William of Tyre

“ Unfortunately the chapter (xix. 12) which relates to his early life has been excised or omitted from every extant manuscript of his Historia, and this remark holds good, not only for the original Latin, but also for the French translation of the 13th century. William was still pursuing his studies in Europe when Amalric I. became king of Jerusalem in 1162, but he returned to Palestine towards the close of 1166, or early in 1167, and was appointed archdeacon of Tyre at the request of Amalric in August 1167. ”

“ On his return to Palestine he stayed seven months at Constantinople with Manuel. This is William's last appearance in history, but he was writing his history in 1181, and this breaks off abruptly at the end of 1183 or early in 1184. He died probably between 1187 and 1190. About fifty years later one of his continuators accused Heraclius, the patriarch of Jerusalem, of procuring his death by poison at Rome, but this story appears to be legendary. Equally untrustworthy is the theory which identifies William with the archbishop of Tyre sent to Europe to preach a new crusade in 1188. ”

“ He was something of a scholar, and it was he who set William of Tyre to work. He was perhaps still more of a lawyer; his delight was in knotty points of the law, and he knew the Assises better than any of his subjects. ”

“ William of Tyre.
The earlier and more legitimate crusades did not lack fitting chroniclers in the same style, though none of them had the genius of Villehardouin. The Roman d'Eracles (as the early vernacular version [157] of the Latin chronicle of William of Tyre used to be called, for no better reason than that the first line runs, "Les anciennes histoires dient qu'Eracles [Heraclius] qui fu mout bons crestiens gouverna l'empire de Rome") is a chronicle the earlier part of which is assigned to a certain Bernard, treasurer of the Abbey of Corbie. ”

“ Tyre is destroyed, and the thought naturally arises, that Britain, which, at the time of the splendour of the maritime Tyrians, was an obscure island, is now at the summit of maritime renown; while Tyre is a place where only "the fisherman dries his net." This leads to an eulogium on England; and the book concludes with the triumphs of her fleets and armies on that very shore, on which science, and art, and commerce, and maritime renown, first arose. ”

“ If in his youth he had been prone to gambling, and before his marriage with Theodora had been somewhat lax in his morals, when he became a man he put away childish things; his married life was a shining example to his people and he was abstemious both in food and drink, holding that "excess in either was an incentive to the worst of crimes." Even his enemy, Nureddin, said of him, when he died—"the Franks have lost such a prince that the world has not now his like."
Literature.—William of Tyre is the great primary authority for his reign ”

“ How many of our youthful associations are connected with this great commercial city—the birthplace of Dido, the city in the labours of whose siege we have accompanied Alexander! And yet it appears to us that there is one reflection belonging to Tyre which should strike an Englishman more forcibly than even his schoolday remembrances of it. Tyre was the greatest commercial city of antiquity, as England is the greatest commercial nation of modern times. ”

“ William, [314] archbishop of Tyre, had quitted the East to come into Europe to solicit the assistance of the Christian princes, and was charged by the pope to preach the holy war. William was more able and more eloquent than Heraclius, who had preceded him in this mission, and, further, more worthy by his virtues of being the interpreter of the Christians, and to speak in the name of Christ. After having awakened the zeal of the nations of Italy, he repaired to France, and was present at an assembly convoked near Gisors, by Henry II. of England, and Philip Augustus of France. ”

“ The fate of Tyre is said to be intimately associated with102 the prophecies of Isaiah, and a great historian makes the following remarks, which we are much afraid find illustration in the histories of most great commercial states:—
“One of God’s designs, in the prophecies just now cited, is to give us a just idea of a traffic whose only motive is avarice, and whose fruits are pleasures, vanity, and the corruption of morals. Mankind look upon cities enriched by commerce like that of Tyre (and it is the same by private persons) as happier than any other ”

