Baldwin, his relation Baldwin du Bourg, and many other knights high in fame, marched under his standard. The army comprised the Frisons, the Lorrainers, and indeed all the votaries of the sepulchre who dwelt between the Rhine and the Elbe. They commenced their march from the Moselle in the month of August 1096, and proceeded with perfect discipline till they reached the northern frontier of Hungary. Godfrey knew the difficulty of passing through the country which laid before him without permission of the Hungarians; and heaps of unburied corpses around warned him to be cautious of provoking a powerful foe. His ambassadors to Carloman demanded the cause of the fate of their precursors. If they had been slain in the name of justice, the champions of the cross would lament their iniquity but if they had been put to death as innocent strangers claiming hospitality, then Godfrey of Bouillon was prepared to punish their murderers. The king replied, that those who had followed Peter, Godeschal, and other preceding leaders, had not been disciples of Christ. The rabble of the Hermit, instead of evincing their gratitude, had, on quitting the kingdom, committed direful desolation. The soldiers of Godeschal had been kindly received, but were guilty of murder and rapine. Another repetition of these enormities could not be endured; and the Hungarians had therefore destroyed the next detestable crowd. These just representations were acceptable to the envoys of the pious Godfrey, who were honourably dismissed to their camp, with letters of friendship from the king to the duke, and an invitation to an interview at the fortress of Cyperon, or Poson. Godfrey went towards the place with a train of three hundred cavaliers; but accompanied only by three private friends. he met Carloman, and conversed on the peace and reconciliation of the Christians. Among nations, even the most savage, the rights of hospitality are inviolable; and Godfrey and twelve of his associates repaired to the capital, and commanded his escort to return to the main body of the army. After a few days of festivity, it was agreed between the duke and the king, that the Crusaders should march from the north to the south of Hungary; that the Hungarians should sell them provisions on equitable terms; and that Baldwin should be the hostage on the part of the Franks.* But the Latin prince was ill disposed to the office, until the duke of Lorraine shamed his selfishness, by de that no such sale was made, and that the church of Liege unjustly possessed themselves of the estate after the death of Godfrey. On the sub-claring that he himself would undertake ject of Godfrey's genealogy and character, see an article in the eighth volume of the Literary History of France. L'Art de vérifier les Dates, iii. 96, &c. ii. 760. Malmsbury, p. 448. Archb. of Tyre, 651. Godfrey of Bouillon died childless; a count of Limberg seems to have been the general possessor of his estates till the year 1106, when the emperor Henry V. conferred the duchy of the Lower Lorraine upon Godfrey, count of Louvain, whose male descendants reigned there until the year 1355, under the title of dukes of Brabant. The duchy passed then to the dukes of Burgundy. Koch, Tableau des Révolutiones de l'Europe, tom. i. p. 96. *This Baldwin du Bourg was a son of Hugh I. count of Réthel, a town on the Aisne, seven leagues from Rheims, and twelve from Chalons. The grandfather of Baldwin was lord of the town of Setunia, or Stenai, in addition to the usual territory of the counts of Réthel; and hence the distinction of du Bourg to the crusading Baldwin. See L'Art de vérifier les Dates, i. 439, ii. 631. The writers in the Gesta Dei per Francos call Baldwin du Bourg the cognatus and the consanguineous of Godfrey; but I have searched in vain for the exact mode of the relationship. it. Baldwin and his family were delivered to Carloman; and by the good conduct of the people, under the private admonition and public exhortation of Godfrey, a situation of peril was converted into a post of honourable distinction. A free commerce of money and goods was carried on between the strangers and the natives: and the soldiers of the cross marched through Hungary with military discipline and religious decorum. banks of the Save, near Malleville, the hostages were released; and the Crusaders entered the states of Greece.