The chivalric spirit, one of the peculiar characteristics of this war, and of the age in which it was undertaken, kept up in the hearts of the Crusaders ambition and the love of glory. In the early days of chivalry, knights declared themselves the champions of beauty and innocence; at first they were appealed to for justice against injuries and robberies; but soon princes and princesses, deprived of their rights by force, came to demand of them the restitution of provinces and kingdoms. The champions of misfortune and beauty then became illustrious liberators and true conquerors. At the same time that a young prince came to implore the Crusaders to assist him in replacing his father upon the throne of Constantinople, a young princess, the daughter of Isaac, king of Cyprus, despoiled by Richard Cœur de Lion, repaired to Marseilles, to solicit the support of the Crusaders, who were embarking for Palestine. She married a Flemish knight, and charged him with the task of recovering her father’s kingdom. This Flemish knight, whose name history does not mention, but who belonged to the family of Count Baldwin, when he arrived in the East, addressed himself to the king of Jerusalem, and demanded the kingdom of Cyprus of him; he was supported in his demand by the châtelain of Bruges, and the greater part of his companions who had taken the cross. Amaury, who had received from the pope and the emperor of Germany, the title of king of Cyprus, far from yielding to such pretensions, ordered the Flemish knight, John of Nesle, and their companions, to quit his dominions. The knights who had embraced the cause of the daughter of Isaac, abandoned the idea of retaking the kingdom of Cyprus, and without stopping in the Holy Land, turned their steps towards the banks of the Euphrates and the Orontes, to seek for other countries to conquer. Before there was a question of attacking Constantinople, we have seen a daughter of Tancred, the last king of Sicily, espouse a French knight, and transfer to him the charge of avenging her family and establishing her claims to the kingdom founded by the Norman knights. Gauthier de Brienne, after his marriage, set out for Italy, furnished with a thousand _livres tournois_, and accompanied by sixty knights. Having received at Rome the benediction of the pope, he declared war against the Germans, then masters of Apulia and Sicily; got possession of the principal fortresses,[159] and appeared likely to enjoy the fruits of his victories in peace, when he was surprised in his tent, and fell, covered with wounds, into the hands of his enemies. He was offered his liberty upon the condition of renouncing his claim to the crown of Sicily; but he preferred the title of king to freedom, and allowed himself to die with hunger rather than abandon his rights to a kingdom which victory had bestowed upon him.