Microsoft Word richard of holy trinity inp

party made loud shouting, another blew their trumpets like horns, to
frighten those who were flying. Our men, having pitched their tents in the
plain that night, kept quiet till morning; and then they saw the Turks in
vast numbers surrounding them on all sides. Our men terrified at such a
multitude, having taken up their arms, and put themselves in army, went
forth in battle array to meet them; yet the Turks did not venture to attack,
but gave way as our men came on, although their own numbers were
countless. Having heard that there were no provisions at Caiffa, as they
supposed, for the Turks had carried them all away, our men returned
towards Acre in order of battle. The Turks constantly harassed them on the
road, but they sustained little loss from their attacks. At a certain river,

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Itinerary
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however, which flows from thence to Acre, near a fountain, there was a
severe engagement, and great slaughter of noble steeds, before the armies
were separated; our army now proceeded on one side of the stream, while
the other was occupied by the enemy, who were constantly engaged in
throwing missiles, and threatening them without ceasing, as well as
harassing them in the rear. They harassed our men much, for the foot
followers and bowmen, who occupied the rear of our army, were forced to
keep facing about and discharging arrows at their pursuers without
intermission.
On the following night they pitched their camps close by the stream,
and had very little rest, but much anxiety; for they were obliged either to
drive off the enemy, who attacked them openly, or watch against hidden
ambuscades; for it was not so much by constant, as continued, attacks, that
the enemy tried to annoy them with injuries, or provoke them with jeers.
There was a bridge over the river, which it was necessary for us to pass,
but which was occupied by the Turks before our arrival; this they had not
had time to break down, as they intended, but closing together, they placed
themselves in the middle of it to check our advance; but when our men saw
that nothing but absolute force would remove them, Godfrey of Lusignan,
the kingÕs brother, with five other chosen knights, made a fierce attack
upon them, and put them to flight in a moment, and by the same assault
threw thirty of them into the river, never more to rise, for they were
drowned; thus they gained a free passage across the river in spite of all
opposition, and returned to the siege of Acre.
Chapter LXIV. Ñ With what guiles the marquis espoused the wife of Reinfred,
who was yet alive, in order to gain the heirship of the kingdom.
Now the marquis, having for some time aspired to the glory of
reigning, on seeing a way open to his wishes, made himself confident of
obtaining the kingdom, if he could supplant the wife of Reinfred; to this
end he strained every effort, and put in practice every art. But adopting an
underhand policy, he complained of the condition of the kingdom, that the
king was not able to manage affairs, that he was reigning without right,

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now his wife was removed, and that another daughter of King Amalric still
survived. He first set forth these matters among the people, but he
sedulously courted the chiefs also, enticing these with gifts, and binding
others by the tie of kindred; and all he either allures by his bland manners,
or obliges by his gifts, or gains over by his promises. It was easy for so
active a man, surpassing Sinon in devices, Ulysses in eloquence, and
Mithridates in variety of tongues, to gain all his wishes, armed as he was
with such cunning; but forasmuch as the Church forbade the bonds of
marriage to be broken asunder, the crafty man found out a new charge to
take away the wife of Reinfred; for the chiefs persuaded him that she could
be separated from her husband without violation of the law, as having
married when too young, and without consent. But Reinfred himself had
conceived the hope of gaining the kingdom in the right of his wife Ñ a
person more akin to a woman than a man, effeminate in manner and loose
in language, and to whom that verse of Virgil applies,
ÒWhile Nature doubts, if boy or girl be made,
YouÕre born, fair boy, to be a pretty jade.Ó
For one day, when, at the mandate of the chiefs, Reinfred had brought
forward his wife, he lost his bride and his kingdom together by the arts of
the marquis. Oh wickedness worthy of the satiristÕs pen and of tragic
declamation! For if we condemn the rape of Helen, the present deed is
much more base, and its injustice greater: for Helen was stolen,
surreptitiously stolen, in the absence of her husband, whereas this one was
violently withdrawn in his presence. But that the act might lose the infamy
of its wrong, the girl is given into the keeping of a sequestrator, while the
judgment of the clergy is sought for a divorce. The marquis, therefore,
tampered with the clergy by gifts and wiles; he sounded all those whom he
believed agreeable to his purpose and effects, by immense largesses and
the fascination of gold, to corrupt their judicial impartiality. The report of
so great a wickedness was carried to the ears of the most sacred
metropolitan of Canterbury; it arouses his innocence to astonishment, and
inflames the anger of the defender of the law. While he performed with

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