† They halted for a day at Belgrade, then pursued their course through the woods of Bulgaria into Thrace, and reposed themselves at Philippopoli. Godfrey'sattention to order was seconded by Alexius, who opened the imperial granaries to his On the allies. The emperor's liberality preserved the Latins; for the necessities for so large an army could not be provided for from countries which had been devastated by the wars between the Bulgarians and other savage hordes with the Greeks. While Godfrey was leading the armies of Lorraine and northern Germany through the Hungarian marshes, Hugh, the great earl, count of Vermandois, and brother of the French king, was calling to his side the armed pilgrims from Flanders and England, and the middle and north of France. His virtues and personal graces were worthy of a royal race. He was a brave and accomplished cavalier; but as he was not deeply imbued with a devotional spirit like that of Godfrey, his consciousness of merit was unrestrained by religious humility, and appeared in a proud and lofty deportment.* The knights of honourable name who marched with the Capetian prince were as numerous as the Grecian warriors at the siege of Troy. Few chieftains brought so many soldiers to the standard as Stephen count of Blois and Chartres. He was one of the most potent barons of France; and in the exaggeration of flattery, the number of his castles was said to have been equal to the amount of the days of the year. He had experienced the clemency of Philip, his nominal liege lord; in return he aided him in quelling a rebellion, and in marching with his brother to the crusade. His military skill consisted in the management of cavalry; but he better understood than practised the duties of a general; for he was one of the few champions of the cross whose character was blighted by the suspicion of cowardice. He was, however, celebrated for his sagacity, and his eloquent manner of communicating to others the stores of his cultivated mind, made him fit for the office which he sustained in the holy war, of president of the council of chiefs. Robert, count of Flanders, was not inferior in rank and power to any of his coadjutors: but he was not qualified for lofty enterprises. * Robert, 34. Guibert, 485. Alexiad, 227. + Unius enim, duum, trium, seu quatuor oppidorum dominos quis numerat? quorum tanta fuit copia, ut vix totidem coegisse putetor obsidio Trojana. Guibert, 486. L'art de vérifier les Dates, ii. 615. He was famed for irregular exploits, not systematic operations; and his courage in the field was the mere activity of brutal strength. Robert Curthose,* duke of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, embraced the martial and religious cause with a furious and precipitate passion. He mortgaged his duchy to his brother Rufus for ten thousand marks, and attached himself to the army of Hugh. When called upon to speak and act, the duke was eloquent and skilful; but his accomplishments were not sustained by the silent and solid virtues of prudence and good sense; and so viciously easy was his disposition, that he was unfit to rule over a turbulent and half civilized people. He had not the general Norman character of ostentation, but his selfishness wore the more disgraceful garb of voluptuousness. The Norman and Englisht Crusaders assembled under his standard, and among the independent lords who accompanied him, were Eustace, earl of Boulogne, (a brother of Godfrey, duke of Lorraine,) Stephen, earl of Albemarle, and the celebrated Odo, bishop of Bayeux, earl of Kent.§ Robert the First, grandfather of Robert Curthose, went on a foot pilgrimage to Jerusalem life of personal excesses and political crimes. in the year 1035, as an atonement for a long At Constantinople he joined the count of Anjou. The duke was taken ill in Asia Minor, and put on a litter, which was carried by four Moors. A Norman, returning from Jerusalem, met the party, and on asking who was in the litter, the duke, recognizing the man, raised himself and exclaimed, 66 tell your countrymen that you saw me carried into paradise by four devils." Robert made his pilgrimage, but died at Nice on his way home, July, 1036. Brompton, 911, 913. W. Gemiticensis, v. 13. which seldom rested in the stable when there England (the Pope's pack-horse in that age, was any work to be done) sent many brave men under Robert duke of Normandy; as Beauchamp and others, whose names are lost. Neither surely did the Irishmen's feet stick in their hogs, though we find no particular mention of their achieveFuller, Hist. of the Holy War, book i. ments. ch. 13. Eustace marched with Duke Robert, and not with Godfrey. Henry of Huntingdon, p. 374, and Annals of Waverly, in Gale, p. 142. Both Eustace and his father were always attached to the duke of Normandy, and frequently aided him in his altercations with William Rufus and Henry the First, § Malmsbury, 349, 477. Ordericus. Vit. 664, 724. Mus. Ital. i. 133. The earl of Albemarle The soldiers of Hugh pursued a shorter twenty-four knights arrayed in golden armour, requesting, in no very humble terms, that magnificent preparations might be made for the arrival of the standard-bearer of the Pope.