auxiliaries objected. There can be no doubt that the story is true, for it is from the pen of the legate himself: they refused even to stay all night in Alexandria, and having conspired with a certain prince, whose name the legate feels bound to keep secret, set sail for Cyprus. They sent word home too that the city was only half taken[1]. It was a great disappointment to the ardent crusaders; but no doubt the English lords who had had experience in foreign warfare saw that Alexandria was untenable, and the season, for it was now the 10th of October, 1365, was too far advanced. The failure of the Crusade was bitterly commented on by Petrarch, who in a letter to Boccaccio writes, at the time, in the severest way of the greediness and irresolution of the Transalpines[2], and many years after laments, in an epistle to Philip de Mazzeriis, the loss to Christendom, and the wretched effect produced, by the failure, on the character and fate of the king[3] . The English lords seem to have stayed sometime longer in Cyprus: the legate died at Famagosta in January, 1366, and they brought back to England the biography by Philip the Chancellor, which has furnished the most certain details of the story. After the Alexandrian expedition the Venetians, whose commerce was suffering, prevailed on Peter to treat for a peace with Egypt, which was to establish Cypriot consulates and reduce the customs in the ports of the Levant; but the attempt failed. The next year, with the Genoese and the Hospitallers, he ravaged the Syrian coast, but again had to make peace. He then visited Rome in search of succour, and
- ↑ 'Recesserunt Anglici qui videbantur fortiores, facta conspiratione cum principe cujus ex parentela et dolosa sequela nomen tacere debeo;' P. de Mazz. AA. SS. 1. c. p. 1016.
- ↑ 'Siquidem Petrus Cypri rex Alexandriam cepit in Egypto, magnum opus et memorabile nostræque religionis in immensum amplificandæ fundamentum ingens, si quantum ad capiendam tantum ad servandam urbem animi fuisset; qui certe non defuit, ut fama, nisi comitatus ejus ex transalpinia maxime gentibus collectus, melioribus semper ad principia rerum quam ad exitus, ilium in medio præstantissimi operis deserentes, ut qui pium regem non pietate sed cupiditate sequentes, collectis spoliis abiere piique voti impotem avari voti compotes fecere;' Petrarch, Opp. p. 843; Ep. Senil. lib. 8. ep. 8.
- ↑ Ib. Lit. 13. ep. 2 'Petrus rex Cypri, indigni vir exitus sed sacræ memoriæ nisi,' etc.
