Henry Of Flanders

He was a younger son of Baldwin V, Count Of Hainaut (later Baldwin VIII, count of Flanders ), and Margaret I Of Flanders , sister of Philip Of Alsace , Count Of Flanders .

Having joined the Fourth Crusade about 1201 , he distinguished himself at the siege of Constantinople in 1204 and elsewhere, and soon became prominent among the princes of the new Latin Empire . An ambush was laid for him by Emperor Alexius V at Philia , but his army routed the Greeks and sent them fleeing.

When his elder brother, the emperor Baldwin I , was captured at the Battle Of Adrianople in April 1205 , Henry was chosen regent of the empire, succeeding to the throne when the news of Baldwin’s death arrived, He was crowned August 20 , 1205 .

Henry was a wise ruler, whose reign was largely passed in successful struggles with Kaloyan , Tsar of Bulgaria , and with his rival, Theodore I Lascaris , Emperor Of Nicaea . Henry appears to have been brave but not cruel, and tolerant but not weak; possessing "the superior courage to oppose, in a superstitious age, the pride and avarice of the clergy." The emperor died, poisoned, it is said, by his Greek wife Maria, on June 11 , 1216 .
He had previously been married (in 1204) to Agnes of Montferrat, daughter of Boniface Of Montferrat , the Crusade leader, but she had died (probably in childbirth) before her father's death in 1207 .

Some contemporary historians say that Henry made a peace with Bulgarians after the death of Tsar Kaloyan. Years later Pope Innocent III ordered that he should contract a marriage with the Kaloyan's only child — his daughter Maria. That marriage too (Henry's second one) left no heirs as his only daughter (by his first wife Agnes) — Isabelle, died in childbirth.

SOURCES

Queller, Donald. ''The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople (Middle Ages)'', 1999

	Before	Baldwin I
	Title	Latin Emperor
	Years	1205 &ndash 1216

Information About

Henry Of Flanders