Guy of Lusignan

Also known as the king of the disaster

A minor Poitevin baron who had come east in the 1170s after being exiled from Aquitaine — tradition says for ambushing Richard the Lionheart's earl of Salisbury — Guy married the widowed princess Sibylla in 1180 and with her became count of Jaffa and Ascalon and, after her coronation in 1186, king. The poulain barons despised him: a foreigner with no Levantine experience, raised above them by a royal marriage they had opposed.

His reign ended a year later at Hattin on 4 July 1187. Against the furious advice of Raymond III of Tripoli, he marched the full field army — horse and foot, with the relic of the True Cross at its head — across a parched plateau in midsummer to relieve Tiberias. Saladin closed the trap at the twin-peaked Horns of Hattin, smashed the thirst-maddened Franks in a day, and captured the king. In the sultan's tent afterwards Saladin offered Guy a cup of iced rose-water; Guy passed it to Raynald of Châtillon beside him, which Saladin took as his cue to rise and execute Raynald personally, telling the terrified king: “It is not the wont of kings to kill kings, but this man has transgressed all bounds.”

Released in 1188 in exchange for the surrender of Ascalon, Guy reappeared before Acre in August 1189 with a tiny force and began the longest siege of the Crusades. Two years later the Third Crusade finished the work he had started. But Sibylla's death in 1190 had stripped him of his royal title, and Richard the Lionheart — arbitrating between the two claimants — gave the mainland throne to Conrad of Montferrat and bought Guy off with the island of Cyprus. The Lusignans would rule it for three hundred years. In Jerusalem he is remembered as the king of the disaster.

Preceded by Baldwin V. Succeeded by Conrad of Montferrat.

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