Women in the Royal Succession of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291)

»During this time Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, died, leaving a daughter of marriageable age (for he lacked a son) as heir to the kingdom, which was deservedly divided against itself, forsaken on account of its sins, and despised by the pagans, since it had passed into the hands of a girl, in what was no good omen for government. For each of the foremost men of the kingdom desired to become ruler and wanted to secure the girl and the royal inheritance by marriage – to himself, if he lacked a wife, to his son, if he was married, or to a kinsman, if he had no son of his own; this caused the greatest ill-will among them, which led to the destruction of the kingdom. Yet she, spurning the natives of the realm, took up with Guy, count of Ascalon, a new arrival of elegant appearance and proven courage, and, with the approval of both the patriarch and the knights of the Temple, took him as her husband and conferred the kingdom on him«.