Editing Baldwin I, Latin Emperor (section)

==Captivity and death==
[[File:Bal.Kyla.jpg|thumb|[[Baldwin's Tower]] in the [[Tsarevets (fortress)|Tsarevets]] castle, [[Veliko Tarnovo]], [[Bulgaria]], built 1848]]
For some time Baldwin's fate was uncertain, and in the meanwhile Henry, his brother, assumed the regency. Not until the middle of July the following year was it ascertained that he was dead.{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}

The circumstances of Baldwin's death are not exactly known.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Bousfield |first=Jonathan |title=Bulgaria |last2=Richardson |first2=Dan |date=2002 |publisher=Rough Guides |isbn=978-1-85828-882-6 |edition=4th |location=London |oclc=49989328 |ol=9003821M}}</ref> There are several accounts of his fate; one being that he was at first treated well as a prisoner by Kaloyan despite refusing to release him at the request of the Pope—another says Kaloyan had Baldwin's hands and feet cut off and thrown in a ditch to die,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Miller |first=William |author-link=William Miller (historian) |title=The Balkans: Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia and Montenegro, with New Chapter Containing Their History from 1896 to 1922 |year=1923 |edition=3rd |pages=173 |orig-year=1896}}</ref> while a third account says he refused the advances of the Bulgarian queen who then accused him of rape and had him executed.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Bousfield |first=Jonathan |title=Bulgaria |last2=Richardson |first2=Dan |date=2002 |publisher=Rough Guides |isbn=978-1-85828-882-6 |edition=4th |location=London |oclc=49989328 |ol=9003821M}}</ref> The historian [[George Acropolites]] reports that the Tsar had Baldwin's [[Skull cup|skull made into a drinking cup]], just as had happened to [[Nicephorus I]] almost four hundred years before.{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}

Kaloyan wrote to [[Pope Innocent III]], reporting that Baldwin had died in prison. A tower of the [[Tsarevets (fortress)|Tsarevets]] fortress of the medieval Bulgarian capital, [[Veliko Tarnovo]], is still called [[Baldwin's Tower]]; supposedly, it was the tower where he was interned.

It was not until July 1206 that the Latins in Constantinople had reliable information that Baldwin was dead. His brother [[Henry of Flanders|Henry]] was crowned emperor in August.

Back in Flanders, however, there seemed to be doubt whether Baldwin was truly dead. In any case, Baldwin's other brother Philip of Namur remained as regent, and eventually, both of Baldwin's daughters, [[Joan, Countess of Flanders|Joan]] and [[Margaret II, Countess of Flanders|Margaret II]], were to rule as countesses of Flanders.

Twenty years later, in 1225, a man appeared in Flanders claiming to be the presumed dead Baldwin. His claim soon became entangled in a series of rebellions and revolts in Flanders against the rule of Baldwin's daughter Jeanne. A number of people who had known Baldwin before the [[crusade]] rejected his claim, but he nonetheless attracted many followers from the ranks of the peasantry. Eventually unmasked as a [[Burgundy (region)|Burgundian]] serf named Bertrand of Ray, the false Baldwin was executed in 1226.{{sfn|Cohn|1970|pp=89-93}}