The Last King of Jerusalem: Baldwin IV and the Fall of Jerusalem
Thomas Smith

At the end of the twelfth century, the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem teeters on the edge of destruction. The young king, Baldwin IV, has the makings of the greatest ruler the realm has ever seen, but his reign is jeopardised by sickness. Baldwin has leprosy, and it is obvious to all that he will not live long. The king still rides out – or is carried in a litter – on to the sun-baked battlefields of the Holy Land to defend his fragile land and his people. But as Baldwin’s condition deteriorates rapidly, the race is on to secure the succession and rescue the politically fractured kingdom from Saladin, who is unifying the Muslim world with one objective: to wipe the crusader state off the map, once and for all. A tale of hatred, love, loss, and betrayal, this book tells the story of Baldwin IV as he fought heroically – and tragically – to protect an entire society from destruction in a holy war which reshaped the Middle East forever.