Alexios IV Angelos

   Emperor (q.v.) from 1203-1204, who conspired with the Fourth Crusade (q.v.). He was the son of deposed emperor Isaac Angelos II (q.v.). Alexios escaped to the West, where the leadership of the Fourth Crusade took him to Constantinople (q.v.) to reinstate his father. However, once on the throne Alexios IV could neither fulfill the vows of money and material aid to the Crusaders that he had agreed to nor gain the promised formal submission of the Byzantine church to the pope (q.v.). His cooperation with the Fourth Crusade made him unpopular in Constantinople, so much so that his overthrow and execution by Alexios V Doukas (q.v.) were welcomed by the citizenry of the capital.