Hugh II of Cyprus or
Hugues II de Lusignan (June-August, 1252 or 1253 – November or
December 5,
1267) was
king of Cyprus and, from the age of 5 years, also Regent of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem.
On
January 18,
1253, at the age of two months, he succeeded his father
Henry I as king of Cyprus, with his mother,
Queen Plaisance, acting as regent, and was crowned at
Santa Sophia,
Nicosia, later in that year. Although he had only a weaker claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, many felt that he was a better candidate (living in a Crusader state close to the Palestinian coast) than
Conradin, the
Hohenstaufen claimant who was also a child but absent in
Europe (Hugh II was second in order of succession, right after Conradin himself, since he was the son of the only surviving son of
Alice of Champagne, the second surviving daughter of Queen
Isabella I of Jerusalem and thus Conradin's great-grandaunt). In 1258
John of Ibelin, lord of Jaffa, and
Bohemund VI of Antioch brought Hugh and Plaisance to
Acre, where Hugh was set up as regent for Conradin, and Plaisance was chosen to carry out Hugh’s regency while he remained underage, becoming Lord of Jerusalem.
In 1261 Plaisance died and the regency of Cyprus passed to Hugh of Antioch-Lusignan, Hugh II's 25-year-old first cousin. His mother, Hugh II's younger aunt
Isabella of Lusignan became acting regent of Jerusalem in Acre. Hugh II died in
Nicosia in November of 1267 at the age of 14 and was buried in the
Dominican Church in
Nicosia. He had been betrothed and was possibly married at
Nicosia in 1264/1265 to
Isabella of Ibelin (ca 1252 –
Beirut, 1282/1283 and buried there),
Lady of Beirut 1264, but the marriage was never consummated. He was succeeded by Hugh of Lusignan-Antioch (son of his younger aunt Isabella) as
Hugh III of Cyprus, though his heir-general was another first cousin,
Hugh of Brienne (c 1240-1296), son of Mary of Cyprus, the eldest aunt of the deceased Hugh II. This claim fell to his son
Walter V of Brienne and his descendants. They are the heirs-general of King
Amalric I of Cyprus.
It has often been claimed that 1266
Thomas Aquinas dedicated his work
De regimine principum ("On the Government of Rulers") to Hugh II, but in view of the strong argument by Christoph Flüeler (Rezeption und Interpretation der Aristotelischen “Politica” im späten Mittelalter, Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie, 19 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: B.R. Grüner, 1992), 2v.; v.1, 23–29.) for redating the work to 1271-73, it now seems likely that it was written for his successor Hugh III (1267-84).