Guy of Lusignan

Guido I of Jerusalem, Guido I of Cyprus or Guido I of Lusignan (French: Guy de Lusignan; Lusignan, Poitou, around 1150 - Nicosia, Cyprus, July 18, 1194) was King of Jerusalem, a Crusader kingdom that he lost in a fight with his rival Conrad of Montferrat, and King of Cyprus.

In 1180 he married Sibylla, sister of Baldwin IV, King of Jerusalem. When Baldwin died in 1185, Sibylla's son from a previous marriage, Baldwin V, inherited the crown, but died in 1186. Sibylla became queen and, announcing her intention to choose the most worthy nobleman to be her husband and king, she divorced Guido, only to choose him again as king and husband.

War broke out with Saladin (1187-1193), sultan of Egypt and Syria, and when the city of Tiberias fell in 1187, Guido decided to confront him. His troops were defeated at Hattin (near Tiberias) by Saladin's superior forces. Guido was captured, along with many other nobles, but was released when he ceded the city of Ashkelon, a port in Palestine. Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin on October 2, 1187.

The fall of Jerusalem sparked a new crusade for Europe (the Third Crusade, 1189-1192). Waiting for this help, Guido, although he had taken a vow not to make war against Saladin, besieged San Juan de Acre, although without success. After Sibylla died in 1190, Guido and Conrad of Montferrat, husband of Sibylla's sister Isabella, fought over the vacant throne. In 1192 Guido ceded the title to the English King Richard I the Lionheart in exchange for sovereignty over the island of Cyprus.

Biography

Arrival in Jerusalem

Guido was the brother of Hugh IX, Count of Lusignan. Together with another brother, Amalric, Guido traveled to Jerusalem in 1170, where he became a vassal of Agnes de Courtenay, mother of King Baldwin IV, who was ill with leprosy. Agnes was concerned that her political rivals, led by the regent Raymond III of Tripoli, wanted to exercise tighter control by forcing her daughter, and the king's sister, Princess Sibylla, to marry someone of the family. taste of her Inés thwarted these plans by advising her son to marry Sibila to Guido. The king agreed, and Guido joined the royal family in 1180. By marriage he became count of Jaffa and Ascalon and bailiff of Jerusalem.

Guido managed to get Baudouin IV to appoint him regent at the beginning of 1182, despite the disagreement of the Haute Cour. Guido's behavior as regent soon offended the Haute Cour. Many Frankish colonists (descendants of the first Crusaders) wanted to make peace with Saladin, Sultan of Egypt. But Guido and Reinaldo de Châtillon, along with other recently arrived crusaders, were there to fight. Guido's continued provocations of Saladin made any kind of peace between Jerusalem and Egypt impossible.

Inés herself was unhappy with Guido's behavior and refused to defend him. In late 1182 and early 1183, Baldwin IV attempted to annul his sister's marriage to Guido. Sibylla stayed in Ascalon, though perhaps not against her will. Failing to separate his sister and heiress from Guido, the king and the Haute Cour changed the order of succession, placing Baldwin V, son of Sibila, in his first marriage to William of Monferrato, ahead of Sibila, although she was not excluded from the succession. Guido behaved discreetly from 1183 until his wife became queen in 1186.

King Consort of Jerusalem

When Baldwin IV finally succumbed to leprosy in 1185, Baldwin V became king, but he was a sickly child and died within a year. Guido went with Sibylla to Jerusalem for the funeral of her stepson in 1186, accompanied by an armed escort, which he posted as a garrison for the city. Raymond III, jealous to maintain his influence, and his new political ally, the Dowager Queen Maria Komnenos of Constantinople, were attempting to convene the Haute Cour when Sibylla was crowned queen by Patriarch Heraclius.. Reinald of Châtillon gained popular support for Sibila by claiming that she was li plus apareissanz et plus dreis heis dou rouame. With the clear support of the church, Sibila was undisputed sovereign.

Sibila was crowned alone, as exclusive queen. However, in order to be crowned she had to agree to an annulment of her marriage to Guido, to satisfy the opposing members of the court, as long as she had free will to choose her next husband. The leaders of the Haute Cour agreed and Sibila was crowned. But, to the astonishment of the rival faction at court, when she had to choose a new husband, she chose Guido. The queen relinquished the crown and awarded it to Guido, allowing him to crown himself. Hunfredo IV de Torón, husband of Sibila Isabel's half-sister, was Raymond III and the Ibelin's trump card for the throne, but he was weak in word and ambition, so he distanced himself from them and supported Guido, swearing loyalty. to Sibyl. Humphrey would become one of Guido's closest allies during his reign ^{[citation needed ]} .

Fall of Jerusalem

The king's first concern was to check Saladin's progress. In 1187 Guido, against the advice of Raymond III, attempted to relieve Saladin's siege of Tiberias. Guido's army was surrounded; With its water supply cut off, on July 4 the Jerusalem army was utterly defeated at the Battle of Hattin. Guido was one of the very few captives spared by the Saracens after the battle, along with his brother Godofredo and Hunifrido. The exhausted captives were brought to Saladin's tent, where Guido was given a goblet of water as a token of Saladin's generosity. When Guido offered the chalice to his companion Reinaldo of him, Saladin threw the chalice. He then ordered the execution of Reinaldo by semi-decapitating him (Saladin was furious with Reinaldo, because he had attacked a caravan in which Saladin's sister was traveling some time ago) ^{[citation needed]}.

Guido was imprisoned in Damascus while Sibylla remained defending Jerusalem, but had to cede it to Saladin on October 2. Sibylla wrote to Saladin begging for the release of her husband, and Guido was finally released in 1188 allowing him to return with his wife. Guido and Sibila sought refuge in Tyre, the only city still in Christian hands, thanks to the defense of Conrad of Monferrat. Conrad denied Sibylla and Guido refuge, and they camped outside the city walls for months. And soon Guido joined a vanguard of the recently arrived third crusade. The queen followed him, but died of an epidemic along with her daughters. By agreement of the surviving members of the Haute Cour, with Sibila's death, Guido lost his authority as king consort and the crown passed to Isabel.

King of Cyprus

In 1191 Guido left Acre with a small fleet and arrived at the port of Limassol in Cyprus. The Order of the Temple decided not to keep the island and sold it to Guido, although the Templars continued to hold their possessions along with other religious orders such as the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem.

Guido sought support from Richard I of England, of whom he had previously been a vassal in France. He swore allegiance to King Ricardo and attended Ricardo's marriage and ceremony with Berenguela de Navarra. He participated in the campaign against Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus and so impressed Richard that Guy became Richard's favorite to be King of Jerusalem.

King Philip II of France instead supported Conrad of Monferrat, who was elected king in 1192 by right of his wife Elizabeth; Conrad had annulled Isabel's marriage to Hunifrido and had married Isabel. Conrad was assassinated and Elizabeth married Henry II of Champagne. When he died in 1197, Elizabeth married Guido's brother, Emeric. Meanwhile, Guy was compensated for the loss of his kingdom by buying Cyprus from Richard, who had conquered the island on his way to Palestine. Guido died in 1194, but the Lusignan descendants continued to rule the Kingdom of Cyprus until 1474. Guido was entombed in the Knights Templar church in Nicosia.

Ancestors