Amalric of Jerusalem

The younger son of King Fulk and Queen Melisende, Amalric sided with his mother when his elder brother Baldwin III deposed her in 1152, but the brothers reconciled two years later. Made count of Jaffa and Ascalon, he married Agnes of Courtenay in 1157 and had two children, Sibylla and the future Baldwin IV. When Baldwin III died in 1163, the Church forced Amalric to annul his marriage before crowning him king on 18 February. His reign became a relentless contest with Nur al-Din Zengi and a fixation on Egypt: Amalric invaded repeatedly, supporting rival viziers and taking Alexandria in 1167, but when he broke treaty and invaded in 1167-68 to seize the country outright, it fell instead to Nur al-Din's general Shirkuh. A joint Byzantine-crusader expedition in 1169 failed, and Shirkuh's successor Saladin rose as the new threat. Amalric's son began showing signs of leprosy; a marriage prospect for his daughter fled the kingdom. Amalric caught dysentery while maneuvering in Syria after Nur al-Din's death and died on 11 July 1174, leaving the throne to a thirteen-year-old leper king.