Andronicus the Impaler

Reynald de Chatillon had a contemporary who surpassed him in terms of scandal, audacity and cruelty. A man who likewise knew what it was to be a prisoner and a conqueror, a leader of armies and a seducer of princesses; a man who scaled greater heights and who ultimately met a grislier end.
The wild child of the Byzantine ruling family was the handsome and licentious Andronicus Comnenus. This prince began his career leading Imperial armies against the Saracens. At some point in 1141 he was captured and made a prisoner of the Turks. After a year he was ransomed and was able to return to Constantinople, and the court of his cousin, the Emperor Manuel I. He became a favourite courtier, and also embarked on a torrid affair with his own niece, the fair Eudokia (he survived an assassination attempt by her brothers). Ambitious for power, Andronicus meanwhile began plotting against the emperor, or at least became suspected. From about 1155, he spent a decade in prison in the dungeon of the Boukelon palace in Constantinople. Eventually he managed to smuggle a wax impression of the keys to his supporters, enabling them to make a copy, and to facilitate his escape. He headed towards Russia.

Andronicus negotiated an alliance between the Grand Prince of Kiev and the Byzantine Emperor, thus regaining favour in Constantinople. Andronicus brought Russian troops to aid Manuel's invasion of Hungary. He was thus pardoned and by 1166 was back in the Byzantine Empire as governor of Cilicia (having incurred some displeasure for refusing to swear allegiance to Manuel's chosen successor). Andronicus soon rebelled again, and left for Antioch, a city claimed by both the Crusaders and the Byzantines. It was then held by Raymond of Poitiers, whose daughter Maria was married to the Emperor Manuel. Raymond had another daughter, Philippa whom Andronicus proceeded to seduce. This didn't go down well back in Constantinople, and before long Andronicus felt obliged to go on the run again, abandoning Philippa. He eventually reappeared in Jerusalem, along with a fortune in embezzled tax receipts from Cyprus and Cilicia.

Andronicus gained favour with King Amalric, the Latin ruler, who in time gave him the lordship of Beirut. Before long, however, Andronicus eloped with another niece, Theodora, the attractive young widow of Baldwin III. Though in his fifties by now Andronicus seems to have made an impression on Theodora. The couple passed between various Muslim courts including Damascus, and traveled through exotic and hazardous countries, before setting themselves up in a fortress in northern Anatolia. Later, while Andronicus was out raiding, his castle was stormed by the Byzantine governor of Trebizond (Trabzon) on behalf of the Emperor. Theodora and her two children were captured and sent to Constantinople. Andronicus was obliged to offer grovelling submissions to the Emperor in order to obtain their release. He returned to Anatolia to bide his time and nurse his injured pride.

On the death of Emperor Manuel in 1180, a power struggle ensued in Constantinople, for control of the boy king Alexius II. Initially the regency fell to the Frankish Empress Maria (Maria of Antioch) and her lover the Protesbatos Alexios. Opposition to the regency focussed on Maria the Porphygenita, (Manuel's daughter by his first marriage) and her Frankish husband Renier of Montferrat. After being implicated in a plot to murder the Protesbatos Alexios, they found themselves besieged in the cathedral Hagia Sophia.

They managed to send out an appeal to Andronicus, then Lord of Pontos. In 1182, he took an army to Constantinople, and seized power over the Eastern Roman Empire. Thus began a reign of terror that would have disastrous consequences for Byzantium. Driven by a desire to avenge perceived wrongs inflicted by his cousin Manuel, Andronicus began to slaughter his family and supporters. Maria of Antioch was strangled with a bow string, soon followed by the young Emperor Alexios II. For good measure Andronicus also poisoned Maria the Porphygenita and Renier. Of the family only Alexios II's fiancée, the Princess Agnes was spared, who Andronicus took for his own, despite her being a child of twelve and his being more than 50 years older than she. She was the daughter of the King of France Louis VII.

Andronicus struck coins showing himself being crowned by Christ. As he consolidated his power, many officials of state and other civil servants were also murdered. Manuel's loyal advisor Constantine Mardoukas was impaled on a stake. The inhabitants of Nicea and other cities in Asia Minor, who had not supported Andronicus's rise to power, were impaled by the hundred. Next Andronicus presided over a massacre of Latins living in Constantinople, making the Italian traders particular scapegoats (rather as Stalin had the Kulaks). Venetian merchants bore the brunt. Women and children were also killed, as were the sick in a pilgrim Hospital belonging to the Knights of St John. All this earned the Greeks an evil reputation in the west (despite subsequent attempts to repair relations) and paved the way for the attack on Constantinople by the 4th Crusade, which the Venetians regarded as revenge.

Andronicus was a harsh ruler but retained some popular support in the provinces by curbing the power of the aristocracy, rather as his spiritual successors Vlad Tepes and Ivan the Terrible would- curbing feudalism in favour of central control. Some disgruntled Byzantine nobles supported the invasion by William 'the Good' of Sicily who invaded the Empire and sacked Thessalonica before being driven off by Andronicus. After this Andronicus attempted to intensify his persecution of the aristocracy, for instance sending agents to arrest a minor prince named Isaac Angelus. Isaac killed the courtier sent to arrest him and then claimed sanctuary in the cathedral. When this became known, the people rose up against the absent Andronicus in support of Isaac. Andronicus unwittingly returned to find Isaac being hailed as Emperor. Andronicus attempted to escape from the angry mobs by boat, along with his young wife and a favourite mistress. This last escape attempt failed, however, and Andronicus met his end being tortured, mutilated and finally torn apart by his maddened subjects. Nemesis had come.