Death
Queen Melisende died in 1161, and Baldwin died in Beirut on 10 February 1163. It was rumoured that he had been poisoned in Antioch by pills given to him by his Syrian Orthodox doctor. "As soon as the king had taken the pills," says William of Tyre, "he was seized with a fever and dysentery which developed into consumption from which he was never able to obtain relief or help." On the way home Baldwin remained in Tripoli for a few months, and then continued to Beirut where he finally succumbed to his illness. As William says, "For eight successive days, while the funeral procession moved from Beirut to Jerusalem, lamentation was unrestrained and grief was renewed almost hourly." Theodora, now queen-dowager, retired to Acre. She was still only 16 years old; their marriage was childless. Baldwin was succeeded by his brother, Amalric I.
Read more about this topic: Baldwin III Of Jerusalem
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“I don’t know much about death and the sorriest lesson I’ve learned is that words, my most trusted guardians against chaos, offer small comfort in the face of anyone’s dying.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)