with anyone that spoke firmly to him, allowed Balian to go on a
new embassy to Tiberias, together with Josias, Archbishop of Tyre, and the
Grand Masters of the Hospital and Temple. It was essential that the latter,
Raymond’s bitterest enemy, should be involved in any peaceful settlement that
was made.

The delegates, escorted by ten Hospitallers,
set out from Jerusalem on 29 April 1187. They spent that night at Balian’s
castle of Nablus. There Balian had business to transact; so he told the Grand
Masters and the Archbishop to ride ahead; he would pass the day there and
overtake them on the morrow at the Castle of La Feve, in the Plain of
Esdraelon. Late in the evening of the 30th Balian left Nablus with a few
attendants intending to ride on through the night. But he suddenly remembered
that it was the eve of Saint Philip and Saint James. So he turned aside from
the road at Sebastea, the Samaria of the ancients, and knocked at the door of
the Bishop’s palace. The Bishop was awakened and admitted him; and they sat
talking through the night till the dawn came and mass could be celebrated. He
then said good-bye to his host and rode on his way.

On 30 April, while Balian was discussing
business with his stewards, and the Grand Masters were riding over the hills to
La Feve, Count Raymond at Tiberias received an envoy from the Moslems at
Banyas. Saladin’s young son al-Afdal, commandant of the camp there, was told by
his father to send a reconnaissance into Palestine and very correctly asked permission
for his men to traverse the Count’s territory in Galilee. Raymond, bound by his
private treaty with Saladin, could not refuse the embarrassing request. He only
stipulated that the Moslems should cross the frontier after daybreak on the
morrow and return before dark and that they should do no harm to any town or
village in the land. He then sent messengers round all his fief to tell the
people to keep themselves and their flocks within their walls for the whole day
and to have no fear. At that moment he heard of the coming of the delegation
from Jerusalem. Another message was sent out to give it the same warning. Early
in the morning on 1 May Raymond watched from his castle the Emir Kukburi and
seven thousand mamelukes ride gaily by.

1187: The Springs
of Cresson

About the middle of that morning Balian and his
company arrived at La Feve. From afar they had seen tents of the Templars
dressed below the walls; but when they drew near they found that they were
empty; and in the castle itself there was silence. Balian’s groom Ernoul
entered the building and wandered from room to room. There was no one there,
except two soldiers lying in one of the upper galleries, sick to death and
unable to speak. Balian was perplexed and worried. He waited for an hour or
two, uncertain what to do, then set out again along the road to Nazareth. Suddenly
a Templar knight galloped up dishevelled and bleeding, shouting out of a great
disaster.

At the same hour Raymond at Tiberias watched
the mamelukes ride home. They kept to the pact. It was well before nightfall,
and they had not harmed a building in the province. But on the lances of the
vanguard were fixed the heads of Templar knights.

Raymond’s message had reached the Grand Masters
at La Feve on the evening of the 30th. Though Roger of the Hospital protested,
Gerard of the Temple at once summoned the Templars from the neighbourhood to
join him there. The Marshal of the Temple, James of Mailly, was at the village
of Kakun, five miles away, with ninety knights. He came and spent the night
before the castle. Next morning the cavalcade rode to Nazareth, where forty
secular knights joined them. The Archbishop of Tyre remained there; but Gerard
paused only to shout to the townsfolk that there would be a battle soon and
they must come to collect the booty. As the knights passed over the hill behind
Nazareth they found the Moslems watering their horses at the Springs of Cresson
in the valley below. At the sight of such numbers both Roger and James of
Mailly advised retreat. Gerard was furious. He turned scornfully from his
fellow Grand Master and taunted his Marshal. ‘You love your blond head too well
to want to lose it’, he said. James proudly replied; ‘I shall die in battle
like a brave man. It is you that will flee as a traitor.’ Fired by Gerard’s
insults the company charged down into the mamelukes. It was a massacre rather
than a battle. James’s blond head was one of the last to fall; and the Grand
Master of the Hospital fell by his side. Very soon every Templar knight was
slain except three, of whom Gerard was one. They galloped back wounded to
Nazareth. It was one of them that rode on to find Balian. The secular knights
were taken alive. Some of the greedy citizens of Nazareth had gone out to the
battlefield to find the booty that Gerard had promised. They were rounded up
and taken off as prisoners.

After sending to his wife to urge her to
collect all her knights, Balian joined Gerard at Nazareth and tried to persuade
him to come to Tiberias. Gerard pleaded that his wounds were too bad, so Balian
went on with the Archbishop. They found Raymond aghast at the tragedy, for
which he felt that his policy had been to blame. He gladly accepted Balian’s
mediation and, annulling his treaty with Saladin, he rode south to Jerusalem
and made his submission to the King. Guy, for all his faults, was not
vindictive. He gave Raymond a cordial welcome and even apologized for the
manner of his coronation. At last the kingdom seemed to be united again.

1187: Saladin
crosses the Jordan

It was as well. For Saladin was known to be
gathering a great army across the frontier in the Hauran. In May, while the
host was assembling from all over his empire, he had made a journey down the
road towards Mecca to escort a pilgrim-caravan in which his sister and her son
were returning from the Holy City, to be sure that Reynald would not try
another of his bandit raids. Meanwhile troops poured in from Aleppo and Mosul
and Mardin till his army was the largest that he had ever commanded. Across the
Jordan King Guy summoned all his tenants-in-chief and their tenants to bring
their men to meet him at Acre. The Orders of the Hospital and the Temple, eager
to avenge the massacre at Cresson, brought all their available knights, leaving
only small garrisons to defend the castles under their care. The Templars gave
further aid in handing to the King their share of the money sent recently to
the Orders by King Henry II in expiation of the murder of Thomas Becket. They
had been told to bank it against the Crusade that Henry had sworn to undertake,
but the present need was too urgent. The soldiers that it served to equip
carried with them a banner with Henry’s arms. Moved by an appeal from Raymond
and Balian, Bohemond of Antioch promised a contingent under Baldwin of Ibelin,
and sent his son Raymond to join the Count of Tripoli who was his godfather. By
the end of June 1200 fully armed knights, a larger number of light native
cavalry, half-caste Turcopoles and nearly ten thousand infantrymen were
gathered at the camp before Acre. The Patriarch Heraclius was asked to come
with the True Cross. But he said that he was unwell, and entrusted the relic to
the Prior of the Holy Sepulchre to give to the Bishop of Acre. He preferred,
his enemies said, to remain with his beloved Paschia.