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Saturday, August 23, 2025

An Avoidable Defeat - The Battle of Hattin, July 4, 1187

 On July 4, 1187 the Sultan Saladin destroyed a Christian army in what has gone down in history at the Battle of Hattin. The victory was so complete that it led almost immediately to the loss of nearly the entire kingdom of Jerusalem. Yet there was nothing inevitable about that defeat. Below is a summary of the campaign.

 

On 27 June 1187 Saladin’s army crossed the Jordan. For his sixth incursion into the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the sultan had mustered a force estimated at 30,000 regular troops augmented by unknown numbers of volunteers motivated by jihad. The Franks fielded their entire feudal army of 1,200 knights, including about 600 knights from the militant orders and 50 knights from Antioch. Notably, this army included the full contingent of troops from Lusignan’s erstwhile insubordinate barons of Tripoli and Transjordan. The Frankish knights were supported by an equal or greater number of turcopoles and roughly 18,000 infantry.

The Frankish army mustered at the springs of Sephorie, which provided abundant water for the entire force. Saladin led his army along the west bank of the Sea of Galilee to besiege Tiberias. The city rapidly fell but the citizens and garrison withdrew into the citadel, which was held by Raymond of Tripoli’s wife and the hereditary heiress, Eschiva of Tiberias. She sent word to the feudal army requesting relief.

Lusignan called a council of war, as was customary in medieval armies, to discuss the strategy. Although the Lady of Tiberias’ four adult sons pleaded passionately for the army to lift the siege of Tiberias, the Lord of Tripoli recommended caution. He urged the king to send to Antioch for more troops and suggested that meanwhile the army should withdraw toward Acre. This, he argued, would lure the Saracens deeper into the kingdom and expose them to the frustrations of heat, thirst and living off the land.

Such a strategy was totally at odds with the traditions of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Franks had either taken the offensive or drawn up their lines of defense as close to the borders as practical. Tripoli’s strategy would also have exposed large swaths of the kingdom to enemy action. Unsurprisingly, the suggestion met with outraged rejection, particularly from Tripoli's inveterate opponents Reynald de Châtillon and the Templar Master Rideford. They called Tripoli a traitor and claimed his advice was designed to benefit Saladin. Consensus was found around a third option: staying at Sephorie and making Saladin come to them across the comparatively arid plateau between the Sea of Galilee and Sephorie.

During the night, however, the Templar Master persuaded Lusignan to overturn the consensus decision and instead to strike out across the barren plateau to relieve Tiberias. No chronicler was in the tent with Lusignan and Rideford. We do not and cannot know what was said or why.  However, we know Rideford was a rash man, who apparently knew only one  command: ‘attack’. Furthermore, he had stolen money deposited with the Temple by King Henry II of England in order to hire additional troops. While this initially gave him greater leverage over Lusignan, it also meant he risked retribution from King Henry. German historian Hans Eberhard Mayer argues: ‘[The theft] could be justified, and Henry’s wrath cooled, only by a spectacular success such as could not be achieved if the army simply sat it out at [Sephorie]….’[i] King Guy was receptive to the Templar’s advice because he had been severely criticized for failing to seek battle in 1183. He seems to have believed a major victory would bolster his fragile standing with his subjects while inaction would damage it further.

At dawn on 3 July 1187, Lusignan ordered the army to advance toward Tiberias. They  took the old Roman road to the springs of Turan, which they reached before mid-day. Military historian John France argues that at Turan the Franks would have been in an ‘unassailable position’ while yet able cut Saladin off, if he tried to move deeper into the kingdom. Had he stopped here, Lusignan would have been acting wisely and within the agreed strategic framework. Instead, he ordered the army to continue onto the plateau.

Saladin thanked Allah. In a letter, Saladin wrote: ‘Satan incited Guy to do what ran counter to his purpose.’[ii] Saladin rapidly sent light cavalry to cut the Franks off from retreat — and the water at Turan. In addition, mounted archers harassed the rearguard relentlessly, causing it to slow down. A gap opened between the main and the rear divisions. Tripoli urged Guy to press forward to reach water at Hattin six miles away. Guy, possibly influenced by the fact that Rideford was with the rearguard, opted to camp where he was — without water anywhere at hand.

