Lady Sybil's Choice: A Tale of the Crusades

Here we are safe in the Holy City after a hurried and most uncomfortable journey. All the quiet is assuredly gone now. For the Holy City is full of tumult—cries and marchings and musters and clashing of arms—from morning till night. Lady Judith looking as calm as ever received us with a blessing and a soft glad light in her eyes which told that she was pleased to have us back. The Patriarch and the Master of the Temple have not yet arrived. Guy thinks they may tarry at Acre with Count Raymond and come on in his train.. The Lord de Clifford has come from England by way of Jaffa with the answer of King Henry the father. It seems that the Patriarch actually took with him the keys of the Holy City and the blessed Sepulchre. I am astonished that Count Raymond should have entrusted them to him. More than this they travelled by way of Rome and through their wicked misrepresentations obtained letters from the Holy Father urging King Henry to take on himself this charge. King Henry was holding Court at Reading when they came to him and the Patriarch says he was moved to tears at their account of the miserable state of the Holy Land. (Well I am not going to deny the misery; but I do say it is Count Raymond's fault and that if matters had been left in Guy's hands they would never have come to this pass.) King Henry however would not give his answer at once; but bade them wait till he had convoked his great council which sat at Clerkenwell on the eighteenth of March in last year. The decision of the Parliament was that in the interests of England the offer ought to be refused.. Well! said Guy as a mere question of political wisdom that is doubtless right; for apart from the pleasure of God it would be the ruin of England to have the Holy Land clinging round her neck like a mill-stone. Yet remember Lord Robert the Courthose never prospered after he had refused this crown of the world. He impiously blew out the taper which had been lighted by miracle; and think what his end was!. But dost thou think my Lord asked Lady Sybil looking up that he meant it impiously? I have always thought his words so beautiful—that he was not worthy to wear a crown of gold in the place where our Lord had worn for us the crown of thorns.