List of monarchs III

[Ikny]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos)

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, ______, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.

 

[Emperor Charles V]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew _______ the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.

 

[Emperor Charles V]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son _______ succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.

 

[KingofArkham]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son _____, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.

 

[Shiva]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, ____, who was Constantine's _____.

 

[PoorBoy]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1625 - 1532: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.

 

[KingofArkham]

Damn, got ninja'd

 

[TomKing]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]


[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, _____

 

[KingofArkham]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]


[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son ____

 

[Jonathan]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]
1759 - 1813: Theodore IV (Palaiologos) [14]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Theodor.
[14] At thirty-two, Theodor, was thrown onto the throne and had to battle with his bastard, half-brothers for the first nineteen years, before having the any remaining bastard lines executed, to his enemies he was cruel while to his allies, he was seen a wise and powerful.
With numerous battles he was able grow his Empire, covered a majority of the Balkan peninsula to the southern border of Austria and had gain regions along the Anatolian peninsula, however unlike his father, he kept his court closer to Europe with his wife, Maria Sophia of Austria, bringing in merchants and politicians from Austria with her.
When he died at the age of eighty-six, his mighty empire was left to his grandson _____, by his eldest son, Michael and his wife Theodora of Russia.

 

[QuoProQuid]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]
1759 - 1813: Theodore IV (Palaiologos) [14]

Emperors of Austria and Byzantium

1813 - 1825: Andrew III (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [15]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Theodor.
[14] At thirty-two, Theodor, was thrown onto the throne and had to battle with his bastard, half-brothers for the first nineteen years, before having the any remaining bastard lines executed, to his enemies he was cruel while to his allies, he was seen a wise and powerful.
With numerous battles he was able grow his Empire, covered a majority of the Balkan peninsula to the southern border of Austria and had gain regions along the Anatolian peninsula, however unlike his father, he kept his court closer to Europe with his wife, Maria Sophia of Austria, bringing in merchants and politicians from Austria with her.
When he died at the age of eighty-six, his mighty empire was left to his grandson Andrew, by his eldest son, Michael and his wife Theodora of Russia.
[15] After spending several years cultivating the empire he had received through his grandmother's line, Andrew inherited the Greek Empire. To say nothing of the domestic turmoil this incident brought, with the people of Constantinople fearing that they had once again been traded for a foreigner, the inheritance was also opposed by most European states, who saw the dual monarchy as an upset to the sensitive balance of power. Andrew struggled to maintain his patrimony and faced several short-lived pretenders.
Though he managed to avoid conflict during his short-reign, Andrew did make several innovations that would hurt the abilities of his successors. First, Andrew moved the Greek Imperial Court from Constantinople to Vienna, delegating authority of the city to an appointed representative and granting him a substantial city militia to ward off attackers. Second, Andrew tried to bring his territories into the Holy Roman Empire as a means of supporting his bid to unite the two empires. This gradual integration led to the odd dichotomy where the Byzantines claimed supreme authority within their territory, equal authority to the Holy Roman Emperor in foreign affairs, and swore vassalage in German events. Third, Andrew attempted to conquer the Kingdom of Cyprus, an incident which alienated European leaders who had previously supported the self-proclaimed Kings of Jerusalem. Although Portugal and Spain's call for a crusade failed, future leaders became hesitant in their dealings with the Greeks.

 

[KingofArkham]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]
1759 - 1813: Theodore IV (Palaiologos) [14]

Emperors of Austria and Byzantium

1813 - 1825: Andrew III (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [15]
1825 - 1827: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]

Byzantine Emperors

1827 - 1858: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Theodor.
[14] At thirty-two, Theodor, was thrown onto the throne and had to battle with his bastard, half-brothers for the first nineteen years, before having the any remaining bastard lines executed, to his enemies he was cruel while to his allies, he was seen a wise and powerful.
With numerous battles he was able grow his Empire, covered a majority of the Balkan peninsula to the southern border of Austria and had gain regions along the Anatolian peninsula, however unlike his father, he kept his court closer to Europe with his wife, Maria Sophia of Austria, bringing in merchants and politicians from Austria with her.
When he died at the age of eighty-six, his mighty empire was left to his grandson Andrew, by his eldest son, Michael and his wife Theodora of Russia.
[15] After spending several years cultivating the empire he had received through his grandmother's line, Andrew inherited the Greek Empire. To say nothing of the domestic turmoil this incident brought, with the people of Constantinople fearing that they had once again been traded for a foreigner, the inheritance was also opposed by most European states, who saw the dual monarchy as an upset to the sensitive balance of power. Andrew struggled to maintain his patrimony and faced several short-lived pretenders.
Though he managed to avoid conflict during his short-reign, Andrew did make several innovations that would hurt the abilities of his successors. First, Andrew moved the Greek Imperial Court from Constantinople to Vienna, delegating authority of the city to an appointed representative and granting him a substantial city militia to ward off attackers. Second, Andrew tried to bring his territories into the Holy Roman Empire as a means of supporting his bid to unite the two empires. This gradual integration led to the odd dichotomy where the Byzantines claimed supreme authority within their territory, equal authority to the Holy Roman Emperor in foreign affairs, and swore vassalage in German events. Third, Andrew attempted to conquer the Kingdom of Cyprus, an incident which alienated European leaders who had previously supported the self-proclaimed Kings of Jerusalem. Although Portugal and Spain's call for a crusade failed, future leaders became hesitant in their dealings with the Greeks.
[16] Manuel VI, brother of Andrew inherited the two Empires of his brother and decided almost immediately to seperate the two by abdicating the Austrian throne with his brother John as the new Austrian Emperor after two years. He then returns his Imperial court to Constantinople and cedes the Kingdom of Cyprus back to the original ruler. He spends most of the rest of his reign working on restoring European trust with the Byzantine Empire. He dies in 1858 with trust between the Byzantine Empire and the European leaders mostly restored. He was succeeded as Byzantine Emperor by his eldest son _______

