King James II Of Cyprus lived to the age of 35 when he was allegedly murdered by Venetian nobles. He was the illegitimate son of King John II of Cyprus, which is why historians refer to him as James the Bastard.

James is my 12 x great-grandfather.

James de Lusignan was born between 1440 and 1441 in Nicosia, Cyprus¹. He was the illegitimate son of King John II of Cyprus and his mistress Marie (or Mariette) from Patras, Greece².

Records are not clear about his year of birth because he was born out-of-wedlock.

Titles

In 1456, James II appointed his son as archbishop of Nicosia at the age of 15².

In 1459³, or 1461, James became King James II¹.

Family

James had three illegitimate children with a woman identified as de Flètre¹. They are:

• Eugene Matteo.
• John, also known as Janus (b. 1469).
• Charlotte, who died in 1468.
• Charla born in April 1468².

On 10 June¹ or 30 July 1468², James II married the Venetian Catherine Cornaro by proxy. It took four years, until December 1472, for Catherine to move to Famagusta, Cyprus^{1 3}.

This marriage was the culmination of almost a century of Machiavellian posturing by the Cornaro family. In the late 14th century, the Cornaros hosted Cypriot King Peter in their home in Venice, on the Grand Canal⁴. Peter is the brother of James’ grandfather, also called James. The Venetian family gave Peter 60 000 ducats⁴. This translates to approximately EUR 5 371 000 in today’s money^{5 6}. After buying this influence, the Cornaros continued influencing Cypriot royalty until they married one of their own to James.

Together they had one son:

• Jacques of Cyprus, who died two days short of his 1st birthday.

James had another mistress, Eschiva de Nores. There is no record of any children with her¹.

Notable events

James was his father’s favourite which could be because he was the only son. Latrie describes him as being quite intelligent and handsome (“rare intelligence et d’un tres-belle figure“)².

On 1 April 1457, James murdered the Royal Chamberlain Iacopo Urri. He fled to Rhodes on the Catalan ship of Juan Tafures. His father pardoned him and James returned to the archbishopric.

In 1458, John II died. He left one legitimate heir – his only surviving daughter Charlotte². She took the throne of Cyprus aided by Galceran Suárez de los Cernadilla who was her aunt’s widower¹.

James was jealous and wanted the crown for himself. He blockaded her in the castle at Kyrenia for 3 years assisted by the Egyptian forces of the Mameluk Sultan of Egypt¹. (It’s interesting to note Suárez de los Cernadilla died in 1458¹. We don’t know if this is because of the blockade, an attack by James’ forces, or if he died for some other reason.)

In September 1460, James captured Famagusta and Nicosia¹.

Reign

Charlotte fled in 1461¹.  James expelled the Genoese from Famagusta, who were still in Cyprus following his great-grandfather’s imprisonment in Genoa¹. He also massacred the Egyptian soldiers who had helped him to power¹, and turned to Venice as a new ally¹.

Despite his need for Venetian support, James II was a source of embarrassment to the Venetians. He annoyed them with his plans to form an alliance with the Persian King against the Turks².

Death

In 1474³, or on Wednesday, 11 June 1473¹ James II died after complaining of an upset stomach. It took till 6 July 1473 for the news to reach Nicosia¹.

I don’t know why there was this delay.

Venice’s enemies suggest that Catherine’s uncles murdered him². There is no direct proof of this, but with James dead, Catherine became Queen of Cyprus³. In 1489, Venice imprisoned her and forced her to surrender control of Cyprus to La Serenissima to preserve their trade routes with the Middle East. Given the blatant need for Venice to control Cyprus, skullduggery is hardly a conspiracy theory.

They buried him in St Nicholas Church in Famagusta, Cyprus¹. In 1570, Ottoman invaders pillaged Cyprus and converted St Nicholas into a mosque. Ottoman Vizier Lala Mustafa ordered that James’ tomb be destroyed⁷.

Lineage

James the Bastard is my 12 x great-grandfather.

1. Cyprus; Medieval Lands; Charles Crawley; (Retrieved 2018-10-01) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
2. Nouvelles preuves de l’histoire de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan (1873); Latrie, Louis Mas; Cyprus[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
3. Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia; As observed by author; 2022-04-10[↩][↩][↩][↩]
4. Cipro Veneziano; Evangelia Skoufari; Rome; 2011 [↩][↩]
5. Money in Shakespeare’s time; Abagond; 2007-05-02[↩]
6. Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a UK Pound Amount, 1270 to Present; Measuringworth.com; (Retrieved 2024-19-01) [↩]
7. The lost cathedral of St Nicholas; Antoine Borg; The Unexpected Traveller; 2022-12-02[↩]