Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/293

281 EXPEDITION OF THE KING OF ARRAGON. 281 The ambassadors stopped to rest at Barcelona, but Alaric passed on to Toledo, and having been admitted before a Junta of the principal nobles of the country, he gave them a detailed account of what he had seen, and of the result of his embassy. The king, notwith- standing his great age, desired to go in person to the Crusade, but his son-in-law, Don Alphonso, and the Queen of Castile endeavoured to deter him from this proceeding, by representations of the treachery of the Greeks and the ferocity of the Tartars; but their entreaties, and even tears, were of no avail. The result of his enterprise is well known, — that he was cast by a tempest on Aigues Mortes, and compelled to return to his dominions.* It would have been far better for the Christian powers to have accepted the overtures of Abaga, and entered boldly into the confederation that he proposed to them : but the fatal expedition to Tunis in 1270, in which the Mongols could take no part, forfeited the advantages of an alliance so desirable for the Crusaders. Edward, the eldest son of the King of England, was the only one who went direct to the Holy Land ; but his arrival was not sufficient to change the aspect of affairs ; while Abaga, occupied in distant wars, could not even afford succour to the King of Armenia, who found himself obliged to treat with the Sultan of Egypt, in order to save his dominions, and to obtain the liberty of his son, who had been taken prisoner by the Saracens. As soon, however, as Abaga had concluded the affair that had detained him in the remote East, he hastened to encounter the Sultan of Egypt, who had entered
 * Mariana, vol. i. p. 655.