During the night, the rearguard caught up to the main force, but no one had any water. Furthermore, they were now surrounded by enemy. The latter lit fires so that smoke tormented the Franks. By morning, morale was breaking and there were some desertions, but the bulk of the army resumed the march. Saladin’s army blocked their way to water whether at Hattin to the north, the Sea of Galilee to the east, or Turan to the West. Wisely, the sultan refrained from attacking until his enemies were further weakened by heat and thirst as the sun climbed higher.

The Franks needed to break through the Saracen encirclement in order to reach water, but all accounts agree Lusignan had no coherent plan for doing so. We know from Arab sources that the Franks undertook multiple charges, several of which were viewed as extremely dangerous and one of which came close to reaching Saladin. A charge led by the Count of Tripoli, possibly on orders from Guy, managed to tear open the Saracen ranks. However, only the Count and a few of his knights escaped before the Saracens closed the gap again, keeping the bulk of the army trapped. Another charge led by Ibelin enabled the escape of a couple hundred knights and maybe 3,000 infantry of the rearguard. Yet, none of these apparently uncoordinated Frankish charges were sufficient to enable the entire army to escape. Eventually, the Christian infantry broke and sought refuge on the slopes of the hills. The bulk of the knights were forced to follow up the slope — a hopeless position without water. Here, they were overwhelmed. The grueling battle had lasted many hours in the burning heat of a Palestinian summer and had been hard-fought, but Saladin’s victory was ultimately crushing.  

The king and almost all the barons of Jerusalem were taken prisoner, along with the emotionally and symbolically important relic of the True Cross. There were so many common prisoners that the price of slaves plummeted from Damascus to Cairo. The Christian dead left to rot on the field were so numerous that years later the field of bones still awed visitors. Yet the salient point about Hattin is that defeat was not inevitable. Nor was not caused by factionalism or treason. All the barons mustered and fought at Hattin. They gave their views in council, but they followed Lusignan’s orders. Once they engaged, a massive charge was the only viable option. The Franks made several. It was not ‘treasonous’ when Tripoli and Ibelin partially succeeded, but ‘heroic’ when Châtillon and others failed.

Yet the consequences of this defeat were catastrophic. Because the entire feudal army had followed Guy’s summons, the castles and cities of the kingdom were denuded of troops. Left behind were the elderly, women, children, invalids and clerics. These had no chance of defending cities, and the rules of war were clear: defiance justified slaughter, surrender enabled survival.

 Saladin wasted no time in following up on his victory. His army moved immediately for Acre, thereby cutting the kingdom in two. He obtained Acre’s surrender just four days after Hattin. Saladin then split his army in two, sending his brother south with half his forces and turned north himself. He by-passed Tyre as too hard a nut to crack quickly but obtained the surrender of Sidon on 29 July. Beirut resisted and was put the sword on 6 August. Meanwhile, in the south Saladin’s brother al-Adil captured Jaffa on 20 July after resistance, and the citizens were slaughtered or enslaved. Gaza, Hebron, Nazareth, Sebasta, Nablus, Bethlehem, Ramla and Ibelin fell in swift succession. By 4 September, Saladin had joined his brother before Ascalon and the city surrendered to him on terms. Only the great castles in Transjordan and the northern bastions of Belvoir and Safad held out, while just two cities remained in Frankish hands: Tyre and Jerusalem.

 



[i] Mayer, Hans Eberhard. ‘Henry II of England and the Holy Land,’ in Kings and Lords in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. [Farnham: Variorum, 1994] 737.

[ii] France, John. ‘Crusading Warfare in the Twelfth Century,’ in The Crusader World edited by Adrian Boas [London: Routledge, 2016] 77.

[iii] The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre. Chpt. 49, 55.

This entry is an excerpt from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.

The events leading up to the Battle of Hattin, the battle and the aftermath are described in fictional format in: 

                                                                             Buy Now!

Altogether, Dr. Helena P. Schrader is the author of six books set in the Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades.

                         


           Buy Now!                                                  Buy Now!                                                    Buy Now!
 

          Buy Now!                                               Buy Now!                                                      Buy Now!

"The Tale of the English Templar" is a fictional work that depicts the destruction of the Knight's Templar. 



