A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Adelasia
ADELASIA.
Of Torres, Queen of Sardinia, in the earlier half of the thirteenth century, was the daughter of Mariano, who held one of the four lord or judgeships into which the Island was divided. About the year 1219, one Ubaldo, a patrician of Pisa, possessed himself by violent means of the judgeship of Gallura, and some other lands; and Mariano of Torres, was called upon by the Papal see, which claimed paramount authority over Sardinia, to resist the usurper; instead of doing which, he entered into an alliance with him, and gave him his daughter in marriage. In 1236, however, both himself and his son were killed in a rebellion, and the sovereignty of Torres, according to the forms of election then and there customary, passed to Adelasia, who, with her husband deemed it prudent to make submission to the Roman pontiff, by whom, on certain conditions, the legality of her title was formerly acknowledged in 1237. The year after Ubaldo died, and Pope Gregory and the Emperor Frederick were each desirous of providing her with a second husband, who would be likely to favour their respective views and interests. The Emperor's illegitimate son, Euseus, celebrated for his manly beauty, was the successful candidate for the hand of the widow, whom he married in 1238. He immediately assumed the title of King of Torres and Gallura, and soon after that of Sardinia, and then from some undiscovered cause evinced the bitterest hatred towards his wife, depriving her of all share of the government, and shutting her up in the castle of Goceuno, where she appears to have died.