Prince Iulon of Georgia

Iulon (; 4 June 1760 – 23 October 1816) was a Georgian royal prince (batonishvili) of the House of Bagrationi, born into the family of King Heraclius II and Queen Darejan Dadiani. He advanced claim to the throne of Kartli and Kakheti after the death of his half-brother George XII in 1800 and opposed the Russian annexation of Georgia until being apprehended and deported in 1805 to Tula. He died in St. Petersburg and was buried at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Early life Iulon was a son of Heraclius II of his third marriage to Darejan (Daria) née Dadiani, born at the royal castle of Telavi in 1760. In September 1787, Iulon, together with Prince Orbeliani, commanded a 4,000-strong Georgian force sent by Heraclius against his former ally Ibrahim, khan of Karabakh. The Georgians were victorious, but the sudden withdrawal of an allied Russian army from the Caucasus rendered further operations abortive. In 1790, Iulon received a princely domain in the Ksani valley after Heraclius II dispossessed the defiant Kvenipneveli dynasty of the duchy of Ksani, dividing it into three parts. Other parts of the duchy were granted to Iulon's half-nephews, Ioane and Bagrat, sons of Crown Prince George, the future King George XII. In addition, in 1794, Iulon was placed in charge of the province of Kartli. At the time of an invasion by the Iranian army of Agha Muhammad Khan in 1795, he was headquartered at Gori and did not take part in fighting which devastated Heraclius's capital, Tbilisi. Issue of succession In 1791, at insistence of Queen Darejan, Heraclius II signed a testament, requiring the king's successor to pass the throne not to his offspring, but to his eldest brother, thereby making Iulon the second in the line of succession, behind his half-brother Crown Prince George. After Heraclius's death in 1798, the ailing king George XII abrogated this new law of succession and obtained from Tsar Paul I recognition of his son, David, as heir-apparent on 18 April 1799. These developments gave rise of implacable enmity between the king and his half-brothers. Iulon became a rallying point for the disaffected Georgian nobles.