In 1185, the newly enthroned Byzantine Emperor Isaac II repelled the invading Sicilian army. One of the generals who led the Sicily army at that time was Tancredi, Count of Lecce.
No one knew at the time that they were on both sides of the enemy at that time, and they would choose to marry each other on behalf of their respective countries after 8 years. That year, Rugello, Prince of Sicily, was 18 years old and Byzantine Princess Irina was 12 years old. The Byzantine royal family's surname was Angelos, so Irina was also called Irina Angelina.
In order to fight against his uncle Henry VI of the Holy Roman Empire, who was vying for the throne, Tancredi decided to win Over Byzantium. When the two were married, he also declared the crown prince Rujero III, the co-ruler, so that Irina basically skipped the princess stage and became the queen directly.
However, Lu San died before the New Year had even passed, and Irina became a widow. Not long after the end of the year, her father-in-law Tancredi also died, and her 8-year-old uncle, who was also the successor co-ruler Guglielmo III, became the sole monarch, and her mother-in-law Sibylla was the regent empress. At the end of the year, Henroku came in, and Kozo had to surrender to the throne, and Henro ascended the throne as King Enrico I of Sicily; within a few days, the entire Sicilian royal family was put on the hat of plotting to overthrow the new king and sent back to Germany.
When the husband's family collapsed, he could only count on the mother's family to help. But in fact, even if the mother's family does not shoot, as long as it has not fallen, it is still her backstage and capital.
Just over four months later, Hengliu decided to get her and his eighth brother Philippe engaged in Bari, Italy.
At that time, Henliu's fourth brother Otto had already married, but Henliu skipped the same single fifth brother Conrad and betrothed to the eighth brother, perhaps because Conrad already had an engagement partner, perhaps because Conrad was already the Duke of Swabia, and Philip's future had not yet landed, so let Philip be the byzantine son-in-law, he could enter Sicily as an aunt, and maybe Philip could also become the Byzantine Emperor in the future, at that time, East and West Rome were all the heads of the Hohenstaufen family, wouldn't it be beautiful?
Although such a chance is actually very slim, because Yi Er himself has the prince Alexius. To the astonishment of everyone in the Holy Roman Empire, less than a week after the engagement, Iji was overthrown by his own brother Alexius, the new emperor called Alexius III, and Iji was blinded and imprisoned with his son. After becoming the fallen king, Irina became the princess of the fallen country again.
Fortunately, the Huo family did not abandon her because she lost her backstage, and in 1197, Philip still held a wedding with her on the Gonzelle Hill near Augsburg. When the daughter-in-law of the Huo family was about to convert to Catholicism, Irina changed her name to Maria, so she was also called Irina Maria, and this article will not be changed for the convenience of readers.
As mentioned earlier, Kostanza, the empress of Henroku, was the aunt of Irina's ex-husband, and the two women, who were originally two generations apart, became concubines.
In the same year, Heng Liu died. Due to the young age of the crown prince, and the eldest of the royal brothers, Conrad, who had been killed, and the older Otto was unable to convince the public, the next year Philippe was elected the new German king by the supporters of the Hochsburg family, and Irina became the queen of Germany and attended her husband's coronation ceremony at mainz Cathedral.
In this way, she became a hostess in this country that had captured her. In 1199 Philip celebrated Christmas in Magdeburg, and she was accompanied by the bard Walter von der Fogelweide, calling her "a rose without thorns, a pigeon without guts", saying that she won the admiration of the people.
I don't know if Irina went back to the prison where she was held and looked at the respectful and sincere expression of the people who had guarded her. After Philip ascended the throne, most of the Sicilians who were brought back to prison were released, and it is not known whether Irina came forward to rescue her ex-husband's family's former friends, but her former brother-in-law Gusan had been tortured to death as the king of the country.
