and Margat, which belongs to the Hospitallers, Castel-blanco, Tripoli, and Antioch, still hold out against the efforts of the Turks. Saladin has caused the great cross to be taken down from the dome of the church that was built on the ground of Solomon's Temple, and for two days together it was dragged ignominiously through the streets, trampled under foot, and defiled with dirt. They have washed the inside and outside of that church with rosewater by way of purification, in order to make a mosque of it, and there they have solemnly proclaimed the law of Mahomet. The Turks have laid siege to Tyre ever since Martinmas; a great number of military engines play upon it night and day, throwing in continually square stone of vast bigness. Young Conrad, son of the Marquis of Montserrat, has shut himself up in the place, and makes a gallant defence, being well seconded by the Knights of St. John, and the Templars. On the eve of St. Silvester seventeen Christian galleys, with those brave friars on board, sailed out of the port with ten Sicilian vessels, commanded by General Margarit, a Catalan by nation, and attacked the fleet of Saladin in a manner before his eyes. The infidels were defeated. The great admiral of Alexandria and eight Emirs were made prisoners. They took eleven ships, and a great number ran aground on the coast, which Saladin set on fire, and burnt to ashes for fear they should fall into the hands of the Christians. That prince appeared the next day in his camp, mounted on the finest of his horses, whose

tail and ears he had cut off, making thus a public acknowledgment of the defeat he had received, and of the trouble it gave him."

Soon after this Guy de Lusignan formally renounced the title of King of Jerusalem. The news of these misfortunes caused the greatest distress and consternation in Europe. The Pope is said to have died of grief. The Cardinals made a Vow to renounce all recreations, to receive no presents, and never to mount their horses so long as the Holy Land was trodden underfoot by the infidels, to be themselves the first in the Crusade, to go to the holy war on foot, and to subsist on alms on the road. It is to be feared, however, that these heroic resolutions were not carried into effect.

Another Crusade was preached throughout Europe, and such as would not themselves join were compelled to pay a tax towards the cost of the expedition, which came to be called the Saladin tithe.

Spain alone was unable to join, having her hands full in fighting the Moors and Saracens, who had invaded and kept possession of the finest provinces of the peninsula. The Princess Sancha, however, daughter of Alphonsus, King of Castile, founded a convent for ladies of the Order of St. John at Sixenne, in memory of the many Knights of the Order who had fallen in Palestine, and to receive those nuns of the Order who had been driven from their cloisters by the loss of the Holy Land.

Richard I. of England was the principal leader in this Crusade, and the capture of Acre, after a long

siege, was the most important success that was obtained.

When Richard returned to England, he made over his conquest to the Knights of St. John, who thus became a sovereign Order for the first time. Jerusalem being no longer in Christian hands, the Knights established their head-quarters at Acre, which, in honour of their patron saint, they now called St. Jean d'Acre.

The city of Acre, as it was at this time, has been thus described: "Beautiful as it is, even in our own day, it was yet more beautiful when, seven centuries ago, it was the Christian capital of the East. Its snow-white palaces sparkled like jewels against the dark woods of Carmel, which rose towards the south. To the east there stretched away the glorious plain, over which the eye might wander till it lost itself in the blue outlines of hills, on which no Christian eye could gaze unmoved, for they hid in their bosom the village of Nazareth, and the waters of Tiberias, and had been trodden all about by the feet of One whose touch had made them holy ground. That rich and fertile plain, now marshy and deserted, but then a very labyrinth of fields and vineyards, circled Acre also to the north; but there the eye was met by a new boundary, the snowy summits of a lofty mountain range, whose bases were clothed with cedar; while all along the lovely coast broke the blue waves of that mighty sea, whose shores are the empires of the world.

"And there lay Acre among her gardens; the long

rows of her marble houses with their flat roofs, forming terraces, odorous with orange-trees, and rich with flowers of a thousand hues, which silken awnings shaded from the sun. You might walk from one end of the city to the other on these terraced roofs, and never once descend into the streets; and the streets themselves were wide and airy, and the shops brilliant with the choicest merchandise of the east, and thronged with the noblest chivalry of Europe.

"It was the gayest, gallantest city in existence; its gilded steeples stood out against the mountains, or above the horizon of those bright waters that tossed and sparkled in the flood of southern sunshine, and in the fresh breeze that kissed them from the west. Every house was rich with painted glass, for this art, as yet rare in Europe, is spoken of by all writers as lavishly employed in Acre, and was, perhaps, first brought from thence by the Crusaders. Every nation had its street, inhabited by its own merchants and nobles, and no less than twenty crowned heads kept up within the city walls their palaces or courts. The Emperor of Germany, and the Kings of England, France, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and Jerusalem, had each their residence there; while the Templars and the Teutonic Order had establishments as well as the Hospitallers, and on a scarcely less sumptuous scale."

CHAPTER V.

Last acts of Saladin-His death-Quiet time for the ChristiansReformation of the Order of St. John-Famine-Matthew Paris -Description of the departure of Hospitallers from LondonAnother Crusade-Siege of Constantinople-An Eastern Latin Emperor-The wars carried on by the Knights of St. JohnTestimony of an eye-witness as to the spirit of the Order-Capture of Damietta-Charges against the Order-The Grand Master visits the courts of Europe-The siege of Acre by Melec Seraf― Fanatical bravery of the Moslems-The city taken-Terrible

scenes.

"And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore,

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,

For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he bore,
And dead, as living, ever Him adored.

Upon his shield the like was also scored,

For sovereign hope which in His help he had;
Right faithful true he was in deed and word."

SPENSER.

THE death of Saladin, 1193, raised the hopes of the Christians.

That remarkable man, when he found himself near his end, ordered the officer who carried his standard in battle, to hoist, instead of it, his windingsheet, and to carry it through the streets, crying, "See here, all that the great Saladin, conqueror of the East, carries off with him of all his conquests and treasures."

After his death, his dominions were divided among his eleven sons, whose contests with one another,