ABSTRACT
The broad trend of Raymond's career was a continuation of what had become apparent in the last few years of his father's life: military decline in the face of an increasingly confident and motivated Islamic opposition. Raymond II had one advantage over his father, which is that he came to power as an adult. Whereas Raymond's father had overseen the county's move to independence, and whereas his own son would later rise to prominence in the kingdom of Jerusalem, Raymond II died with few achievements to his name. With Bertrand thrown into captivity, the most immediate threat to Raymond II's rule at Tripoli was gone. By the 1150s, the prevailing opinion was that the county of Tripoli was no longer part of the kingdom of Jerusalem or the principality of Antioch in the strict sense. Constance's resistance to a hypothetical marriage was not the only matrimonial crisis to hit the council of Tripoli in 1152.
