r to the fleet, that "he might, like Moses, raise his hands to
God during the battle;"[62] Christian was to war with Christian, not
with infidel.

The suppliant Greek Emperor in one of his begging missions, as they may
be called, came to England: it was in the reign of Henry the Fourth, but
Henry could do nothing for him. He had usurped the English Crown, and
could not afford to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, with so precarious a
position at home. However, he was under some kind of promise to take the
Cross, which is signified in the popular story, that he had expected to
die at Jerusalem, whereas he died in his palace at Westminster instead,
in the Jerusalem chamber. It is said, too, that he was actually
meditating a Crusade, and had ordered galleys to be prepared, when he
came to his end.[63] His son, Henry the Fifth, crossed the Channel to
conquer France, just at the very, the only time, when the Ottoman
reverses gave a fair hope of the success of Christendom. When premature
death overtook him, and he had but two hours to live,[64] he ordered his
confessor to recite the Seven Penitential Psalms; and, when the verse
was read about building the walls of Jerusalem, the word caught his ear;
he stopped the reader, and observed that he had proposed to conquer
Jerusalem, and to have rebuilt it, had God granted him life. Indeed, he
had already sent a knight to take a survey of the towns and country of
Syria, which is still extant. Alas, that good intentions should only
become strong in moments of sickness or of death!

A like necessary or unnecessary attention, as the case might be, to
national concerns and private interests, prevailed all over Europe. In
the same century[65] Charles the Seventh of France forbade the preaching
of a Crusade in his dominions, lest it should lay him open to the
attacks of the English. Alfonso of Portugal promised to join in a Holy
War, and retracted. Alfonso of Arragon and Sicily took the Cross, and
used the men and money raised for its objects in a war against the
Genoese. The Bohemians would not fight, unless they were paid; and the
Germans affected or felt a fear that the Pope would apply the sums they
contributed for some other purpose.

5. Alas! more must be said; it seldom happens that the people go wrong,
without the rulers being somewhere in fault, nor is the portion of
history to which I am referring an exception. It must be confessed that,
at the very time the Turks were making progress