Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/209

 word. The first Latin king, according to the native historians, was John of Lusignan, also called Constantine, who reigned only a year; his brother, Guy of Lusignan, who succeeded in 1343, was connected by marriage with the Cantacuzenes, and even addressed Edward III as cousin. Both the brothers were little else than adventurers. Guy reigned for only three years. In 1347 his successor Constantius, or Constantine, was, through an envoy of the same name, collecting money in England by virtue of a brief issued by Clement VI. He seems to be identical with Constantine, who, in 1351, was on the throne; in his favour also alms were collected in England. He died in 1361. After an interval of three years, during which the crown was offered to Peter of Cyprus, and an unknown fourth king may possibly have reigned, Leo V appears on the throne in 1365. He had a hard fight for it; from 1371 to 1373 he was lost to his people, concealed in a mountain fortress where he had been obliged to take refuge. A new king was sought for, a husband for the supposed widow, and Gregory XI offered the crown to Otto of Brunswick. He, however, preferred to marry Johanna of Naples, and Leo emerged from seclusion. But with little better prospects; taken prisoner by the Egyptian sultan in 1375, he was released in 1383, to be thenceforth a wanderer and a pensioner on the Western princes. After his release he made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and went thence to Avignon and so to Spain. In Spain he obtained a provision. King John of Castile gave him three lordships, one of them Madrid; and as lord of Madrid King Leo granted a charter to the burghers of the town. But he did not stay in Spain. In 1384 he was in France offering his services as a mediator between Charles VI and Richard II. His offers were not welcome to the English lords, who then held the king in tutelage. They refused him in the first instance his passport—said that though he proffered peace he only wanted money; he was an illusor, and they would have nothing to do with him. Notwithstanding this he obtained not only a safe-conduct but a permit for a