 

[TomKing]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]
1759 - 1813: Theodore IV (Palaiologos) [14]

Emperors of Austria and Byzantium

1813 - 1825: Andrew III (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [15]
1825 - 1827: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]

Byzantine Emperors

1827 - 1858: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]
1858 - 1900: John XII (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [17]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Theodor.
[14] At thirty-two, Theodor, was thrown onto the throne and had to battle with his bastard, half-brothers for the first nineteen years, before having the any remaining bastard lines executed, to his enemies he was cruel while to his allies, he was seen a wise and powerful.
With numerous battles he was able grow his Empire, covered a majority of the Balkan peninsula to the southern border of Austria and had gain regions along the Anatolian peninsula, however unlike his father, he kept his court closer to Europe with his wife, Maria Sophia of Austria, bringing in merchants and politicians from Austria with her.
When he died at the age of eighty-six, his mighty empire was left to his grandson Andrew, by his eldest son, Michael and his wife Theodora of Russia.
[15] After spending several years cultivating the empire he had received through his grandmother's line, Andrew inherited the Greek Empire. To say nothing of the domestic turmoil this incident brought, with the people of Constantinople fearing that they had once again been traded for a foreigner, the inheritance was also opposed by most European states, who saw the dual monarchy as an upset to the sensitive balance of power. Andrew struggled to maintain his patrimony and faced several short-lived pretenders.
Though he managed to avoid conflict during his short-reign, Andrew did make several innovations that would hurt the abilities of his successors. First, Andrew moved the Greek Imperial Court from Constantinople to Vienna, delegating authority of the city to an appointed representative and granting him a substantial city militia to ward off attackers. Second, Andrew tried to bring his territories into the Holy Roman Empire as a means of supporting his bid to unite the two empires. This gradual integration led to the odd dichotomy where the Byzantines claimed supreme authority within their territory, equal authority to the Holy Roman Emperor in foreign affairs, and swore vassalage in German events. Third, Andrew attempted to conquer the Kingdom of Cyprus, an incident which alienated European leaders who had previously supported the self-proclaimed Kings of Jerusalem. Although Portugal and Spain's call for a crusade failed, future leaders became hesitant in their dealings with the Greeks.
[16] Manuel VI, brother of Andrew inherited the two Empires of his brother and decided almost immediately to seperate the two by abdicating the Austrian throne with his brother John as the new Austrian Emperor after two years. He then returns his Imperial court to Constantinople and cedes the Kingdom of Cyprus back to the original ruler. He spends most of the rest of his reign working on restoring European trust with the Byzantine Empire. He dies in 1858 with trust between the Byzantine Empire and the European leaders mostly restored. He was succeeded as Byzantine Emperor by his eldest son John XII
[17] John XII, son of Manuel VI ruled for 42 years and was at peace for his entire reign. Mostly notable for building several new churches in Anatolia. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson _____

 

[KingofArkham]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]
1759 - 1813: Theodore IV (Palaiologos) [14]

Emperors of Austria and Byzantium

1813 - 1825: Andrew III (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [15]
1825 - 1827: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]

