spread among his people, who felt the need of their sovereign’s presence for keeping peace and order in the kingdom, and also feared for his own safety—­his health being greatly impaired—­there was profound respect for the motives of Louis and general acquiescence in his determination.  Among many this resignation gave place to zealous devotion, and “the warlike nobility of the kingdom only thought of following their King in an expedition which was already looked upon as unfortunate.”  Final preparations were accordingly made for Louis’ undertaking.

While all France was engaged in preparing for the expedition beyond the seas, the crusade was preached in the other countries of Europe.  A council was held at Northampton, in England, in which Ottobon, the Pope’s legate, exhorted the faithful to arm themselves to save the little that remained of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and Prince Edward took the cross, to discharge the vow that his father, Henry III, had made when the news reached Europe of the captivity of Louis IX in Egypt.  After the example of Edward, his brother, Prince Edmund, with the earls of Pembroke and Warwick, and many knights and barons, agreed to take arms against the infidels.  The same zeal for the deliverance of the holy places was manifested in Scotland, when John Baliol and several nobles enrolled themselves under the banners of the cross.

Cataloni and Castile furnished a great number of crusaders; the King of Portugal, and James, King of Aragon, took the cross.  Dona Sancha, one of the daughters of the Aragonese prince, had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and had died in the hospital of St. John, after devoting many years to the service of pilgrims and the sick.  James had several times conquered the Moors, but neither his exploits against the infidels nor the remembrance of a daughter who had fallen a martyr to Christian charity could sustain his piety against the attacks of his earthly passions, and his shameful connection with Berengaria scandalized Christendom.

The Pope, to whom he communicated his design of going to the Holy Land, replied that Jesus Christ could not accept the services of a prince who crucified him every day by his sins.  The King of Aragon, by a strange combination of opposite sentiments, would neither renounce Berengaria nor give up his project of going to fight against the infidels in the East.  He renewed his oath in a great assembly at Toledo, at which the ambassadors of the Khan of Tartary and of the King of Armenia were present.  We read, in a Spanish dissertation upon the crusades, that Alfonso the Wise, who was not able to go to the East himself, furnished the King of Aragon with a hundred men and a hundred thousand marvedis in gold; the Order of St. James, and other orders of knighthood, who had often accompanied the conqueror of the Moors in his battles, supplied him also with men and money.  The city of Barcelona offered him eighty thousand Barcelonese sols, and Majorca fifty thousand silver