Isabella II

Also known as Yolande of Jerusalem

Daughter of Maria of Montferrat and John of Brienne, Isabella II — also called Yolande in the West — inherited the throne as an infant in 1212 and spent her first thirteen years at the Ibelin court in Acre under her father's regency. Her marriage was the single political instrument her kingdom still possessed, and in 1225 Pope Honorius III and the barons handed it to the Emperor Frederick II in exchange for his promise of a crusade.

She was married to Frederick by proxy at Acre on 9 August 1225 and sailed for Italy, aged thirteen. Frederick, twenty years her senior, met her at Brindisi on 9 November, married her a second time in person, and on the wedding night — according to her outraged father — slipped away to sleep with her cousin Annaïs. The next morning he declared himself King of Jerusalem jure uxoris, stripped John of Brienne of his title, and confined Isabella in the Hohenstaufen harem at Palermo with the rest of his household women.

She never saw Outremer again. In May 1228, eight days after giving birth to a son — the future Conrad II — she died in childbed at Andria in Apulia, aged sixteen. She was buried in Andria cathedral. Her short, stifled life closed the line of the native queens of Jerusalem; her son and grandson would inherit the kingdom as absentee Hohenstaufen princes, and never see it.

Preceded by Maria of Montferrat. Succeeded by Conrad II.

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