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chronicler interprets this as simple greed for Plivano's vast wealth. It is said that the girl was put on a balance to be weighed in gold. Estimates include the suggestion that 10,000 gold bezants or the equivalent of about 50 kilograms of gold were used.
However much it was, it was too little, because it helped cost the kingdom.
Gerard was furious and unforgiving. He left for Jerusalem, where he found his way to the Temple. As luck would have it, the old Master of the Templars died at that moment: the brothers, recognising Gerard's undoubted mettle, elected him as the replacement.
All thoughts of a worldly life forgotten, he set his sights solely on the revenge to his honour.8
These then were some of the main factions in the doomed kingdom, and at the centre was Agnes.
She continued to live the life of a person who has achieved sudden wealth and prestige, without responsibility. Apart from her supposed succession of lovers and her devotion to wealth for its own sake, she began to interfere more in the conduct of the kingdom.
Her children had been taken from her care when they were young, as was the normal case with a great lady's important children.
William of Tyre guarded Baldwin until William's death in 1183. Sybilla was cared for by her great aunt the Princess-Abbess Joveta of Bethany. Perhaps the latter event is an explanation for Sybilla's lack of worldly awareness when she was thrust into centre stage by the events of the 1180's.
Agnes gradually created a power base for herself, working as the power behind the throne of her leper king son. In October 1180, she had persuaded Baldwin to appoint Heraclius as Patriarch instead of William of Tyre. She also succeeded in having her nominees appointed as the Seneschal and Constable of the kingdom. At the height of her power, either she, her son or her son in law Guy or her staunch allies such as Reynald controlled Jerusalem, Acre, Tyre, Jaffa, Ascalon, Oultrejordain, Hebron, Sidon, Toron and Chastel-neuf. She was powerful enough to refuse Raymond of Tripoli access to the king in 1182.9
Her domination continued unabated when her daughter Sybilla married Guy who by 1183 became regent: he was under her domination as were most of the other men of her faction.
The marriage at Kerak was seized by Raymond to humiliate Guy and Agnes by having Baldwin replace Guy as his regent.
Agnes, however, in an admirable feat of political manipulation, forestalled the project to displace her by having her son the king take power directly onto himself, despite the advanced state of his disease. Further, the Leper King was to nominate his heir, excluding Guy. This should be the child Baldwin.
Agnes' daughter Sybilla had first been married to William Long-Sword, by whom she had a child later to be Baldwin V. Baldwin IV made the barons swear loyalty to this child, before his death on March 16, 1185. This was Agnes' compromise, which satisfied all parties. It was capped by allowing the tallest member of the court, Balian of Ibelin, to carry her grandson Baldwin on his shoulders to the coronation. Honour satisfied, except for the cipher Guy, the royal army then set out to lift the siege of Kerak.10
Agnes thus satisfied everyone, and retained her own authority. Unfortunately for her plans, she died sometime before midsummer 1186, shortly before her heir, the child king Baldwin V, who died in late August or early September 1186.
Sybilla, Reynald, Gerard and Heraclius, without the benefit of Agnes, hastily assembled some followers in the Holy Sepulchre on a Friday no later than October of that year, where Sybilla was brought with her husband Guy. According to Ibn Al Athir it was in fact Sybilla who summoned the barons to her coronation: her later actions suggest that she had the strength of character to make this possible, even if she lacked the insight to regard the greater good of the kingdom.11
Raymond, the Ibelins and most of the loyal barons assembled outside Jerusalem at Nablus, refused to attend the coronation. They enjoined the court party to stop the coronation, in the name of God: Heraclius, Gerard and Reynald foreswore their oaths and said they would crown the lady as queen.
The Master of the Hospital, who was of the barons' faction, went back to his monastery, refusing to participate.
The gates of the city were closed, something which had never happened during a coronation. Meanwhile, two serjeants disguised as monks sneaked into the Holy Sepulchre and watched the proceedings. Their observations no doubt form the eyewitness basis of the surviving accounts of what happened.
They later recounted that Gerard and Reynald took the lady Sybilla and led her to the Patriarch to be crowned. Prince Reynald went to the upper part of the church - perhaps indeed climbing the stair to the very spot where the Cross was originally raised - and addressed the congregation of citizens of Jerusalem.
He reminded them that Baldwin the Leper had been replaced by his nephew, now also dead, so that the kingdom was left without an heir or a governor. He therefore asked on behalf of the great nobles for the congregation's approval to crown Sybilla, daughter of Amalric and sister to Baldwin "for she is the most apparent and the most direct heiress of the kingdom."
The people assented with one voice that they liked King Amalric better than any other, indicating that it was his direct line which should be elected to the throne.
At this moment, high theatre became high farce.
The crowns of the kingdom were in a treasure trove, protected by a triple lock, of which the Master of the Temple had one key, the Patriarch another, and Roger des Moulins, Master of the Hospitallers the third. Gerard and the Patriarch produced theirs, but when the Master of the Hospitallers was sent for, he refused to come with his key.
He said he would not set foot in the Sepulchre without the agreement of the barons.
The Patriarch and the Master of the Temple in their regalia, together with Reynald in his finery, then trooped off to beg the Master of the Hospitallers to reconsider.
When Roger heard they were coming, he hid himself in his house. It was nearly three o-clock in the afternoon before he was found. The triumvirate begged him for the key, but he refused. They continued to importune him until at last he grew angry, and threw the key away in frustration, either into the recesses of his house, or out the window.
To no avail: the key was found, and hurried back to the Holy Sepulchre.
Two crowns were produced and brought before the Patriarch. With one he crowned
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