Byzantine Emperors

1827 - 1858: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]
1858 - 1900: John XII (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [17]
1900 - 1969: Andrew IV (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [18]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Theodor.
[14] At thirty-two, Theodor, was thrown onto the throne and had to battle with his bastard, half-brothers for the first nineteen years, before having the any remaining bastard lines executed, to his enemies he was cruel while to his allies, he was seen a wise and powerful.
With numerous battles he was able grow his Empire, covered a majority of the Balkan peninsula to the southern border of Austria and had gain regions along the Anatolian peninsula, however unlike his father, he kept his court closer to Europe with his wife, Maria Sophia of Austria, bringing in merchants and politicians from Austria with her.
When he died at the age of eighty-six, his mighty empire was left to his grandson Andrew, by his eldest son, Michael and his wife Theodora of Russia.
[15] After spending several years cultivating the empire he had received through his grandmother's line, Andrew inherited the Greek Empire. To say nothing of the domestic turmoil this incident brought, with the people of Constantinople fearing that they had once again been traded for a foreigner, the inheritance was also opposed by most European states, who saw the dual monarchy as an upset to the sensitive balance of power. Andrew struggled to maintain his patrimony and faced several short-lived pretenders.
Though he managed to avoid conflict during his short-reign, Andrew did make several innovations that would hurt the abilities of his successors. First, Andrew moved the Greek Imperial Court from Constantinople to Vienna, delegating authority of the city to an appointed representative and granting him a substantial city militia to ward off attackers. Second, Andrew tried to bring his territories into the Holy Roman Empire as a means of supporting his bid to unite the two empires. This gradual integration led to the odd dichotomy where the Byzantines claimed supreme authority within their territory, equal authority to the Holy Roman Emperor in foreign affairs, and swore vassalage in German events. Third, Andrew attempted to conquer the Kingdom of Cyprus, an incident which alienated European leaders who had previously supported the self-proclaimed Kings of Jerusalem. Although Portugal and Spain's call for a crusade failed, future leaders became hesitant in their dealings with the Greeks.
[16] Manuel VI, brother of Andrew inherited the two Empires of his brother and decided almost immediately to seperate the two by abdicating the Austrian throne with his brother John as the new Austrian Emperor after two years. He then returns his Imperial court to Constantinople and cedes the Kingdom of Cyprus back to the original ruler. He spends most of the rest of his reign working on restoring European trust with the Byzantine Empire. He dies in 1858 with trust between the Byzantine Empire and the European leaders mostly restored. He was succeeded as Byzantine Emperor by his eldest son John XII
[17] John XII, son of Manuel VI ruled for 42 years and was at peace for his entire reign. Mostly notable for building several new churches in Anatolia. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson Andrew IV
[18] Andrew IV inherited his grandfather's throne when he was 11 years old and he had a regent for seven years before claiming power for himself. Andrew IV continued his grandfather's work in building churches in Anatolia, expanding to the Balkans and Armenia in his long reign. He also continued to work on the trust issues left over from Andrew III by signing several non-agression pacts with several European nations. After his death in 1969, he was succeeded by his third son, _____, a man of 20 years of age.

 

[Jonathan]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]
1759 - 1813: Theodore IV (Palaiologos) [14]
----------------
Emperors of Austria and Byzantium

1813 - 1825: Andrew III (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [15]
----------------

Emperors of Austria
1825 - 1837: Leopold II (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]


Grand Duke of Byzantium
1825 - 1858: John XI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]


[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Theodor.
[14] At thirty-two, Theodor, was thrown onto the throne and had to battle with his bastard, half-brothers for the first nineteen years, before having the any remaining bastard lines executed, to his enemies he was cruel while to his allies, he was seen a wise and powerful.
With numerous battles he was able grow his Empire, covered a majority of the Balkan peninsula to the southern border of Austria and had gain regions along the Anatolian peninsula, however unlike his father, he kept his court closer to Europe with his wife, Maria Sophia of Austria, bringing in merchants and politicians from Austria with her.
When he died at the age of eighty-six, his mighty empire was left to his grandson Andrew, by his eldest son, Michael and his wife Theodora of Russia.
[15] After spending several years cultivating the empire he had received through his grandmother's line, Andrew inherited the Greek Empire. To say nothing of the domestic turmoil this incident brought, with the people of Constantinople fearing that they had once again been traded for a foreigner, the inheritance was also opposed by most European states, who saw the dual monarchy as an upset to the sensitive balance of power. Andrew struggled to maintain his patrimony and faced several short-lived pretenders.
Though he managed to avoid conflict during his short-reign, Andrew did make several innovations that would hurt the abilities of his successors. First, Andrew moved the Greek Imperial Court from Constantinople to Vienna, delegating authority of the city to an appointed representative and granting him a substantial city militia to ward off attackers. Second, Andrew tried to bring his territories into the Holy Roman Empire as a means of supporting his bid to unite the two empires. This gradual integration led to the odd dichotomy where the Byzantines claimed supreme authority within their territory, equal authority to the Holy Roman Emperor in foreign affairs, and swore vassalage in German events. Third, Andrew attempted to conquer the Kingdom of Cyprus, an incident which alienated European leaders who had previously supported the self-proclaimed Kings of Jerusalem. Although Portugal and Spain's call for a crusade failed, future leaders became hesitant in their dealings with the Greeks.
[16] After the death of Andrew III, his eldest son and heir Leopold, was given an altomatum by Russia, France, Spain, Britain and the Holy Roman Empire, either he divides the two nations between his brother and himself, or there would be an all out war to rebalance to status quo of Europe.
Leopold chose the safest option by Crowning his brother, John as Grand Duke of Byzantium, with himself as the styled Emperor of Austria.
The two brothers ruled separately but were still to allied, to the liking of their Eastern neighbour of Russia.
In 1837, Leopold, died of poisoning, while John carried on to rule his territory, with _____, as Emperor of Austria and in 1858, John died in his sleep with _______, succeeding him as Grand Duke of Byzantium.

