besiege that city. The Bulgarian king led to its relief an army
which far outnumbered that of the crusaders. The Frank knights fought
desperately, but were utterly defeated (14th of April 1205); the count of
Blois was slain, and the emperor captured. For some time his fate was
uncertain, and in the meanwhile Henry, his brother, assumed the regency.
Not till the middle of July was it definitely ascertained that he was dead.
It seems that he was at first treated well as a valuable hostage, but was
sacrificed by the Bulgarian monarch in a sudden outburst of rage, perhaps
in consequence of the revolt of Philippopolis, which passed into the hands
of the Franks. One contemporary writer says that his hands and feet were
cut off, and he was thrown into a valley where he died on the third day;
but the manner of his death is obscure. King John himself wrote to Pope
Innocent III. that he died in prison. His brother Henry was crowned emperor
in August.

AUTHORITIES.--Villehardouin, _La Conquete de Constantinople_ (ed. De
Wailly, Paris, 1872; ed. Bouchet, 2 vols., Paris, 1891); Robert [v.03
p.0245] de Clari, _La Prise de Constantinople_ (in Hopf's _Chroniques
greco-romaines_); Ernoul, _Chronique_ (ed. Mas Latrie, Paris, 1871);
Nicetas (ed. Bonn, 1835); George Acropolites, vol. i. (ed. Heisenberg,
Leipzig, 1903); Documents in Tafel and Thomas, _Urkunden zur aelteren
Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig_ (Vienna, 1856).

MODERN WORKS.--Ducange, _Histoire de l'empire de Constantinople sous les
empereurs francais_ (Paris, 1657); Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, vol. vi.
(ed. Bury, 1898); G. Finlay, _History of Greece_, vol. iv. (Oxford, 1877);
Pears, _The Fall of Constantinople_ (London, 1885); Hopf, "Griechische
Geschichte," in Ersch and Gruber's _Encyklopaedie_, vol. lxxxv. (Leipzig,
1870); Gerland, _Geschichte des lateinischen Kaiserreiches von
Konstantinopel_, part i. (Homburg v. d. Hoehe, 1905).

(J. B. B.)

BALDWIN II. (1217-1273), emperor of Romania, was a younger son of Yolande,
sister of Baldwin I. Her husband, Peter of Courtenay, was third emperor of
Romania, and had been followed by his son Robert, on whose death in 1228
the succession passed to Baldwin, a boy of eleven years old. The barons
chose John of Brienne (titular king of Jerusalem) as emperor-regent for
life; Baldwin was to rule the Asiatic possessions of the empire when he
reached the age of twenty, was to marry John's daughter Mary, and on John's
death