His father, Count of Jaffa and Ascalon in Palestine, was murdered in 1244 in Cairo, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John.

He claimed the regency of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (and indirectly a place in the succession) in 1264 as senior heir to Alice of Jerusalem and Hugh I of Cyprus, being the son of their eldest daughter, but was passed over by the Haute Cour in favour of his cousin Hugh of Antioch and thereafter took little part in the affairs of Outremer.

Charles made him Captain-General of Brindisi, Otranto and Apulia and Lord of Conversano, and he was an enthusiastic partisan of the Angevin cause in Italy.

They had a son, Walter V (d. 1311), who succeeded Hugh, and a daughter, Agnes, who married Count John of Joigny.

Hugh and his second wife, Helena Angelina Komnene, had a daughter, Joanna, who married Duke Nicholas I Sanudo of Naxos.