Baldwin II, byname Baldwin of Bourcq, in French: Baudouin du Bourcq, (died August 1131, Jerusalem), count of Edessa (1100–1118), King of Jerusalem (1118–1131), and Crusade leader whose support of the religious-military orders founded during his reign enabled him to expand his kingdom and to withstand Muslim attacks.

A son of Hugh, count of Réthel, in the Ardennes region of France, he held the castle of Bourcq together after his first cousin of the same name; Baldwin I, as a feudal domain and was at first referred to as Baldwin of Bourcq. He accompanied his uncles, Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin of Boulogne, (who was also Baldwin of Bourqg) (later became King Baldwin I, the first King of Jerusalem) to Palestine with the First Crusade (1096). In 1100 he was named count of Edessa (now Urfa, Turkey) by Baldwin I, when the latter became the first King of Jerusalem. The Seljuk Turks moved against Edessa in 1104, capturing Baldwin II on May 7. Ransomed in 1108, he fought his way into Edessa to reclaim his principality from the regent, Tancred, and later recovered most of the lost territory.

See the paintings in the Church at Bourcq, where you also notice the very interesting painting of a woman and child. If you look closely, you will see the red dress of the woman with a blue coat, these are signs that we are dealing here with Mary Magdalene, who looks very sad, she holds grapes in here hand, symbolising the offspring, the pumpkin stands for fertility, new beginning, longevity, continuity etc.

The child most certainly is one of the three children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the new Joseph. The hands sign of the child, with three fingers together is a sign of spiritual wisdom/knowledge. The child looks happy, almost as if to say to the Roman Catholic Church; you have not succeeded in suppressing the Holy Jesus & Mary Magdalene lineage.

The other painting could depict Joseph of Arimathea as the protector of the family.

On April 14, 1118, Baldwin II was crowned king of Jerusalem. Though captured by the Turks and held hostage from 1123 until 1124, in subsequent years he succeeded in expanding his territory and directing attacks against Muslim Damascus with the aid of the Hospitallers and the Templars, Crusading religious-military orders.

His castle in Bourcq was later completely demolished around 1740 by the Roman Catholic Church, the remains were used to construct the village and the Church on this site.

Bouillon is located in a large curve of river Semois; the town is mostly known for its medieval fortress recalling Godfrey of Bouillon. The local tradition claims that the fortress was built in the 8th century; there is historical evidence of a central donjon flanked by the smaller donjons existing in 1050. The other fortifications are much more recent and were mostly designed by Vauban in 1679. The fortress was mentioned, but not described, in 988 as belonging to the family d’Ardenne. The town developed below the fortress, near the river. The main purpose of the fortress was to watch the road between Lower and Upper Lotharingia, known as avenue des François and used as a convenient invasion path until 1940.

In 1082, Godfrey of Bouillon, son of Eustace of Boulogne and Ulda of Ardenne and nephew of Godfrey the Hunchbacked, inherited the Duchy of Lower-Lotharingia, he was the fifth and last lord of the Ardenne family. When he decided to go on the First Crusade called by Pope Urban II, he sold his domain in 1096 to Otbert, Bishop of Liège to fund his expedition. Otbert was not rich and even looted abbeys and churches of his own domain in order to collect the funds. Godfrey took part to the seizure of Jerusalem in 1099, being the first Crusader to enter the town. However, he refused the title of King of Jerusalem, refusing to bear a golden crown where Christ had borne a spine crown, and was entitled Warden of the Holy Sepulcher on 22 July 1099. He died the next year, aged 39, and was buried in the St. Sepulcher church, close to the Calvary. The contract signed with the Bishop of Liège allowed the purchase of the Duchy by Godfrey’s successors, but none of them exercised his right.
It seems, however, that the title of Duke of Bouillon was not used before the 15th century; in 1456, Bishop John of Heinsberg was entitled par la grâce de Dieu évêque de Liège, duc de Bouillon, comte de Looz, …, a title which was later used until 1794.
Bouillon belonged to Liège until 1679, with a few breaks; the town was allowed to build fortifications but was never granted the title of good town (bonne ville). Bouillon was seized by the Count of Verdun and taken over by Liège in 1140. In 1415, the castle was ceded against a rent to the de la Marck family, which ruled the Duchy as an independent state. The most famous member of the family was William de La Marck, aka the Ardennes Boar. Emperor Charles V reattributed Bouillon to Liège in 1521. The town was seized by King of France Henri II in 1552, but he had to retrocede it to Liège after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, signed in 1559.

