ained his freedom, insisted on being admitted as lord of the
city. The grand master of the Templars seconded his demand. The reply
was short and decisive. The people would own no other master than the
gallant knight who had so nobly defended them. But the escape of Tyre
had no effect on the general issue of the war. Town after town
submitted to Saladin; and the long series of his triumphs closed when
he entered the gates of Antioch.

Eighty-eight years had passed away since the crusaders of Godfrey and
Tancred had stood triumphant on the walls of the Holy City; and during
all those years the Latin kingdom had seldom rested from wars and
forays, from feuds and dissensions of every kind. From the first it
displayed no characteristics which could give it any stability; from
the first it exhibited signs which foreboded its certain downfall.

It sanctified treachery, for it rested on the principle that no faith
was to be kept with the unbeliever; and the sowing of wind by the
constant breach of solemn compact made them reap the whirlwind. A
right of pasturage round Paneas had been granted to the Mahometans by
Baldwin III. When the ground was covered with their sheep the
Christian troops burst in, murdered the shepherds, and drove away
their flocks--not with the sanction, we may hope, of the most
high-minded of the Latin kings of Jerusalem.

It recognized no title to property except in those who professed the
faith of Christ, and the power to commit injustice with practical
impunity tended still further to demoralize the people.

It gave full play to the passions of men in random wars and petty
forays, while it did nothing to keep up or to promote either military
science or the discipline without which that science becomes useless.

It was marked by an almost total lack of statesmanship. In a country
so circumstanced a wise ruler would strain every nerve to conciliate
the conquered people, to strengthen himself by alliances which should
be firmly maintained and by treaties which should be scrupulously
kept, to weaken such states as he might fail to win over to his
friendship by anticipating combinations which might bring with them
fatal dangers for his power. That the history of the Latin kingdom of
Jerusalem presents a mournful and even ludicrous contrast to this
picture it must surely be unnecessary to say. In the case of Egypt
alone did the Latin kings show some sense of the course which prudence
called upon them to t