FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72  
73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>   >|  
ute and subjection. With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed: [104] but their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of discipline and valor: their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Syria: their Mamalukes were multiplied from eight hundred to twenty-five thousand horse; and their numbers were increased by a provincial militia of one hundred and seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six thousand Arabs. [105] Princes of such power and spirit could not long endure on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruin of the Franks was postponed about forty years, they were indebted to the cares of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the Moguls, and to the occasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among these, the English reader will observe the name of our first Edward, who assumed the cross in the lifetime of his father Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers the future conqueror of Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege; marched as far as Nazareth with an army of nine thousand men; emulated the fame of his uncle Richard; extorted, by his valor, a ten years' truce; [1051] and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a fanatic _assassin_. [106] [1061] Antioch, [107] whose situation had been less exposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally occupied and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and Syria; the Latin principality was extinguished; and the first seat of the Christian name was dispeopled by the slaughter of seventeen, and the captivity of one hundred, thousand of her inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli, Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the stronger castles of the Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the whole existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of St. John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more classic title of Ptolemais. [Footnote 102: The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes, the Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites, Circassians, is given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 6--31) and De Guignes (tom. i. p. 264--270;) their history from Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the beginning of the xvth century, by the same M. De Guignes, (tom. iv. p. 110--328.)] [Footnote 103: Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. ii. lettre xv. p. 189--208. I much question t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72  
73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

thousand

 

hundred

 

occasional

 

Guignes

 

Mamalukes

 
dynasties
 

Franks

 

Footnote

 

maritime

 

existence


confined
 

successively

 

Berytus

 

stronger

 

castles

 

Hospitallers

 

Gabala

 
Templars
 

Tripoli

 

Laodicea


slaughter

 

calamities

 

exposed

 

occupied

 

finally

 

Antioch

 
situation
 
ruined
 

Bondocdar

 
colony

dispeopled

 

seventeen

 

captivity

 
Christian
 

sultan

 

Bibars

 

principality

 

extinguished

 
inhabitants
 

Baharites


century

 

Macrizi

 

Abulfeda

 

beginning

 

Savary

 

Lettres

 
question
 
Egypte
 

lettre

 

history