CHAP. XIII.

How upon notice that the Saxons invaded his Country, he retur∣ned; and of his strange Adventures.

THe King having thus performed his vow, repaired the Walls, built a strong Castle, and placed 7000 Souldiers therein, besides the Christians of Syria and Iudea, that daily flocked thither in great Page  [unnumbered] number; he received notice, That the Saxon petty Kings in his ab∣sence had cast off their Allegiance, and being vnited, invaded his Coun∣try, insomuch, that his Queen, Son, and those that he had left in charge with the Kingdom, being overthrown in a pitched battel, were fled to the fastnesses of Snow down Mountains. Which News greatly perplexed the King; so that having made his Offering at the Holy Sepulchre, and constituted Religious Men to keep it, he with three parts of the Army he brought, returned to his ships, the other part being either slain in the battel, perished by sickness, or left in the Garrison; yet e're he could imbarque, 27000 Turks, Sarazens, and Aegyptians, lying in ambush in a Wood for that purpose, fell upon the Rear of his Army, and cut off three or four hundred Brittains and Danes e're the King with the Gross of his battel could draw up to their re∣lief; yet fatal was it to the Infidels; for being unexpectedly Inclosed by the Christians, who fetch'd a compass behind divers little Hills, they were almost all of them cut off.

This second overthrow given, the King quietly imbarqued his Souldiers, and sailing by divers Islands, destroyed the Garrisons possessed by the Infidels: When one day going on shore on the Pro∣mentory of Carthage, with a few of his Knights, he was set upon by four hundred Moors, who sallyed out of Tunis; but such was his and his Knights invincible Courage, that they drawing their swords, slaughtered the Barbarians in such a manner, that they fled with great crys, taking them to be more than mortal; whereupon the King cau∣sing 8000 men instantly to come on shore, besieged the City, and with Wild-Fire burnt it about the Barbarians Ears, putting many of them to the sword: And then marching up farther into the Country, there came against them sixteen huge Lyons, bred in the Muritanian Forrest, with whom the King and twenty of his Knights encountering, killed twelve, and put the other four to flight.