Revolt of Hugh II of Jaffa

Also known as Hugh of Le Puiset's revolt

The first major internal rebellion in the kingdom — Count Hugh II of Jaffa's challenge to King Fulk after Fulk tried to sideline Queen Melisende and the local Frankish nobility.

The first major internal rebellion in the kingdom's history pitted Hugh II, Count of Jaffa and a cousin of Queen Melisende, against the queen's husband, King Fulk of Anjou. The trouble was constitutional: Fulk had attempted to sideline Melisende from real power and to favour his own Angevin retinue over the established local Frankish baronage, and the poulain nobility rallied around Hugh as the natural leader of the resistance. Rumours of an affair between Melisende and Hugh were used as a political pretext for the conflict.

Hugh was accused of treason and challenged to judicial combat. He fled to the Fatimid-held city of Ascalon for help — an act that made his condemnation inevitable — and after returning under negotiated safe-conduct was sentenced to a three-year exile. While awaiting passage at Jerusalem an attempted assassination by a Breton knight in the streets of the city left him severely wounded and produced a wave of public sympathy that swept through the kingdom.

The political settlement that followed forced Fulk to grant Melisende an equal share in the government. From 1134 onwards husband and wife signed charters jointly, and after Fulk's death in 1143 Melisende governed in her own right as regent for their son Baldwin III — the constitutional precedent that the revolt had effectively created.

Read more on Wikipedia: English article