Dungeon, Fire and Sword by John J. Robinson

Author:John J. Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: M. Evans & Company
Published: 1991-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

17

The Emperor Frederick

1221 to 1229

KING JOHN OF JERUSALEM used the period of peace after the disaster in Egypt to rebuild trade with the Muslims, which was vital to the economy of his little country. To the north, however, there would be no peace until the matter of the succession to the throne of Armenia could be settled, and along with it, the rule of Antioch. The struggles for power turned bloody, with the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers deeply involved in the intrigue, still on opposite sides, in spite of their recent cooperation on the Crusade up the Nile.

Upon the death of King John’s wife and son, the legitimate heirs to the Armenian kingdom, Prince Raymond-Roupen of Antioch asserted his own right to claim the throne. He had the support of both the pope and the Knights Hospitaller, to whom he entrusted the citadel of Antioch. He also made an agreement with the Hospitallers that if they could retake Jabala from the Muslims, it would be theirs, including the surrounding lands.

Bohemond of Tripoli wanted Antioch back and had the full support of the Knights Templar. His chance came when the Armenian nobles rejected the claim of Raymond-Roupen and chose instead to pledge their allegiance to the young Princess Isabella, as their dead king had ordered them to do. They were not Roman Catholics and resented the pope trying to interfere in the government of their country, which they strongly felt was none of his business. They chose an Armenian noble named Adam of Baghras to act as regent, to rule in the princess’s place until a husband could be found. A few weeks later a bag of gold changed hands as the Hospitallers arranged to have Adam murdered by the Assassins. Bohemond took advantage of the resulting confusion to attack Antioch, assisted by the Templars, and easily overwhelmed the city, although the Hospitallers still held the citadel. Bohemond bottled them up there to squeeze them into surrender.

As the replacement for the murdered regent Adam of Baghras, the Armenian nobles selected one of their own number, an ambitious soldier named Constantine, head of the house of Hethoum. Constantine immediately assembled an army from among his supporters and went after the rival claimant, Prince Raymond-Roupen, who with Antioch gone had little military backing against the Armenian army. After a brief clash, the prince was taken prisoner and, to no one’s surprise, died in his cell a few weeks later. Now Isabella was the unquestioned ruler of Armenia, but she would have a regent running the country for her as long as she remained unmarried.

In Antioch, Bohemond’s isolation of the citadel was successful. As their food ran out, the Hospitallers abandoned the fortress. Most of them left the city, to the delight of the Templars. They were even happier when Bohemond disavowed Raymond-Roupen’s promise that the Hospitallers could have the rights to Jabala and assigned those rights to the Knights Templar. The papal legate calmed the growing tension between the orders, removing a

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