Henry II, Count of Champagne

Henry was born in 1166, eldest son of the Count of Champagne and Marie of France, whose half-brothers were Philip II of France and Richard I of England. After his father died in 1181, his mother governed Champagne until Henry came of age. In 1190 he joined the Third Crusade, arriving at Acre with troops and supplies that buoyed the besieging Christian forces; the city fell in 1191. The next spring the barons of Jerusalem elected Conrad of Montferrat as their king, but Conrad was killed by Assassins within days of hearing the news - which Henry himself had delivered. The nobles then chose Henry and married him to Conrad's widow, Isabella I, the kingdom's heir. He ruled the remnant kingdom along the Palestinian coast without coronation, kept the barons loyal, crushed a Pisan plot on behalf of his wife's former brother-in-law, and in 1194 allied with the Assassins to intervene in regional conflicts. In 1197 he arranged marriages for his three daughters, then fell from a window and died at thirty-one.