Alexios III Angelos - Life in Exile

Life in Exile

Alexios attempted to organize a resistance to the new regime from Adrianople and then Mosynopolis, where he was joined by the later usurper Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos in April 1204, after the definitive fall of Constantinople to the crusaders and the establishment of the Latin Empire.

At first Alexios III received Alexios V well, even allowing him to marry his daughter Eudokia Angelina. Later Alexios V was blinded and deserted by his father-in-law, who fled from the crusaders into Thessaly. Here Alexios III eventually surrendered, with Euphrosyne, to Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, who was establishing himself as ruler of the Kingdom of Thessalonica.

Trying to escape Boniface's "protection", Alexios III attempted to seek shelter with Michael I Komnenos Doukas, the ruler of Epirus, in 1205. Captured by Boniface, Alexios and his retinue were sent to Montferrat, before being brought back to Thessalonica in c. 1209. At that point the deposed emperor was ransomed by Michael I of Epirus, who sent him to Asia Minor, where Alexios' son-in-law Theodore I Laskaris of the Empire of Nicaea was holding his own against the Latins.

Here Alexios III conspired against his son-in-law after the latter refused to recognize Alexios' authority, and received the support of Kay Khusrau I, the sultan of Rûm. In the battle of Antioch on the Maeander in 1211, the sultan was defeated and killed, and Alexios III was captured by Theodore Laskaris. Alexius III was then confined to a monastery at Nicaea, where he died later in 1211.