Andronikos Angelos Doukas

Andronikos was born around 1133, the third son of Constantine Angelos and Theodora Komnene, the youngest daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) and Irene Doukaina.

[3][4] Some time before 1155, probably around 1150, he married Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa, sister of Theodore Kastamonites, who became an all-powerful minister during the reign of Andronikos' son Isaac II.

[1] In the following year, Andronikos led an embassy, which included the megas hetaireiarches John Doukas, Alexander, Count of Gravina, and George Sinaites, to the Kingdom of Jerusalem to renew the alliance between his first cousin, Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–1180), and King Baldwin IV.

According to the account of the contemporary historian Niketas Choniates, Emperor Manuel was so incensed at the disgraceful actions of Andronikos that he threatened to have him publicly paraded through the streets of Constantinople dressed as a woman; in the end, however, he relented and did not carry out his threat.

In a battle near Charax, Andronikos Angelos Doukas was defeated by a hastily-assembled rebel army consisting, according to Choniates, of "farmers unfit for warfare and a contingent of Paphlagonian soldiers", led not even by an experienced commander but by "a certain eunuch".

Fearing accusations of pro-rebel sentiments, at the advice of his sons he barricaded himself and his family in their walled palace at Exokionion, before fleeing the city altogether and joining Andronikos Komnenos in Bithynia.

According to Choniates, while fleeing from the pursuing imperial soldiers, Andronikos and his sons found a boat laden with empty amphorae; throwing the cargo overboard, they boarded it and sailed to safety.