Alexis and Euphrosyne took to ship when Sgurus was defeated, and sailed for Ætolia and Epirus (on the eastern coast of the Adriatic), where a certain Michael, a natural son of the Emperor’s uncle Constantine, had set up a sovereignty over the rude mountaineers and few towns of that isolated region. On the voyage the ship was captured by Lombard pirates, but Alexis and Euphrosyne were ransomed by their nephew, and at length reached Arta, the chief town of his dominion. The Byzantine world was at the time full of small rulers, and would-be rulers. The leading Crusaders had received their various slices of the dismembered Empire, and here and there some fugitive Byzantine noble, especially if he were connected with the imperial house, had set up a small throne and defended it against the Latins. In this way Michael, the illegitimate son of Constantine Angelus, had fled from the captured city to Epirus, married a native lady of wealth, and constituted himself “despot” of the whole region. In his chief town, Arta, Euphrosyne tranquilly passed her last year or two of life. Her restless husband still thirsted for power, and, when he found that his nephew was not at all disposed to put on his head once more the crown which he demanded, he took to ship again and sailed for the lands of the Turk in Asia Minor. Euphrosyne did not accompany him. She died at Arta, either just before or soon after his departure. Ten years’ experience of imperial life had sated her ambition. The ex-Empress Maria, now Queen of Saloniki, continued for many years to enjoy the restricted power and state which she had won by her marriage, but they were years of anxiety and care. Two years after her settlement in Thessalonica, the Greeks rebelled and, in alliance with the Bulgarians, spread fire and sword over the province, and pinned Maria in the citadel of her capital. In that rebellion the Latin Emperor Baldwin was captured, and his brother and successor, Henry of Flanders, occupied the throne. Some years later Boniface was killed in his struggle against the Bulgarians, and Maria became regent for her infant son, Demetrius. It is the last glance we have in the chronicles of the beautiful Margaret of Hungary, who, as the Empress Maria, had come to spend so extraordinary a youth in the Byzantine capital.