Raymond III, Count of Tripoli

Raymond III, Count of Tripoli.
Raymond III (1140–1187) was the count of Tripoli (in modern-day Lebanon) from 1152 until his death. The son of Raymond II and Hodierna of Jerusalem, he was a minor when he succeeded his father. After reaching the age of majority in 1155, he fought the powerful Muslim ruler Nur ad-Din, and hired pirates to pillage Byzantine territories. From 1164, he spent nearly ten years in Muslim captivity. Marrying the wealthy heiress Eschiva of Bures made him prince of Galilee in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. A close relative of the royal family, he ruled Jerusalem as regent for Baldwin the Leper between 1174 and 1176, and for the child Baldwin V from 1185 to 1186. After the child king's death, he could not prevent the coronation of Baldwin V's mother Sibylla and her husband Guy of Lusignan. He paid homage to Guy only after Jerusalem was invaded by Saladin, the Muslim ruler of Egypt and Syria. One of the few crusader leaders who escaped from the battlefield at Hattin, he died soon after, probably of pleurisy.