Sembat, or Penibald, the brother of Aiton and Thoros, usurped the throne in the absence of his brothers; he was dethroned by another brother, Constantine, and died in 1298.
Constantine sent his remaining brothers to Constantinople, with a recommendation to the Emperor to take care of them. The year of his death is uncertain.
Leo III. was murdered in the year 1307.
Chir Ossim, with the assistance of Pope John XXII., made an advantageous truce or treaty with the Kings of Sicily and Cyprus, with whom he was at war. This was accomplished through the mediation of the Genoese, who at this time appear to have been the principal traders in Constantinople, Persia, and Armenia. He died in 1320.
Leo IV. lived in continual war with the Saracens. This king sent embassadors to Philippe de Valois, King of France, to beg assistance against the incursions of the Saracens. He married first Constancia, daughter of Frederick, King of Sicily, and secondly the daughter of the Prince of Tarentum, niece to Robert, King of Naples. Having provoked the jealousy of his countrymen by promoting numerous Frenchmen to high offices of government, he was assassinated in the year 1344.
After his death Guy de Lusignan was elected King of Armenia. He died in 1344.
Constans, or Constantius, apparently his son, succeeded Guy de Lusignan, and was killed by the Saracens in 1351. He had dispatched embassadors to implore assistance against the infidels to the courts of the Pope, the King of England, and the King of France.
Constantine, the next king, appears to have lived in continual troubles with his own subjects, as well as in constant alarm at the increasing inroads of the neighboring powers on both sides. The annals of his stormy reign are almost silent, and it is not known when he died. To such a state of misery and confusion was the kingdom of Armenia now reduced, that the existence of another king, who was probably his successor, is only known by the witness of a rare coin, which bears as legend DRAGO . REX . ARMEN . AGAPI. In the year 1368 the nobles of Armenia elected Peter I., King of Cyprus, king; but he was at Rome at that period, and never took possession of his precarious honor.
The records of the Armenian sovereigns are now drawing to a close. About this period, Leo V., of the family of Lusignan, was seated on his trembling throne. He was famous only for his misfortunes. Menaced on every side, his provinces and castles, one by one, fell before the victorious inroads of the Turks. The Genoese alone, who, in pursuit of trade, had fortified many strong places in Armenia, held out gallantly against the common foe, and the Mohammedan invaders were unable to gain possession of the town of Curco, or Corycus, in Cilicia, which was defended by the soldiers of the intrepid merchants. After a constant series of disasters and defeats, the unhappy king escaped with his life to the island of Cyprus, from whence he passed to Italy, and afterward to Castile, where he implored in vain for assistance from those Christian princes to reinstate him in the kingdom of his ancestors, which had fallen into the power of the infidel, and which, from that period to the present day, has continued to form one of the great pashaliks, or provinces of the Turkish empire. From Castile he took refuge in France, where he was received with distinguished favor and hospitality by King Charles V., who assigned for his residence the hotel of St. Ouen, near St. Denis. About the year 1378 Leo passed over to England, in the hopes of effecting peace between King Richard II. and the King of France, with whom he was then at war, and inducing the two sovereigns to embark in a crusade against the Turks for the recovery of the Holy Land, and for his own restoration to his kingdom. His overtures, like all his other acts, were unsuccessful; but from Richard, King of England, he received magnificent presents, and a pension of 20,000 marcs, which munificence was imitated by the King of France in an annual allowance of 6000 livres.
Leo, King of Armenia, was of small stature, but of intelligent expression and well-formed features. He lived in great magnificence, being richer from the presents of the Christian monarchs than he had been in his own beleaguered kingdom. The last of his royal line, he died, leaving no successor, at Paris, in the year 1393. His body was carried to the tomb clothed in royal robes of white, according to the custom of Armenia, with an open crown upon his head and a golden sceptre in his hand. He lay in state upon an open bier hung with white, and surrounded by the officers of his household, clothed all of them in white robes. He was buried by the high altar of the church of the Celestines, where his effigy was to be seen upon a black marble tomb under an archway in the wall, and on the tomb was written