And then the princes began to think of going home again. They had now been four years away. Their vow was fulfilled. Jerusalem was freed from the yoke of the Mussulman, and they could no longer be restrained. Three hundred knights and two thousand foot-soldiers alone resolved to stay with Godfrey and share his fortunes. Among them was Tancred, almost as great a Christian hero as Godfrey himself. “Forget not,” those who remained cried with tears—these knights were not ashamed to show their emotion—to those who went away, “forget not your brethren whom you leave in exile; when you get back to Europe, fill all Christians with the desire of visiting those sacred places which we have delivered; exhort the warriors to come and fight the infidels by our side.” So went back the Crusaders, bearing each a palm-branch from Jericho, in proof of the accomplishment of their pilgrimage. It was but a small and miserable remnant which returned of those mighty hosts which, four years before, had left the West. There was not a noble family of France but had lost its sons in the great war; there was not a woman who had not some one near and dear to her lying dead upon the plains of Syria; not even a monk who had not to mourn a brother in the flesh or a brother of the convent. Great, then, must have been the rejoicing over those who had been through all the dangers of the campaign, and now returned bringing their sheaves with them;—not of gold, for they had none; nor of rich raiment, for they were in rags—but of glory, and honour, and of precious relics, better in their simple eyes than any gold, and more priceless than any jewels. With these and their palm-branches they enriched and decorated their native churches, and the sight of them kept alive the crusading ardour even when the first soldiers were all dead. Raymond of Toulouse went first to Constantinople, where Alexis received him with honour, and gave him the principality of Laodicea. Eustace of Boulogne went back to his patrimony, leaving his brothers in Palestine. Robert of Flanders went home to be drowned in the Marne. Robert of Normandy, to eat out his heart in Cardiff Castle. Bohemond, Tancred, and Baldwin, with Raymond, remained in the East.