It is with a reluctant pen that we indicate the circumstances and motives of this crime, which attaches to the splendid reputation of one of the first heroes of the Crusaders, a stain, which neither his military glory, nor forged documents, can obliterate from the sight of an impartial writer. The pretended letter of the Old Man of the Mountain, composed by Richard’s partisans, to acquit him of the guilt of this murder, stands rather as a proof against him, since it has been proved to be a manifest invention and forgery.[212] This letter commences with an oath in the name of the law, and ends by being dated according to the era of the Seleucidæ, both entirely strange and unknown to the Ismailites; for, at this time, they publicly trampled on the law, and had substituted, for the chronology of the Hegira (which besides is the only one used in the countries of Islamism), that from the accession of Hassan II.; making it the epoch of the abrogation of the law. The writer’s making the Old Man of the Mountain date from Massiat, proves, in fact, nothing, either for or against Richard; but it rather heightens the probability of the opinion we have advanced, that the Crusaders were not aware of the existence of the distant grand-master at Alamut, but considered the grand-prior of Massiat, as the Old Man of the Mountain to a certainty. According to the purport of this apocryphal work of partiality for the hero, this so much celebrated murder was only an instance of the order’s revenge; the marquess having pillaged, and put to death, a brother, who was shipwrecked at Tyre; and instead of giving the order’s envoy the required satisfaction, threatening to throw him into the sea. From that time, the death of the marquess was determined on; and executed, at Tyre, by two brothers, in the presence of the whole people.