that thenceforward the title and the crown vested in
Isabella, her sister, who was the next heir; that Isabella, however,
was married to a man who was too feeble and timid to assert his
claims; that, consequently, a more bold and unscrupulous knight, named
Conrad of Montferrat, seized her and carried her off, and afterward
procured a divorce for her from her former husband, and married her
himself; and that then a great quarrel arose between Guy of Lusignan,
the husband of Sibylla, and Conrad of Montferrat, the husband of
Isabella. This quarrel had now been raging a long time, and all
attempts to settle it or to compromise it had proved wholly
unavailing.

The ground which Guy and his friends and adherents took was, that
while they admitted that Guy held the title of King of Jerusalem in
the right of his wife, and that his wife was now dead, still, being
once invested with the crown, it was his for life, and he could not
justly be deprived of it. After his death it might descend very
properly to the next heir, but during his lifetime it vested in him.

Conrad, on the other hand, and the friends and adherents who espoused
his cause, argued that, since Guy had no claim whatever except what
came in and through his wife, of course, when his wife died, his
possession ought to terminate. If Sibylla had had children, the crown
would have descended to one of them; but she being without direct
heirs, it passed, of right, to Isabella, her sister, and that
Isabella's husband was entitled to claim and take possession of it in
her name.

It is obvious that this was a very nice and delicate question, and it
would have been a very difficult one for a company of gay and reckless
soldiers like the Crusaders to settle if they had attempted to look at
it simply as a question of law and right; but the Crusaders seldom
troubled themselves with examining legal arguments, and still less
with seeking for and applying principles of justice and right in
taking sides in the contests that arose among them. The question for
each man to consider in such cases was simply, "Which side is it most
for my interests and those of my party that we should espouse? We
will take that;" or, "Which side are my rivals and enemies, or those
of their party, going to take? We will take the other."

It was by such considerations as these that the different princes, and
nobles, and orders of knights in the army decided how they would range
themselves on this gre