The Kharezmians joined their Egyptian allies at Gaza, where a great battle was fought against the Christians and the Syrian Moslems, who met with a crushing defeat. The victors proceeded to take Damascus, but here the Turks and Egyptians fell out, and after two pitched battles the Kharezmians fled north, and dispersed in Asia Minor. Jerusalem was not restored to the Christians, but was occupied by Melek es Ṣâleḥ Nejm ed Dîn, the sulṭân of Egypt. Frederick II. was indignant with the Templars, and laid all the blame on them for not having accepted the treaty which Richard, Count of Cornwall (who afterwards became titular emperor in 1257), had made with Melek es Ṣâleḥ of Egypt in 1241,[568] instead of that which Hermann the grand master contracted in 1244 with Melek es Ṣâleḥ Ism’aîl of Damascus. Frederick had already protested against the conduct of the Order because “they took away from the dominion of the Emperor the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, intending to build in it a fortress contrary to the emperor’s honour”; for he considered himself still bound by his agreement not to fortify the Holy City, and he therefore commanded the Templars to desist from the work. After the Gaza defeat they never had any further opportunity of disobeying his orders; and, in 1146, Melek es Ṣâleḥ of Egypt wrote to Pope Innocent IV. to say “that he was sorry the Holy Sepulchre had been destroyed, and promised to punish the malefactors, and would give the keys of the said sepulchre to his faithful ones, who would never open it except to pilgrims, and that he desired to contribute to its restoration and adornment.”[569] [Sidenote: THE FALL OF ACRE] Jerusalem was never again in the hands of the Christians, and is little noticed in the latter half of the thirteenth century. St. Louis never even attempted its conquest, during the four years that he spent in the East from 1250 A. D. Ten years later Bibars usurped the throne of Saladin’s family, and proceeded victoriously to drive the Franks out of Syria. He was arrested in his designs by Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I. of England,[570] with whom he made a truce for ten years and ten months, which secured what remained of their possessions in Palestine to the Christians; but it did not include the recession of Jerusalem. Bibars was succeeded in Egypt by Ḳalâ’un, who had been a slave, but who became sulṭân about 1279 A. D. With him other truces were made, but the lands held by Templars and Hospitallers dwindled gradually, and the county of Tripoli met the same fate that had overtaken Antioch in the reign of Bibars. On the death of Ḳalâ’un the various agreements lapsed; and a massacre of Moslems, in March 1291, led to the siege of Acre by his son Melek el Ashraf, and to the fall of this last city held by the Franks on May 18 in the same year.