CHAP. III.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

163

crusaders had voted to Godfrey. But Normandywas blamed 1 as wanting heart, and that thoughcourageous in usual things, and even distinguishedat Ascalon and Nice in several battles, he had notcourage enough to accept that loftiest of allearthly positions, exposed to perils and toils assupereminent. And it was attributed to the Divinewrath, and a just judgment of God on the dastardwho preferred his dukedom and the crown ofEngland, to which he was next heir, that he wasnever after successful in anything; but lost his birth-right, and died in a dungeon. It is an injustice toBaldwin to receive the gauclens de hereditate in anyother sense. His heritage was indeed magnanimityalone . 2 They say that his whole reign was onecontinuous fight, for that he was less of a politicianthan Godfrey . 3 So, after a week in his metropolis,he advanced on Ascalon, and in a battle betweenJaffa and Ramla, overthrew the Egyptian armyunder Saad-eddaule, to whom the astrologers hadpredicted death from a fall of his horse; so whenEmir of Beyroot, where the streets are slipperyand stony, he had the stones gathered and carriedaway. But it was labour in vain; for, in escaping

1 Michaud: Hist., i. 351. 1 Id.: Id., ii. 14.

3 Vertot: Hist, de Malte, i. 67.—Bosio, &c.

M 2