Vili.] THE CROWN OF JERUSALEM. 205 State in the middle ages. Of the work which we now possess under this name, only a book and a half out of the four books was the work of S. Thomas, the rest was added probably by Ptolemy of Lucca; but the book itself was a model which later publicists chose to follow or to comment upon. Many of these commentaries are found in our libraries; and down to the age of Sir John Fortescue, the book addressed to the King of Cyprus occupied a position of authority inferior only to the Politics of Aristotle. It is not improbable that the book was originally written for the education of the young King Hugh II; but it is certainly very curious that the composition both of the great Feudal Code of the Assizes, and of the manual of medieval politics, should have a direct relation to this remote little island. The second point to be noted is this :— Hugh saw nearly all the Crusading conquests lost. In 1268 Antioch was taken, and the prince, Bohemond VI, retired to Tripoli. In 1269 Hugh claimed the crown of Jerusalem, and was crowned at Tyre on the 24th of September. But this empty honour was not obtained without competition. The king's great-aunt, Mary of Antioch, daughter of Bohemond IV, and grand-daughter of King Amalric, contested the title ; she carried her cause to Rome for the arbitration of the pope ; and unable to make good any claim herself, she sold in 1277 her rights to Jerusalem to Charles of Anjou, the King of Naples, the brother of S. Lewis, and head of that Angevin house which transmitted the crowns of Jerusalem and Sicily to René of Anjou, the father-in-law of our King Henry VI. Hugh III then was King of Jerusalem when Edward I made his crusade. In May 1271, and for several months later, the two princes were together at Acre; and during their intimacy Hugh put before Edward a question which bore a signally close relation to that on which so much of the interest of Edward's own