Vili.] TUE KINGDOM OF ARMENIA. 2l5 the church of the Franciscans at Nicosia. When he had been able to exercise independent authority he had used it well; he had welcomed the refugees from Acre and fortified Famagosta; he contributed largely to the judicial decisions which form the supplement to the Assizes, and he established a strong judicature in Cyprus. But he was an epileptic, which perhaps accounts for his incapacity to retain the'rule; and he left no children. With the accession of his nephew, Hugh IV, begins a more stirring, and, perhaps, the most interesting, period of the Cypriot history. Before however entering on the outline of this portion of our subject, we may just look back to Armenia, where the native kingdom and the native dynasty were nearly coming to an end. Leo I, the first king, who was regarded by the Armenian writers as a really great and patriotic ruler, died in 1219, leaving an infant daughter, who carried the crown to her 'husbands in succession ; Philip of Antioch first, who, failing to make himself agreeable on the Church question to .the native lords, especially a great lord called Constantius, or Constantine, was put to death with his partisans. The second husband was Hayton, the son of Constantius, who reigned for nearly fifty years, at first under his father's directions, and after the year 1237 independently. Hayton was thus king during the whole of the crusading period of the thirteenth century, and had dealings with Lewis IX in his first Crusade, and with Edward of England during his stay in Palestine. He was moreover the king of Armenia in whose time Marco Polo set out on his travels in Asia; and it was through his means that the Western kings became acquainted with the Tartar dynasty at Samarcand and its tendencies to favour Christianity. For the Tartar rulers during this period were far from being committed to Islam; they received and favoured missions and protected Christian doctrines in a liberal fashion, without