An escaped Templar, an intrepid, old crusader, and a discarded bride
embark on a quest for justice in the face of tyranny. 
 
 
"St. Louis Knight" is a novel set against the backdrop of the Seventh Crusade and St. Louis' sojourn in the Holy  Land. A Templar novice and King Louis are the central characters. 
It is now available in audiobook as well as paperback and ebook.

 
 A crusader in search of faith --
A lame lady in search of revenge --
And a King who would be saint.

St. Louis' Knight takes you to the Holy Land in the 13th century, and a world filled with knights, nobles, prophets -- and assassins. 
(Available in Audiobook)

 

 

Saturday, August 16, 2025

The Usurper - Guy de Lusignan

 The succession crisis of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was one of the most fraught periods in its history. Today I look at the constitutional challenges and personal rivalries that culminated in the controversial marriage of Sibylla to Guy de Lusignan -- and how she and Guy set the  kingdom on the path to its ultimate downfall.

As soon as Baldwin IV had been diagnosed with leprosy, it became clear that he would not marry or sire children. His closest relatives were his sister Sibylla, who was two years older than he, and his half-sister Isabella, the daughter of King Amalric by his second wife, Maria Comnena. Isabella was only two years old at the time her father died and eleven years younger than Baldwin. Although the laws and customs of Jerusalem recognized female inheritance, heiresses were required to marry so that a man could fulfill the military obligations that went with the fief. This applied to the kingdom no less than to a barony or knight’s fief. Thus, while Sibylla was recognized as the heir-apparent, the issue that preoccupied the High Court was finding a suitable husband who would, as her consort, command Jerusalem’s feudal army.

Efforts to find a husband for Sibylla pre-dated the death of Amalric. The Archbishop of Tyre was sent to France in 1171/2 and returned with Stephen de Sancerre, a brother-in-law of the Louis VII of France. After only a few months in the kingdom, however, Sancerre withdrew. His reasons can only be guessed. Given the fact that Sibylla herself was still living in a convent and only thirteen years old, it is unlikely that his decision had anything to do with her, although she may have felt slighted.

The next candidate, William de Montferrat, arrived in 1176 and married Sibylla in October. Sibylla, then seventeen, became pregnant almost immediately. Unfortunately, Montferrat died within less than a year, leaving Sibylla pregnant. She bore Montferrat a posthumous son in August 1177. This made marriage to her less appealing to future candidates, as her next husband had to accept that Montferrat’s son took precedence over offspring of any second marriage.  

The Count of Flanders tried to arrange a marriage for Sibylla during his sojourn in the Holy Land. Several sources suggest that he wanted to marry both Sibylla and her sister Isabella to the sons of one of his vassals. These candidates offended the King and the High Court as too lowly. The Kings of Jerusalem might not be royalty of the first rank, but they were unquestionably more exalted than the vassals of a count.

Next, King Baldwin wrote to Louis VII of France, requesting that he select a suitable nobleman to marry Sibylla. The French king chose Hugh, Duke of Burgundy, probably to get this troublesome nobleman out of France. Burgundy was of suitable rank and a mature man of thirty-seven, who had sired several sons by his first wife. However, he failed to arrive; after the death of Louis VII, he decided his future was in France not Jerusalem.  

As each foreign candidate failed for one reason or another, sentiment for a marrying Sibylla to a local nobleman grew. This solution avoided the need to beseech a favor of a fellow monarch—and then trust in his judgment. It eliminated embassies that were away for years. Best of all, it ensured that the candidate was already adapted to the climate, the constitution and the circumstances of the Kingdom. More than one of Sibylla’s barons may have contemplated the advantages of marrying her himself or to his heir, but we know of only one concrete contender: Baldwin d’Ibelin, Baron of Ramla/Mirabel.

Both the Chronicle of Ernoul and William of Tyre’s history report that Baldwin harbored hopes of marrying Sibylla at the latest by 1179, and possibly as early as 1177. More astonishing, the rumors appear to have been so widespread that they made it to the ears of Saladin and the Byzantine Emperor. At least, this is the most logical explanation for Saladin asking a king’s ransom — literally twice the ransom demanded for Baldwin II half a century earlier — when Ramla was captured in a skirmish on the Litani known as Marj Ayun. It also explains why the Byzantine Emperor was willing to pay much of it.  

