George VIII of Georgia

George VIII was the last king to rule a united Georgia, and the founder of the separate kingdom of Kakheti, where he reigned as George I after the loss of his larger realm. Born between 1415 and 1417, he was a son of Alexander I the Great of Georgia by his second wife, Tamar, daughter of Alexander I of Imereti, and one of four brothers raised to co-kingship in 1433. After Alexander's abdication in 1442 George served under his elder brother Vakhtang IV, and when Vakhtang died childless in 1446 he seized the throne, setting aside his elder brother Demetrius. The Georgian chronicles are confused about his dates, some crediting him with ten years and others with twenty-four. His reign unfolded against the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and of Trebizond, Georgia's kin by marriage, in 1461. After the papal envoy Ludovico da Bologna visited in 1456, George sent embassies to the courts of Europe between 1459 and 1461 promising a great Caucasian army against the Ottomans, but the Western monarchs declined. At home the great lords slipped from his grasp. Qvarqvare II Jaqeli, atabeg of Samtskhe, pursued independence, and Bagrat, duke of Samokalako in the west, rose in rebellion with his support. When George crossed into Imereti in 1463 his army was decisively beaten at Chikhori, and Bagrat had himself crowned king of Imereti. In 1465, campaigning near Lake Paravani, George was captured by Qvarqvare and held at Akhaltsikhe until early 1466; one account ties his release to his marriage with the atabeg's daughter, Tamar Jaqeli. By then Bagrat had entered Kartli and proclaimed himself king of all Georgia. George withdrew to Kakheti and ruled there from 1466 as George I, replacing the duchies with districts under royal appointees and organizing the army under four bishop-commanders. His marriages are recorded with some confusion: by Tamar Jaqeli he had a son, Vakhtang, and two daughters, and by Nestan-Darejan a son, Alexander, who succeeded him as Alexander I of Kakheti, and a daughter, Mariam. George died in 1476. The division of Georgia into Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti was formally acknowledged only in 1490, but it was George's defeats that made it inevitable.