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M.Besant E.Walter
Jerusalem, the city of Herod and Saladin
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M.Besant E.Walter
Jerusalem, the city of Herod and Saladin
page 240
in the valley of Jehoshaphat, the people of the city all dressed in festival garb, and singing psalms of joy, to celebrate the feast. Joy was turned into mourning, and the procession of clergy which was descending the Mount • of Olives met, " by express order of God, and an inconceivable chance," the little troop which bore back the remains of the king. They buried him beside his brother : Baldwin du Bourg, the Count of Edessa, being the chief mourner, as he was his nearest relation.*
So died the greatest of the Christian kings, the strongest as well as the wisest. His faults were those of the age ; he was, however, before the age ; not so cruel, not so ignorant, not so superstitious, not so bigoted. He was among the first to recognise the fact that a man may be an infidel and yet be worthy of friendship ; he was also the first to resist the extravagant pretensions of the Church, and the greed of the Latin priests. He was, like his brother, the defender by oath of the Holy Sepulchre, but he would not consent to become a mere servant of the patriarch while he was styled the king of the country. We have stated above that his chief fault was an excessive love of women, and this he was wise enough to conceal. But the charge is brought forward by his priestly biographers, who, which is significant, do not advance against him a single definite case to support it. William of Tyre wanted
something, perhaps, to allege against a man who dared
beard a bishop at his own table, and swear at his gluttony
and luxury. In any case he had very little leisure for
indulgence in vice. He married three times, his first wife
being an Englishwoman, who died on her way out. His
second was the daughter of an Armenian prince, whom he
divorced on the charge of adultery. Dagobert maintained
* The epitaph on his tomb described him as
Judœ alter Machabams Spes patriœ, vigor ecclesia^.
It was obviously not written by the Patriarch Dagobert.
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