they bind themselves to obey him readily and implicitly in everything, however difficult or dangerous ; for, besides other occasions, if any prince becomes an object of hatred or of suspicion to these people, one or more of them receive a dagger from their chief, and, without considering on the consequence or the punishment of such a deed, set out for the residence of the victim, whom they make the sole object of their attention until they murder him. These people are called Assassins, both by Saracens and Christians, but the origin of this name is unknown.* They had for four hundred years cultivated the laws and traditions of the Saracens, and no others could be compared to them for purity and zeal. In these later times, they had for their master a man of great eloquence, subtlety, and discretion, who, in addition to the customs of his ancestors, had obtained the book of the gospels and the writings of the apostles, wherein he studied the Christian miracles and precepts. Thus he was led to abandon the false and filthy law of that seducer Mahomet, and turned to the sweet and virtuous law of Christ. He now began to throw down the mosques, which his people had formerly used, and, causing them to pray according to the customs of the Christians, he began to desire admittance into the Christian pale. He sent, therefore, one of his brethren, a prudent and discreet man, to Baldwin king of Jerusalem, that by his counsels he might obtain the sacrament of baptism: but the devil, always jealous of the church's increase, did not permit this to take place, for the messenger of the aforesaid race of men was slain by a knight templar, to the great scandal of the church, and thus the design, which was so piously begun, has, up to the present day, never been completed. The same year, Louis king of France was divorced from his queen Eleanor; for they were connected with one another in the fourth degree of consanguinity. How Henry duke of Normandy married Eleanor. A.D . 1151. Henry duke of Normandy married queen Eleanor, divorced the year before from king Louis, by which • The Assassins paid an annua! tribute of two thousand ounces of gold to the Templars : they were ei entually conquered by the Tartars in 1257.