generosity caused rejoicing through all the land. But the year before he died, and three years after the marriage, Baldwin had an illness which led him to reflect on a marriage contracted while his divorced wife was still living, and he sent her back. It was an unlucky wedding for the country, because the Normans in Sicily could not forgive this treatment of one of their blood, and thus another powerful ally was lost to the kingdom. As for Adelaide, she returned to Sicily filled with shame and rage, and died the same year as her husband. In that year, too, died Alexis Comnenus, Pascal, the pope, and Arnold, the patriarch. Foulcher of Chartres is careful to tell us that he saw himself that very year a red light in the heavens at dead of night. It certainly portended something, most probably something disastrous. “Quite uncertain as to what the event might prove, we left it in all humility, and unanimously, to the will of the Lord. Some of us, nevertheless, saw in the prodigy a presage of the deaths of those great persons who died that same year.” Which doubtless it was. CHAPTER IX. KING BALDWIN II. A.D. 1118-1181. Veramente è costui nato all’impero Si del regnar del commandar sa l’arti; E non minor che duce è cavaliere. As the soldiers bearing the body of King Baldwin entered the city at one gate, his cousin, Baldwin du Bourg, Count of Edessa, came in at another. He was in time to be present at the funeral. Immediately afterwards a council was held to determine on his successor. On the one hand, by the laws of succession, and in accordance with the king’s own request, Eustace, his brother, should have been the heir. But Eustace was in France. It would have been many months before he could be brought to Palestine, and the state of affairs brooked no delay. While the minds of the electing council were still uncertain what to do, Jocelyn stood up and spoke: “We have here,” he said, “the Count of Edessa, a just man, and one who fears God, the cousin of the late king, valiant in battle, and worthy of praise on all points; no country could furnish us a better king; it were better to choose him at once than wait for chances full of peril.” Jocelyn was the old enemy of Baldwin; he was supposed, but unjustly, to bear him a grudge for the ill-treatment he had received at the count’s hands; his advice, therefore, bore the more weight, as it seemed entirely disinterested. Arnold, the patriarch, seconded him, and Baldwin was chosen king unanimously. Whether Jocelyn’s advice was altogether disinterested may be doubted. At all events he received from the new king the investiture of the principality of Edessa, as a reward for his services. Baldwin was crowned, like his predecessor, in Bethlehem, on Ascension Day.