Thus terminated that expedition, of which, says a French author, the commencement filled all Christian states with joy, and which, in the end, plunged all the West into mourning. The king arrived at Vincennes on the 5th of September, 1254, accompanied by a crowd collected from all quarters. The more they forgot his reverses, the more bitterly he called to mind the fate of his brave companions, whom he had left in the mud of Egypt or on the sands of Palestine; and the melancholy which he showed in his countenance formed a striking contrast to the public congratulation on the return of a beloved prince. His first care, says the historian, was to go to St. Denys, to prostrate himself at the feet of the apostles of France; the next day he made his entrance into the capital, preceded by the clergy, the nobility, and the people. He still wore the cross upon his shoulder; the sight of which, by recalling the motives of his long absence, inspired the fear that he had not abandoned the enterprise of the Crusade.[177]
The misfortunes sustained in the field were greatly increased by the dissensions which prevailed among the military orders after the departure of Louis. The Templars and Hospitallers, especially, never forgot their jealousies except when engaged in battle with the Mussulmans; for, in every interval of peace, they mutually gratified their arrogance and contempt by wrangling on points of precedency and professional reputation. At length an appeal to arms was made, with the view of determining which of these kindred associations should stand highest as soldiers in the estimation of Europe. The Knights of St. John gained the victory; and so bloody was the conflict that no quarter was granted, and hardly a single Templar escaped alive.
But these unseemly disputes were soon drowned amid the shouts of a more formidable warfare waged against Palestine by the Mamlouk sovereign of Egypt, the sanguinary and bigoted Bibars. His troops demolished the churches of Nazareth and Mount Tabor; after which they advanced to the gates of Acre, inflicting the most horrid cruelties upon the unprotected Christians. Sephouri and Azotus were taken by storm, or yielded upon terms. At the reduction of the former, it was agreed that the knights and garrison, amounting in all to six hundred men, should be conducted to the nearest Christian town. But no sooner was the sultan put in possession of the fortress than he violated the conditions of surrender, and left the knights only a few hours to determine on the alternative of death or conversion to Islamism. The prior and two Franciscan monks succeeded by their exhortations in fixing the faith of the religious cavaliers; and hence, at the time appointed for the declaration of their choice, they unanimously avowed their resolution to die rather than incur the dishonour of apostacy. The decree for the slaughter of the Templars was pronounced and executed; while the three preachers of martyrdom, as if responsible for the conduct of their countrymen, were flayed alive.
A large Christian state had been formed at Antioch, in alliance with the kingdom of Jerusalem. Bibars, after reducing Jaffa and the castle of Beaufort, marched his fierce soldiers against the capital of Syria, and soon added it to the number of his conquests. Forty thousand believers is Christ were on this occasion put to the sword, and not fewer than one hundred thousand were led into captivity. The barbarian, indeed, avowed the fell purpose of exterminating the whole Christian community in the East, extending the terror of death or the ascendency of the Koran from the Nile to the mountains of Armenia. But his progress was stopped by the intelligence which reached him in Palestine, that the King of Cyprus had resolved to interpose his arms in behalf of the Holy Land, and was about to make a descent on the coast at the head of a large force collected from various nations. Bibara returned to Cairo, fitted out a fleet for the conquest of that island, and intended, during the absence of its sovereign, to annex it permanently to the dominions of Egypt. But his ships were lost in a tempest; his military character suffered from the failure of the enterprise; his power was weakened; and he ceased to be any longer the scourge and dread of the Christian world.
Before the atrocities of this Mamlouk chief were made known in Europe, the people of the West had made preparations for the ninth Crusade. Louis was not able to conceal from himself that his first expedition to the Holy Land had brought more shame on France than benefit to the Christian cause. Nay, he was not without fear, that his personal reputation was in some degree tarnished by the fatal result of his attack on Egypt, so unwisely and rashly conducted. The Pope favoured his inclination for a new attempt; and accordingly, in a general meeting of the higher clergy and nobles, held at Paris in 1268, the king exhorted his people to avenge the wrongs which Christ had so long suffered at the hands of the unbelieving Moslems.
