Three months after the death of Andronicus III, Cantacuzenos crowned himself emperor at Demotika. He put the imperial crown also upon the head of his wife Irene, a Bulgarian princess. Neither in Constantinople nor in Adrianople were the pretensions of Cantacuzenos admitted. The widow of Andronicus, Anna of Savoy, refused to acknowledge the usurper. In Adrianople the inhabitants called in both Bulgarians and Turks to defend them against Cantacuzenos.[188] The Bulgarian Czar took sides secretly against his son-in-law. The year 1342 saw the Byzantines engaged in another terrible civil war. The self-appointed emperor did not hesitate to go to Pristina and offer to Stephen Dushan Macedonia as far as Serres in exchange for Serbian aid against the Palaeologi.[189] When the Serbian assistance proved unsatisfactory, Cantacuzenos called in the Turks of Aïdin. Omar, with 83 ships and 29,000 soldiers, came to his aid, but, because of the severe cold, returned to Asia before anything could be accomplished.[190] He came back in the spring of 1343 with 290 vessels and helped Cantacuzenos to enter Salonika. In the fall of this year Cantacuzenos led his Turkish mercenaries into Thrace. Anna appealed in vain to Venice to exercise a pressure upon the Turks and Serbians, so that they would no longer support her rival.[191] In desperation she gave Alexander of Bulgaria nine strongholds in the Rhodope Mountains in exchange for a few thousand soldiers. She resorted also to bribing the Turks in Cantacuzenos’s service, and made overtures to Orkhan. The crusade of 1344 against the Turks of Aïdin, which resulted in the capture of Smyrna, prevented Cantacuzenos from continuing to receive substantial aid from Omar, who died four years later in an attempt to win back Smyrna.[192] Stephen Dushan, as we have already seen, was laying claim to the Byzantine throne himself. Cantacuzenos could turn only to the Osmanlis. It was in January 1345 that Cantacuzenos made his infamous proposal to Orkhan. In exchange for six thousand soldiers he was to give his daughter Theodora to the Ottoman emir.[193] Orkhan now turned a deaf ear to the appeals of Anna. This was a better offer. The Osmanlis crossed into Europe. With their help Cantacuzenos got possession of all the coast cities of the Black Sea except Sozopolis, besieged Constantinople, ravaged the neighbourhood of the capital, and won Adrianople.[194] It was only by threatening to change to the side of the Palaeologi that Orkhan secured the fulfilment of the bargain. In May 1346 Theodora became his bride.[195] A few days later, while Cantacuzenos was besieging the capital with the soldiers for whom he had paid so dearly, the beleaguered city was awakened by an ominous event. The eastern portion of the Church of St. Sophia had fallen.[196]