* road than the oftenbeaten track through Hungary. They crossed the Alps into Italy, with the intention of embarking from some of its harbours, and proceeding by sea to the Holy Land. They found Pope Urban at Lucca, and their leader received from him the standard of St. Peter. The whole expedition seemed by the magnificence of its equipments, to be destined for pleasure rather than war, and it wasted the autumn in the gaiety and dissipation of Italy. Robert of Normandy, and. Stephen of Chartres, spread their troops for winter quarters among the towns of Bari and Otranto; but no regard for seasons could restrain the impatience of Hugh. Before his departure, he wrote a letter to the Emperor Alexius, in which he desires to be received in a manner becoming his dignity. He also despatched to the governor of Durazzo distinguished himself at various times during the crusade; but the earl bishop died at Rome before the army left Italy. Dugdale, Baronage, i. 24, 61. According to the authors of L'Art de vérifier les Dates, i. p. 842, one of the sons of Malcolm the Third, conqueror of Macbeth, left Scotland in 1096 for the Holy Land. If such had been the fact, it is most probable that he would have marched with Eustace earl of Boulogne, who married his sister Mary. But I cannot find in the Abridgment of the Scots Chronicle (Edinburgh, 1633), that Malcolm had a son who went to Palestine. Dr. Anderson, in his Royal Genealogies, is likewise silent; but he, I observe, has no other authority for the part of his book that relates to this subject, than the already mentioned Abridgment. Most of the article on Scotland, in the work of the Benedictines, it is stated, was taken from the diplomata of James Anderson and Ruddiman: but the circumstance we are inquiring about is not spoken of in that book. * Robert, 35. Fulcher, 384. In the wars which princes waged with schismatics and heretics, the papal standard was carried, and indeed in other wars, where the interference of the Pope was submitted to. By this means his name was respected, and his power extended. The exact terms of this letter cannot be known. Anna Commena reports it as if Hugh had called himself king of kings. The letter was doubtless sufficiently arrogant without this expression, which it is not likely Hugh would use, as he was only the brother of the king of kings. Du Cange, in a note on the Alexiad, has collected several authorities, English and French, proving (what no Frenchman of the old school ever doubted) that in the thirteenth century the king of France was accounted the greatest king in Christendom; and that the word rex was applied to him per excellentiam. The politics of Constantinople, ever dependent on circumstances, not on principle, had changed since the days when the proud Grecian empire had first appeared as the suppliant of barbarian Europe. The Seljukian dynasty of Rhoum was falling into decay; the Greeks no longer dreaded the loss of the sacred city, and were accustomed to the disgrace of Tartarian savages ruling over Asia Minor. Alexius had been liberal to Godfrey, for even vice paid a homage of respect to the virtue of the duke of Lorraine. But when he heard of the greatness of the European armament, and that his old enemy, Bohemond prince of Tarentum, had assumed the cross, his cowardly temper made him suspicious of the fair professions of others, and his mind vacillated between the wish of destroying and the dread of offending his allies. The west had listened to his solicitations; Godfrey's troops had taken no hostile course, and no other forces were yet in the Greek empire. He had not stipulated for any limited number of soldiers, or declared that his dispositions to enmity or friendship would be regulated by the portion of assistance that might be afforded. would have been consonant with the grandeur of imperial rank, for Alexius to have answered the arrogance of Hugh by a dignified remonstrance to the princes of Europe. Of itself it was no ground for hostilities. But the emperor commanded his naval power in the Adriatic to prevent the Latin fleet from quitting the Italian shores; to capture those ships which should escape from the blockade, and to detain as prisoners such of the Croises as under any circumstances should arrive on the Grecian coast. The count of Vermandois was the subject of Alexiad, p. 228. It + Godfrey received the praises of the Princess Anna; but she thought that secular and religious motives influenced the other princes. It was not the fact that Alexius asked for the aid of only 10,000 men. Voltaire and his followers might have found enough of crime in the conduct of the Crusaders with the Muselmans, without falsely charging upon the Latins the offence of breaking treaty with the Greeks. the last of these contingencies. His ap- | days before Christmas.