In the third crusade much importance had been attached to the conservation of this city. Richard Cœur de Lion had fortified it at great expense, and when that prince returned to Europe he left a numerous garrison in it. Of all the maritime places, Jaffa was nearest to the city which was the object of the wishes of the faithful; if it remained in the hands of the Christians, a road was always open for them to Jerusalem, and the means of laying siege to that place were rendered more easy; but if it fell into the power of the Mussulmans, it gave them proportionate advantages for the defence of the holy city. When it was known at Ptolemaïs that the city of Jaffa was threatened, Henry of Champagne, with his barons and knights, immediately took arms to defend it, and joined the German Crusaders, giving all their energies to the prosecution of a war which they found could now no longer be deferred or avoided. The three military orders, with the troops of the kingdom, were about to set forward on their march, when a tragical accident once more plunged the Christians in grief, and retarded the effects of the happy harmony which had been re-established at the approach of peril. Henry of Champagne, leaning against a window of his palace, at which he had placed himself to see his army defile from the city, the window all at once gave way, and in its fall precipitated him with it.[16] The unfortunate prince expired in sight of his soldiers, who, instead of following him to battle, accompanied him to his grave, and lost several days in celebrating his funeral obsequies. The Christians of Ptolemaïs were still weeping the death of their king, when the misfortune they dreaded increased their grief and consternation; the garrison of Jaffa having attempted a sortie, had fallen into an ambuscade, and all the warriors that composed it were either killed or taken prisoners. The Mussulmans entered the city almost without resistance, and twenty thousand Christians were put to the sword. These disasters had been foreseen by all who had dreaded the breaking of the truce; but the barons and knights of Palestine lost no time in vain regrets, or in the utterance of useless complaints, and looked with eager impatience for the arrival of the Crusaders who had set out from the ports of the Ocean and the Baltic. These troops had stopped on the coast of Portugal, where they had defeated the Moors, and taken from them the city of Silves. Proud of their triumph over the infidels, they landed at Ptolemaïs at the moment the people were lamenting the loss of Jaffa and crowding to the churches to implore the mercy of Heaven.