eur de Lion), took possession of it with formal ceremony,
allowed the Mohammedan population to withdraw in peace, and repeopled
the city with Christians, A.D. 1229.

He found himself in the presence of an extraordinary condition of
affairs. The excommunication against him was not only maintained, but
the pope actually went so far as to place Jerusalem and the Holy
Sepulchre under interdict. So far did the virulence of priestly
antipathy go that the Templars even plotted against Frederick's life.
Emissaries sent by them gave secret information to the sultan of where
he might easily capture the emperor. The sultan, with a noble
friendliness, sent the letter to Frederick, cautioning him to beware of
his foes.

The break between emperor and pope had now reached its highest pitch of
hostility. Frederick proclaimed his signal success to Europe. Gregory
retorted with bitter accusations. The emperor, he said, had presented to
the sultan of Babylon the sword given him for the defence of the faith;
he had permitted the Koran to be preached in the Holy Temple itself; he
had even bound himself to join the Saracens, in case a Christian army
should attempt to cleanse the city and temple from Mohammedan
defilements.

In addition to these charges, accusations of murder and other crimes
were circulated against him, and a false report of his death was
industriously circulated. Frederick found it necessary to return home
without delay. He crowned himself at Jerusalem, as no ecclesiastic could
be found who would perform the ceremony, and then set sail for Italy,
leaving Richard, his master of the horse, in charge of affairs in
Palestine.

Reaching Italy, he soon brought his affairs into order. He had under his
command an army of thirty thousand Saracen soldiers, with whom it was
impossible for his enemies to tamper. A bitter recrimination took place
with the pope, in which the emperor managed to bring the general
sentiment of Europe to his side, offering to convict Gregory of himself
entering into negotiations with the infidels. Gregory, finding that he
was getting the worst of the controversy with his powerful and alert
enemy, now prudently gave way, having a horror of the shedding of blood.
Peace was made in 1230, the excommunication removed from the emperor,
and for nine years the conflict between him and the papacy was at an
end.

We have told the story of Frederick's crusade, but the remainder of his
life is of sufficient inter