the Kings of England, and they wickedly refused to receive it. [#] Brave, noble, chivalrous. For of course it is the bounden duty of all Christian men to rescue the Holy Land out of the hands of Paynims, Jews, and such horrible heretics, who all worship the Devil, and bow down to stocks and stones: since this land belonged to our Lord Jesus Christ, who was King of it by holy Mary His mother, and He died seised of the same. For which reason all Christian men, who are the right heirs of our said Lord, ought to recover their inheritance in that land, and not leave it in the hands of wicked heretics, who have no right to it at all, since they are not the children and right heirs of Jesus Christ our Lord.[#] [#] This singular reasoning is borrowed from Sir John Mandeville. Well! when King Beaudouin II. was dead, the Holy Land fell to the eldest of his four daughters, who was named the Lady Melisende: and she wedded Count Foulques of Anjou, and from her all the kings since then have come: so now it seems settled in the line of Anjou. I suppose our Lords the Kings of England, therefore, have no right to it any more. I cannot help feeling sorry that Duke Robert blew out the taper. I would not have done it, if it had been mine. I think to be the Queen of Jerusalem would be the grandest thing in all the world—even better than to be the Empress of Monseigneur the Cæsar. Is it not the Land of God? A letter at last!—a letter from Guy! And he is high in the King’s favour, and has won booty to the amount of eighteen thousand golden crowns, and he wants Amaury and me to go to him at once. I keep dancing about and singing, I am so delighted. And not one word of the beautiful lady! That is best of all. Guy says the King is a mesel,[#] and dwells in chambers to himself; and he has never been married, so there is no Queen, except the widow of the late King his father; and she is of the high blood of Messeigneurs the Cæsars,[#] but is not the mother of the King. He is like Guy, for his own mother, who was the Damoiselle de Courtenay, died when he was very young: and he has one sister of the whole blood, who is called the Lady Sybil; and one sister of the half blood, who is called the Lady Isabel. The Lady Sybil is a widow, though she is younger than Alix: for she was the wife of Monseigneur Guillaume, the Marquis of Montferrat, who died about the time Guy reached the Holy Land; and she has one child, Monseigneur Beaudouin, named after the King his uncle. The Lady Isabel is not yet married, and she is about fourteen years old. Guy writes that the King, and the ladies his sisters, and the old Queen, are all very good to him, and he is prospering marvellously. [#] Leper. [#] She was Maria, daughter (some writers say niece) of the Emperor Manuel Comnemus.