death. The passage to the top of the temple was forced by the Christians, and many of the Saracens were slaughtered on the roof, many cast themselves down and were dashed to pieces. Such was the close of this horrible scene; which in itself possesses too many painful and distressing points, to need those efforts which have been liberally bestowed in the present age, to make it appear more lamentable and shocking than it really was. Everything has been done to create an impression that the slaughter was indiscriminate and universal, and that it was generally renewed on the second day, for the purpose of exterminating the whole of the Mahommedan population of Jerusalem. We have the testimony of eye-witnesses to prove, that even on the very day of the storming, great numbers were spared ;* and there is not the slightest reason to believe that any massacre at all took place on the second day, except in the temple, where the determined resistance of the Mussulmans left the crusaders no choice. The most convincing * Nec tamen omnes occiderunt, sed servituti suæ plurimos reservaverunt. The story of the second massacre rests entirely on Albert of Aix, who never visited the Holy Land at all. None of the eye-witnesses make such a statement; and as Albert couples it with the assertion, which I have distinctly proved to be false, that all the Saracens were slain in this second massacre; and as the Archbishop of Tyre, who did not fail to copy Albert wherever he was accurate, differs from him here, I have no scruple at all in saying that the whole story is without foundation. testimony, however, is that of the Arab writer Ibngiouzi, who tells us that one-half of the population was spared. He computes the amount of the slain at a hundred thousand, which was very nearly the number of fighting men supposed to be within the city.* As soon as the capture of Jerusalem was complete, and the great work for which they had come so many miles, and endured so many evils, was accomplished, the leaders of the crusade threw off the panoply of war, and putting on the vestments of penitents, proceeded from one holy place to another, to offer up their adorations with prayers and tears. The places of peculiar sanctity were purified and washed from the blood with which they were stained, and the grand consideration then became, how the Christian dominion, which it had cost so much to re-establish in the east, could be best maintained, surrounded as it was on every side by infidel enemies, whom every principle of policy should have taught to unite for the purpose of crushing the small body of inveterate foes which had * The only Arabian authority that I find which states the massacre to have continued beyond the first day, is that of the Aiman Jalal addin el Siuti, who says that it lasted seven. But as he did not flourish until very many years after, his statement is not to be put in competition with that of all the contemporary historians. It is evident that the statement of Albert of Aix, in regard to a second massacre, was founded upon a vague report of the attack upon the mosque of Omar. 34 THE LIFE OF RICHARD COUR-DE-LION. succeeded in planting the banner of the cross where the standard of Islam had so long stood unassailed.* * The feelings which influenced the crusaders in the slaughter of the Saracens, and the full conviction which they entertained that they were doing God good service in slaying the enemies of the Christian faith, are so clearly expressed by the Abbot Guibert, that I cannot resist quoting his words:-"Tantas Gentilium usquam cædes accidisse rarò legimus, nunquam videmus; Deo eis referente vicem, qui tot, pro se peregrinantium pœnas et mortes, quas tanto fuerant tempore ibidem passi, dignâ nequissimis retributione restituit. Non enim est quisquam sub Deo intellectus, cui æstemabile habeatur, quanta illic cunctis sancta loca petentibus, à Gentilium insolentia tormenta, labores, atque neces inlata constent: quæ magis Deum certa est fide doluisse credendum, quàm manu profanâ captivatam crucem atque sepulchrum."-Guibertus. BOOK VIII. SOME time before the capture of the city of Jerusalem, the difficulties and dangers which surrounded the crusaders had called forth a proposal, which no one had dreamed of at the commencement of the crusade. A part of the troops clamoured loudly for the election of a king;* and the dissensions which had taken place amongst the leaders, with the general want of unity in object, and in action, which had been conspicuous in all their proceedings since the siege of Antioch, certainly shewed, in a manner likely to convince the blindest, that a leader was wanting, endowed with greater powers than those which the princes of the crusade had conferred upon Godfrey. So general was this feeling, that, at the end of eight days, the principal chiefs met together to elect a king of Jerusalem. It might well be supposed that intrigues and dissensions would mark the choice of the princes; but * Raymond de Agiles. been no such events occurred, and there seems to have very little doubt or hesitation in the mind of any one. The various writers of different nations have declared, indeed, that the great honour of being selected from so many, to fill such a post, was conferred upon the leader to whom their prejudices particularly attached them, and Raymond de Agiles, the bigoted follower of the Count St. Giles, asserts that, in the first instance, the crown of Jerusalem was held out to him. Any one who has remarked the conduct of that prince during the whole of the first crusade, and the enmity that his avarice and deceit won from his fellow-crusaders; and who remembers that he took no share in the battle with Kerboga, was one of the last in Antioch, and the last in Jerusalem, will easily judge that the great improbability of such a statement renders it worthy of very little attention; although De Agiles was in Jerusalem at the time, and generally sincere when his prejudices and partialities permitted him to be so. Robert the Monk, however, who was also present, and Fulcher of Chartres, who was in the neighbourhood, give a different account, and declare the election to have been, as in all probability it was, perfectly unanimous. By the common decree of all," says the first writer, "by universal wish, and general assent, the Duke Godfrey was elected, on the eighth day after the capture of the city; and well did they all concur in such a |