Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

Early in the following year Amaury called a council of his barons to deliberate on the precarious state of the kingdom. Every day the number of the enemy increased, every day their own resources diminished. There was, of course, but one way to meet the dangers which menaced them, the only way which the kingdom had ever known, the arrival of aid from Europe. It was resolved to send ambassadors with the most urgent letters to all the powers, and to Constantinople a special ambassador begging for instant aid. Who was to go? The king, after a short parley with his advisers, declared that he would go himself. The barons cried out, on hearing this announcement, that they could not be deprived of their king, that the realm would fall to pieces without him—to all appearance seriously alarmed at the prospect of being left alone, or else every man hoping himself to be appointed as ambassador. But Amaury terminated the discussion in a manner characteristic of himself. “Let the Lord,” he said, “defend His own kingdom. As for me, I am going.” It is tolerably clear that the sovereign who could permit himself to have doubts on the subject of a future world, might well have doubts as to whether a kingdom, so harassed as his own, so devoured by greed, selfishness, and ambition, so corrupted by lust and licence, was really the kingdom of the Lord. If it was, of course the Lord would look after His own; if not, why then Amaury’s hands were well washed of the responsibility. He went to Constantinople, where he was received with every demonstration of friendship, and William of Tyre exhausts himself in describing the favour shown to him. One thing is noticeable, that the splendour of the Greek emperor rivalled that of the caliph. On the occasion of the first interview of Amaury with the emperor, there were suspended before the hall of audience curtains of precious stuff and rich embroidery, exactly like what we are told of the Caliph of Cairo, and as soon as the king arrived the curtains were withdrawn and the emperor disclosed sitting on a throne of gold, and dressed in the Imperial robes. Great fêtes were given to celebrate the arrival of Amaury and his train; all the sacred relics, including the wood of the Cross, the nails, the lance—was this the lance found by Peter at Antioch, or another?—the sponge, the reed, the crown of thorns, the sacred shroud and the sandals, were shown to the Latins; games and spectacles were invented for their amusement, including choruses of young girls and theatrical displays, in which, says the Archbishop of Tyre, careful lest the king’s example should be taken as a precedent among his own flock, the greatest propriety was observed; and at last, treaties having been signed and promises made, Amaury departed, laden with valuable presents of gold and other valuables. Alas! it was not gold that he wanted, but stout hearts and strong hands, and of these he brought back none but his own.

He returned for more fighting and more disappointment. Nûr-ed-dín was reported near Banias with an army, and Amaury had to fix his camp in Galilee to watch his movements. The object of the sultan, however, seems to have been, like that of Saladin, to accustom his men to face the Christians, and not yet to force on a decided engagement.

The Archbishop of Tyre at this time returned from his embassy. Nothing had been effected. The princes of the West would promise no help, would give no help. He brought with him Stephen, son of Count Thibaut of Blois, whom the king intended to make his son-in-law. But Stephen, after coming to Jerusalem, declined the king’s offer, led a wild and licentious life for a few months, to the general scandal, and then returned to Europe.

Then followed three years of war. Toros, the Armenian prince, and the firm ally of the Christians, died, and was succeeded by his nephew, Thomas. His brother, Melier, wishing to obtain the dominion for himself, repaired to Nûr-ed-dín, obtained his help on certain conditions, and expelled his nephew, with all the Latin Christians who were in Armenia and Cilicia. The prince of Antioch declared war against him, and the king marched his army north. But while he was on the road, news came that Nûr-ed-dín was attacking Kerak in Moab. Before Amaury could get to Jerusalem, whither he hastened on receipt of this news, the Saracens were defeated, and the siege raised by Humphrey the Constable.

Then came Saladin with a large force. It was decided that the Christian army was not strong enough to meet him, and the troops were marched, on pretence of seeking the Saracens, to Ascalon, where they remained, while Saladin went round the south of the Dead Sea and laid siege to the fortress of Montreal. This proved too strong for him, and he returned to Egypt. The year after he made another unsuccessful attempt in Moab, in which, however, he burned the vineyards and ravaged the country, the king not being strong enough to follow him. And now follows the most extraordinary and inexplicable story in the whole history of Jerusalem. We give it in the words of the historian himself (an account of the sect of Assassins will be found p. 322).

