Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/109

 DYNASTIC TROUBLES. 91 was given up to the popular fury, and, amid mad excitement and a burning desire to make an end of the man who had done so mucli wrong, he was led to the hippodrome, was hung up by his feet between two columns, and perished miserably at the hands of the mob. Isaac Angelos, the new emperor, was the child of the revo- lution. He had not been anxious to become em- ngc OS. p^j.^j,^ ^^^^ jj^j accepted the throne almost in self- defence. He was a weak sovereign, and little fitted to cope with the difficulties which the dynastic struggles since the death of Manuel had created. He was the grandson of Con- stantine Angelos, who had married Theodora, the youngest daughter of Alexis the First. Constantino had given no evi- dence of ability. His son, Andronicos Angelos, had, in 1178, shown himself so great a coward that Manuel had threatened to send him around the streets of Constantinople dressed in women's clothes. Isaac, the new emperor, and his successor, Alexis the Third, w^ere the sons of this coward. By the laws of succession Isaac had no right to the throne. But there was no strict law as to hereditary succession ; and, inasmuch as Isaac reigned by the consent of the capital, his title was as good as that of his predecessors. In theory the emperors still reigned by the will of the people, but the machinery by which that will was expressed had long since become useless. Usu- ally, when there had been an able son ready to succeed his fa- ther, he had mounted the throne without opposition. When, as in the case of Manuel, there was only a boy, the want of a well-understood and generally accepted law of succession made itself felt. Soon after Isaac ascended the throne, he declared that he w^ould never consent to put any one to death, a senti- mental declaration which has been made in our own times by a sovereign in the same city, and has been equally well kept. The position of affairs when Isaac succeeded was worse than it had ever baen in the empire at any earlier time. The Sicil- ians, ^vho had invaded the empire, nominally in order to sup- port Alexis, a nephew of Manuel, against the tyrant Androni- cos, had crossed the Balkan peninsula, had taken possession of Salonica, had sacked it, and were steadily and successfully