The Boy Crusaders: A Story of the Days of Louis IX.

IT was the age of chain armour and tournaments--of iron barons and barons' wars--of pilgrims and armed pilgrimages--of forests and forest outlaws--when Henry III. reigned as Kin...

ON the last Wednesday of the month of July, in the year 1248, the castle of Wark reposed in the sunshine and warmth of a bright merry summer's day; and, the exercises in the til...

IN the days when the Norman kings reigned in England, the Especs were of high account among the Anglo-Norman barons. Many were the brave and pious men who bore the name; but the...

AMONG the names of the European princes associated with the history of the Holy War, that of St. Louis is one of the most renowned. Although flourishing in a century which produ...

A CENTURY and a half had elapsed since Peter the Hermit roused Christendom to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, and since Godfrey and the Baldwins established the Christian kingdom of...

IT was Saturday; and the sun shone brightly on pool and stream, and even lighted up the dingy corners of walled cities, as the Earl of March proceeded on foot from the castle to...

NOT with the very best grace did the King of France come to the resolution of sailing for Cyprus. Indeed, the safety of his army depended, in some degree, on the route selected;...

IT was July, as I have intimated, when the ship 'Hilda,' which carried Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp, left the shores of England; and, soon after having lost sight of land, both...

About a month after Guy Muschamp and Walter Espec had reached Limisso, a tall ship bearing a Crusader of noble name, who had left Constantinople to combat the Saracens under the...

FOUR days passed over, and Walter Espec, quite recovered from the effects of his struggle with the waves, and of the salt water he had involuntarily imbibed during his perilous...

IT was the Saturday before Pentecost, in the year 1249, when the fleet of King Louis and the armed pilgrims, consisting of no fewer than eighteen hundred vessels, great and smal...

ABOUT a mile from the sea, on the northern bank of the second mouth of the Nile, stood the city of Damietta, with its mosques, and palaces, and towers, and warehouses, defended...

AND what were the sultan and the Saracens saying and doing while the Crusaders were establishing themselves at Damietta, and delighting their souls with visions of the conquest...

IT was a sad day for Guy Muschamp and Walter Espec, when they suddenly found themselves deprived of the protection of the aged war-chief under whose banner they had embarked for...

WHILE King Louis lay at Damietta, awaiting the arrival of Crusaders from France and Syria, ere venturing to march into Egypt, the utmost disorder began to prevail in the camp. T...

ON the morning after the return of the Earl of Salisbury to Damietta, and the violent proceedings of the French Crusaders against the English companions of their expedition, Kin...

WHILE the Crusaders were preparing to leave Damietta, march up the Nile, and attack Cairo, Melikul Salih, after struggling desperately with the great destroyer, yielded to his f...

IT was January 1250, and King Louis, at the head of the Crusaders, was still on the banks of the Achmoun. But it was not from reluctance to prosecute their enterprise that the a...

AT the time when Guy Muschamp was dragged away as a captive to the camp of the Saracens at Djedile, the emir Fakreddin sat in his pavilion. It was a marvellous tent, in the cent...

MORE than six weeks had passed since the Crusaders found their progress arrested by the Achmoun; and still the causeway by which they had hoped to pass the canal was not constru...

IT was still early morning, and King Louis was still on the Damietta side of the Achmoun, when the Count of Artois, the Earl of Salisbury, and the Grand Masters of the Temple an...

NO sooner did Guy Muschamp find the door of his prison opened, than he rushed out to ascertain the cause of the tumult to which he was indebted for liberty, and he discovered th...

WHEN the Constable of France informed King Louis that the Count of Artois was in extreme peril, and when Louis made an effort to go to the rescue of his brother--the Lord of Joi...

ON the day when the city of Mansourah witnessed the carnage of the Crusaders under the Count of Artois, and a great battle shook the plain outside the walls, the Egyptians exper...

NO longer could the armed pilgrims, so recently buoyed up with the hope of making themselves famous as the conquerors of Egypt, delude their imaginations with the project of adv...

IT was already dark when the pilgrim army commenced a perilous retreat to Damietta, and when the King of France, surrounded by a band of brave knights, undertook the duty of bri...

WHILE King Louis and the brave companions of his ill-starred retreat were seized as captives, or mercilessly massacred by the Saracens at Minieh, the sick and wounded Crusaders...

WHILE Louis of France and his nobles and knights were exposed to such danger at the hands of their enemies, from whom they had no reason to expect forbearance, Queen Margaret re...

IT was long ere Walter Espec, struck down wounded and bleeding at Mansourah, recovered possession of his faculties sufficiently to recall the scenes through which he had passed...

WHEN King Louis was led away by the faithful Segrines, and when he was so exhausted that he had to be lifted from his steed and carried into a house, and when the Crusaders outs...

AT Pharescour, on the margin of the Nile, the Sultan of Egypt had a remarkable palace. It appears to have been constructed of wood, and covered with cloth of brilliant colours....

THE Saracen chiefs, after having dyed their sabres in the blood of the sultan, did not confine their menaces and violent demonstrations to the tent in which the captive King of...

AT the time when King Louis, sad but unsubdued, left Damietta and steered for the Syrian coast, Acre, situated on a promontory at the foot of Mount Carmel and washed by the blue...

WALTER Espec, albeit since leaving England he had enacted the part of squire to two of the foremost earls in Christendom, was too much in need of a protector not to accept Bisse...

AFTER the assassination of Touran Chah at Pharescour, the Mamelukes were very much at a loss on whom to bestow the crown so long worn by the chiefs of this family of Saladin. In...

ASTONISHED as the Caliph Musteazem might be at the audacity which prompted a Frankish king to send ambassadors to the heir of the prophet, he did not venture to decline receivin...

WHEN the Templar and the English knight left the lodgings that had been assigned to them in the palace of Bagdad to enter the presence of the caliph, and were honoured with the...

I HAVE mentioned that, in the middle of the thirteenth century, the Moguls, or Tartars, were the terror of Asia and Europe. In considering their energy and cruelty as warriors,...

IT must be admitted that the position of the ambassadors was not enviable; and, when the Templar hastily stated that the Tartars were storming Bagdad, even Bisset's bold counten...

THE Templar and the English knight after a variety of adventures reached Acre, having on their way fallen in with Father Yves, whom King Louis had sent on a mission to 'the Old...

IT was evening, and shadows were closing over Acre. But the scene thus presented was fair to behold. The sky was richly coloured, the setting sun painted the landscape in brilli...

ON the vigil of St. Mark, after Easter, the Crusaders having mustered at Acre, flocked on board their ships and prepared to set sail for Europe. On that day also the King of Fra...

THE countenance of the King of France did not belie his heart. He was sad, and much more dejected than when he was in captivity and chains at Mansourah, bullied by the Saracens,...

ON the day after the arrival of Henry and his queen in Paris, that marvellous banquet, described as 'the feast of kings,' was given in the great hall of the Old Temple; and a mi...