FREDERICK ΤΠΕ SECOND. enemy, and finally compelled to offer terms. During the negotiations they found themselves deprived of everything, encamped on a plain inundated by the waters of the Nile : worn-out by hunger and sickness. The King of Jerusalem went himself to the Sultan. " There he sat down and shed tears. ' Sire,' said the Sultan, ' why do you weep ?' ' Sire,' replied the King, ' I do well to weep, for the people with whom God has charged me I see perishing in the midst of the waters and dying of hunger.' The Sultan had pity on the King, and wept himself, and for four days running sent thirty thousand loaves daily to poor and rich." So ended a Crusade which showed neither prudence nor bravery, which began with an artificially-excited enthusiasm, and was carried on by the leaders in hopes of gaining personal distinction. There was no discipline, no strong bond of a common hope ; the knights deserted the banners after a defeat and went home, some of them without even striking a blow ; and even in this time of relicworship the wood of the Cross failed to animate the spirits of the soldiers. Of all the Crusades, this was the least worthy of success, the least animated by religious ardour. We are next to see the conquest of Jerusalem absolutely effected by a Crusader, but by a Crusader under excommunication and interdict, by means of a treaty with the Mohammedans, and actually against the will and wishes of the Church. It is a troubled and tangled web of dissimulation, ambition, and interested motives, into which we dare not venture.* On the one hand we have a sovereign, clear-sighted, gifted with a strong will, highly educated, equal at all points of scholarship and attainments to any Churchman, holding tolerant views -as to differences of religion, a poet, a musician, and an artist : * See Milman's ' Hist, of Latin Christianity,' vol. iv., p. 190 et seq., for as clear a statement of the imbroglio between Frederick and the Pope as can well be looked for.