Mahommedans used to rob and ill-treat the pilgrims, and make them
pay great sums of money for leave to come into Jerusalem. At last
a pilgrim, named Peter the Hermit, came home, and got leave from
the Pope to try to go to the Holy Land, and fight to get the Holy
Sepulchre back into Christian hands again. He used to preach in the
open air, and the people who heard him were so stirred up that they
all shouted out, "It is God's will! It is God's will!" And each who
undertook to go and fight in the East received a cross cut out into
cloth, red or white, to wear on his shoulder. Many thousands promised
to go on this crusade, as they called it, among them was Robert, Duke
of Normandy. But he had wasted his money, so that he could not fit out
an army to take with him. So he offered to give up Normandy to his
brother William while he was gone, if William would let him have the
money he wanted. The Red King was very ready to make such a bargain,
and he laughed at the Crusaders, and thought that they were wasting
their time and trouble.

They had a very good man to lead them, named Godfrey de Buillon; and,
after many toils and troubles, they did gain Jerusalem, and could
kneel, weeping, at the Holy Sepulchre. It was proposed to make Robert
King of Jerusalem, but he would not accept the offer, and Godfrey was
made king instead, and staid to guard the holy places, while Duke
Robert set out on his return home.

In the meantime, the Red King had gone on in as fierce and ungodly a
way as ever, laughing good advice to scorn, and driving away the good
Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Anselm, and everyone else who tried to
warn him or withstand his wickedness. One day, in the year 1100, he
went out to hunt deer in the New Forest, which his father had wasted,
laughing and jesting in his rough way. By and by he was found under