marry again as
though her husband had been dead. Mowbray's rebellion, like the
conspiracy of the Earls against the Conqueror, shows how eagerly the
Norman barons longed to shake off the yoke of the king, and how
readily Englishmen and the less powerful Normans supported even a
tyrannical king rather than allow the barons to have their way.

10. =The First Crusade. 1095--1099.=--These petty wars were
interrupted by a call to arms from the Pope. For centuries Christians
had made pilgrimages to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the holy places where
their Lord had been born and had been crucified. When the Arabs
conquered the Holy Land, Mohammedans as they were, they gave
protection to the pilgrims from the West. The Turks, who were also
Mohammedans, had lately obtained the mastery over the Arabs, and had
secured dominion over the Holy Land. They were fierce warriors,
ignorant and cruel, who either put the pilgrims to death or subjected
them to torture and ill-usage. In =1095= Pope Urban II. came to
Clermont to appeal to the Christians of the West to set out on a
Crusade--a war of the Cross--to deliver the Holy City from the
infidel. After he had spoken the multitude burst out with the cry, "It
is the will of God!" Men of every rank placed on their garments a
cross, as the sign of their devotion to the service of Christ. In
=1096= a huge multitude set forth under Peter the Hermit, who had been
active in urging men to take part in the Crusade. They believed it to
be unnecessary to take money or food, trusting that God would supply
His warriors. All these perished on the way. A better-equipped body
of knights and nobles set out later under Godfrey of Bouillon. They
fought their way through Asia Minor and Syria to Jerusalem, and in
=1099= the Holy City was taken by storm. Godfrey, though he became its
first Christian king, refused to be crowned. "I will not," he said,
"wear a crown of gold where my Saviour wore a crown of thorns." The
piety of the Christian warriors was not accompanied by mercy to the
vanquished. Holding Mohammedans to be the special enemies of God, they
treated them as no better than savage beasts. There was a terrible
butchery when Jerusalem was taken, and Christian men fancied that they
did God service by dashing out the brains of Mohammedan babes against
the walls.

11. =Normandy in Pledge. 1096.=--Robert was amongst the Crusaders. To
raise money for his expedition he pledged Normandy to his brother
William. W