In 1591, Charlotte of la Marck, whose family had been confirmed rights on Bouillon and Sedan, married Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne. During the Holland War, Bouillon was besieged by Marshal of Créquy for the King of France. In spite of the Prince-Bishop of Liège’s protesting he was the legal Duke of Bouillon, Godefroy-Maurice de la Tour d’Auvergne was confirmed as the Duke of Bouillon after the Treaty of Nijmegen (1679), and Bouillon remained French until the end of the Ancient Regime.

On 24 April 1794, the People’s Assembly of the Duchy, which then included 150 villages, proclaimed the Republican regime; the former Duchy was integrated into the French Republic on 26 October 1795. It was said: “The shark from the Seine has swallowed the Republican gudgeon from the Semois.”

Godfrey was the son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne (1024?-1080?) and Ida of Lorraine (1030?-1113). Eustace II, a powerful lord, fought together with William of Normandy at the battle of Hastings in 1066. Godfrey had been appointed heir by his uncle Duke Godfrey III the Hunchback, Duke of Lower-Lorraine, but after Duke Godfrey’s murder in 1076 he inherited only Bouillon, Verdun, and Antwerp. His succession as Duke was disputed by his cousin Albert III, Count of Namur, but at first neither contender won, because the German King Henri IV appointed his own two year-old son Conrad as the new Duke, clearly demonstrating that Lower-Lorraine had lost its significance as a political entity. Eleven years later, in 1087, Godfrey finally did become Duke of Lower-Lorraine, after Conrad had been appointed King of Germany by his father, who had himself been crowned Emperor in 1084. Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in 1095. The lords who left for the Crusade often bequeathed or sold their domains to the church, in order both to secure their goods and to get the money required for the expedition.

The first wave of crusaders, led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans Avoir, was annihilated in 1096 by the Turks. The second wave of crusaders, known as the lords’ crusade, was led by powerful lords such as Hugh of Vermandois, Robert II of Flanders, the Count of Toulouse, the Count of Normandy and the Italian Normands Tancred of Hauteville and his uncle Bohemond I. Each lord fought together with his vassals. Godfrey of Bouillon led a troop of Lotharingian knights. The Crusaders took Antioche and Edesse in 1099 and marched against Jerusalem. The siege started on 7 June; the Counts of Normandy and Flanders stayed in the north, Bouillon and Hauteville in the west and the Count of Toulouse in the south. It was impossible to attack the eastern flank of the town because of the torrent Cedron. A first attempt failed in 13 June. Timberwood and carpenters were brought from Jaffa in order to build the required machines of war, that is three rolling towers and catapults. The attack started during the night of 9 to 10 July; with the main attack launched on the evening of 13 July. On 15 July, Godfrey of Bouillon put his tower against the wall and entered the town with his brother Eustace of Boulogne. The northern part of the town was progressively seized. The seizure of the southern part of the town was delayed because it was necessary to fill up the ditch. The Egyptian Fatimid garrison of the citadel was liberated against a ransom but the Muslim and Jewish population of the town was slaughtered. Godfrey of Bouillon was proposed the crown of Jerusalem but he refused “to bear a golden crown in the place where Christ had borne a spine crown”; he was elected Warden of the Holy Sepulcher on 22 July and died the next year from the black plague.

Godfrey of Bouillon’s fame was huge in the Middle Ages; he was considered, together with Clovis and Charlemagne, as a hero of the Christian religion. In the 13th century, Vincent of Beauvais published his Great Mirror (Speculum Majus), a kind of universal encyclopaedia reprinted by the Jesuits in Douai in 1624. The Mirror was divided into four chapters, the Mirror of Nature, the Mirror of Science, the Mirror of History and the Moral Mirror, the latter having been written in the 14th century, probably after Vincent’s sketches. In his Historical Mirror, that is the history of the Church, Vincent of Beauvais relates in great detail the exploits of Clovis, Charlemagne and the Crusaders, whose model is Godfrey of Bouillon. The great medievist Émile Mâle has shown that the Speculum Majus was the main source of inspiration of the religious iconography of that period: there are very few historical characters portrayed as statues or in the coloured windows of the cathedrals but the Christian leaders, including Godfrey of Bouillon.

His main role seems to have been arbitration in the conflicts that broke up among the winners after the conquest; his military action seems to have been very small until the assault of the walls of Jerusalem. The military leader of the Crusade, appointed by the Pope, was the ambitious and inflexible Raymond of Saint-Gilles. After the victory, the barons preferred to elect Godfrey of Bouillon; moreover, the status of the new Latin Empire was not specified by the Pope and the power of the new ruler was fairly virtual, something the ambitious warlords could not accept. Therefore, Godfrey of Bouillon is no longer considered as the founder of the Eastern Latin Empire by most historians.