The history of Guy and Sybil, after the story leaves them, is a sad one. Raymond Count of Tripoli, who had fancied himself sure of the crown matrimonial, never forgave either. He immediately entered into a secret alliance with Saladin, by which he promised to betray Guy into his hands in the next battle. On the fourth of July, 1187, Tripoli, who was standard-bearer, so behaved himself in battle that the King was taken prisoner. Sybil, in conjunction with the Patriarch Heraclius, held Jerusalem until the second of October, when she gave up the city to Saladin on terms including liberty of ransom to all who could afford it. The Queen now retired to Ascalon, within whose fortified walls she and her little daughters remained until 1189, when Guy's ransom was effected on the hard terms that Sybil should capitulate at Ascalon, that Guy should abdicate, and that he should go beyond sea. Guy, who had been kept in chains a whole year at Damascus, consulted the clergy as to the necessity of keeping faith with Saladin. They were all of the Roman, but unscriptural opinion, that no faith need be kept with a Paynim. Instead of abdicating and going abroad, Guy, with Sybil and the children, marched to Acre, which he invested, with a hundred thousand men who had flocked to his standard. The Queen and Princesses were lodged at Turon, looking towards the sea. In 1190 King Philippe of France arrived before Acre, and on June 10, 1191, King Richard Cœur-de-Lion; and at last, on July 12, Saladin gave up the city to the allied forces. But the pestilence had been very rife during the siege. Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury, and numbers of French and English nobles, died in the camp: and among others the hero-Queen, Sybil of Anjou, and her two fragile children.
Raymond of Tripoli was dead also. He died in his sleep, unabsolved; and evidence of his having formally apostatized to Mahometanism was found after his death.
After thus taking "last leave of all he loved," Guy—brave, rash, impetuous Guy—appears to have become almost reckless. Of course, by right, Sybil was succeeded by her sister Isabel; but Guy still clung to his title of King, and the privileges appurtenant to it, and disputed with Conrado of Monferrato, the husband of Isabel, the right to the customs of the port of Acre. Conrado was an extremely quarrelsome man, and Guy's opposition seems to have been personally directed to him; for on his death (which of course Guy and Cœur-de-Lion were accused of forwarding) Guy readily acknowledged Isabel and her third husband, on condition of receiving the island of Cyprus as compensation for all his claims. King Richard had sold Cyprus to the Templars, but he coolly took it from them, and gave it to Guy, who, being apparently more honest of the two, paid a hundred thousand crowns to the Templars as compensation. This is the last that we hear of Guy de Lusignan, except the mere date of his death, which occurred, according to different authorities, from one to four years after the cession of Cyprus.
Few historical characters have had less justice done them by modern writers, than Guy de Lusignan and Sybil his wife. In the first place, Guy is accused of having, in 1167-8, assassinated Patrick Earl of Salisbury, in returning from a pilgrimage to Saint Iago de Compostella. King Henry II., we are told, was greatly enraged, and banished Guy from Poitou, whereupon he assumed the cross, and set out for the Holy Land. Now the truth is that in 1167-8, it is scarcely possible that Guy could be above ten years old. Either it was another Guy de Lusignan, or the outrage was committed by persons of whom the child Guy was the nominal head. But all the circumstances tend to show that Guy's arrival in the Holy Land was little, if at all, before 1180, and that at that time he was a very young man.
We next find Guy accused of such boundless ambition, that he not only induced King Baldwin IV. to put all the affairs of the kingdom into his hands, but even to promise him the succession after his death. But when Baldwin had bestowed upon Guy his sister and heir presumptive, Sybil, how could he either promise him the succession or lawfully deprive him of it? The reversion of the crown was hers. Baldwin did her a cruel injustice, and committed an illegal act, when he passed her over, and abdicated in favour of her infant son.
Then, on the death of Baldwin V., we are actually told that Sybil, urged by her ambitious husband, usurped the crown. Usurped it from whom? Surely not from her own daughters!—surely not from her younger sister! Matthew of Westminster distinctly remarks that "there was none to succeed but his mother Sybilla." Sybil merely took back her own property, of which she had been unjustly deprived.
Again, with respect to her action at her coronation, poor Sybil comes in again for her share of blame. She had no business, we are assured, to choose Guy, who had already proved himself an unsatisfactory governor; and in the interest of the kingdom, she ought to have married some one else. In other words, she ought to have committed sin in the interest of her subjects!
Lastly, a wholesale charge of poisoning is brought against both Guy and Sybil. Probabilities are thrown overboard. They are accused of poisoning young Baldwin V.; and Guy is charged with the murder of his wife and children, though their death entirely destroyed his claim to the royal title. The truth is, that in the twelfth century, any death not easily to be accounted for was always set down to poison: and the nearest relatives, totally irrespective of character, were always suspected of having administered it. Men of Guy's disposition,—impulsive, rash, and generous even to a fault, loving and self-sacrificing,—are not usually in the habit of murdering those they love best: and considered merely from a political point of view, the simultaneous deaths of Sybil and her children were the worst calamities which could have fallen upon Guy.
II. THE ROYAL FAMILY OF JERUSALEM.
Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem, eldest of the four daughters of Baldwin II., and Morsise of Armenia, succeeded her father in 1131, and died in 1141 or 1144. She married—