In 1201, Irina's only living uncle, Otto, was killed, and her husband Philip became the head of the Huo family, and Irina's brother, the former crown prince Alexius, escaped and defected to her, hoping that his brother-in-law Philip would help him and his father and emperor to restore the country. The other princes with strong armies received the same promise, and the following year the Fourth Crusade, which had been the target of Egypt, became a crusade against the Byzantine usurper Alexius III (to avoid unnecessary trouble, herein is not used). In 1203, the usurper fled, and the clever citizens released the old emperor Yi Er from the dungeon and announced his restoration. The Crusaders felt that it was too much for the blind man to be emperor, and forced Yi Er to agree to make the crown prince the Co-Emperor, that is, Alexius IV. Yi Was old and frail, so Ah Si was actually in power. However, Ah Si was simply unable to bear the reward he boasted about, and the conflict with the Crusaders intensified; Yi Er was not satisfied with sharing power with even his own son, and even personally spread rumors to dismantle his son's platform.
In 1204, when a rebellion broke out in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, a close associate of Asi, Alexius Dukas, who was already in love with the daughter of the usurper, took the opportunity to attack two emperors: in January, Yi Er died, and in February, Ah Si was killed. Alexius himself was proclaimed emperor, known as Alexius V.
Ah Wu, who also could not bear the crusaders, followed in the footsteps of his future father-in-law usurper, ran out in April, and was killed at the end of the year. Of course, this pair of Irina was revenge, but the result was that her main family had died, the Byzantine Empire had been replaced by the Latin Empire, and her status as an imperial princess was the same as that of the previous Queen of Sicily.
In 1205, Philippe and Irina were crowned again in Aachen. The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire usually chose to be crowned in Aachen, but because Pope Enoch-jain III always supported Philip's rival Otto of the Welf family, Philip was unable to claim the title of emperor.
The stone bridge in Regensburg has a seated statue of a coronation of a woman who was built about 1207 and is now heavily weathered, apparently in homage to Irina, the first lady.
In 1208, after rival Otto lost the support of the Pope and his uncle John the Landless King of England, Philip's time to claim the throne was finally ripe, and the queen's throne became within reach of Irina. A year earlier, Philip had promised their eldest daughter Beatrice to Otto in an attempt to ease the relationship, but Otto had not agreed.
However, Otto VIII, Count of Bavaria of the Wittelsbach family, was forced to break off his marriage contract with Philip's third daughter Kunigende, and tried to marry Philip's other daughters as compensation, but without success, he resented Philip and sent assassins.
Irina, who was pregnant with Rokka, became a widow for the second time, lost her status as an Imperial Princess and lost the possibility of becoming an Imperial Empress forever, and was seriously ill.
Two months after the widow, Irina gave birth to her next daughter, and the mother and daughter died.
Irina had two sons, Renard and Frederick, but neither had survived, and the four surviving offspring were daughters: Beatrice, 10, Maria, 7, Kunigende, 6, and Elizabeth, 3.
Although Otto became the only German king and contender for the throne and became emperor the following year, his strength declined and he could only seek to unite with the Huo family, who was also badly damaged. In 1212, he married Beatrice as empress according to Philip's will, but Beatrice died after only 20 days of being queen, and she was the only of the four sisters who did not experience a pregnancy in October; her three sisters were married to Henry II, Duke of Brabant, Wenceslas I of Bohemia, and Fernando III of Castile.
The Huo family has its own family mausoleum in Lorsch Church, where Irina and her children who died early are buried. She was the only queen of the Huo family buried there. Later, the church underwent some changes, and her mausoleum was destroyed and could not be rebuilt.
In the 19th century, a medieval enamel ring was found while excavating the church and declared to be Irina's wedding ring, copied several times and later lost in the 20th century;
On December 16, 1898, the "Irina Memorial Plaque" was unveiled in the church on the south side of the monastery church;
In 2008, a stone monument to the Huo family was erected at the entrance of the Lorsch Abbey to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Irina's death;
In 2011, the Byzantine Association of Friends of The Memory of Queen Irina Maria was founded in Göppingen and awarded irina medals annually, such as the 2013 award to the draftsman and painter Hans Cross, and in 2015 to the writer Gaunt Hauge, who had written for Irina in 2011.
All indications are of the extraordinary charm and popularity of the former first lady, and the pampering that the king's husband once gave her.
After experiencing the three overthrows of her husband's family and her mother's family, only this country that had captured her had given her a different kind of new life.