Alice of Antioch

Alice of Jerusalem (also Haalis, Halis, or Adelicia; c. 1110 – after 1151) was a Princess consort of Antioch by marriage to Bohemond II of Antioch. She engaged in a longlasting power struggle during the reign of her daughter Constance of Antioch. Alice was the second daughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Morphia of Melitene. She had three sisters. She was an aunt of Kings Baldwin III and Amalric I. Of her other sisters, Hodierna married Raymond II of Tripoli, and Ioveta became abbess of the convent in Bethany. Baldwin II had become regent of Antioch after the defeat of the principality at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis in 1119. In 1126, the 18-year-old Bohemond, son of Bohemond I, the first prince of Antioch, arrived to claim his inheritance. Immediately after the principality was handed over to him, Bohemond was married to Alice; the marriage was likely part of the negotiations prior to Bohemond's arrival. In 1130, Bohemond was killed in battle with the Danishmends, and Baldwin returned to Antioch to assume the regency, but Alice wanted the city for herself. She attempted to make an alliance with Zengi, the Seljuk atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo, offering to marry her daughter to a Muslim prince. The messenger sent by Alice to Zengi was captured on the way by Baldwin, and was tortured and executed. Alice refused to let Baldwin enter Antioch, but some of the Antiochene nobles opened the gates for Baldwin's representatives, Fulk, Count of Anjou (Alice's brother-in-law) and Joscelin I of Edessa. Alice at first fled to the citadel but finally flung herself on her father's mercy and they were reconciled. She was expelled from Antioch, but was allowed to keep for herself Latakia and Jabala, the cities which had been her dowry when she had married Bohemond. Baldwin left Antioch under the regency of Joscelin, ruling for Alice and Bohemond's young daughter Constance. Baldwin II died in 1131 and was succeeded in Jerusalem by his eldest daughter, Alice's sister Melisende and her husband Fulk.