Our history of the Christian kingdom draws to a close. In the midst of these troubles, the miserable king, who had mercifully been deprived of his senses, for the disease, when it has devoured the fingers and toes, and eaten into the vigour and strength of a man, fastens mysteriously on his intellect, and devours that too, died, or rather ceased to breathe, and was buried with his fathers. We are not told what epitaph was chosen for him. Surely, of all men, on Baldwin’s tomb might have been carved the word, “Miserrimus.”

Little Baldwin the Fifth died a day after his uncle, poisoned, as was supposed, by his mother and Guy de Lusignan. It is possible. The women whom Baldwin the Second left behind him, his daughters Milicent, Alice, Hodierne, were bad themselves, and the mothers of worse daughters. Of Sybille we can say little, except that she was known to have had a guilty love for Guy before their marriage—the king was actually uncertain at one time whether to stone to death his sister’s paramour, or to make him her husband!—that she was completely under his rule, and that she was ambitious, bold, and intriguing.

CHAPTER XIV.
KING GUY DE LUSIGNAN. A.D. 1186-1187.

Heu! voce flebili cogor enarrare

Facinus quod accidit nuper ultra mare,

Quando Saladino concessum est vastare

Terram quam dignatus est Christus sic amare.

Contemporary Poem.

When the little King Baldwin had been buried,[[69]] Sybille went to the Patriarch, the Grand Master of the Templars, and the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, to ask their advice and assistance. The first two bade her be under no anxiety, because they would procure her coronation, the former out of love for her mother, the Lady Agnes, and the latter out of the great hatred he bore for Raymond of Tripolis. And they advised her to send at once for Renaud de Chatillon, as a man likely to be of great service to her. Unluckily for Renaud, he came. At the same time she was to send to the Count of Tripoli and the barons, summoning them to her coronation, because the crown had devolved upon her. These, however, refused to be present, and sent a formal protestation against the coronation. Heraclius and the Master of the Templars laughed at the protest, but the Master of the Hospitallers refused to attend the ceremony. The gates of the city were shut, and no one allowed to enter or go out. The barons, who were at Nablous, sent a trustworthy messenger, disguised as a monk, to see what went on. Denied admittance at the gates, he went to the lazar house, which was close to the walls, and where he knew of a little postern. Here he was admitted, and, like a modern reporter, went to the church and took notes of the proceedings. The Queen elect was brought into the church by Renaud and the Master of the Templars. The patriarch asked the latter for his key—there were three—of the treasury, where were laid up the crowns. He gave it up. Next he asked the Master of the Hospitallers for his. He refused to give it up. Now, without the three keys, those in the hands of the grand master and that kept by the patriarch, the coronation could not proceed, for the simple reason that the crown and sceptre were not to be got at. The Master of the Hospitallers, when they pressed him, declared that he had hidden the key. They searched for it, but could not find it. Then they pressed him again, the coronation ceremony waiting all this time in the church, until, in a rage, he dashed his key down on the ground, and told them they might do as they pleased.

[69]. The history of William of Tyre, from which most of the preceding account of the Christian kingdom has been taken, ends abruptly just before the death of Baldwin. This chapter is mainly taken from Bernard the Treasurer.