During the reign of Baldwin IV., Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, invaded
Palestine, and took several towns, notwithstanding the valour of
the Christians. In the succeeding reign of King Guy, however, the
Christians, still unfortunate, received a _decisive blow_, which
tended to the decline of their independence in the Holy Land; for, among
other places of importance, Saladin made a capture of Jerusalem, and
took its king prisoner. When the conqueror entered the holy city, he
profaned every sacred place, save the Temple of the Sepulchre, (which
the Christians redeemed with an immense sum of money,) and drove the
Latin Christians from their abodes, who were only allowed to carry what
they could hastily collect on their backs, either to Tripoly, Antioch,
or Tyre, the only three places which then remained in the Christians'
possession. All the monuments were demolished, except those of our
Saviour, King Godfrey, and Baldwin I.[2] The city was yielded to the
captors on the 2nd of October, 1187, after the Christians had possessed
it about eighty-nine years.
These calamitous transactions in Palestine greatly alarmed all Europe,
and several princes speedily resolved to oppose the career of the
oppressors, and to leave no means untried of regaining the kingdom of
Jerusalem.
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