Heroines of the Crusades

by C. A. Bloss

During the stay of the king at Rome, the devoted Henry obtained permission to make a pilgrimage to a celebrated shrine near Naples, for the consecration of sundry relics which he had collected in Palestine. As he knelt at the foot of the altar and closed his eyes in prayer, he was not aware of the entrance of his mortal enemy, Guy de Montfort, son of the Earl of Leicester. With stealthy tread the assassin approached, bent over the suppliant youth, and exclaiming, “Die! murderer of my father!” thrust his sword into the heart, beating warm with life and hope, and sprinkled the holy relics with the blood of another martyr. With a vengeful frown of satisfied hate, he wiped the sword, returned it to its scabbard, and strode from the church. One of his knights, fit follower of such a master, inquired as he rejoined his troop,

“What has my lord Guy de Montfort done?”

“Taken vengeance,” was the fiendish reply.

“How so?” rejoined the knight. “Was not your father, the great Leicester, dragged a public spectacle, by the hair of the head through the streets of Evesham?”

Without a word the demon turned to his yet more malignant triumph, and seizing the victim, whose pale lips yet moved with the instinct of prayer, dragged him from the attendants, who were vainly striving to staunch the life-blood welling from the wound, to the public place, and left him a ghastly spectacle to the horror-stricken crowd.

It was now necessary for the murderers to think of self-defence. The English retainers of Earl Henry had raised the cry of revenge, and the Italian populace excited by the fearful tragedy that had been enacted in the very presence of the virgin and child, began to run together and join the parties of attack or defence. The train of de Montfort immediately raised the shout of, “d’Anjou! Down with the Ghibelines!” and when the armed forces of the Duke Charles rode into the midst of the throng to investigate the cause of the tumult, Sir Guy joined their ranks, and departed for Naples under their escort.

Tidings of this melancholy event were soon carried to Rome, and Edward immediately appealed to the pope for justice upon the murderer. Gregory, who feared to offend Edward, and who was almost equally alarmed at the prospect of a rupture with the tyrant of Sicily, had recourse to various ingenious methods of delay. Finding however that the King of England had determined to postpone the obsequies of his noble relative, until a curse was pronounced upon the assassin, he was forced to the exercise of ecclesiastical measures.

Clothed in his pontifical robes, Gregory X. entered the church at Orvietto, and proceeding to the high altar, took the bible in his hand, and, after setting before the awestruck assembly the guilt of the culprit, proceeded thus to fulminate his anathema against the assassin.

“For the murder of Henry of Germany, slain before the shrine of St. Mary, in the face of day, we lay upon Guy de Montfort the curse of our Holy Church. In virtue of the authority bestowed upon us as the successor of St. Peter, we do pronounce him excommunicate, and alien to all the privileges and consolations which our blessed religion affords. We permit every one to seize him—we order the governors of provinces to arrest him—we place under interdict all who shall render him an asylum—we prohibit all Christians from lending him aid, and we dispense his vassals from all oaths of fidelity they have made to him; may none of the blessings of this holy book descend upon him, and may all the curses contained therein, cleave unto him;” and he dashed the bible to the ground.

Lifting the waxen taper, he continued, “Let the light of life be withdrawn from him, and let his soul sink in eternal night.” With the word he threw the candle upon the pavement, and instantly every light in the church was extinguished, and amid the gloom, the trembling congregation heard the voice of the pontiff, ringing out full and clear, “I curse him by book, by candle, and by bell.” A solemn toll proclaimed the malediction, and amid the darkness and the silence, the multitude crept one by one from the church, as though fearful of being implicated in the terrible denunciation.