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Rh reckoning of M. Defrémery) somewhere about 1149. The Templars murdered the envoys on their return (c. 1172). Amalric demanded that the offenders should be given up to justice. Odo refused to yield the chief culprit, though he was well known, and invoked the protection of the pope. Amalric had to vindicate his right by force of arms at Sidon, and died while preparing to take stronger measures. The connexion between the Templars and the Old Man was still vital eighty years later when the two grand masters rebuked the insolence of the Assassin envoys in the presence of Louis IX. Odo de St Amand was succeeded by Arnold de Torroge, who died at Verona on his way to implore European succour for the Holy Land. The power of Saladin was now (1184) increasing daily; Baldwin IV. was a leper, and his realm was a prey to rival factions. There were two claimants for the guardianship of the state—Raymond III. of Tripoli and Guy de Lusignan, who in 1180 had married Sibylla, sister of the young king. Baldwin inclined to the former, against the patriarch and Arnold de Torroge.

There is something Homeric in the story of the fall of the Latin kingdom as related by the historians of the next century. A French knight, Gerard de Riderfort or Bideford, coming to the East in quest of fortune, attached himself to the service of Raymond of Tripoli, looking for the hand of some wealthy widow in reward. But on his claiming the hand of the lady of Botron he was met with a refusal. Angered at this, Gerard enrolled himself among the Templars, biding his time for revenge, and was elected grand master on the death of Arnold. Baldwin IV. died (1185), leaving the throne to his young nephew Baldwin V., the son of Sibylla, under the guardianship of Raymond, whose office was not of long duration, as the little king died in September 1186. This was Gerard’s opportunity. The Templars carried the body of their dead sovereign to Jerusalem for burial; and then, unknown to the barons of the realm, Gerard and the patriarch crowned Sibylla and her husband Guy. The coronation of Guy was the triumph of Raynald of Chatillon, once prince of Antioch, and Saladin’s deadliest foe. It was at the same time the overthrow of Raymond’s ambition; and both Latin and Arabic writers are agreed that the Christian count and the Mahommedan sultan now entered into an alliance. To break this friendship and so save the kingdom, the two grand masters were sent north to make terms with Raymond. But the rash valour of the Templars provoked a hopeless contest with 7000 Saracens. The grand master of the Hospitallers was slain; but Gerard made his escape with three knights to Nazareth (1st May 1187). In this emergency Raymond became reconciled with Guy; and Gerard placed the Temple treasures of Henry II. at his king’s disposal. Once more it was the Templars’ rashness that led to the disastrous battle of Hittin (4th July). Gerard and the king fell into the hands of Saladin, but were released about a year later; Raymond of Tripoli made his escape through treachery or fortune; and 230 Templars fell in or after the battle, for the fight was scarcely over before Saladin ordered all the Templars and Hospitallers to be murdered in cold blood. One after another the Christian fortresses of Palestine fell into the hands of Saladin. Jerusalem surrendered on 2nd-3rd October 1187, and the treasures of the Temple coffers were used to purchase the redemption of the poorer Christians, part of whom the Templar warriors guarded on their sad march from the Holy City to Tripoli. Part of their wealth was expended by Conrad of Montferrat in the defence of Tyre; but, when this prince refused to admit Guy to his city, both the Templars and the Hospitallers from the neighbouring parts flocked to the banner of their released king and accompanied him to the siege of Acre (22nd August 1189). In his company they bore their part in the two years’ siege and the terrible famine of 1190–91; and their grand master died in the great battle of 4th October 1189, refusing to survive the slaughter of his brethren.

On the fall of Acre Philip Augustus established himself in the palace of the Templars, who are, however, stated to have sympathized with Richard. This king sold them the island of Cyprus for 100,000 besants; but, unable to pay the purchase money, they transferred the debt and the principality to Guy of Lusignan. The English king consulted them before deciding on any great military movement; and in June 1192 they advocated the bold plan of an advance on Egypt rather than on Jerusalem. In the disputes for the Latin kingdom of the East the Templars seem to have supported Guy, and, like Richard, were credited with having had a hand in the murder of Conrad of Montferrat (April 1192). It was in the disguise of a Templar and in a Templar galley that Richard left the Holy Land. When Acre was recovered, the Templars, like the Hospitallers, received their own quarters in the town, which from this time became the centre of the order. On the death of Henry of Champagne (1197) they vetoed the election of Raoul de Tabarie; after the death of his successor Amalric they refused to renew the truce with Saladin’s brother, Saif al-Dīn, and led an expedition against the Saracens before the arrival of the new king, John de Brienne, at whose coronation in 1210 William de Chartres, the grand master, was present. Seven years later, with the aid of Walter de Avennis and of the Teutonic Knights, they commenced the building of their fortress of Castle Pilgrim, near Acre, on a rocky promontory washed by the Mediterranean on every side except the east. This wonderful structure, whose ruins are still to be seen, was fortified with a strong wall, founded on the substructure of a yet more extensive one running from sea to sea, and was flanked by lofty towers of huge squared stones. Within was a spring of pure water, besides fishponds, salt-mines, woods, pastures, orchards, and all things fitted to furnish an abode in which the Templars might await the day of their restoration to Jerusalem.

It was from this castle that in May 1218 the fifth crusade started for the expedition against Egypt. The Templars were the heroes of the siege of Damietta, at which William Fifth de Chartres was slain. “First to attack and last to retreat,” they saved the Christian army from annihilation on 29th August 1219; and when the city surrendered (5th November) the only one of its twenty-eight towers that had begun to give way had been shaken by their engines. On the other hand, it was largely owing to their objections that John de Brienne refused the sultan’s offer to restore Jerusalem and Palestine.

From the very first the Templars seem to have been opposed to Frederick II., and when he landed at Acre (7th September 1228) they refused to march under the banners of an excommunicated man, and would only accompany his host from Acre to Joppa in a separate body. They were accused of notifying Frederick’s intended pilgrimage to the Jordan to the sultan, and they were certainly opposed to Frederick’s ten years’ peace with Al-Kāmil, the sultan of Egypt, and refused to be present at his Coronation in Jerusalem. Frederick was not slow to avenge himself: he left Jerusalem abruptly, publicly insulted the grand master, demanded the surrender of their fortresses, and even laid siege to Castle Pilgrim. He left Acre on the 3rd of May 1229, and on landing in Apulia gave orders to seize the estates of the order and chase all its members from the land.

Long before the expiration of Frederick’s peace Europe was preparing for a fresh crusade against the now divided realm of the Ayyubids. Theobald of Navarre and his Crusaders Seventh reached Palestine about August 1239. The Templars shared in the great defeat near Jaffa, an engagement which their temerity had done much to provoke (13th November 1239). If the king ever accepted the overtures of Ṣāliḥ of Damascus, he was supporting the policy of Hermann of Perigord, the grand master, who towards the summer of 1244 wrote a triumphant letter to England, telling how he had engaged this sultan and Nasir of Kerak to make an alliance against the sultan of Egypt and restore the whole of Palestine from the Jordan to the sea. Theobald, however, before leaving the Holy Land (27th September 1240), signed a ten years’ truce with Ṣāliḥ of Egypt. The Hospitallers seem to have been won over to his view, and