* Hugh advanced pearance was ill calculated to excite to meet his friend, and scarcely had they either respect or fear. A wintery storm had scattered his vessels; his own bark had been stranded near Durazzo, and instead of entering the town in the stately manner which was conformable with the splendour of his gorgeous precursors, he was led into the presence of the lieutenant of Alexius, as a suppliant for hospitality. He was received with the most honourable salutations, and entertained with magnificence. The governor affected lamentation for the loss of his ships, and courteously bade him hope for a reverse of fortune, and the arrival of prosperous times. During his stay, Hugh felt not his captivity, for as few of his old companions had reached him, he expressed no desire to depart. But he was soon removed to Constantinople, and Alexius, by flattery and presents, so completely won his affections that he obtained from him an acknowledgment of fidelity.* Godfrey heard with indignation that the emperor considered and treated as a captive the brother of the king of France. He despatched an embassy, requiring the liberation of the count of Vermandois, and the reasons of his captivity. But Alexius persisted in the violation of the laws of nations, and the duke of Lorraine took a just though severe mode of retaliation. He acted as if war had been declared, and permitted his soldiers to ravage the beautiful plains of Thrace. The distress of the provincials were soon reported at the imperial metropolis, and Alexius repented of his perfidy. He liberated two of the companions of Hugh, and sent them to Godfrey, with the news that on his arrival at the Grecian court he should find the count himself, and no longer a prisoner. Military rapine had continued for eight days in the Thracian fields, but Godfrey, on this intelligence, restored the army to its discipline, took the road for Constantinople, and arrived in the neighbourhood of the city two * Alexiad, 228, 229. The imperial and royal families of Germany and France might, according to principles of feudal law, have claimed the fealty of most of the leaders of the crusade; and the facility with which the count of Vermandois and others took the oath of allegiance to Alexius, shows how easily the chain of feudal society in Europe was broken in its most important links. exchanged congratulations, when a state messenger requested the duke to visit the palace with his chief officers, and leave his army without the walls. But at that moment, some Frenchmen came secretly to the camp, and warned their comrades of the insidiousness of the emperor. Godfrey and his council returned therefore a refusal to the royal solicitation; and the violent and imprudent Alexius prohibited his subject from traffic with the Crusaders. This act of hostility was repelled in the same manner as the imprisonment of Hugh had been resented. On the recommendation of Baldwin and other chiefs, the soldiers were permitted to lay waste the vicinity of the city; and they soon collected provisions for the festival of the Nativity. While the religious ceremonies were in a course of celebration, the soldiers abstained from rapine, and on their conclusion the emperor recalled his impolitic edict. But he only recalled it for the purpose of pursuing his object by other means. The season of the year was at variance with living in tents, and Alexius recommended to Godfrey that the army should cross the Bosphorus, and occupy as winter quarters the palaces and country summerhouses of the Byzantine nobility. By this act of seeming friendship he conciliated the Croises, and relieved his people from the inconvenience of an immediate intercourse with them. He again entreated the duke of Lorraine to enter Constantinople; but the blandishments were without effect; and Godfrey simply replied, that he would willingly show his respect for the emperor by appearing at his palace, but that he was alarmed by tales which he had heard regarding his majesty ; and he did not know whether they sprung from envy and hatred." General expressions of regard were returned to these remarks; but Godfrey was warned by his friends against Grecian artifice. Alexius resorted