However, by 1180 Sibylla was twenty-one years old and had other ideas. At Easter she married, in obvious haste, the third son of a Poitevan nobleman by the name of Guy de Lusignan. Guy’s elder brother Aimery had been in the kingdom nearly a decade already and had steadily advanced in royal service. He was competent, likeable and respected. His younger brother Guy, however, arrived under a cloud. According to the biographer of William Marshal, Guy and his older brother Geoffrey attempted to kidnap Eleanor of Aquitaine. While she escaped, Guy (or his brother) struck down the Earl of Salisbury — from behind. Salisbury was allegedly unarmored at the time and in the act of mounting. It was an unchivalrous act, and sharply condemned by contemporaries. Allegedly it made Guy persona non grata in the Plantagenet court. Be that as it may, the younger Lusignan had literally nothing to recommend him and the fact that the marriage took place in a hurry without pomp during Easter Week all point to a scandal.

William of Tyre attempts to explain the haste of the marriage (which he reports) with suspicions on the part of King Baldwin against the Count of Tripoli, Bohemond of Antioch, and Baldwin of Ramla.  Allegedly the king feared these men conspired to marry Ramla to Sibylla and make Ramla king in Baldwin’s stead. Yet Tyre also reports that the alleged conspirators peacefully attended Easter services and then went their separate ways — astonishing behavior for would-be usurpers. Furthermore, the Chronicle of Ernoul offers another, far more credible explanation, namely that Guy seduced Sibylla, and the hasty marriage was necessary to cover up the disgrace.

Whatever the reasons for the marriage, Guy was promptly made Count of Jaffa and Ascalon, the traditional title of the heir apparent, and in 1183 when Baldwin suffered one of his recurring bouts of incapacitating fever, he named Guy de Lusignan regent of the realm. Shortly afterwards, Saladin invaded and the largest feudal army ever mustered in the history kingdom collected at Sephorie — and proceeded to do nothing. While Tyre admits he heard conflicting explanations of why and could not ‘fully ascertained the truth of the matter,’[i] King Baldwin blamed Guy de Lusignan for the sorry showing. Tyre reports: ‘Meanwhile the king realized that in the conduct of affairs [in the recent campaign], the Count of Jaffa…had shown himself far from wise or valiant. Through his imprudence and general inefficiency, the condition of the kingdom had fallen into an evil state.’[ii] Moreover, according to Tyre, ‘by the unanimous advice of the barons’, he crowned his nephew, Sibylla’s son by William de Montferrat, co-monarch. Baldwin then summoned the feudal army and the True Cross and marched out to lift the siege of Kerak, which Saladin had undertaken with great vigor in the meantime. Saladin withdrew rather than face the Leper King.

On his return to Jerusalem, Baldwin set out to find a means of dissolving his sister’s marriage to Lusignan. Sibylla refused to cooperate and Lusignan was defiant, going to the extreme of retreating behind the walls of Ascalon and refusing entry to the king. Lusignan next attacked Bedouins under the king’s protection. Yet Sibylla remained devoted to Guy, strong evidence that Ernoul’s version of her marriage is accurate. To her death, Sibylla remained passionately attached to Lusignan, hardly the behavior of a girl forced into a political marriage by her panicked brother. The church sided with the ‘virtuous’ Sibylla; the barons with the king.

Meanwhile, the king’s health continued to deteriorate. Baldwin could no longer ride. Indeed, he could no longer use either his hands or his feet, and he was losing his eyesight. He had to be carried in a litter when he led his army to relieve Kerak in 1183 and again when he confronted Lusignan at Ascalon. He called a council at Acre and turned over the rule of his kingdom to the Count of Tripoli. It was also agreed that Tripoli would serve as regent for Baldwin V, who was just six years old; the boy’s maternal uncle, the Count of Edessa, was named his guardian. Last but not least, the barons swore that should Baldwin V die before he came of age, they would ask the Kings of England and France, the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor to adjudicate the succession between Amalric’s surviving children, the Princesses Sibylla and Isabella. In short, the succession had not been satisfactorily resolved when on or around 15 April 1185 Baldwin IV succumbed to his illness, aged just 23.

