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his castle of Beirut, in the Frank Palestine. In fron of this, Frederick put the young Princes in
the rack of the torments and threatened with the toture if the Stone was not restored to him in
a minimum time, to what the Lord of Beirut acceded without conditions.
When he obtained the Stone, he knew the root of the plot. This had its origin in the
Order of the Temple: the Great Master had assured to the Pope and many pious Frank Knights,
that Frederick II was planning an alliance with the Mongols to submit the World under his will;
the next step would be the destruction of the Catholic Church. That information, even if it was
not completely false, was malicious and ill-disposed, and achieved the searched effect to avoid
that the mentioned pact be fulfilled. But the plot had been developed six years before and it
had not arrangement anymore, after Genghis Khan’s fall.
Thus, once defeated in what constituted the spiritual objective of his life, Frederick II
disembarked in Holy Land disposed to take vengeance in what was possible for him.
Paradoxically, such Emperor of the Christian Kings was facing a general revolt of the
Frank Lords, fostered by the Templar and Hospital Orders, and in turn he enjoyed of the high
esteem of the Arabs. For years, indeed, Frederick II maintained correspondence with the Sultan
of Egypt, Malikal-Kamil, who considered him «The Greatest Prince of Christianity» and a
«Saint». In that opportunity he didn’t hesitate to give him the three holy lands, Jerusalem,
Belen and Nazareth, which were in his power; in 1229 was signed the treaty of Jaffa that
confirmed such cession, as long as the custody be in charge of the Teutonic Knights.
But Frederick II was not satisfied humiliating in this mode the Franks: he wanted that
the entire Sicily be in power of the Teutonics and he employed every resource that he had at
hand to achieve it, within them the promise realized with the Sultans to share with the
Mohammedans the holy places; in fact, he permitted that in Jerusalem the Mosques remain
opened, as well for the rest cities that he recovered. In Jerusalem he starred the most irritating
event at taking the Crown of the King, which was over the Holy Sepulcher, and crown by him-
self, putting it upon his head before the presence of the Great Master and the Teutonic Order
Hermann von Salza and hundreds of German and Sicilian Knights.
Not satisfied with this, he went to San Juan de Acre, Bastion of the Templars, and
occupied it with his troops. In the palace of the King, which he seized for being sovereign of
Jerusalem, he did a great and he invited numerous chiefs of the Saracen Army, during which he
exhibited tens of Christian prostitutes rescued from the brothels of the Templars. This
initiative unveiled the hipocresy of the Frank Knights, who on one side proclaimed the
chastitiy, and they even practiced the sodomy, and on the other they exposed those baptized
women to every kind of temptations and sins. So crude reality impressed even to the not very
virtuous Saracens, and the prestige of the Templars fell lower than ever.
Of course, with such denounces the Emperor was searching that the Templars lose their
patience and offer an excuse to liberate them from the battle. And his tactic resulted because
they tried to kill him and he responded attacking the House of the Temple and the Castle
«Chatel-Pélerin». And if not everyone was exterminated by the warths of Frederick II, who
expectedly would not delay to call the Arabs in his help, was because he received the stab in the
back at knowing that his father in law Juan de Brienne was invading Sicily by the command of
the Pope Gregory IX and that his son Henry II, King of Germany, was betraying him supporting
the Guelphs. That bad news obeyed him to come back to Sicily where, with very superior
troops, he defeated the Pope and obeyed him to lift the excommunication, marching then to

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