The threatening condition of Palestine long averted open war. Henry was the head of the house of Anjou, from which the Frank kings of Jerusalem, descended from Fulk, his grandfather, drew their origin. Baldwin the Leper, the son of King Amalric, the conqueror of Egyptian Babylon, was waging a very unequal fight against Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria. It was a brilliant struggle, but against fearful odds. A prey to a sickness which physically disabled him, weakened by the divisions of a court speculating already on his death and the break-up of the kingdom; at the head of an aristocratic body which had in a single century learned all the vices and none of the virtues of the East; with the knightly orders quarrelling with one another; with the barons of the kingdom playing the part of traitors, the princes of the confederation leaguing with Saladin, and the ablest of his allies utterly unfettered by the sense of honor;--Baldwin in despair sent the keys of the Holy Sepulchre to Henry of England, as his kinsman, and prayed him to come to the rescue. Then he died and left the kingdom first to his baby nephew, then to his sister Sibylla and Guy of Lusignan her husband. The mission of the patriarch Heraclius, in 1185, was received with little enthusiasm in the West. Some two or three great English barons, Hugh of Beauchamp and Roger Mowbray, went; but the English Church and baronage, assembled at the Council of Clerkenwell, told the king that it was his first duty to stay at home and keep the promises made in his coronation oath. He himself could do no more than offer contributions in money. The patriarch went off in disgust; and before anything was really done Saladin had captured the king, the True Cross, and the holy city. [Sidenote: The Third Crusade. ] This news, which reached England in October or November, 1187, silenced for a moment the petty quarrels of the West. But it was for a moment only. At the first shock of the tidings Henry and Philip laid aside their grievances. Richard was the first to take the cross. The popes one after another in quick succession issued impassioned adjurations that peace should be made, and that one great Catholic Crusade should rescue imperilled Christendom. The Emperor himself, the lord of the Western world, the great Frederick, declared that he would go to Palestine with all the German chivalry. In England and France went out a decree that all men who had anything should pay a tenth towards the Crusade. The Saladin tithe was enacted by a great assembly of all England, at Geddington, near Northampton, and it was the first case in which Englishmen ever paid a general tax on all their goods and chattels. This was done in February, 1188. The money was hastily collected. It was yet uncertain whether the king would go himself or send Richard or John or both. But the moment of peace was over, and for Henry at least the end was coming. [Sidenote: Henry’s last quarrel, 1188. ] [Sidenote: