Constantine II, King of Armenia

Who was Constantine II, King of Armenia?

Constantine II, born Guy de Lusignan, was elected the first Latin King of Armenian Cilicia of the Lusignan dynasty, ruling from 1342 until his death in 1344.

He was a son of Isabella, daughter of Leo II of Armenia, and Amalric, a son of Hugh III of Cyprus, and was made Governor of Serres in 1328 and until 1341. When his cousin Leo IV, the last Hethumid monarch of Cilicia, was murdered by the barons, the crown was offered to his younger brother John, who urged Guy to accept it. Guy was reluctant — his mother and two of his brothers had been murdered by the Armenian regent Oshin of Corycos — but he eventually accepted and took the name Constantine.

Guy was killed or murdered in an uprising in Armenia on April 17, 1344 and was succeeded by a distant cousin, Constantine III. He had married twice, firstly in Constantinople ca 1318 or 1318 to a Kantakouzene, without issue, and secondly in 1330–1332, Theodora Syrgiannaina, sister of the pinkernes Syrgiannes Palaiologos Philanthropenos, with whom he fathered two children. One of them, Isabella de Lusignan, Lady of Aradippou, married after February 26, 1349 Manuel Kantakouzenos, Despot of Morea.