 

[TomKing]

Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]
1759 - 1813: Theodore IV (Palaiologos) [14]

Emperors of Austria and Byzantium

1813 - 1825: Andrew III (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [15]
1825 - 1827: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]

Byzantine Emperors

1827 - 1858: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]
1858 - 1900: John XII (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [17]
1900 - 1969: Andrew IV (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [18]
1969 - 1989: Manuel VII (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [19]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Theodor.
[14] At thirty-two, Theodor, was thrown onto the throne and had to battle with his bastard, half-brothers for the first nineteen years, before having the any remaining bastard lines executed, to his enemies he was cruel while to his allies, he was seen a wise and powerful.
With numerous battles he was able grow his Empire, covered a majority of the Balkan peninsula to the southern border of Austria and had gain regions along the Anatolian peninsula, however unlike his father, he kept his court closer to Europe with his wife, Maria Sophia of Austria, bringing in merchants and politicians from Austria with her.
When he died at the age of eighty-six, his mighty empire was left to his grandson Andrew, by his eldest son, Michael and his wife Theodora of Russia.
[15] After spending several years cultivating the empire he had received through his grandmother's line, Andrew inherited the Greek Empire. To say nothing of the domestic turmoil this incident brought, with the people of Constantinople fearing that they had once again been traded for a foreigner, the inheritance was also opposed by most European states, who saw the dual monarchy as an upset to the sensitive balance of power. Andrew struggled to maintain his patrimony and faced several short-lived pretenders.
Though he managed to avoid conflict during his short-reign, Andrew did make several innovations that would hurt the abilities of his successors. First, Andrew moved the Greek Imperial Court from Constantinople to Vienna, delegating authority of the city to an appointed representative and granting him a substantial city militia to ward off attackers. Second, Andrew tried to bring his territories into the Holy Roman Empire as a means of supporting his bid to unite the two empires. This gradual integration led to the odd dichotomy where the Byzantines claimed supreme authority within their territory, equal authority to the Holy Roman Emperor in foreign affairs, and swore vassalage in German events. Third, Andrew attempted to conquer the Kingdom of Cyprus, an incident which alienated European leaders who had previously supported the self-proclaimed Kings of Jerusalem. Although Portugal and Spain's call for a crusade failed, future leaders became hesitant in their dealings with the Greeks.
[16] Manuel VI, brother of Andrew inherited the two Empires of his brother and decided almost immediately to seperate the two by abdicating the Austrian throne with his brother John as the new Austrian Emperor after two years. He then returns his Imperial court to Constantinople and cedes the Kingdom of Cyprus back to the original ruler. He spends most of the rest of his reign working on restoring European trust with the Byzantine Empire. He dies in 1858 with trust between the Byzantine Empire and the European leaders mostly restored. He was succeeded as Byzantine Emperor by his eldest son John XII
[17] John XII, son of Manuel VI ruled for 42 years and was at peace for his entire reign. Mostly notable for building several new churches in Anatolia. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson Andrew IV
[18] Andrew IV inherited his grandfather's throne when he was 11 years old and he had a regent for seven years before claiming power for himself. Andrew IV continued his grandfather's work in building churches in Anatolia, expanding to the Balkans and Armenia in his long reign. He also continued to work on the trust issues left over from Andrew III by signing several non-agression pacts with several European nations. After his death in 1969, he was succeeded by his third son, Manuel VII, a man of 20 years of age.
[19] Manuel VII ruled over a period of peace for 20 years with nothing of note happening in his reign. He was succeeded by his eldest son _____

 

[KingofArkham]

Sorry, Jonathan you've been ninja'd several time before your post by myself and TomKing



Byzantine Emperors (Despots of the Morea)

1449 - 1457: Constantine XI (Palaiologos) [1]
1457 - 1482: Andrew I (Palaiologos) [2]
1482 - 1487: Manuel III (Palaiologos) [3]
1487 - 1493: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)[4]

