William II

William II (born 1154—died Nov. 18, 1189, Palermo, kingdom of Sicily [Italy]) was the last Norman king of Sicily; under a regency from 1166, he ruled in person from 1171. He became known as William the Good because of his policy of clemency and justice toward the towns and the barons, in contrast with his father, William I the Bad.

After the regency of his mother, Margaret of Navarre, had ended, William II at first continued his father’s policy of friendship with Pope Alexander III and with the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus. In 1172, however, the proposed marriage of William to Manuel’s daughter Maria was thwarted by the emperor, and William immediately turned against the Byzantines. In 1177 he concluded a truce with his father’s old enemy, the German king Frederick I Barbarossa, who had been defeated by the Lombard League at Legnano in 1176 and no longer seemed dangerous to Sicily. Also in 1177, on February 13, William married Joan, daughter of King Henry II of England. After the death of Pope Alexander III in 1181, William felt freer to exploit disorders in the Byzantine Empire, and he sought even closer relations with Frederick I. William agreed that his aunt Constance should marry Frederick’s son Henry (later Henry VI); because William’s own marriage was childless, this betrothal (Oct. 29, 1184) gave Henry a strong claim to the Sicilian succession, an arrangement disliked by the Norman national party.

In June 1185 William commenced a great campaign against the Byzantines. His forces crossed Macedonia and captured Thessalonica (modern Salonika), but when his fleet was in sight of Constantinople (now Istanbul), his army was ambushed and defeated. William died while planning to join the Third Crusade.

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