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THE CRUSADES.—ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN THE 13TH CENTURY. 421
like him was attacked with the plague. Recovering from the malady he embarked for home and reached Sicily in the latter part of the year 1270. Here his queen died, as did also King Thibault of Navarre. Many other distinguished personages connected with the expedition, including Alfonso—the king’s uncle— and the Countess of Provence, fell victims to the pentilenco. In the beginning of the following year Philip reached hia own dominions, bearing with him in sad procession the dead bodies of his queen and his father.
The new sovereign ascended the throne with the title of Philip jIL, and received the surname of the Bold.
In his policy, he imi-tated the methods of hi* father. Two years after his return to France, he took 'in marriage the Princess Maria of Brabant. In the mean time, he had raised to the position of chief minister of the kingdom a certain parvenu named Pierre de la Brosse, whose former vocation of barber had little recommended him for affairs of state. Not long after the king’s marriage, De Brosse conceived a violent hatred for the queen, and resolved to compass her downfall.
In 1276, Prince Louis, the king’s eldest son, died, and the circumstances were such as to favor the false accusation that Queen Maria had caused his death by poison. For the time it appeared that her cause was hope-but a valiant brother came forward, and, after the manner of the age, challenged the accnxer to a mortal combat. The cowardly
De Brosse, thus confronted, durst not accept the gage of battle, and was himself executed on a gibbet.
Meanwhile, Charles of Anjou, now king of the Two Sicilies, was pursuing his schemes of personal ambition. Desiring to be regarded as the head of Eastern Christendom, he purchased from the granddaughter of Guy of
Lusignan the title of king of Jerusalem. The effect of this and other measures of self-aggrandizement was to raise up around Charles a host of enemies, who made a conspiracy to expel him from the kingdom. A general massacre of all the French in Naples and Sicily was planned to take place at the ringing of the vesper l>ell on the eve of Easter 1282.
SAINT LOUIS SITTING IN JUDGMENT.