Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/185

 corresponding' circumstances in the West, afford to us at least a number of parallels. The earlier practice had been to give the wardship of the person of the heir to the nearest relation incapable of inheriting; that of the kingdom to the presumptive heir. But the rule laid down in the Assizes, which is really perhaps a generalisation from the earlier cases rather than a deliberate constitution, was that the mother of the heir should be his guardian; in case of her death, the next relation on the side on which the kingdom moved, that is, the heir-presumptive; in case no such person could be found, it was for the barons of the kingdom to meet and choose a regent or guardian. The practice seems to have been to leave the queen-mother as regent with a bailiff or high-steward to do the work of government.

In the year 1228 the case in Cyprus was this: the King Henry, although old enough at seven to be crowned, was still a minor. His mother. Queen Alice, had married a second husband Bohemond V, heir of Antioch, and had quarreled with the lords of Ibelin, who were not only her nearest relations, but the most powerful and cleverest of the acclimatised baronage. These lords were the sons of that Balian of Ibelin who was supposed, by going to mass instead of to battle, to have ruined the chances of Guy of Lusignan at Nazareth in May, 1187: he had married the widow of King Amalric I, and his sons were thus half-brothers to the many-husbanded Queen Isabella, great uncles to King Henry, and half-uncles to Queen Alice. So long then as the family party hung together, they formed a strong phalanx; when they quarreled, all the internal strength of the kingdom was turned against itself The second marriage of Queen Alice probably broke up the unity. Philip of Ibelin died in 1227! John of Ibelin, lord of Berytus, naturally expected to succeed him as bailiff; the queen proposed a baron named Amalric Barlais. John