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Alexios V Doukas
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==The fall of Constantinople, flight and death== The defenders of Constantinople held out against a crusader assault on 9 April.<ref name=C/> The crusaders' second attack three days later, however, proved too strong to repel. Breaking through the walls near the [[Petria Gate]], the crusaders entered the city and looted the Blachernae Palace. Alexios V attempted to rally the people to the defence of the city, but with no success. Alexios V then boarded a fishing boat and fled the city towards [[Thrace]] on the night of 12 April 1204, accompanied by Eudokia Angelina and her mother [[Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera]]. In the Hagia Sophia [[Constantine Laskaris]] was acclaimed as emperor, but being unable to persuade the Varangians to continue the fight, in the early hours of 13 April he also fled, leaving Constantinople under crusader control.<ref>Hendrickx and Matzukis, pp. 121β127</ref><ref>Choniates, p.p. 313-314</ref> Alexios V and his companions eventually reached [[Mosynopolis]], which had been occupied by the deposed emperor Alexios III Angelos and his followers. At first they were well received, with Alexios V marrying Eudokia Angelina. Later, however, Alexios III arranged for his new son-in-law to be made captive and [[Political mutilation in Byzantine culture|blinded]], thereby rendering him ineligible for the imperial throne. Having been abandoned by both his supporters and his father-in-law, Alexios V was captured near Mosynopolis, or possibly in [[Anatolia]], by the advancing Latins under [[Thierry de Loos]] in November 1204.<ref>Falk, p. 163</ref><ref>Akropolites, p. 117</ref> On his return to Constantinople as a prisoner, Alexios V was tried for treason against Alexios IV. In his trial the blind ex-emperor argued that it was Alexios IV who had committed treason to his country, through his intention to invite the crusaders to enter Constantinople in force. On being condemned, he was executed by novel means: he was thrown to his death from the top of the [[Column of Theodosius]].<ref>Choniates, p. 334</ref> The new, alien, Latin regime of conquerors in Constantinople may have viewed the public trial and execution of the man who murdered the last "legitimate emperor" as a way to cast an aura of legitimacy on themselves. Alexios V was the last Byzantine Emperor to reign in Constantinople before the establishment of the [[Latin Empire]], which controlled the city for the next 57 years, until it was recovered by the [[Empire of Nicaea|Nicaean Emperor]] [[Michael VIII Palaiologos]] in 1261.<ref>Hendrickx and Matzukis, pp. 127β131</ref>
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