In England a similar spirit had long prevailed among the priesthood and the great body of the commons; but Henry the Third, taught by experience that the late Crusades had only weakened the friends and strengthened the enemies of Christianity, refused to countenance this popular folly at the time when Louis first assumed the cross. On the present occasion, however, he permitted his son Edward, with the Earls of Warwick and Pembroke, to receive the holy ensign, and to join the sovereign of France in his renewed attempt to plant the emblem of his faith on the walls of Jerusalem.
It was not till the spring of 1270 that St. Louis spread his sails the second time for the Holy Land. The feelings of religious and military ardour which animated the heart of this pious monarch were diffused through the sixty thousand soldiers who followed his banners. He could count, too, among his leaders, the descendants of those gallant chiefs, the lords of Brittany, of Flanders, and Champagne, who in former generations had distinguished themselves in fighting the battles of the church. But notwithstanding such promising appearances, this proud armament took the sea under an evil omen. The fleet was driven into Sardinia; and there a great and unfortunate change was made in the plan of operations. Instead of proceeding to Palestine, it was resolved that the troops should be landed in the neighbourhood of Tunis, to assist the Christians in extending their faith in opposition to the disciples of the Koran. Success, indeed, crowned the first efforts of the invaders; Carthage fell into their hands; and more splendid conquests seemed to invite their progress into the heart of the Mohammedan nations of Northern Africa. But a pestilential disease, the scourge of those burning shores, soon spread its ravages among the ranks of the Christians. Louis, the great stay of the Crusaders, was stricken with the fatal sickness, and died, leaving his army, which had accomplished nothing, to prosecute the war, or to return with sullied standards into their native country.[178]
Prince Edward, who condemned the vacillating conduct of his allies, had already passed from Africa into Sicily, where he spent the following winter. In the early part of the year 1271, he set sail for Acre, where he landed at the head of only one thousand men; but so high was his reputation among the Latins of Palestine, that he soon found his army increased sevenfold, and eager to be employed in the redemption of the sacred territory. He led them, in the first place against Nazareth, which did not long resist the vigour of his attack; and, almost immediately afterward, he surprised a large Turkish force, whom he cut in pieces The Moslems imagined that another Coeur de Lion had been sent from England to scourge them into discipline, or to shake the foundation of their power in Syria. Edward was brave and skilful as a warrior, and owed his success not less to his able dispositions than to his personal courage. But he was cruel and lavish of human blood. The barbarities which disgraced the triumphs of the first Crusade were repeated on a smaller scale at Nazareth, where the prince put the whole garrison to death, and subjected the inhabitants to unnecessary suffering.
The resentment of the governor of Jaffa is said to have pointed the dagger which was aimed at the heart of the English prince by the hand of an assassin. The wretch, as the bearer of letters, was admitted into the chamber of Edward, who, not suspecting treachery, received several severe wounds before he could dash the assailant to the floor and despatch him with his sword. But as the weapon used by the Saracen had been steeped in poison, the life of his intended victim was for some hours in imminent danger. The chivalrous fiction of that romantic age has ascribed his recovery to the kind offices of one of that sex whose generous affections are seldom chilled by the calculations of selfishness. His wife, Eleanora, is said to have sucked the poison from his wound, at the hazard of instant death to herself,—a story which, having received the sanction of the learned Camden, has not unfrequently been held as an indisputable fact. The more authentic edition of the narrative attributes the restoration of Edward's health to the usual means employed by surgical skill, aided by the resources of a strong mind and a vigorous constitution.[179]
It soon became manifest that the valour and ability of Edward, unsupported by an adequate force, could make no lasting impression upon the Moslem power in Syria. Accordingly, after having spent fourteen months in Acre, he listened to proposals for peace made by the Sultan of Egypt, who, being engaged in war with the Saracens whom he had displaced, was eager to terminate hostilities with the English. A suspension of arms, to continue ten years, was formally signed by the two chiefs; whereupon the Mamlook withdrew his troops from Palestine, and Edward embarked for his native country.