The Tower of Anemas was probably also the prison to which the Despot Michael was committed by Andronicus II. on the charge of treason. He had been created Despot by Michael Palæologus, and was married to the Princess Anna, above mentioned, after the failure of the Servian marriage to which reference has been made. Upon her death, he fell into disgrace at the Court for marrying a daughter of the Bulgarian king Terter, the repudiated wife of the King of Servia. To this he added treasonable offences, and was, therefore, confined with his wife and children in the prison attached to the Great Palace. On attempting to escape, he was removed to the prison at Blachernæ[551] for greater security. Another inmate of the prison of Anemas was Syrghiannes, a political adventurer conspicuous for his intrigues during the struggle between Andronicus II. and Andronicus III., taking sometimes the one side and sometimes the other. He had been immured elsewhere for five years on the charge of conspiracy to assassinate the elder emperor, but in 1322, at the instance of John Cantacuzene, then Grand Domestic, he was transferred to the Tower of Anemas as a more tolerable place of confinement, in the hope of conciliating him; and there he was permitted to receive visits from his mother, and even to have his wife and children with him.[552] Ultimately he was released, but the old spirit was too strong to be vanquished by suffering or by kindness. He returned to a life of intrigue and rebellion, and his career was closed by the hands of assassins. Later in the century, members of the Imperial family were once more imprisoned in the Tower of Anemas, under circumstances which afford a vivid picture of an empire weakened by domestic feuds, and distracted by the rival ambitions of foreign powers that were awaiting its dissolution, and ready to appropriate its territories. There John VI. Palæologus imprisoned his eldest son Andronicus, and there, upon the escape of the latter, he was himself imprisoned with his two younger sons, Manuel and Theodore.