Byzantine Emperors

1493 - 1525: Theodore III "The Great" (Palaiologos)
1525 - 1531: Manuel IV (Palaiologos) [5]
1531 - 1545: John IX (Palaiologos) [6]
1545 - 1554: Alexios VI (Palaiologos) [7]
1554 - 1590: Stephen I (Palaiologos) [8]
1590 - 1625: John X (Palaiologos) [9]
1625 - 1698: Constantine XII (Palaiologos) [10]
1698 - 1732: Andrew II (Palaiologos) [11]
1732 - 1733: John XI (Palaiologos) [12]
1733 - 1759: Manuel V (Palaiologos) [13]
1759 - 1813: Theodore IV (Palaiologos) [14]

Emperors of Austria and Byzantium

1813 - 1825: Andrew III (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [15]
1825 - 1827: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]

Byzantine Emperors

1827 - 1858: Manuel VI (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [16]
1858 - 1900: John XII (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [17]
1900 - 1969: Andrew IV (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [18]
1969 - 1989: Manuel VII (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [19]
1989 - Present: John XIII (Palaiologos-Habsburg) [20]

[1] In 1453, Mehmed II, the Ottoman Emperor, delivered an ultimatum to Constantine XI. If Constantine surrendered Constantinople and agreed to pay a yearly tribute, the Ottomans would allow the Palaigolos to rule Morea as vassals, support safe passage for his citizens and troops, and guarantee the security of the Palaiologos in Morea for at least three generations. To the great shock and horror of the Greeks, Constantine accepted the offer and abandoned the city with his court for Mystras. For the remainder of his life, Constantine XI lived as a despised man in de facto suffrage under his younger brother Thomas (because Demetrios allegedly died of a heart attack upon hearing the news) and de jure suffrage under Mehmed. Constantine maintained his crown and was referred to as the Byzantine Emperor within his court, but very few rulers continued to recognize him as such.
[2] Thomas was always bickering with his brother to the point that Constantine XI, cut him out as his heir and appointed his nephew, Andreas as the next heir.
In 1457 Andreas became the new Emperor and began to lay his plan to regain Constantinople, for the Greeks. He fell in love with Maria Drăculești, the daughter of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, during his reign he also became an ally of the Republic of Venice, whom both despised the Ottoman empire. All three nations were planning to re-conquer the city when Emperor Andreas died of a heart attack travelling back from Venice.
[3] Andreas produced only daughters and illegitimate sons and the Imperial Court, fearing that Bayezid II would invade claiming that the Despotate had passed from the Palaigolos, elevated Andreas's brother Manuel to the throne. Much less impressed with Manuel than his brother, Andreas converted to Roman Catholicism and promised grand rewards in an attempt to woo his Western supporters. In 1486, Pope Sixtus V declared a crusade against the Ottomans with the support of Wallachia, Spain, Cyprus, Florence and Venice. Upon hearing that Bayezid was leading an army to the Morea to depose the Palaigoloses Manuel fled to Corfu, where he remained with his family until he died of disease in 1487. Ironically, he died the same day as Bayezid, who accidentally drowned fighting Venetian forces near Mystras.
[4] Manuel was succeeded by his son Theodore, also a Catholic. A brave warrior, Theodore devoted his entire life to accomplishing his dreams of taking back Constantinople from the Turks and completing the crusade called by the Pope. And in the end, he was successful. In 1493 with the help from Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VII and other armies from throughout Europe as well as the support of the people of the city who were still overwhelmingly Christian, Theodore invaded Constantinople and captured an imprisoned the Sultan Selim. Then as legend goes he forced him to eat pork and as he was chewing about twenty or so Greek women who Theodore had freed from Sultan's harem popped out from hiding and stabbed the Sultan to death. This marked the end of the once promising Ottoman Empire and the return of the Byzantines. Theodore became known as the Great or the Restorer and following the capture of Constantinople, he proceeded to recapture lands for the Byzantines pushing the Turks (no longer unified as their Sultan was killed and did not have a living heir) much farther to the east. He also liberated almost of the Christians in the Balkans formerly under Turkish rule. By Theodore's death, the Byzantine Empire included almost all of the Balkan Peninsula and stretched eastward all the way into Armenia and other lands formerly controlled by the now defunct sultanate. Considered a hero of Christendom, Theodore died at an old age in 1525. Though a lifelong Catholic, his wife was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and their children were raised in that faith. Theodore was succeeded by his eldest son Manuel.
[5] Manuel faced immediate difficulties when coming to power. His Orthodoxy lost him support from the Latins and made holding the land in Anatolia and east extremely difficult. With the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate and Caliphate the Empire was unable to hold these lands and lost them to the Mamluks. Manuel's brother, John, seeing an opportunity assasinated his brother and converted to his father's Catholicism.
[6] John was able to recover some land from Anatolia lost under his brother's reign but not to the extent as his father. Known as the "Restorer," he spent much of his reign building up the treasury of the Empire. Never having married, he died in 1547 and was succeeded by his nephew Alexios, the son of his younger brother who had predeceased him.
[7] Alexios presided over a period of great turmoil. As their succession crises resolved, both the Mamluk Sultanate and reformed Ottoman Sultanate charged through Asia Minor, recapturing territories that the Byzantines lacked the resources to hold. His uncle's treasury helped brunt the blow of this invasion, but proved woefully incapable of creating long-term solutions. Though he made many offers for peace, Muslim forces refused to ever engage in diplomacy with the dynasty which had defiled and murdered their spiritual leader.
Events came to a head in 1550, on the fifth anniversary of his coronation. Faced with the prospect of increased taxes to arm the Greek army and widely believing that they had "traded the crescent for a bishop's mitre," the people of Constantinople revolted against the Palaiologos line and expelled his supporters from the city. Alexios fled to Corfu, like his predecessor before him, while the people of Constantinople declared the creation of a new "Greek Republic" along the lines of the Romans before them. The Greek Republic existed for two years before Manuel enlisted the Papal Army to help retake the city. By that time, the Palaiologos and the idea of "Byzantium" as a whole had been severely undermined.
[8] Having only had one daughter (whom he married of to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor), Alexios was succeeded by younger brother Stephen. Stephen though a devout Catholic was considerably more liberal than his predecessors and sought to modernize the Empire or in other words, make it more like western Europe. Stephen was admired by historians for calling a truce with the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates, something his brother Alexios failed to do. He sat down with both of their leaders in Nicosia where the Treaty of Nicosia was signed. This treaty established "King Stephens Line" which divided disputed lands in Western Anatolia. Everything west of the line was agreed to be ruled by Christians where everything east would be ruled by Muslims. Although he was criticized for bargaining with the Muslims by many Christian leaders, he was generally praised for this move and Byzantium gained much more money from peaceful trade with the Turks. Stephen was also a patron of the arts and sciences and his reign saw much progress and innovation in these fields. He married Virginia Calligari a Venetian woman and had 14 children with her. Their eldest son John X succeeded Stephen as Emperor upon his death in 1590.
