Upon this a most furious tumult was created among the people. The enraged multitude flew to arms, and pillaged the houses of the inhabitants who were suspected of being the partisans of Theodore. They swore to treat him as a declared enemy. They attacked the citadel, some beating in the gates, and others scaling the walls. Theodore seeing that his enemies were masters of one part of the ramparts, no longer endeavoured to defend himself, but proposed to capitulate. He agreed to abandon the place, and to renounce the government of Edessa, requesting permission to retire, with his family, to the city of Melitene. This proposition was accepted with joy; the peace was signed, and the inhabitants of Edessa swore upon the cross and the Evangelists to respect the conditions of it.
On the following day, whilst the governor was preparing for his departure, a fresh sedition broke out in the city. The factious repented of having allowed a prince whom they had so cruelly outraged, to live. New accusations were brought against him. It was said that he had only signed the peace with perfidious intentions. The fury of the people soon rose above all bounds, and a thousand voices demanded the death of Theodore. They penetrated, tumultuously, into the citadel, seized the aged governor in the midst of his family, and precipitated him from the heights of the ramparts. His bleeding body was dragged through the streets by the multitude, who prided themselves upon having murdered an old man as much as if they had gained a victory over the infidels.
Baldwin, who may, at least, be accused of not having defended his adoptive father, was soon surrounded by all the people of Edessa, who offered him the government of the city. He refused it at first, “but in the end,” says an old historian, “they combated his objections with so many reasons, that they forced him to consent, and established him instead of the other.” Baldwin was proclaimed liberator and master of Edessa. Seated on a blood-stained throne, and in constant dread of the fickle nature of the people, he soon inspired his subjects with as much fear as his enemies. Whilst the seditious trembled before him, he extended the limits of his territories. He purchased the city of Samosata with the treasures of his predecessor, and obtained possession of several other cities by force of arms. As fortune favoured him in everything, the loss even, which he had lately experienced, of his wife, Gundechilde, promoted his projects of aggrandizement. He espoused the niece of an Armenian prince, and by that new alliance he extended his possessions as far as Mount Taurus. All Mesopotamia, with both shores of the Euphrates, acknowledged his authority, and Asia then beheld a French knight reigning without dispute over the richest provinces of the ancient kingdom of Assyria.
Baldwin thought no more of the deliverance of Jerusalem, but gave all his attention to the defence and aggrandizement of his states.[93] Many knights, dazzled by such a rapid fortune, hastened to Edessa, to increase the army and the court of the new monarch. The advantages which resulted to the Crusaders from the foundation of this new state, have made their historians forget that they were the fruit of injustice and violence. The principality of Edessa served as a check upon the Turks and the Saracens, and was, to the period of the second crusade, the principal bulwark of the power of the Christians in the East.
BOOK III.
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A.D. 1097-1099.
The great army of the Crusaders had traversed the states of the sultan of Nice and Iconium; throughout its passage the mosques were given up to the flames or converted into churches; but the Christians had neglected to fortify the cities of which they had rendered themselves masters, or to found a military colony in a country wherein the Turks were always able to rally and re-establish their formidable power. This fault, which must be attributed to a too great confidence in victory, became fatal to the Crusaders, who, in the midst of their triumphs, lost the means of communication with Europe, and thus deprived themselves of the assistance they might have received from Greece and the West.