“During forty years the Assassins followed the faith of the Saracens, conforming to their traditions with a zeal so great that, compared with them, all other people would be esteemed prevaricators, they alone exactly fulfilling the law. At this time they had for chief a man endowed with eloquence, ability, and enthusiasm. Forgetting all the customs of his predecessors, he was the first who had in his possession the books of the Gospels and the Apostolic code: he studied them incessantly and with much zeal, and succeeded at length, by dint of labour, in learning the history of the miracles and precepts of Christ, as well as the doctrine of the Apostles.

“Comparing this sweet and fair teaching of Christ with that of the miserable seducer, Mohammed, he came in time to reject with scorn all that he had been taught from the cradle, and to hold in abomination the doctrines of him who had led the Arabs astray. He instructed his people in the same manner, ceased the practices of a superstitious worship, removed the interdiction from wine and pork, abolished the Mohammedan fasts, and overthrew the oratories. He then sent a messenger, one Boaldel, to King Amaury with the following offer. If the Templars, who possessed strong places in his neighbourhood, would remit an annual tribute of two thousand pieces of gold which they exacted from the people round their castles, he and his would be converted to the faith of Christ, and would all receive baptism.

“The king received the ambassador with a lively joy. He went so far, in his readiness to close with the offer, as to hold himself prepared to indemnify the Templars for the sum which they would lose. And after keeping the messenger a long time in order to conclude an arrangement with him, he sent him back to his master, with a guide to watch over the security of his person. They had already passed the city of Tripoli, and were on the point of entering into the country of the Assassins, when suddenly certain men, brethren of the Temple, drawing their swords and rushing upon the traveller, who advanced without fear and under the protection of the king, massacred the messenger of the sheikh.”

Thus was lost the most splendid opportunity that ever Christian king of Jerusalem had. There cannot be the least doubt that, had the messenger arrived home in safety, a large army of men devoted to any cause which their chief embraced, sworn to obey or to die, trained in close discipline, fanatic to the last degree, would have been transferred to the Christian camp. Moreover, there would have been a precedent which history lacks of the conversion of a whole tribe or nation from Islamism to Christianity. What sort of religion the sheikh of the Assassins contemplated is difficult to tell. But he could not have been a worse Christian than the defenders of Palestine. And then comes the question, why did the Templars kill the messenger? what reason had they for thwarting the sheikh and the king? why, considering the indemnity they were to receive, should they wish to prevent the arrangement? And what could have been their motive for preventing the conversion of the Assassins to their own religion? One answer only occurs to us. It has always seemed to us that the Templars, towards the close of the Christian rule in Palestine, were actuated by a deep and firmly rooted ambition. They proposed, seeing the weakness of the kingdom, and the worthlessness of its barons, to acquire for themselves castle after castle, strong place after strong place, till, when King Amaury was dead, and his son, already known to be tainted with leprosy, was on the throne, the kingdom would drop quietly into their own hands, the only strong hands left in the country. With this end in view they were acquiring forts in Cilicia and Armenia, all over Phœnicia, and across the Jordan. Palestine proper was dotted with their manors and fiefs. Nor was this all. In Europe their broad lands increased every day, and their income, even now, one hundred and fifty years before their dissolution, was enormous. There can be no doubt that the Templars, had they chosen to concentrate their forces, and to get together all the knights they could muster, might have deferred for long, and perhaps altogether, the final fall of the kingdom. But they did not perceive the immediate danger, and while the Mohammedan forces were uniting and concentrating, they probably still believed them to be divided and dissentient.

On no other ground than the hypothesis of this ambition can we explain the singular murder of this ambassador. The Templars did not wish to see the king’s hands strengthened.