What happened next amounted to a coup d’etat. The barons of the kingdom had sworn oaths to consult Western leaders on who should succeeded Baldwin V. Even in the absence of such an oath, the election of the successor to a deceased monarch had lain with the High Court since the founding of the kingdom. The High Court had not always selected strictly on the basis of primogeniture and it had successfully imposed conditions on candidates. There was nothing ‘pro forma’ or ‘routine’ about the High Court’s role in selecting a monarch, and nothing automatic about the elder of two sisters being selected to rule.

Thus, when Sibylla persuaded the Patriarch of Jerusalem to crown her queen in the Holy Sepulcher, both consciously acted in violation of the constitution of the kingdom because Sibylla had neither been selected nor approved by the High Court of Jerusalem. She was a usurper, and she knew it. She acted with the support of her closest relatives — her maternal uncle titular Count of Edessa, her father-in-law by her first marriage, William Marquise de Montferrat (who was not a baron of the kingdom), her brother-in-law Aimery, and two avowed enemies of the acting regent: the Master of the Knights Templar and the Lord of Transjordan, Reynald de Châtillon. No other supporters of Sibylla are known by name.

Furthermore, some of these and/or other unnamed supporters demanded that Sibylla divorce her unpopular and distrusted husband Guy de Lusignan and take a new husband. Sibylla agreed on the condition that she be allowed to choose her new husband. As soon as she was crowned, she announced that she chose as her new husband Guy de Lusignan. In short, she intentionally deceived her own supporters. Indeed, she had to crown Guy herself because the Patriarch of Jerusalem was so shocked by her duplicity that he refused to do so.

Meanwhile, the other members of the High Court were meeting in Nablus, having been summoned there by the regent to discuss the succession. There was nothing inherently illegal or suspicious about this venue. The High Court had met outside Jerusalem on various other occasions, Nablus belonged to the royal domain, and it was comparatively close to Jerusalem. What happened at Nablus also belies accusations of treason on Tripoli’s part. When news reached Nablus that Sibylla had been crowned queen, there was no effort to make Tripoli king in her stead. Rather, the assembled barons, bishops and knights agreed to crown Princess Isabella in Bethlehem. Because she had been selected by the High Court, Isabella would have been the legitimate queen of Jerusalem had she been crowned.

While the idea of two rival queens may sound suicidal in light of the threat posed by Saladin, it may not have been as risky as it sounds. If, as Ernoul claims, the overwhelming majority of barons were at Nablus, then they could muster significantly more troops than Sibylla’s supporters. In short, they stood a reasonable chance of defeating known military incompetents such as Edessa, the younger Lusignan, and the pig-headed Templar Master Gerard Rideford. Furthermore, horrible as civil war sounds, it would in fact have been better than what happened under Sibylla and Guy: the near obliteration of the entire kingdom in less than a year.

Isabella’s coronation was prevented by her own husband. Isabella had been married since the age of eleven to Humphrey de Toron, a youth little older than herself. Toron is described in the chronicles variously as ‘cowardly and effeminate’[iii] and ‘more like a woman than a man’ with ‘a gentle manner and a stammer.’[iv] Although present in Nablus, once the High Court had decided to recognize and crown his wife, he slipped out in the dark of the night and went to Jerusalem where he did homage to Sibylla and Guy. This act made it impossible for the High Court to crown him king. Fourteen-year-old Isabella, however, could not rule alone; she needed a consort to fulfill the feudal function of commanding the kingdom’s armies. Humphrey’s homage to Sibylla therefore robbed his wife of a throne and the High Court of a viable alternative to Sibylla and Guy. The majority caved in and duly did homage to the usurpers. Two men did not: Baldwin Baron of Ramla/Mirabel and Raymond Count of Tripoli.

The Baron of Ramla/Mirabel had himself been a contender for Sibylla’s hand, which may explain his bitterness and refusal to accept Lusignan as king. In front of his peers, he refused to do homage to Guy, abdicated his entire inheritance in favor of his infant son, and left both his lands and his son in the care of his younger brother Balian before departing the kingdom. Ramla went to Antioch, where he was welcomed, and then disappears from the pages of history. While his action was dramatic, it did not weaken or endanger the kingdom particularly as his brother was mature and capable of governing Ramla/Mirabel and leading its troops.

