Sibylla

Also known as Queen regnant of Jerusalem

Elder daughter of Amalric I and Agnes of Courtenay, Sibylla was the rightful heiress on the death of her son Baldwin V. The barons — led by Raymond of Tripoli — tried to block her coronation unless she divorced her deeply unpopular second husband Guy of Lusignan. She agreed, but only on condition she could choose her next husband herself. Once she was crowned in Jerusalem in late summer 1186, she immediately called Guy forward, set the royal crown on his own head, and declared him king. Her opponents stood stunned.

Within a year her husband's decisions had annihilated the kingdom. On 4 July 1187 Guy led the field army across a waterless basalt plateau toward the Sea of Galilee and into a trap Saladin had been setting for a decade; at the Horns of Hattin the True Cross was lost and the king, his brother and most of the nobility were captured. In October Jerusalem itself surrendered after a brief siege, and Sibylla — released to follow Guy — joined the remnant of the court at Tripoli and then at the Frankish siege camp before Acre.

She died of disease in that camp in the autumn of 1190, aged about thirty, together with her two small daughters by Guy. Her death was legally catastrophic as well: with Sibylla gone, Guy's only title to the throne was his marriage to her, and the nobility promptly turned to her younger half-sister Isabella as the new legitimate heir. Sibylla's reign was brief, personally brave, and politically ruinous — a queen who chose her husband and lost her kingdom to keep him.

Preceded by Baldwin V. Succeeded by Isabella I.

Read more on Wikipedia: English article