Chapter 60 – The Reign of Romanus I, part 2
Chapter 60 – The Reign of Romanus I, part 2
1195-1200
The Conquest of Mosul
From Wilfred of Acres’ Tripartite History
Affairs in Jerusalem
Upon his departure, King John placed the regency of his realm in the hands of one Basil, a young man who had recently been revealed to be a half-brother of the King and an illegitimate son of the late King Theodorus. Now, this appointment angered many people, for King John, as was his wont, had consulted few others, and considered the consequences of his actions but little. The other Kings were dismayed that such legitimacy had been granted to one of their bastard half-brothers, of which there were many more in their own lands. The nobility of Jerusalem and Judea, however, were even more greatly affronted by having their own wishes ignored, and by having a ruler granted to them whom they neither knew, nor liked, nor had assented to. King John appeared not to have considered that his decision would have been in any way unpopular, for the sole concession he made before his departure was to divert the responsibility for local decisions to the minor nobility in the provinces.
The discontent within the realm was only accentuated by the strain that King John’s war in distant England was placing upon the treasury in Jerusalem. By the King’s command, large quantities of silver were dispatched by ship to England, and the witan was asked many times to raise their fyrds to assist the King. However, the calls for volunteers went unanswered, and the regent Basil resorted to the hiring of mercenaries, an act which placed yet further demands upon the chancellery, and led to the imposition of greater taxes upon the realm.
The Death of Duke Theodorus
In the Year of Our Lord 1196, one year after the departure of King John, there was a disturbance in the earldom of Syria. The affair itself was so small that it would normally have passed without comment, except that in the course of the fighting which followed, one of the sons of King Theodorus was slain. Duke Theodorus, who bore the same name as his father, had been the closest ally and strongest friend of King Romanus in Syria. Indeed, the Duke had been awarded stewardship of the duchy in eastern Syria as a reward for his loyalty and aptitude. It was, therefore, a great tragedy for all the realm when he was cut down in his youth by the rebellious bishop of Tadmor.
At the same time, however, there were dark rumours afoot, which noted that since King John’s departure and recognition of his illegitimate half-brothers, Duke Theodorus had become a threat to the authority of King Romanus in his own realm. For the younger Theodorus was older than King Romanus and cut a dashing figure among the populace. Though he was unpopular with the English earls of Syria, he was beloved by many of the burghers and peasantry. There were suspicions therefore that one of the jealous earls of western Syria had played a hand in the premature death of the Duke, or even that King Romanus himself had desired to be rid of his elder brother. The latter seems somewhat unlikely, however, given how closely the king relied upon the Duke for counsel and support.
Further Trouble in Jerusalem
Meantime, Basil, in his role as regent in Jerusalem, continued to be unpopular, not merely with his brothers, but also the earls of his own Kingdom. King John had been able to command the loyalty of the Witan through sheer force of his personality and charisma, but the regent Basil was composed of a different humour, and his attempts to rule in this fashion were ruinous to the Kingdom. Without instructions from his brother, in whose name he ostensibly ruled, Basil reigned as if he were, in fact, anointed King. This itself would have been enough to irk the earls and Dukes, but Basil was also confident to the point of arrogance, and he made little pretence of consulting the Witan before taking any decision which affected the realm. When this was added to the burden placed on Jerusalem by King John’s war in England, many of the earls began to plot the regnet’s downfall.
While Basil’s brothers disliked him personally, they were unlikely to stand for any one of the earls usurping the crown for themselves, and so no member of the Witan was willing to challenge Basil on the open field. The strongest of the earls was Heraclius of Aleppo, but his friendship with King John made him stand against treasonous action, despite the attempts of many earls to entice him in their plots, and the Duke's own dislike of Basil.
Instead, many of the younger earls simply refused to attend the witangamots in Jerusalem. Finally, in the year 1197, Andronicus, the Duke of Sinai declared that the agreement of 1181 guaranteed that the earls be heard in meetings of the witan, and that if Basil was unwilling to rule with the consent of the earls then the earls had a right to seek authority elsewhere. From that moment onwards, the Duke pronounced, he would be attending the Syrian Witan in Damascus.
In Egypt, however, the threat to the English Kingdoms’ stability was greater, for the left bank of the River Nile was held by Normans who had sworn loyalty to the King of the French. In July of the year 1198, earl Hardegin, himself of Norman ancestry, turned the city of Cairo over to the authority of the French King, and thus allowed the Franks influence in eastern Egypt, which until now had been solely under English control.
The Fifth Crusade
On St Stephen’s day in the year 1198, a great gathering was held in Rome, and the Holy Father Alexander preached a sermon to the assembled princes of Christendom. A great many noblemen, Franks and Lombards and Teutons attended, and were exhorted by His Holiness to cease their internal strife, and instead make war against the heathen, who threatened the shores of Italy itself, by inhabiting the city of Carthage in Africa.
