Hugh II of Jaffa - Attempted Assassination

Attempted Assassination

Hugh was free to remain in Jerusalem while waiting for a ship to take him into exile. One day, while playing dice on the street, he was brutally attacked by a Breton knight. The knight was quickly apprehended and convicted:

"No accuser or witnesses were necessary to prove the crime, for it was well known to all. Since the regular process of law was needless, therefore, the king ordered a sentence commensurate with his guilt to be pronounced upon the man. The court accordingly convened, and the assassin was sentenced by unanimous consent to suffer the penalty of mutilation of his members. The judgment was reported to the king, who ordered the sentence to be carried out." (William of Tyre, 14.18)

Rumours spread that Fulk himself had hired the knight to assassinate Hugh, and public opinion considered Hugh to be innocent of the charges of treason and conspiracy. Fulk ordered "...that the tongue should not be included among the members so mutilated", supposedly so that he would not be accused of trying to silence the knight. In any case, the knight claimed to have acted on his own:

"It was impossible to extort from the criminal, either in secret or in public, before or after the sentence was carried out, an admission that this monstrous act had been done by the order or with the knowledge of the king. On the contrary, he declared that he had ventured to do the deed on his own initiative in the hope of gaining the king's favor." (William of Tyre, 14.18)

Nevertheless Fulk no longer had the support of the public in the dispute.

Hugh remained in the kingdom for a short time, while his wounds healed. He then went into exile in Apulia, where his relative Roger II of Sicily named him Count of Gargan. Hugh never fully recovered, and died soon after his arrival.