THE TEMPLE IN THE EAST 41
and his place as Master was taken in 1136 by Robert le
Craon, a knight of Burgundy, who led the Order for ten
troubled years. Baldwin II had died four years previously,
and been succeeded by a king even more favourably disposed
to the Temple—Fulk of Anjou. Fulk had joined the
Temp&rs as an associate member in the early years of the
Order, and now that he was King of Jerusalem he proved
himself a valuable patron. He ascended the throne through
his marriage with Baldwin's second daughter Melisande, a
woman who was quite as disturbing a personage as her sister,
Alice of Antioch. Hugh of Jaffa, reputed to be the most
handsome noble in the kingdom, was accused of being her
lover, and threatened rebellion when sentence was pro-
nounced against him. Had the threat been fulfilled, it
would probably have been fatal to the Holy Land, for
Zenghi, who now ruled in Aleppo as well as Mosul and had
already inflicted several defeats on the Latins, marched into
the kingdom with an army of fifty thousand men. The
Temple, who owed much to Fulk, supplied several hundred
knights to the royal army but the king could collect only
five thousand men to face the Turk. It was the most
important battle for thirteen years, and resulted in disaster
for the Franks. " Of the pagans, thousands without number
fell ", says a chronicler j " but by the judgment of God, who
is ever just and righteous in his decrees, the whole of the
Christians were annihilated, all being cut in pieces except
thirty knights and men-at-arms. The king with ten of his
own men and eighteen Knights Templars alone escaped from
the slaughter and found refuge ". The loss in the Christian
ranks was not quite so terrible as this account makes out, but
no more than a few hundred of the king's followers survived
the battle.
In other parts of Syria, there were also serious reverses
for the Franks during Fulk's reign. Pons, Count of Tripoli^
was captured by the Moslems and put to death in 1137, being