Throughout the year 1346 Constantinople was invested by Cantacuzenos and his mercenaries. The aristocratic party was almost openly championing the cause of the usurper, while Anna relied upon the democratic party and the Genoese. As for the clergy, they and the bulk of the population were more interested in the ecclesiastical trial of Barlaam for the Bogomile heresy[197] than in the civil war. In February 1347, while the Synod was in the act of condemning Barlaam, and Anna was confined to her bed with a serious illness, partisans of Cantacuzenos left the Golden Gate open. The ‘faithful friend and counsellor’ of Andronicus III entered without opposition. The garrison had been bribed, and prevented the Genoese from coming to the rescue of the empress. She yielded only when the palace of the Blachernae was attacked. Anna agreed to recognize Cantacuzenos and Irene as co-rulers, and to a union of the families by the betrothal of Helen, daughter of Cantacuzenos, to the young John Palaeologos. John, who was fifteen, protested against marrying the thirteen-year-old Helen. His mother overruled his objections. In May the marriage took place in the church of the Blachernae, as St. Sophia was still in ruins. This ceremony was followed by the coronation of the two emperors, John Cantacuzenos and John Palaeologos, and the three empresses, Anna, Irene, and Helen.[198] Five rulers for the remnant of the Byzantine Empire! At that very moment in France, the Marquis de Montferrat, heir to the Latin emperors of Constantinople, was planning with the Pope to drive out both Cantacuzenos and Palaeologos.[199] Orkhan was well satisfied with this entering wedge. He was now son-in-law of one emperor and brother-in-law of the other. His wife Theodora was granddaughter of the Bulgarian Czar. He had open to him also a marriage alliance with Stephen Dushan. The gods were first making mad. Cantacuzenos was compelled immediately to seek aid again of Orkhan. While he had been expending his energies against Constantinople, Stephen Dushan had made great strides in Macedonia. At Scutari, where Orkhan had come to congratulate his father-in-law upon the happy issue of the struggle for the imperial purple, Cantacuzenos asked for six thousand Osmanlis to dislodge the Serbians from the coast cities of Macedonia. Orkhan sent the soldiers willingly. He must, however, have given them secret instructions, for after having taken immense booty they returned to Nicomedia without having captured for Cantacuzenos a single one of the cities held by Stephen.[200] XI