His father was the elder brother of the Emperor John, Manuel’s father, and, on the accession of Manuel, he was called to Court. He was married, but he admitted with equal freedom the devotion of his pretty cousin Eudocia and that of other ladies of less distinction. His wife seems to have cheerfully recognized that large need of his nature, and the lips of Manuel were sealed by his own love affair; but there were men and women of the family who cherished the older ideas, and Andronicus nearly lost his life at an early date. After failing in Armenia--for he was a lax and unskilful general--he was appointed governor of some of the chief towns on the Hungarian frontier. Hither the devoted Eudocia accompanied him, and she lay in his arms, one night, in the tent when it was announced that her brother and brother-in-law were approaching with drawn swords. She pressed him to disguise himself in some of her garments, but he buckled on his immense sword, slit the canvas of the tent, and was deep in the neighbouring forest when the young men arrived. He was next detected in treasonable correspondence with the Hungarians. Manuel overlooked his crime, but Andronicus went on to make two attempts on the life of his cousin, and wore so brazen a face when he was charged, that he was sent in chains to Constantinople and lodged in a strong tower connected with the palace. Here he one day discovered an old and forgotten passage, almost filled with rubbish, which branched from his prison. He scooped out a hiding-place in it with his hands, entered it, and concealed the entrance. When the furious search of the guards had ended, and messengers had been despatched over the Empire with orders to arrest the fugitive, the Emperor, suspecting that his cousin’s wife had aided him to escape, ordered her to be lodged in the tower. No sooner had the jailers left her than the poor woman was terrified, and then delighted, to see the burly form of her missing husband emerge from a heap of rubbish, and they fell into each other’s arms. For a long time husband and wife lived together in the prison, but at length Andronicus escaped. His splendid frame betrayed him, and he was recaptured and enclosed in a more formidable prison. Once more he escaped and was caught, and for nine years he remained in prison.