Robert I, Latin Emperor

Robert was a younger son of Peter II of Courtenay and Yolanda of Flanders, born in 1201. When his eldest brother Philip renounced the Latin throne in 1219, Robert set out for Constantinople, stopping in Hungary where his brother-in-law Andrew II hosted him through winter 1220-1221 and helped broker a marriage alliance with Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II. Crowned emperor on 25 March 1221, Robert immediately faced collapse: Thessalonica fell to Theodore Doukas of Epirus in 1224, and defeat at Poimanenos forced him to confirm all of Nicaea's conquests. He was twice engaged to Eudokia Laskarina - the Orthodox patriarch blocked the first attempt because Robert's sister was already married to Eudokia's father - then broke the second betrothal to marry a Burgundian noblewoman already promised to another man. The jilted Burgundian led a conspiracy that drove Robert from Constantinople; he fled to Rome, and the pope persuaded him to return, but he died in the Morea in early 1228 on the journey back.