Saladin, the reluctant crusader, and a Yorkist king

Some interesting medieval occurrences on this date. The great Kurdish leader, Salah al-Din, known to the West as Saladin, died in Damascus on March 4th, 1193. He’d not been ill for long and according to his friend and biographer, Baha al-Din, he’d given away so much money to the poor that they did not have enough to pay for his funeral. The man he has been linked with in the public imagination for the past 800 years, Richard Coeur de Lion, was then a prisoner in Germany. I thought you all might like to read the letter that Richard received from the Doge of Venice, informing him of his respected adversary’s death.
“To his most serene lord, Richard, by the grace of God, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, Enrico Dandolo, by the same grace, Doge of Venice, Dalmatia, and Cherum, heath and sincere and duteous affection. Know ye that it has been intimated to me, from a source that can be relied upon, that Saladin, that enemy of the Christian religion, died in the first week of Lent. And one of his sons, whom he is said to have appointed heir to the whole of his dominions, is at present in Damascus, while the other one is ruling at Egypt and Alexandria. His brother is in the vicinity of Egypt with a numerous army, and the greatest dissension exists between them. Farewell.”
Saladin’s brother, al-Malik al-Adil, was far more capable than Saladin’s sons, and he would eventually rule Saladin’s domains. He was great fun to write about in Lionheart and I am looking forward to giving him more time on center stage in The Land Beyond the Sea.
Also on March 4th, 1215, King John reluctantly took the cross in order to win the support of the Pope. He never fulfilled his crusader’s vow, kept at home by a civil war in the remaining turbulent year of his reign, but I suspect that even if he’d prevailed over the rebels, he’d have found excuses not to head off to the Holy Land, just as his father did. Henry was so clever at evading his promises to go on crusade that some chroniclers thought this was why he came to such a tragic, bitter end. Henry was always more interested in what was happening in his own domains than in the Holy Land although he played an important role in the rescue of Jerusalem’s citizens. Saladin had been determined to take the city by storm to avenge the bloody massacre perpetrated by the first crusaders when they seized the city in 1101, but Balian d’Ibelin convinced him to allow them to surrender peacefully. A ransom was then set for every man, woman, and child, and much of it was paid with money that Henry had contributed to the Kingdom of Jerusalem over the years.
Also on March 4th, this time in 1461, Edward IV was acclaimed as King on England, although his bloody coronation would not occur until March 29th, when he won one of the most savage battles fought on English soil, at Towton.