Their first business was the selection of a king of Jerusalem. The popularity of Godfrey, merited by his genius, bravery, and devotion, readily suggested his name to the ten electors who were chosen to voice the suffrage of the host. To secure his enthusiastic reception by the people, he did not need additional arguments drawn from imagined revelations of the will of Heaven. Yet visions were invoked to confirm the judgment of human discretion. One reported that he had seen Godfrey enthroned in the sun, while numberless flocks of birds from all lands came and nestled at his feet. This was interpreted to mean the coming glory of Jerusalem and the crowds of pilgrims who should be safe beneath his sway. Godfrey modestly declined the royal title, accepting only that of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, saying that he would not wear a crown of gold in the city where Christ had worn only a crown of thorns (July 22, 1099). With less unanimity and only after unseemly brawls, which were in strange contrast with the orderly arrangement of their secular affairs, Arnold de Rohes, the eloquent but dissolute ecclesiastic, was selected by the priests as Patriarch of Jerusalem. With true statesmanlike purpose, Godfrey addressed himself to the organization of the political and military government of his new dominion. He had, however, little time to devote to the peaceful progress of his kingdom. Raymond diverted his chief’s attention more by plots of ambition and jealousy than he aided him by wisdom of counsel. Multitudes of Christians resident in the East, excited to become such by the fame of the conquests of the crusaders, poured into the city and vicinage, and thus added to the governor’s cares. At the same time the Mussulmans, quickly recuperating from their despair, inaugurated new campaigns. The Turks and Persians laid aside their jealousy of the Egyptians, and poured southward and westward to join the army of the caliph of Cairo. Afdhal, already famous for having wrested Jerusalem from the Turks, gathered the warriors of Islam of all tribes and races, from the Nile to the Tigris. His advancing army was supported by a vast fleet, which had been laden at Alexandria and Damietta with provisions and siege apparatus for a second capture of what to them, as well as to the Christians, was the sacred city.