During the first and second years of the pontificate of pope Alexander IV. ten bulls were published in favour of the Templars, addressed to the bishops of the church universal, commanding them to respect and maintain the privileges conceded to them by the holy see; to judge and punish all persons who should dare to exact tythe from the fraternity; to institute to the ecclesiastical benefices of the order, all clerks presented to them by the preceptors, without previously requiring them to make a fixed maintenance for such clerks, and severely to punish, all who appropriated to their own use the alms gifts and eleemosynary donations made to the brotherhood. By these bulls the Templars are declared to be exempt from the duty of contributing to the travelling expenses of all nuncios and legates of the holy see, under the dignity of a cardinal, when passing through their territories, unless express orders to the contrary are given by apostolic letters, and all the bishops are required earnestly and vigorously to protect and defend the right of sanctuary accorded the houses of the Temple.[132] In the year 1257, Brother Reginald de Vichier, the Grand Master of the Temple, fell sick and died, at an advanced age. He was succeeded by the English Knight Templar Brother THOMAS BERARD. Shortly after his election the terrible Moguls and Tartars, those fierce vagrant tribes of shepherds and hunters, whose victorious arms had spread terror and desolation over the greater part of Europe and Asia, invaded Palestine, under the command of the famous Holagou, and spread themselves like a cloud of devouring locusts over the whole country. The Templars, under the command of Brother Etienne de Sisi, Grand Preceptor of Apulia, hastened to meet them, and were cut to pieces in a sanguinary fight. The Tartars besieged and took the rich and populous cities of Aleppo, Hamah, Hems, Damascus, Tiberias, and Naplous, and at last entered in triumph the holy city of Jerusalem.[133] The Grand Master Brother Thomas Berard wrote a melancholy letter to king Henry the Third for succour. “With continual letters and many prayers,” says he, “has our poor Christianity on this side the sea besought the assistance of the kings and princes of this world, and above all, the aid and succour of your majesty, imploring your royal compassion with sighs and tears, and a loud sounding voice, and crying out with a bitter cry in the hope that it would penetrate the royal ear, and reach the ends of the earth, and arouse the faithful from their slumbers, and draw them to the protection of the Holy Land.”[134] The king of England, however, was in pecuniary embarrassments, and unable to afford the necessary succour. He was reduced, indeed, to the cruel necessity of borrowing money in France upon the security of his regalia and crown jewels, which were deposited in the Temple at Paris, as appears from the letter of the queen of France “to her very dear brother Henry, the illustrious king