“ After that the Citie of Tyre was restored againe to the Christian faith, Guimunde the Patriarke of Ierusalem made him the first Archbishop of Tyre, in the yeere 1128. Which Tyre is a very ancient Citie, the Metropolis of all Phoenicia, and hath bene accompted the chiefest Prouince of Syria, both for fruitful commodities and multitude of inhabitants. This William hauing in his life written many Bookes and Epistles, died at last in the yeere 1130. ”

“ and tyrants' fears Decrease not, but grow faster than the years: And should he doubt it, as no doubt he doth, That I should open to the listening air How many worthy princes' bloods were shed, To keep his bed of blackness unlaid ope, To lop that doubt, he'll fill this land with arms, And make pretence of wrong that I have done him; ”

“ It was this feeling, probably, quite as much as any settled hostility to William's right to reign, that made his barons so eager to engage in insurrections and rebellions. There was, however, after all, a real and deep-seated opposition to William's right of succession, founded in the ideas of the day. They could not well endure that one of so humble and even ignominious birth, on the mother's side, should be the heir of so illustrious a line as the great dukes of Normandy. William's enemies were accustomed to designate him by opprobrious epithets, derived from the circumstances of his birth. ”

“ There was an eager gathering into the beech-shaded dell round the knoll of Stoney Cross, where, beneath an oak tree, lay the bleeding corpse of the Red William, an arrow in his heart. Terror fell on some, the hope of self-aggrandizement actuated others. Walter Tyrrel never drew rein till he came to the coast, and there took ship for France, whence he went to the holy wars. Prince Henry rode as fast in the opposite direction. ”

“ In later life Tyrrell resided chiefly at Shotover, in order to be near the libraries at Oxford. He was engaged upon a ‘General History of England, both Ecclesiastical and Civil,’ which he intended to bring down to the reign of William III. At the time of his death, however, he had issued only three volumes folio, which appeared between 1696 and 1704. These carried the work to the death of Richard II. The work was written with the view of confuting the monarchical opinions expressed by Robert Brady [q. v.] ”

“ He could have no love for men who, like the Whigs, regarded him as a king of their own making, or who, like the Tories, considered him no king, in the full sense of the word, at all. Whichever of the two English parties were more willing to assist his efforts for a country which he loved far better than England was virtually assured of his favour ”

“ His succession, or rather his wife's succession, was safe enough if Mary of Modena bore no male issue to James. But she might and did bear such issue, in a child whose claims could only be set aside by a revolution; and even had no heir apparent been born to the throne, the position of William accepting the English crown conjointly with his wife in his capacity as liberator of the English people would be something very different from that of a king-consort, which was all he could otherwise have hoped to be. ”

“ Few Englishmen will think any worse of the Whig because, although firmly wedded to the principle of national sovereignty, he would have been willing to lose the opportunity of expressly affirming it so long as he could by any means place William of Orange, with full regal power, on the throne. ”

“ It is surely not unjust to a man of William's antecedents to believe that from the hour that he learned the strength of his party in England, down to the hour when he was presented with the crown in the banqueting chamber at Whitehall, he had eyes for little else than the great European future which would open before him as King of England ”

“ Then, having appointed from the list of Privy Councillors a small interior Council of Nine to advise the Queen, and having delayed no longer than was necessary to place in their [Pg 84] hands the threads of a newly-discovered conspiracy, [12] William took a tender farewell of his wife, and set forth on the strange errand of defeating the army, if not destroying the life, of his wife's father. "God send," he exclaimed, "that no harm may come to him." His anxiety on this score for the Queen's sake was painful ”

“ None save Duke William could bend Duke William's bow, and while these glowing accounts of him were written from a later standpoint, and his story might easily be read backward, as a fulfilment of prophecy, we can be sure, at least, that his power asserted itself in a marked way, and that he soon gained importance and mustered a respectable company of followers as the beginning of a brilliant and almost irresistible court and army. Even King Henry of France was jealous of his vassal's rising fame and popularity, and felt obliged to pay William a deference that his years did not merit. ”

