Saladin by John Man

Author:John Man
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780306824883
Publisher: Da Capo Press

But again, with victory in sight, a Frankish relief forced the Muslims to retreat, leaving Kerak untaken, quickly restored to its former state, and still free to raid caravans travelling back and forth to Egypt.

In Jerusalem, Baldwin died at last, in March 1185, having specified in his will that his six-year-old nephew, Baldwin V, should succeed, under the control of his uncle and Baldwin IV’s own one-time regent, Raymond III of Tripoli. Pent-up rivalries simmered.

On one side stood the ‘Old Families’ headed by Raymond. He was in his mid-forties and cut an impressive figure. William of Tyre described him: slim, swarthy, dark straight hair, imperious in bearing, ‘prompt and vigorous in action, gifted with equanimity and foresight, and temperate in his use of both food and drink’. He had been captured by Nur al-Din in 1164, and spent nine years in prison until he and the Hospitallers managed to raise a ransom of 80,000 dinars. He used the time to read as much as he could, and he remained ‘indefatigable in asking questions, if there happened to be anyone present who in his opinion was capable of answering’.

On the other side, the ‘Party of the Court’, as historians have termed them, were new arrivals, the main figures being Reynald of Châtillon, Guy de Lusignan and Count Joscelin, ‘of Edessa’ as he was known, though Edessa had been lost to the family years before. This freebooting ‘count without a county’ had been one of Reynald’s co-prisoners. Others included Jerusalem’s Patriarch, the barely literate but handsome Heraclius, who had once been the lover of Sibylla’s mother, Agnes.

The rivalries intensified when the new boy-king died in April 1186, a year after his coronation. The Party of the Court turned to conspiracy, the plot being that Sibylla, the boy-king’s mother and the Leper King’s sister, would seize the throne and make her husband, Guy, king. The master-mind of this scheme, Joscelin of Edessa, persuaded Raymond of Tripoli to go off to gather other barons, ostensibly to arbitrate on the succession. In the absence of Raymond, Joscelin summoned Reynald from Kerak, proclaimed Sibylla queen and closed the gates of Jerusalem. Raymond, furious at his exclusion, was helpless.

For the coronation, the conspirators needed the royal insignia, which were in a trunk with three locks, the keys to which were held by the Patriarch, Heraclius (no problem there); the Grand Master of the Templars, Gerard of Ridford (ditto); and the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, Roger de Môlins. Roger refused to cooperate, because he said it meant breaking his oath to the newly dead king. Reynald made an unrecorded offer that Roger could not refuse, got the key and the insignia, and took them to the Patriarch, who led Sibylla up the aisle to be crowned. Then she, as queen, crowned her husband, Guy, as king.

Nothing could have more powerfully revealed how divided the Christians were. That suited Saladin, because he was in no state to take advantage, partly because he was determined to secure more territory to the east and north, and partly because in early December 1185 he went down with a fever.

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