Maria of Antioch.

About Maria of Antioch

Maria of Antioch was a claimant to the throne of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1268 to 1277. In 1267, she submitted her claim to rule the kingdom as regent in the name of the absentee King Conrad III, her first cousin twice removed, to the High Court. Her legal case was solid, resting on the proximity of blood to the king, but the court found in favor of her nephew King Hugh III of Cyprus after she abruptly left the proceedings. When Conrad died in 1268, she demanded to be crowned as his successor and disrupted Hugh's coronation. Spurned yet again, she moved to Europe and in 1277 sold her claim to King Charles I of Sicily. Charles and his successor, Charles II, paid a pension to her and provided for her upkeep in southern Italy. Later in life, she laid claim to the defunct County of Tripoli.