Andronikos Doukas Angelos

In 1179, Emperor Manuel entrusted Andronikos with leading a campaign against the Turks in the area of Charax in Phrygia. However, during the night, some Turks managed to move to the rear of the imperial army and raised loud voices. Fearing that he was encircled, Andronikos mounted his horse and fled headlong towards Chonae. Upon seeing the flight of its commander, the Byzantine army panicked and began to flee in the same direction; the rout was only stopped when another imperial relative, Manuel Kantakouzenos, confronted the fleeing soldiers with a sword in his hand and pointed out that no enemy was attacking them. According to the account of the contemporary historian Niketas Choniates, Emperor Manuel was so incensed at the disgraceful actions of Andronikos that he threatened to have him publicly paraded through the streets of Constantinople dressed as a woman; in the end, however, he relented and did not carry out his threat. Shortly after, Andronikos tried to divorce his wife, Euphrosyne Kastamonitissa, and marry his mistress, but the Emperor and the synod forbade him to do so.

In spring 1182, Empress-regent Maria of Antioch and her chief minister, Alexios Komnenos, sent Andronikos to confront another cousin, Andronikos Komnenos, who had rebelled and was marching on Constantinople. Andronikos Komnenos had reached the vicinity of Nicomedia, where many local people joined him. In a battle near Charax, Andronikos Angelos Doukas was defeated by a hastily assembled rebel army consisting, according to Choniates, of "farmers unfit for warfare and a contingent of Paphlagonian soldiers", led not even by an experienced commander but by "a certain eunuch". On his return to Constantinople, Andronikos was faced with accusations that he had misappropriated money meant for the army's salary. Fearing accusations of pro-rebel sentiments, at the advice of his sons he barricaded himself and his family in their walled palace at Exokionion, before fleeing the city altogether and joining Andronikos Komnenos in Bithynia. Emboldened by this defection, Andronikos Komnenos moved to Chalcedon, across the Bosporus from Constantinople. Following the defection of the megas doux Andronikos Kontostephanos with the navy to the rebel, a revolt broke out in the city and the gates were opened to Andronikos Komnenos, who now ascended the throne as emperor.

Soon, however, the very same nobles who had aided Andronikos Komnenos in becoming emperor conspired against him, once it became clear that he did not intend to restore them to the privileged positions they had held under Emperor Manuel. Andronikos Angelos and Andronikos Kontostephanos, along with their numerous sons, and the logothetes tou dromou Basil Doukas Kamateros, were the leaders of the plot, which was quickly discovered by the Emperor's agents. Kamateros, Kontostephanos and four of his sons, as well as many other members of the conspiracy, were seized and blinded, but Andronikos and his sons escaped. According to Choniates, while fleeing from the pursuing imperial soldiers, Andronikos and his sons found a boat laden with empty amphorae; throwing the cargo overboard, they boarded it and sailed to safety. Andronikos left Byzantine territory and went to Damascus and Baghdad, where he met and received aid from Saladin before settling at Acre. He probably died there, some time before the rise of his son Isaac to the throne in September 1185.

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