The courage and ability of the old Crusader, who was already eighty years of age, hardly retarded the decay of the Latin empire. Its needs were great, and accordingly Baldwin the Second was sent on a visit to the pope and to the Western courts to obtain further supplies of men and money. Indeed, the greater part of his reign was occupied by three of such journeys. His first visit to France was in 1237. Hardly had he arrived in Paris when he learned the death of John de Brienne. The messenger who brought the tidings told a terrible story of the distress in the imperial city. The barons and soldiers[15] dared not venture outside the walls. The supply of food had run so short that many of the gentlemen of France who were charged with its defence disguised themselves and escaped by sea or, notwithstanding that the country was full of dangers, endeavoured to make their way by land to their own country. The peril was so great that Baldwin was assured that if aid were not sent the city could not resist an attack. Upon these tidings Baldwin did his utmost to obtain aid. He was received with honour wherever he went, but he received little else. In 1238, he paid a visit to England. On his landing at Dover he was asked how he presumed to enter the country without the permission of its independent sovereign, Henry the Third. Henry had had enough trouble with Crusaders. John de Brienne, who had been in England, had obtained aid from the king and had been honourably received. On his return to France he had joined with Philip Augustus against England. Henry, however, sent word to Baldwin that as he had arrived without troops he might come on to London. After receiving this permission he paid a visit to the king and finally left England with the miserable sum of seven hundred marks. [Sidenote: Pope supports Latin empire.] The pope had taken Baldwin’s cause greatly to heart. He enjoined all Christian princes to give him aid. He ordered the leading archbishops of the West to publish a new Crusade against the Greek schismatics. He directed part of the Peter’s pence to be given for the furtherance of the Crusade and ordered that the money which St. Louis with pious zeal had extorted from the Jews as obtained by usury should be employed for the same purpose. He begged the king to direct that one third of the revenues of the churches should be thus employed, and he wrote to the king of England with a similar request. In 1238 John de Bethune started from France with men and money. The expedition, however, came to grief. Its leader died at Venice and the army melted away, very few ever arriving at the Bosporus. [Sidenote: Decay of Latin empire.] [Sidenote: Sale of relics.]