“ The King of France himself was much pleased at the breaking out of this terrible feud in the family of his neighbor, who, from being his dependent and vassal, had become, by his conquest of England, his great competitor and rival in the estimation of mankind. Philip was disposed to rejoice at any occurrences which tended to tarnish William's glory, or which threatened a division and diminution of his power. He directed his agents, therefore, both in Normandy and in Flanders, to encourage and promote the dissension by every means in their power. ”

“ Yet one is a little surprised to find William, at this stage of the year, sitting quietly at Rouen, holding a council, and presently sending forth orders for the levying of a great army, as if two wars were not already waging. His speech. In his council of the Norman barons the Red King is made to express himself in a humane and devout strain. Hitherto he had been careless about winning back the heritage of his father; he had been unwilling, for the mere sake of enlarging his dominions, to trouble a peaceful population or to cause the death of human beings. ”

“ All the material forces of a great empire were arrayed on the side of Philip. Spain, when he ascended the throne, was incontestably at the head of the civilized world. He was served by the most renowned and capable warriors, by the most consummate and adroit statesmen. William himself would have been powerless to achieve success if his skill had not been equal and his craft superior to theirs. ”

“ In each man his people see the champion who has repelled the aggression of the insolent foreigner, and has been strong enough to pursue the foreigner into his own home and there chastise him for his aggression. The blind stupidity of Austria and the crimes of Bonapartism have made King William a patriot King. When Thiers wittily and bitterly said that the Second Empire had made two great statesmen, Cavour and Bismarck, he might have said with still closer accuracy that it had made one great sovereign, William of Prussia. ”

“ He—and many more—will also, as I truly believe, be beginning to set up furniture of another sort."
"What sort's that, sir?"
"The furniture that will stand him in need for the next life; the life that Tyrrett has now entered upon," replied William in deeper tones. "It is a life that must come, you know; our little span of time here, in comparison with eternity, is but as a drop of water to the great river that runs through the town; and it is as well to be prepared for it. ”

“ Albemarle's, the smaller of the two, is more than twice that of Romney, nearly thrice that of Galway, more than four times that of Athlone. It was impossible for William to contend in the face of this evidence that he had simply been using the forfeited lands of Irish rebels to reward those public servants who had done most by valour in the field, or wisdom in the council-chamber, to establish firmly on the throne of England, the Prince chosen by the nation ”

“ The pitiless warrior, the stern and aweful king was a tender and faithful husband, an affectionate father. The lonely silence of his bearing broke into gracious converse with pure and sacred souls like Anselm. If William was "stark" to rebel and baron, men noted that he was "mild to those that loved God."
William and feudalism
But the greatness of the Conqueror was seen in more than the order and peace which he imposed upon the land. Fortune had given him one of the greatest opportunities ever offered to a king of stamping his own genius on the destinies of a people ”

“ Tyre was defended with success by the bravery of Conrad of Montferrat, who, in consequence of this success, was regarded as the great champion of the Christians. He had married a young sister of Sybilla of Lusignan, and upon the death of Sybilla, holding that the right went to the living princess, his wife, rather than to Lusignan, the husband of the dead princess, he demanded the throne. Meanwhile Guy besieged Acre, thirty miles south of Tyre, and was there surrounded by an army under the command of Saladin, and cut off from all assistance except by sea. ”

“ Gloomy European prospects—Campaign of 1692 in the Netherlands—Defeat of Steinkirk—Attempt of Grandval—Session of 1692—Place Bill and Triennial Bill—Campaign of 1693—William outwitted by Luxembourg—Defeat of Landen—Session of 1693-94—Louis's overtures of peace.
Never perhaps in the whole course of his unresting life were the energies of William more severely taxed, and never did his great moral and intellectual qualities shine forth with a brighter lustre, than in the years 1692-93. ”