[9] John X ruled peacefully for 35 years as Byzantine Emperor and was only notable for spending 6 years in a depression after the death of his eldest son and heir Thomas. After recovering from his depression, he ruled ably for the next year before dying from injuries suffered in a fall from his horse. He was succeeded by his second son Constantine, who he had scorned as inferior for the past twenty years due to his close friendship with the future Sultans of the Ottoman and Mamluk Sultanates.
[10] Constantine XII, previously scorned by his father took the throne at 20 years old and proved that the friendships he had built with the Turk and Mamluk heirs were good for the Empire, since relations between Byzantium and the Muslim powers reached an unheard off level of tranquility. A series of clever marriages made between them meant that the future rulers of the three nations would be directly related to each other in some manner. This was mocked in Europe, however as the 'Catholic Church' in the west shattered due to the Protestant Reformation and the 'Wars of Religion that swept through the old HRE and spread all the way to Spain and the British Isles, Constantine was convinced that the future was to the east, not the west. During his long, 76 year reign, Byzantium's wealth grew as trade routes were opened up that stretched all the way to India and a Byzantine Envoy was sent to Ming China (though those talks petered out). Constantine outlived several heirs and died at the age of 96, having not just one of the longest reign's in Byznatine history, but was the oldest monarch in human history as he unknowingly beat out Ramses II of Ancient Egypt by several years. The person who inherited the Imperial throne was, Andrew, who was Constantine's grandson.
[11] Andrew was already 56 when he took the throne. The peace with the Muslim neighbours that his grandfather built was put on shaky ground when the Portuguese decided to attack the Mamluk outpost of Aden and Socotra. Though he remained faithful to the alliance, he was accused by the Mamluk sultan of cowardice when he decided to send his troops west to Portugal instead of the arduous journey south where the action is. His ships never made is past the Straits of Gibraltar against the formidable Portuguese Armada, and his army was left stranded at Morocco to siege Ceuta. Died of liver failure.
[12] Brother of Andrew, John XI was bedridden when he was crowned as Emperor at the age of 88 on December 5 1732. However he ruled for just 34 days, passing away on January 7 1733. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson, Manuel V
[13] Manuel V was thirty-seven when he inherited the Imperial throne. His first action after ascending the throne was renew the alliances made by his ancestor, Constantine and immediately march to the aid of the Ottoman Sultman who was under attack from the Portugese. After this he became notable for his many mistresses and the fact that he legitimized several of his bastards. However after his death on campaign in Anatolia alongside the Mamluk and Ottoman Sultans, who also perished in the battle, he was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son, Theodor.
[14] At thirty-two, Theodor, was thrown onto the throne and had to battle with his bastard, half-brothers for the first nineteen years, before having the any remaining bastard lines executed, to his enemies he was cruel while to his allies, he was seen a wise and powerful.
With numerous battles he was able grow his Empire, covered a majority of the Balkan peninsula to the southern border of Austria and had gain regions along the Anatolian peninsula, however unlike his father, he kept his court closer to Europe with his wife, Maria Sophia of Austria, bringing in merchants and politicians from Austria with her.
When he died at the age of eighty-six, his mighty empire was left to his grandson Andrew, by his eldest son, Michael and his wife Theodora of Russia.
[15] After spending several years cultivating the empire he had received through his grandmother's line, Andrew inherited the Greek Empire. To say nothing of the domestic turmoil this incident brought, with the people of Constantinople fearing that they had once again been traded for a foreigner, the inheritance was also opposed by most European states, who saw the dual monarchy as an upset to the sensitive balance of power. Andrew struggled to maintain his patrimony and faced several short-lived pretenders.
Though he managed to avoid conflict during his short-reign, Andrew did make several innovations that would hurt the abilities of his successors. First, Andrew moved the Greek Imperial Court from Constantinople to Vienna, delegating authority of the city to an appointed representative and granting him a substantial city militia to ward off attackers. Second, Andrew tried to bring his territories into the Holy Roman Empire as a means of supporting his bid to unite the two empires. This gradual integration led to the odd dichotomy where the Byzantines claimed supreme authority within their territory, equal authority to the Holy Roman Emperor in foreign affairs, and swore vassalage in German events. Third, Andrew attempted to conquer the Kingdom of Cyprus, an incident which alienated European leaders who had previously supported the self-proclaimed Kings of Jerusalem. Although Portugal and Spain's call for a crusade failed, future leaders became hesitant in their dealings with the Greeks.
[16] Manuel VI, brother of Andrew inherited the two Empires of his brother and decided almost immediately to seperate the two by abdicating the Austrian throne with his brother John as the new Austrian Emperor after two years. He then returns his Imperial court to Constantinople and cedes the Kingdom of Cyprus back to the original ruler. He spends most of the rest of his reign working on restoring European trust with the Byzantine Empire. He dies in 1858 with trust between the Byzantine Empire and the European leaders mostly restored. He was succeeded as Byzantine Emperor by his eldest son John XII
[17] John XII, son of Manuel VI ruled for 42 years and was at peace for his entire reign. Mostly notable for building several new churches in Anatolia. He was succeeded by his eldest grandson Andrew IV
[18] Andrew IV inherited his grandfather's throne when he was 11 years old and he had a regent for seven years before claiming power for himself. Andrew IV continued his grandfather's work in building churches in Anatolia, expanding to the Balkans and Armenia in his long reign. He also continued to work on the trust issues left over from Andrew III by signing several non-agression pacts with several European nations. After his death in 1969, he was succeeded by his third son, Manuel VII, a man of 20 years of age.
[19] Manuel VII ruled over a period of peace for 20 years with nothing of note happening in his reign. He was succeeded by his eldest son John XIII
[20] The Current Byzantine Emperor is a charming, affable man who is loved by his subject and is a loving father and has just become a grandfather for the first time. His kind nature has seen him oversee several peace treaty ratification and his nation has entered a golden age.

