Previous to his death, however, he had been engaged in all the great events in Palestine. After the election of Godfrey, and the battle of Ascalon, the other chiefs of the crusade had either returned to Europe or spread themselves over the country, in pursuit of their own schemes of private ambition, leaving the new kingdom of Jerusalem to be supported by its king and Tancred, with an army of less than three thousand men. This penury of forces however, did not long continue, or the Holy Land must soon have resumed the yoke it had thrown off. The spirit of pilgrimage was still active in Europe; and combined with this spirit was the hope of gain, springing from vague and exaggerated accounts of the wealth and the principalities which the leaders of the first expedition had acquired. Pilgrimages now differed from those that had preceded the conquest of Jerusalem, in being armed; and many bodies, of several thousand men each, arrived both by sea and land, and proved exceedingly serviceable in peopling the devastated lands of Palestine. Various larger enterprises, more deserving the name of crusades, were planned and attempted, which it would be endless to name, and tedious to recount. Nearly five hundred thousand people set out from Europe for Syria,[496] and to these several of those crusaders who had gone back to Europe joined themselves, urged either by shame for their former desertion, or by the hope of obtaining easier conquests, and less dangerous honours. Of these, then, I will speak first, before noticing more particularly the armed pilgrimages, in order that I may trace to the end all those leaders of the first crusade who died in the Holy Land. The first great expedition set out not many years after the taking of Jerusalem, and consisted of several smaller ones from various countries, which united into larger bodies as they proceeded, and endeavoured to force their way through Asia Minor. At the head of these armies were Count Albert,[497] of Lombardy; Conrad, Constable of the Western Empire; Stephen, Count of Blois, whom we have seen flying from the land to which shame now drove him back; Stephen, Duke of Burgundy; the Bishops of Laon and of Milan; the Duke of Parma; Hugh, Count of Vermandois,[498] who now again turned towards Jerusalem; and the Count of Nevers: as well as William, Count of Poitiers; Guelf, Duke of Bavaria; and Ida, Marchioness of Austria. At Constantinople the first division met with Raimond of Toulouse,[499] who had returned to that city from the Holy Land, in search of aid to pursue the schemes of a grasping and ambitious spirit. The new crusaders put themselves, in some degree, under his command and guidance; but their first step was to disobey his orders, and to take the way of Paphlagonia, instead of following the track of the former crusade. They were for many days harassed in their march by the Turks, then exposed to famine and drought, and finally attacked and cut to