first been placed on the throne of
Jerusalem, ending in a female, Fulk, count of Anjou, grandfather
to Henry II. of England, married the heiress of that kingdom, and
transmitted his title to the younger branches of his family. The Anjevan
race ending also in a female, Guy de Lusignan, by espousing Sibylla, the
heiress, had succeeded to the title; and though he lost his kingdom by
the invasion of Saladin, he was still acknowledged by all the Christians
for king of Jerusalem.[*] But as Sibylla died without issue during the
siege of Acre, Isabella, her younger sister, put in her claim to that
titular kingdom, and required Lusignan to resign his pretensions to her
husband, Conrade, marquis of Montferrat. Lusignan, maintaining that
the royal title was unalienable and indefeasible, had recourse to
the protection of Richard, attended on him before he left Cyprus, and
engaged him to embrace his cause.[**] There needed no other reason for
throwing Philip into the party of Conrade; and the opposite views of
these great monarchs brought faction and dissension into the Christian
army, and retarded all its operations. The templars, the Genoese, and
the Germans, declared for Philip and Conrade; the Flemings, the
Pisans, the knights of the hospital of St. John, adhered to Richard and
Lusignan, But notwithstanding these disputes, as the length of the siege
had reduced the Saracen garrison to the last extremity, they surrendered
themselves prisoners; stipulated, in return for their lives, other
advantages to the Christians, such as restoring of the Christian
prisoners, and the delivery of the wood of the true cross;[***] and this
great enterprise, which had long engaged the attention of all Europe and
Asia, was at last, after the loss of three hundred thousand men, brought
to a happy period.

[* Vinisauf, p. 281.]

[** Trivet, p. 104. Vinisauf, p. 342. W. Heming.
p. 524.]

[*** This true cross was lost in the battle of
Tiberiade, to which it had been carried by the crusaders for
their protection. Rigord, an author of that age, says, that
after this dismal event, all the children who were born
throughout all Christendom, had only twenty or twenty-two
teeth, instead of thirty or thirty-two, which was their
former complement (p. 14.)]

But Philip, instead of pursuing the hopes of further conquest, and of
redeeming the holy city from slavery, being disgusted with the ascendant
assumed