A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

years of the kingdom of Jerusalem had
been healed by the tact of Balian of Ibelin only a few weeks before the battle
of Hattin, and they had broken out again on the very eve of the battle. The
disaster embittered them. The Lusignan and Courtenay supporters blamed it on
Raymond of Tripoli, and Raymond’s friends, the Ibelins and the Garniers and
most of the local nobility, blamed it, with better reason, on King Guy’s
weakness and the influence of the Templars and Reynald of Chatillon. Raymond
and Reynald were dead now, but the bitterness lasted on. Cooped up behind the
walls of Tyre, the dispossessed nobles had little else to do but to hurl
recriminations at each other. Balian and his friends who had eluded captivity
now accepted Conrad of Montferrat as their leader. They had seen that it was he
alone who had saved Tyre. But Guy’s supporters, emerging from prison after the
worst of the crisis was over, merely saw him as an interloper, a potential
rival to their King. Guy’s release, so far from strengthening the Franks,
brought the quarrel to a head.
    1188: Rivalry of Guy and Conrad
    Queen Sibylla, probably to escape from an
atmosphere hostile to her husband, had retired to Tripoli. On Raymond’s death
in the autumn of 1187 Tripoli had passed to the young son of his cousin,
Bohemond of Antioch; and Bohemond, who was easygoing and, perhaps, grateful to
have the garrison at Tripoli reinforced, made no objections when the Lusignan
partisans gathered round her there. Guy joined her as soon as he was freed; and
at once a cleric was found to release him from his oath to Saladin. It had been
made under duress and to an infidel. Therefore, said the Church, it was
invalid. Saladin was angry to hear of this but cannot have been much surprised.
After visiting Antioch, where Bohemond gave him a vague promise to help, Guy
marched with his supporters from Tripoli to Tyre, intending to take over the
government of what remained of his former kingdom. Conrad closed the gates in
his face. In the opinion of Conrad’s party Guy had forfeited the kingdom at
Hattin and during his captivity. He had left it without a government, and all
would have been lost but for Conrad’s intervention. To Guy’s demand to be
received as king, Conrad answered that he held Tyre in trust for the Crusader
monarchs who were coming to rescue the Holy Land. The Emperor Frederick and the
Kings of France and England must decide to whom eventually the government
should be given. It was a fair enough claim, and it suited Conrad. Richard of
England, as overlord of the Lusignans in Guienne, might favour Guy’s cause; but
the Emperor and Philip of France were Conrad’s cousins and friends. Guy
returned disconsolate with his party to Tripoli. It was well for the Franks
that at this moment Saladin, with his army partly disbanded, was occupied in
reducing the castles in the north of Syria, and that in January 1189 he sent
further detachments to their homes. He himself, after spending the first months
of the year at Jerusalem and Acre, reorganizing the administration of
Palestine, went back to his capital at Damascus in March.
    In April Guy came again with Sibylla to
Tyre and again demanded to be given control of the city. Finding Conrad as
obdurate as before, he encamped in front of its walls. About the same time
valuable reinforcements arrived from the West. At the time of the fall of
Jerusalem the Pisans and the Genoese were enjoying one of their habitual wars;
but amongst the triumphs of Pope Gregory VIII in his short pontificate was the
negotiation of a truce between them and the promise of a Pisan fleet for the
Crusade. The Pisans set out before the end of the year but wintered at Messina.
Their fifty-two ships arrived off Tyre on 6 April 1189, under the command of
their Archbishop, Ubaldo. Soon afterwards Ubaldo seems to have quarrelled with
Conrad; and when Guy appeared, the Pisans joined up with him. He also won the
support of the Sicilian auxiliaries. During