upon the children to perform what, through wickedness, their fathers had failed to do, and assuring them of miraculous aid and success, fifty thousand boys and girls, braving parental authority, gathered together and pervaded both cities and countries, singing:  “Lord Jesus, give us back thy Holy Cross,” and saying, “We are going to Jerusalem to deliver the Holy Sepulchre.”  Some of them crossed the Alps, intending to embark at Italian ports; others took ship at Marseilles.  Many were lost in the forests, and perished with heat, hunger, thirst, and fatigue.  Some, after being stripped by thieves, were reduced to slavery, and a remnant, in sorrow and shame, returned to their homes.  Of those who sailed, some were lost by shipwreck, and others sold as slaves to the Saracens.  “No authority,” says Michaud, “interfered, either to stop or prevent the madness; and when it was announced to the Pope that death had swept away the flower of the youth of France and Germany, he contented himself with saying:  ’These children reproach us with having fallen asleep, while they were flying to the assistance of the Holy Land.’”

Innocent now called a general council of the Church—­the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215—­for the purpose of stimulating a new crusade.  “The necessity for succoring the Holy Land,” said his letters of convocation, “and the hope of conquering the Saracens, are greater than ever.  We renew our cries and our prayers to you to excite you to this noble enterprise.”

The Sixth Crusade, which was inspired by the Pope and preached in France by his legate, Robert de Courcon, was divided in the sequel into three maritime expeditions.  The first, 1216, consisted mainly of Hungarians under their King, Andrew; the second, 1218, was composed of Germans, Italians, French, and English nobles and their followers; and the third, 1228, was led by Frederick II in person.  The first two produced no considerable advantage for the Christians; while Frederick, involved in the Hohenstaufen struggle with the papacy, evaded his crusading vows made long before.  Innocent III died in 1216; Honorius III, the next pope, died in 1227; and his successor, Gregory IX, urged Frederick on to fulfil his promise.  The Emperor embarked in 1227, but when he had been only three days at sea, by reason of his own illness or the sickness of his troops—­accounts are not agreed—­he returned to port.  The Pope, furious at his conduct, excommunicated him.  But in the following year, notwithstanding the ban, Frederick set sail for Palestine, and the story of this expedition is the essential history of the Sixth Crusade.

After his excommunication, Frederick appealed not to the Pope, but to the sovereigns of Christendom.  His illness, he said, had been real, the accusations of the Pope wanton and cruel.  “The Christian charity which should hold all things together is dried up at its source, in its stem, not in its branches.  What had the Pope done in England but stir up the barons against John, and then abandon them to death or ruin?  The whole world paid tribute to his avarice.  His legates were everywhere, gathering where they had not sown, and reaping where they had not strawed.”