 

[KingofArkham]

New List

Kings of Wessex

871 A.D. - 902 A.D.: Ethelwold (Wessex Dynasty) [1]

[1] Alfred, uncle to Ethelwold served ably as regent for the first ten years of Ethelwold's reign before surrending power to Ethelwold in 881 A.D., including defeat Viking lord Guthrum at the Battle of Ethandum in 878 A.D.. However in 882, Ethelwold names Alfred as the leader of his armies against Viking invasions, which continued throughout 882 and 883. A final victory over Guthrum in 884 followed and Alfred was installed as King of East Anglia. Ethelwold marries his cousin Ethelflaed, daughther of Alfred in 892 A.D., after the death of her husband Ethelred in 890 A.D.. In 893, another Viking invasion besets East Anglia and Alfred is forced to flee after suffering two defeats in 894. He returns to Wessex and gathers a new army, defeating the Viking in 895 in such a way that forced the leader of the new invasion to agree to a peace treaty in 896, recognising Alfred's rule of East Anglia, whilst ceding all of Mercia to Viking chieftains. A brief period of peace follows which is disrupted by the death of Alfred in 899 A.D. and another invasion of East Anglia by the Vikings under a new chieftain by the name of Ragnar. Ragnar is victorious over Alfred's successor, his son Edward and conquers East Anglia and only a bad winter in 901 stops him from invading Wessex. Finally beginning his invasion of Wessex in early 902, Ragnar is defeated by the army of Ethelwold in March 902 but due to being unable to press his advantage, Ethelwold is forced to recognise Ragnar's kingdom in East Anglia. A year of peace follows before Ethelwold's death. He is succeeded by his son _____

 

[Emperor Charles V]

