Part 37 (1/2)
To her he gave two ivory boxes, containing the scourge and hair-cloth which he used in self-discipline, and which she afterward employed for the same purpose, though unknown even to her confessor, until she mentioned it at her death.
To Philippe he said much of justice and mercy, desiring him always to take part against himself, and to give the preference to the weak over the strong. He exhorted him to be careful in bestowing the benefices of the Church, and to keep a careful watch over his n.o.bles and governors, lest they should injure the clergy or the poor. To reverence in church, and to guarded language, he also exhorted him. Indeed, Joinville records, that in all the years that he knew the King, he never heard from him one careless mention of the name of G.o.d, or of the saints, nor did he hear him ever lightly speak of the devil; and in this the Seneschal so followed his example, that a blow was given in the Castle of Joinville for every profane word, so that he hoped the ill habit was there checked.
The good King thus concludes: ”Dear son, I give thee all the blessing that father can and ought to give to son. May G.o.d of His mercy guard and defend thee from doing aught against His will; may He give thee grace to do His will; so that He may be honored and served by thee; and this may our Lord grant to me and thee by His great largesse, in such manner that, after this mortal life, we may see and laud and love Him without end.”
His children then took leave of him, and he remained with his confessors, after which he received the last rites of the Church, and was so fully conscious, that he made all the responses in the penitential Psalms. When the Host was brought in, he threw himself out of bed, and received it kneeling on the ground, after which he refused to be replaced in bed, but lay upon a hair-cloth strewn with ashes. This was on Sunday, at three o'clock, and from that time, while voice lasted, he never ceased praising G.o.d aloud, and praying for his people. ”Lord G.o.d,” he often said, ”give us grace to despise earthly things, and to forget the things of this world, so that we may fear no evil;” or, ”Make Thy people holy, and watch over them.” On Monday he became speechless; but he often looked around him _debonnairement_, and fixed his eyes on the cross planted at the foot of his bed, while sometimes his attendants caught a faint whisper of ”O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!”
It was the heavenly Jerusalem that was before him now; and after lying as if asleep for half an hour, he joined his hands, saying, ”Good Lord, have mercy on the people that remain here, and bring them back to their own land, that they may not fall into the hands of their enemies, nor be forced to deny Thy holy name!” Soon after, ”Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” and, looking up to heaven, ”I will enter into Thy house, and wors.h.i.+p in Thy tabernacle.”
It was three o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, when Louis drew his last breath, and his chaplains were still standing round his bed of ashes, when, the sound of trumpets fell on their ears. The Sicilian fleet had anch.o.r.ed, and the troops had landed while all the French were hanging in suspense on each report of the failing strength of their King, and had not even watched for that long-delayed arrival.
The dead silence that met the newcomers was their first intimation of the calamity; and when Charles of Anjou reached his brother's tent, and saw his calm features fixed in death, he threw himself on his knees, and bitterly reproached himself for his tardiness in coming to his aid.
The Sicilian troops gained some advantages over the Moors, and it was proposed to finish the enterprise St. Louis had begun; but sickness still made great ravages in the army, and the new King, Philippe III., was so ill, that a speedy departure could alone save his life: a peace was therefore concluded with the Tunisians, which was hardly signed when Edward, with his English force, arrived upon the coast. He accompanied the melancholy remains of the French army to Trapani in Sicily, whither misfortunes still followed them. The young wife of Philippe III. was thrown from her horse, and died in consequence; and his sister Isabelle, and her husband the King of Navarre, both sank under the disorders brought from Carthage. Broken in health and spirit, Philippe resolved to desist from the Crusade, and both he and his uncle would have persuaded the English to do the same, since their small force alone could effect nothing; but Edward was undaunted. ”I would go,” said he, ”if I had no one with me but Fowen, my groom.”
Philippe set out on his return to France, carrying with him five coffins--those of his father, his brother, his wife, his sister, and brother-in-law. Henry d'Almayne took the opportunity of his escort to return to England, since the failing health of Henry III., and of his brother Richard, made his presence desirable. He had arrived at Viterbo, when he entered a church to hear ma.s.s. The Host had just been elevated, when a loud voice broke on the solemnity of the service, ”Henry, thou traitor, thou shalt not escape!”
Henry turned, and beheld his cousins, Simon and Guy de Montfort, the latter of whom had married the daughter of the Italian Count Aldobrandini, and was living in the neighborhood. Their daggers were raised, and Henry was unarmed. He sprang to the altar, and the two officiating priests interposed; but the sacrilegious Montforts killed one, and left the other for dead, and, piercing Henry again and again, slew him at the foot of the altar. Then going to the church-door, where their horses awaited them, one of them said, ”I have satisfied my vengeance.”
”What!” said an attendant, ”was not your father dragged through the streets of Evesham?”
At these words the savages returned, and dragged the corpse by the hair to the door of the church, after which they rode safely off.
Henry's body was carried home, and buried in the Abbey of Hales. His father probably never was aware of his death, for his own took place a few months after.
The murderers were never traced out, and the remissness on the part of Philippe and Charles left an impression on Edward's mind that they had connived at the murder. Of this Philippe at least may be acquitted; he completed his sad journey, and buried his father at St. Denis, amid the mourning of the whole nation, and yet their exultation, for miracles were thought to be wrought at his tomb, and the Papal authority enrolled him among the Saints. Old Joinville was cheered by a dream, in which he beheld him resplendent with glory, and telling him that he would not quickly depart from him, whereupon he placed an altar in the castle chapel to his honor, and caused a ma.s.s to be said there every day.
