David VII Ulu

David VII, called Ulu, "the Senior," was the first king of Georgia to reign wholly under Mongol overlordship, and through him the eastern Bagrationi line of the later Middle Ages descended. Born in 1215, he was the illegitimate son of George IV Lasha by a woman of Velistsikhe in Kakheti whom the sources describe as of lesser rank. His aunt Rusudan, who succeeded George in 1223, saw the boy as a threat to her own son and about 1236 sent him into custody at the court of her son-in-law, the Seljuk sultan Kaykhusraw II of Rum. The Mongol victory over the Seljuks at Kose Dagh in 1243 freed him, and when Rusudan died in 1245 the Georgian nobles proclaimed him king. In 1246 both he and his cousin David, Rusudan's son, attended the enthronement of Guyuk Khan at Karakorum, where the khan resolved the dispute by making the elder cousin senior king, Ulu, and the younger his junior, Narin. The two ruled jointly from 1247. Georgia was carved into Mongol administrative divisions, each bound to supply troops, and the burden of levies and taxation grew heavier after the Ilkhanate was formed. In 1259 David Narin rose in Imereti and, when defeated, withdrew beyond the Likhi range to found the kingdom of Western Georgia. David Ulu at first held to the Mongols, but after his men were sent to the disastrous battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 he too refused Hulegu's demands. Arghun Aqa invaded with a large cavalry force, defeated David and Sargis Jaqeli near Akhaldaba, and ravaged the country; the king's wife Gvantsa Kakhaberidze was captured and put to death. Peace was restored in 1262, with David confirmed as vassal king of eastern Georgia. David married four times: Jigda-Khatun, a Mongol; Altun, an Alan; Gvantsa Kakhaberidze; and Esukan, daughter of the Mongol general Chormaqan. His children were George, who died in 1268, Tamar, and Demetrius, born in 1259 to Gvantsa. He died in the spring of 1270 and was buried at Svetitskhoveli in Mtskheta; Demetrius II succeeded him as a boy.