Hugh II of Cyprus

On January 18, 1253, at the age of two months, he succeeded his father Henry I as king of Cyprus, with his mother, Queen Plaisance, acting as regent, and was crowned at Santa Sophia, Nicosia, later in that year.

Although he had only a weaker claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, many felt that he was a better candidate (living in a Crusader state close to the Palestinian coast) than Conradin, the Hohenstaufen claimant who was also a child but absent in Europe (Hugh II was second in order of succession, right after Conradin himself, since he was the son of the only surviving son of Alice of Champagne, the second surviving daughter of Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem and thus Conradin's great-grandaunt).

His mother, Hugh II's younger aunt Isabella of Lusignan became acting regent of Jerusalem in Acre.

He had been betrothed and was possibly married at Nicosia in 1264/1265 to Isabella of Ibelin (ca.

It has often been claimed that 1266 Thomas Aquinas dedicated his work De regimine principum ("On the Government of Rulers") to Hugh II, but in view of the strong argument by Christoph Flüeler (Rezeption und Interpretation der Aristotelischen “Politica” im späten Mittelalter, Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie, 19 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: B.R.

The eastern Mediterranean in 1260, showing Hugh II's kingdom. Arrows indicate Mongol raids in the Near East.