Kings of Wessex

871 - 902: Aethelwold (Wessex Dynasty) [1]
902 - 927: Aethelred II (Wessex Dynasty) [2]

[1] Alfred, uncle to Ethelwold served ably as regent for the first ten years of Ethelwold's reign before surrending power to Ethelwold in 881 A.D., including defeat Viking lord Guthrum at the Battle of Ethandum in 878 A.D.. However in 882, Ethelwold names Alfred as the leader of his armies against Viking invasions, which continued throughout 882 and 883. A final victory over Guthrum in 884 followed and Alfred was installed as King of East Anglia. Ethelwold marries his cousin Ethelflaed, daughther of Alfred in 892 A.D., after the death of her husband Ethelred in 890 A.D.. In 893, another Viking invasion besets East Anglia and Alfred is forced to flee after suffering two defeats in 894. He returns to Wessex and gathers a new army, defeating the Viking in 895 in such a way that forced the leader of the new invasion to agree to a peace treaty in 896, recognising Alfred's rule of East Anglia, whilst ceding all of Mercia to Viking chieftains. A brief period of peace follows which is disrupted by the death of Alfred in 899 A.D. and another invasion of East Anglia by the Vikings under a new chieftain by the name of Ragnar. Ragnar is victorious over Alfred's successor, his son Edward and conquers East Anglia and only a bad winter in 901 stops him from invading Wessex. Finally beginning his invasion of Wessex in early 902, Ragnar is defeated by the army of Ethelwold in March 902 but due to being unable to press his advantage, Ethelwold is forced to recognise Ragnar's kingdom in East Anglia. A year of peace follows before Ethelwold's death. He is succeeded by his son Aethelred II.
[2] Aethelred gained the nickname Aethelred "the Ready" for saving Wessex from a viking invasion. Ragnar was succeeded by his son Hrolf, a vicious warrior with plans to conquer all of England for the Vikings. In 919, Hrolf and his army invaded Wessex from East Anglia. Although Aelthered's Saxons were greatly outnumbered by the Vikings, he was able against all odds to defeat Hrolf in the battle causing him to retreat back into East Anglia. For the rest of Aethelred's reign, Wessex fortunately was not invaded by any more outside forces. He died in 927 and was succeeded by his eldest son _______.

 

[Timaeus]

Kings of Wessex

871 - 902: Aethelwold (Wessex Dynasty) [1]
902 - 927: Aethelred II (Wessex Dynasty) [2]
927 - 969: Aelfwine 'The Old' (Wessex Dynasty) [3]

[1] Alfred, uncle to Ethelwold served ably as regent for the first ten years of Ethelwold's reign before surrending power to Ethelwold in 881 A.D., including defeat Viking lord Guthrum at the Battle of Ethandum in 878 A.D.. However in 882, Ethelwold names Alfred as the leader of his armies against Viking invasions, which continued throughout 882 and 883. A final victory over Guthrum in 884 followed and Alfred was installed as King of East Anglia. Ethelwold marries his cousin Ethelflaed, daughther of Alfred in 892 A.D., after the death of her husband Ethelred in 890 A.D.. In 893, another Viking invasion besets East Anglia and Alfred is forced to flee after suffering two defeats in 894. He returns to Wessex and gathers a new army, defeating the Viking in 895 in such a way that forced the leader of the new invasion to agree to a peace treaty in 896, recognising Alfred's rule of East Anglia, whilst ceding all of Mercia to Viking chieftains. A brief period of peace follows which is disrupted by the death of Alfred in 899 A.D. and another invasion of East Anglia by the Vikings under a new chieftain by the name of Ragnar. Ragnar is victorious over Alfred's successor, his son Edward and conquers East Anglia and only a bad winter in 901 stops him from invading Wessex. Finally beginning his invasion of Wessex in early 902, Ragnar is defeated by the army of Ethelwold in March 902 but due to being unable to press his advantage, Ethelwold is forced to recognise Ragnar's kingdom in East Anglia. A year of peace follows before Ethelwold's death. He is succeeded by his son Aethelred II.
[2] Aethelred gained the nickname Aethelred "the Ready" for saving Wessex from a viking invasion. Ragnar was succeeded by his son Hrolf, a vicious warrior with plans to conquer all of England for the Vikings. In 919, Hrolf and his army invaded Wessex from East Anglia. Although Aelthered's Saxons were greatly outnumbered by the Vikings, he was able against all odds to defeat Hrolf in the battle causing him to retreat back into East Anglia. For the rest of Aethelred's reign, Wessex fortunately was not invaded by any more outside forces. He died in 927 and was succeeded by his eldest son Aelfwine.
[3] The longest ruling King of Wessex, Aelfwine also covertly harried the Danelaw, sowing dissent and discord among the Norsemen and accumulating power to himself. By his death in 969, his grandson could rightly call himself King of England, with only Northumbria still out of his reach, though only barely.