to a repetition unconditional submission of the ariny. of his former measures for procuring the The consequences of the prohibition of traffic were, as usual, disastrous to the *Archb. of Tyre. 654. Baldric, 91. Archb. of Tyre, 654. numerous Greeks. Insidiousness and the attempt | to the hope of gaining the feudal dependat starvation having failed, Alexius re- ence, rather than the liberal friendship of sorted to arms. One morning in the the Latins, he desired the mediation of middle of January the Turcoples entered one of those who already acknowledged the camp of the Latins; and their arrows his authority. The brother of the French fell with direful effect. On this occasion, king did not disdain to become the advothe first where the talents of a great cate of the faithless Greek. But Godgeneral were necessary, the mind of the frey severely reproached the man who duke of Lorraine was present and active. could leave France with a He knew that if the Greeks could possess army, richly equipped, and cast himself themselves of the bridge of the Bla- at the feet of a foreign prince. "And do chernæ, his soldiers would be shut in be- you," he continued, "not only boast of tween the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and your disgrace, but, forgetting my dignity, the Barbyses, and totally at their mercy. do you ask me to imitate your baseness?" By his command, therefore, Baldwin But Hugh replied, that the oath of with the cavalry advanced to the bridge. fidelity was an unavoidable consequence Both on his road and on his arrival at of their expedition that the friendship his post, he made the squadrons of of Alexius was essential to the wellAlexius tremble and retreat. When his being of the enterprise; for that, withpurpose was apparent, all the imperial out his aid, the army would perish from troops pressed from every quarter to the hunger.* The representations of the bridge; and the loss of lives was prodi-count of Vermandois not only calmed gious before the passage of the Latin infantry was secured.* Godfrey attacked in his turn. Though he had no machines wherewith he could hatter the walls of Constantinople, yet the impetuous valour of his soldiers was dreadfully destructive. The Greeks from the tower shot arrows and hurled darts; the coats of mail protected the Latin cavaliers; yet many of the unbarbed horses were killed. But a shaft from the bow of Nicephorus, the Grecian general, entered a vulnerable place of a European knight, who had been riding round the walls, insulting the Greeks for cowardice. At this moment some batallions of heavily armed soldiers poured from the city. Their force and weight would have been irresistible; but the Franks avoided their attacks; and, therefore, the Greeks consumed their strength in vain endeavours to bring their enemies to action. Night and darkness parted the Croises and their inhospitable entertainers. The soldiers of Godfrey,gleness of purpose. With consent of before their passage of the bridge, had set fire to their quarters; and after their engagement, so fierce and destructive was their retaliation on their insidious foes, that Alexius was compelled, by the distresses of his people, to lay aside all thoughts of war. Still, however, clinging *Albert, 201, 202. + Nicephorus was the husband of the princess Anna; and she praises him in truly classical terms. Alexiad, 233, 234. the anger, but changed the opinion of the duke of Lorraine. He saw that a state of hostility with the emperor would eventually be more destructive to him than to the Greeks; that the people round Constantinople would be ruined; their ruin would be followed by that of the army; and the imperial treasures would be more easily gained by friendship than by war. Godfrey therefore resolved to make a sacred promise of fealty; and it was agreed that, on his entrance into the city, John, a son of the emperor, should be given as a hostage to the French. Before these resolves were acted upon, messengers from the prince of Tarentum reached the camp of the Latins. The Italian developed the perfidy of the emperor; and solicited his insulted companions to wait his arrival, when he would co-operate with them in taking vengeance on imperial duplicity. But nothing could break Godfrey's sin the other chiefs he answered the messengers of Bohemond, that he knew well the hatred which the Greeks bore against the Latins; but piety forbad him to turn his arms against a Christian people.† The interviews between the messengers of Bohemond and Godfrey were reported to Alexius; and the emperor anxiously hastened the negotiation. His * Alexiad, 235. Archb. of Tyre, 656, 657. |