King Tancred of Sicily, one of the last Norman kings of Sicily, died on this day in 1194. He was the bastard son of King Roger II's eldest son, also named Roger. He grew up in Lecce, where his maternal grandfather had been count, and he eventually became count himself, despite his illegitimacy. He managed to become king in 1189, and ruled until his death in 1194. He was the King of Sicily during the Third Crusade, and was a contemporary of Richard the Lionheart of England (who, no, Corleone was not named after, even though the town's name also means a lion's heart) and Philip II of France, who stayed in Sicily on their way to Jerusalem.

Upon becoming king, Tancred threw the widow of the last king William II (known as the Good, to distinguish him from his father William I, "the bad") in prison. Unfortunately for Tancred, her brother was the King of England, which led to him going to war with France and England while their armies just happened to be in the area anyway, since they were going on crusade against the Arabs. It didn't go well for him, and he gave in to their terms, but afterwards they became friends, and Richard was said to have given Tancred excalibur as a symbol of brotherhood, and they promised to marry their children to each-other.

Unfortunately for him, just as soon as the Kings of France and England left him alone, the Holy Roman Empire invaded Sicily, as while France and England recognized Tancred as the King of Sicily, the Germans did not, and the emperor wanted to put his wife on the throne. For a few years, they battled, and after Tancred died on this day in 1194, his son William was crowned king.

William III only ruled for a few months, before being forced out of power by his great aunt Constance, the last-remaining legitimate member of the royal house (as Tancred had been a bastard). Constance became queen, and her husband, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI became king. William was allowed to keep the County of Lecce, until he participated in a plot to overthrow his great-aunt and her husband. As a result, he was blinded, castrated, and imprisoned, and his close relatives were deported back to Normandy.



1194 was, effectively, the end of the Norman period of Sicily, even though Queen Constance was a Norman, and her son Frederick, who succeeded her, ruled more like a Norman than a German, and considered himself first and foremost a Sicilian rather than Imperial.