Richard Cœur-de-Lion, King of England, also supported the Order of St. Lazarus, which he had seen doing good service during the Crusades. The Lazarists, both men and women, who had taken up their abode at Jerusalem, Acre, Jericho, and Bethany, were looked upon with admiration even by Saladin, who permitted them to remain in the first-named city a year after its capture. They were also favourably treated by the Emperor Frederick II., who, in his fierce disputes with Rome, had occasion to notice their pacific and conciliatory spirit. His contemporary and friend, Andrew II., King of Hungary, and father of St. Elizabeth, combined with his daughter and with his son-in-law, Louis VI., Landgrave of Thuringia, to increase the lazarettos throughout Germany. The hospital of St. Mary Magdalene at Gotha, which was founded by St. Elizabeth, and richly endowed by her family, was administered by the Lazarists, who “received travellers and needy wayfarers.” Detachments of the same order gave succour in Saxony, Poland, the banks of the Elbe, the Danube, and the Maine. Wherever the brethren were established they recognised the authority of the grand-master, who resided at Boigny, in France, and the sovereignty of the King of France. They all followed the rules of St. Augustine, and lived in conformity with the statutes which commanded them to visit the sick with pious zeal, to tend, feed, and clothe persons afflicted with incurable diseases, and to receive charitably the pilgrims, the poor, the desolate, and those who were unable to earn their livelihood. The order, though at times a warlike one in the Holy Land, was never any but a hospitallers’ order in Europe. During the latter half of the thirteenth century, various papal bulls, decisions of councils, and official sentences testify very clearly to the eminently hospitable character of the Lazarists; and these good brethren, far from confining themselves to the care of the lepers whose numbers diminished daily, relieved every variety of infirmity and sickness, and succoured all kinds of misery and suffering. The downfall of the Knights Templars, who had been rivals of the Knights of St. Lazarus, in respect both of fortune and influence, proved advantageous to the latter. The greater the severity shown towards the Templars, the greater was the protection accorded to the Lazarists, the Knights of St. John, and all the orders designated in the papal bulls as _hospitalarii milites_, that is, warriors or knights of hospitality and charity.