The Mosulite War
This event however, was barely heeded in the English Kingdoms, for in April of the next year, the wicked Emir of Mosul, so long an enemy of the English people, launched raids across into the estates on the English side of the Euphrates.
The Emir no doubt thought the English weak, divided as they were, and sought to take advantage of that disunity. But in the act of war, the infidel unwittingly served to unite all the kings and earls together in defence of their lands. In Syria and Arabia, Kings Romanus and David immediately called to arms all the fyrds of their estates and those of their vassals. Tens of thousands of men gathered to repel the Mohammadeans.
While the Emir’s hordes descended into the rich fields along the Euphrates in the Kingdom of Arabia, King Romanus and his subjects laid siege to the great fortresses on the borders of Syria. For decades past the infidels had strengthened and enlarged the mountain citadels which faced the English lands, and now it took a great struggle to starve the garrisons housed within. Throughout the month of May, Syrian armies encircled and blockaded the castles and cities of the Mosulites in the west.
In the month of July Egfrith Duke of Damascus met the Emir of Azerbaijan (a wicked ally of the Evil Lord of Mosul) by the name of Fahd, beneath the walls of the city of Mosul and defeated him utterly. His men were unable to assist the Mosulites in their campaign against God.
In the Month of August, many of the Emir’s castles in the west surrendered to King Romanus’ forces. With their allies routed and the Emir himself turned away from the banks of the Euphrates, the heathen castellans soon realised the futility of their resistance and gave over their strongholds to the English soldiers.
And by the first week of October the city of Mosul itself was captured by the King’s men.
In that same week, King Romanus fought a mighty battle against the Emir himself, in the lands of the Kurdish people to the north of the city. Ten thousand men fought one another on each side, and after three fierce days of fighting the heathens were broken and sent into retreat. In desperation the cowardly Emir now fled to the hills and mountains of Azerbaijan.
While King Romanus was urged to pursue the enemy to the northern seas if need be, he was well aware that the foothills would provide shelter to the heathens, and allow them to harass the English men along their march. Having paused near the city of Nisibin to celebrate Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany, the King therefore resolved to make peace with the Emir, who was divested of all his holdings in and around the city of Mosul, but allowed to remain as lord of the northern mountains.
A number of observers were surprised at the outcome of the war, both at King Romanus’ restraint, and at his success. While it is true that the King had lost, in the form of Duke Theodorus, his most competent military strategist, the King was ever a diligent scholar, and a student of the writings of the Romans and Greeks in warfare. Perhaps it was even a surprise to himself, but King Romanus, who had until now desired nothing more than to study theology in peace, found himself the conqueror of a great swathe of territory in the twelve hundredth year of Our Lord’s incarnation. The Kingdoms of the English had humbled yet another great enemy, and controlled all the lands south of the Taurus Mountains, and west of the River Euphrates.
The Rebellion of Theodorus the Egyptian
The triumph of English armies over the heathen marked a great departure from the dark days of the reign of King Theodorus, in which the Kingdom had been weak and the object of pity more often than jealousy. The year 1200 also saw the final remainder of King Theodorus’ legacy destroyed. Some twenty-four years earlier the late King had overseen the baptism of the eldest son of the heathen King of the Egyptians, and granted him lands around the city of Pelusia. King Theodrous’ hopes had been to see a reconciliation between the English and Egyptians, but this was not to be.
Though the young Egyptian, who had taken the King’s name upon his baptism, indeed strived to be a pious Christian, his conversion had alienated him from his father and all his heathen family. In addition, the English and Greek earls of Jerusalem and the other Kingdoms looked down upon the Egyptian earl as inferior, a situation which was only exacerbated upon the death of the infirm King. With friends neither among his fellow earls nor his own family, the earl’s prospects for the future were few, and it was thus inevitable that he would resort to armed rebellion, which he did in the midst of the Mosulite War.
Needless to say, the earl was unsuccessful, and when he was captured by the Earl of Manipura, despite his protestations of faith, he was sentenced to be burnt alive as an infidel and a conspirator with the Emir of Mosul. Through an unknown act of fate, however, the traitor escaped. He fled first to the court of his father, in Upper Egypt where he was welcomed with some reservations. But he was not to rest long. For the King of the Moors, ever greedy for more land, soon made war against the King of the Egyptians, and stole his throne from him in a matter of months.
Once more blessed by the luck to escape, Theodorus the Exile fled next to the city of Jaffa, where he made his final bid for recognition. Working with malcontents within the court of Duke Ølver, particularly a group of the outlawed Knights of the Temple, he conspired to seize control of the Duchy.
However, the Duke was able to act quickly against the conspirators, and once more expelled the Templar Knights from his realm. Thus Ølver, the son of Duke Morcar the treacherous regent defeated once and for all the ambitions of Theodorus, the godson of the late and much-maligned King, and with him, the King's ambitions for reconciliation with the heathens.