St. Louis' wisdom should be judged of rather by his admirable conduct in daily life, and in the government of his people, than by his actions in his unfortunate Crusades, when he seemed to give up all guidance and common sense. At home he was so prudent, just, and wise, that few kings have ever equalled him, and even the enemies of the faith that prompted him cannot withhold their testimony that ”virtue could be pushed no further.”
In the spring, Edward, with 300 knights, sailed for Acre, and, on arriving here [Footnote: Edward at Acre, 1271], made an expedition to Nazareth, where he put all the garrison to the sword. He spent the winter in Cyprus, and returned again to Syria in the spring; but he could never collect more than 7,000 men under his standard, and an advance on Jerusalem was impossible. He therefore remained in his camp before Acre, while his knights went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and, while there, he narrowly escaped becoming a seventh royal victim, to the Crusade.
The heat of the weather had affected his health, and he was lying on his couch, only covered with a single garment, when a messenger approached with letters purporting to be from the Emir of Joppa. While he was reading them, the man suddenly drew out a poniard, and was striking at his side, when Edward, perceiving his intention, caught the blow on his arm, and threw him to the ground by a kick on the breast. The murderer arose, and took aim again, but had only grazed his; forehead, when the Prince dashed out his brains with a wooden stool. The attendants rushed in, and were beginning to make up for their negligence by blows on the corpse, when Edward stopped them, by sternly demanding what was the use of striking a dead man.
It is on the authority of a Spanish chronicle that we hear that Eleanor, apprehending that the weapon had been poisoned, at once sucked the blood from her husband's wounds. The fear was too well founded, and Edward was in great danger; so that his men, in their first rage, were about to put to death all their Saracen captives, when he roused himself to prevent them, by urging, that not only were these men innocent, but that the enemy would retaliate upon the many Christian pilgrims absent from the army.
The Grand Master of the Templars brought a surgeon, who gave hopes of saving the gallant English prince by cutting out the flesh around the wound. Edward replied by bidding him work boldly, and spare not; but Eleanor could not restrain her lamentations, till he desired his brother Edmund to lead her from the tent, when she was carried away, struggling and sobbing, while Edmund roughly told her that it was better she should scream and cry, than all England mourn and lament.
The operation was safely performed, but Edward made his will, and resigned himself to die. In fifteen days, however, he was able to mount his horse, and nearly at the same time Eleanor gave birth to her eldest daughter, Joan, called of Acre, whose wild, headstrong temper was little fitted to the child of a Crusade.
The army was weakened by sickness, and Edward decided on prolonging his stay no longer; therefore, as soon as Eleanor had recovered, he left the Holy Land, with keen regret, and many vows to return with a greater force. These vows were never fulfilled, nor was it well they should have been. Acre was a nest of corruption, filled with the sc.u.m of the European nations, and a standing proof that the Latin Christians were unworthy to hold a foot of the hallowed ground; and in 1291, eighteen years after the conclusion of the seventh Crusade, it was taken by the Sultan Keladun, after a brave defence by the Templars and Hospitallers; and since that time Palestine has remained under the Mahometan, dominion.
Louis and Edward were the last princely Crusaders, though the idea lived on in almost every high-souled man through the Middle Ages. Henry V.
and Philip le Bon of Burgundy both schemed the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre; and the hope that chiefly impelled the voyage of Columbus was, that his Western discoveries might open a way to the redemption of the Holy Land. ”Remember the Holy Sepulchre!” is a cry that can never pa.s.s from the ears of men.
Death had been busy in England as in the crusading host, and the tidings met Edward in Sicily that his home was desolate. His kind and generous uncle, Richard, his gentle, affectionate father, and his two young children, had all died during his absence. The grief that the stern Edward showed for his father's death was so overpowering, that Charles of Sicily, who probably had little esteem for Henry, and thought the kingdom a sufficient consolation, marvelled that he could grieve more for an aged father than for two promising sons. ”The Lord, who gave me these, can give me other children,” said Edward; ”but a father can never be restored!”
Before his return to England, Edward obtained from Pope Gregory X.
justice upon the murderers of Henry d'Almayne. Simon was dead, but Guy was declared incapable of inheriting or possessing property, or of filling any office of trust, and was excommunicated and outlawed. After Edward had left Italy, the unhappy man ventured to meet the Pope at Florence in his s.h.i.+rt, with a halter round his neck, and implored that his sentence might be changed to imprisonment. The Pope had pity on him, and, after a confinement of eleven years, he was liberated, and returned to his wife's estates. He afterward was taken prisoner in the wars in Sicily, but his subsequent fate does not appear.
The history of the last of the Crusaders must not be quitted without mentioning that the scene of St. Louis' death is now in the hands of the French, and that the spot has been marked by a chapel erected by his descendant, Louis Philippe; and that our own Edward sleeps in his father's church of Westminster, beneath a huge block, unornamented indeed, but of the same rock as the hills of Palestine; nay, it is believed that it is probably one of those great stones whereof it was said; that not one should remain on another.