Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/94

68 into a Latin kingdom, the crown of which was given to Baldwin, count of Flanders.

Meanwhile Almeric had died, leaving vacant the two thrones of Jerusalem and Cyprus, the former of which was inherited by Mary, daughter of Isabella by her first husband. It was the unhappy lot of Palestine, at a time when she most needed a clear head to guide her councils and a firm hand to lead her armies, that the crown should be worn by either women or children. To obviate the evils likely to arise from female rule at such a critical time, a deputation was sent to Philip Augustus of France, requesting him to name some prince who might receive the hand of the new queen, and with it the crown of Jerusalem. Philip, in accordance with this wish, selected John of Brienne, count of Vienna, for the heritage, which was one more of danger than of glory. John at. once set forth for the Holy Land, and on his arrival was united to Mary and assumed the throne of the attenuated kingdom.

Whilst these changes were going on, the dissensions between the Orders of the Hospital and Temple, which had long been smouldering with ill-disguised virulence, burst forth into open hostility. There had for many years existed a deep feeling of jealousy between these fraternities, a jealousy rendered the more rancorous on the part of the Templars from a sense of inferiority in wealth and territorial possessions. Matthew Paris, a contemporary historian, estimates the property of the Hospital in the various states of Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth century at 19,000 manors, whilst that of the Temple at the same period was only 9,000. The term manor in those days was used to signify the extent of land that could be tilled by one yoke of oxen. This great difference in point of wealth, which marked the superior estimation in which the Hospitallers were held throughout Europe, naturally excited the jealousy of their rivals, and at last found vent in open warfare.

In the neighbourhood of the town of Margat, where, as has already been said, the Hospitallers had established their convent after their expulsion from Jerusalem, stood a castle, the property of a knight. named Robert de Margat. That knight held the place as a vassal of the Hospitallers, and acknow-