Tripoli, on the other hand, did not abdicate but rather withdrew to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. This was the main city in the Principality of Galilee, which Tripoli held by right of his wife. Guy responded by summoning the feudal army to invade Galilee. Tripoli countered by requesting assistance from Saladin, which the sultan graciously granted.

Although Guy had provided the provocation by threatening an invasion, Tripoli’s pact with Saladin was treasonous. The Principality of Galilee was a component part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Tripoli had no right to make a separate peace with an avowed enemy in order to preserve his control over it. Furthermore, Galilee sat on the border with the Sultanate of Damascus and extended inwards almost to Nazareth. His treaty with Saladin gutted the kingdom and made it indefensible, not to mention removing the 100 knights of Galilee from the feudal levee. While his refusal to acknowledge Guy as king was understandable and based on sound legal principles, his treaty with Saladin was an action that endangered not only the crown but every man, woman and child in the kingdom. It is not defensible.

Balian d’Ibelin offered to act as a mediator between Lusignan and Tripoli, but Lusignan had meanwhile seized Beirut, another of Tripoli’s fiefs, and Tripoli would not negotiate until Beirut was restored to him. In the midst of this stand-off, Reynald de Châtillon broke the existing four-year truce with Saladin by attacking a caravan traveling from Cairo to Damascus. Unlike earlier actions by Châtillon, this does not appear to have had any strategic dimension to justify it. When Lusignan ordered Châtillon to restore the prisoners and plunder to Saladin, Châtillon flatly refused. Tellingly, Châtillon justified his action with the assertion that he was absolute ruler of Transjordan and did not have to take orders from the King in Jerusalem. This suggests Châtillon had backed the usurpation of Lusignan precisely because he viewed Lusignan as so weak and ineffectual that he could ignore him altogether. The kingdom that had repeatedly rallied around the Leper King was disintegrating as a direct consequence of the usurpation of Lusignan.

Saladin, smelling blood, was quick to react. With the truce off, he gathered his forces for a full-scale invasion. In advance, he sent a reconnaissance in force into the kingdom. In accordance with the terms of his agreement with Tripoli, he demanded and received a ‘safe-conduct’ for his men to pass unmolested through Galilee. Near the springs of Cresson, this force encountered a small a body of Templars, Hospitallers and secular knights estimated at perhaps 120. Although greatly outnumbered, the Templar Master ordered an attack. The result was the slaughter of nearly every Frankish knight in the engagement. The sight of Templar heads on the lance tips of the victorious Saracen patrol as it passed back out of Galilee shook Tripoli. He agreed to come to terms with Lusignan. When the two men met, Tripoli went on his knees before Lusignan, and the later raised him up to embrace him. It was May 1187. Saladin's next invasion was just around the corner. It could climax at the Battle of Hattin will be described next week.



[i] Tyre, Book XXII, Chapter 27, 498.

[ii] Tyre, Book XXII, Chapter 27, 501.

[iii] Anonymous, The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre translated by Peter Edbury as ‘The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade’ (Crusades Texts in Translation) [Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998] chpt. 105, 96.

[iv] Anonymous, Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi translated by Helen Nicholson as ‘The Chronicle of the Third Crusade’ (Crusades Texts in Translation) [Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997] book 1, chapter 63, 122.

 

The bulk of this entry is an excerpt from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.

Guy de Lusignan is a significant character in the Jerusalem Trilogy.

                         


           Buy Now!                                                  Buy Now!                                                    Buy Now!

"The Tale of the English Templar" is a fictional work that depicts the destruction of the Knight's Templar. 



An escaped Templar, an intrepid, old crusader, and a discarded bride
embark on a quest for justice in the face of tyranny. 
 
"St. Louis Knight" is a novel set against the backdrop of the Seventh Crusade and St. Louis' sojourn in the Holy  Land. A Templar novice and King Louis are the central characters. 
It is now available in audiobook as well as paperback and ebook.

 
 A crusader in search of faith --
A lame lady in search of revenge --
And a King who would be saint.

St. Louis' Knight takes you to the Holy Land in the 13th century, and a world filled with knights, nobles, prophets -- and assassins. 
(Available in Audiobook)