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Description
Nothing is really known about Armand Bouchart before his position leading the Templar occupation of Cyprus. Honestly, there's not much known about that either… ya know for broke ass plebeians like me at least. Apparently the definitive account of what went down in 1192 can be found in one of the Old French continuations of William of Tyre's chronicle, but I cannot for the life of me find a copy of this damned book that won't break the bank. So until we decide as a society that education is a human right not relegated to the special few who can both afford and handle college, I'm gonna have to give you the abridged version I got from bloggers who at least claim to have read the text themselves. I mean hey, the Internet has never led anyone into spreading misinformation before, right?

Alright, some context: the island of Cyprus had been a Roman province ever since they plucked it out of the Pharaoh's cold dead hands during the dying days of the Republic. By 1185, however, it had already become a meme to pick apart bits of Byzantine territory like ants on a discarded ham sandwich, and the Byzantines themselves wanted in on the joke. Specifically, one Isaac Komnenos, a distant cousin to Emperor Andronikos, decided that just being “a distant cousin to Emperor Andronikos” wouldn't be very profitable. He'd just gotten out of an Armenian prison and could've really used a win. So, he set himself up as Emperor of Cyprus, which pissed off Andronikos, but he went the way of all Roman Emperors in September when a popular uprising quite literally tore him to shreds. While Andronikos's successor (confusingly also named Isaac), tried to reclaim Cyprus, the odds were never in his favor, and he was busy being a usurper himself, so our Isaac was more or less free to just turn Cyprus into his personal frat house. Any unfortunate bastard who wrecked on his shores would almost immediately be taken as hostages, which he was only able to get away with until April 1191, when he took Joan of England and Berengaria of Navarre. They were respectively the sister and betrothed of King Richard the Lionheart, who is the last man on Earth you want to upset. This insult royally pissed off Richard, who proceeded to do what he always did when someone pissed him off: absolutely annihilate the island and put Isaac in chains. Silver chains, mind you, because once Isaac was finally captured in June, he played the part of the little bitch, and begged Richard not to put him in “irons”. Remember to always word your sniveling very carefully, folks.

Richard wasn't here to be king of Cyprus though. He was on his way to tumble with Saladin in the Third Crusade, and to do that after splurging on this little detour, he needed some fast cash. Luckily for him, he had the Grand Master of the Templar Order, Robert de Sablé, tagging along with him to function as a walking piggy bank. King Richard sold Cyprus to the Templars at the cost of 100,000 bezants (gold coins, essentially), and at last we cue in Armand Bouchart (I've also seen it spelt Arnaut, Hernault, Reynald, and a few other variants, but Assassin's Creed calls him Armand so that's what I'm rolling with). Robert de Sablé placed Bouchart as governor of the island, but took most of his men with him to help lift the Siege of Acre. Bouchart was therefore left with a contingent of only 14 Templar knights proper, 20 sergeants, and 74 infantrymen. That's not exactly the sort of numbers you want when you're supposed to be running an island full of people already extremely unhappy with the previous usurper.

There was also one small problem with the whole buying Cyprus from Richard for 100,000 bezants thing: the Templars didn't actually have 100,000 bezants. Instead, what they had to do was give Richard a down payment of 40,000 bezants, and raise the other 60% by taxing the shit out of the Cypriots. As you can imagine, this made the Templars exceptionally unpopular, and that's not even to mention the fact that the island's Orthodox Greek population couldn't imagine a fresher Hell than being ruled by a bunch of Catholic frogs. I can't either, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. By April 1192, the people had finally had enough of Bouchart and his despotic Templars. On Easter Sunday, the citizens of Lefkosia stirred into open revolt, forcing Bouchart and his Knights to barricade themselves inside the city's castle. Trapped inside with no sign of the siege letting up, the Templar garrison held council, said their prayers, and decided there was no other way out. In a desperate Hail Mary, the Templars charged out the front gates of the castle, decked in full armor and sword, and slaughtered their way through any protestor who got between them and the harbor. This caught the rioters off guard just enough for the Templars to push through and escape to Acre with their tails between their legs.

Armand Bouchart falls out of the historical record after reporting back to Robert de Sablé that Cyprus was more trouble than it was worth. Evidently, de Sablé agreed, deciding to sell the island back to Richard right there and then. However, Richard still didn't give half a rat’s ass about being king if Cyprus. He was too busy probably plotting the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat. So instead, Richard sold the island to Guy de Lusignan, who had just been robbed of his chance to sit on the throne of Jerusalem by the afformentioned Conrad. Guy arrived in May to take over where the Templars left off, though that wasn't the end of Templar activity in Cyprus. The Knights were allowed to retain the castles they had occupied throughout the previous year, and after Acre fell in 1291, the retreating Templars made Cyprus their central headquarters until King Philip IV of France turned their last Grand Master into a briquette in 1314. The moral of the story: don't spend money you don't have. You'll always end up paying the price sooner than you'd intended.

Design notes, this one turned out to be refreshingly straightforward. There's no surviving images of Armand Bouchart himself that I could dig up, but I did find a statue of a generic Templar knight on display in the castle of St. Hilaron in Zeytinlik. That served as my primary baseline, throwing in my own little extrapolations here and there. I tried to find more information to cite regarding the statue, as it's clearly a modern art piece, but all I could find is that it was apparently unveiled during the 17th annual Olive Festival… whenever that was. If miraculously the people who made this statue stumble across this page, I apologize for ripping you off. Your statue is pretty tight. Feel free to link your credentials below. Aside from that, there's not much else to say about this piece. I kept the shapes simple, in line with the statue, cause this is another case where the subject only has a couple paragraphs to his name in the historical record, so there wasn't much point in coming up with anything too flashy.

Description
Nothing is really known about Armand Bouchart before his position leading the Templar occupation of Cyprus. Honestly, there's not much known about that either… ya know for broke ass plebeians like me at least. Apparently the definitive account of what went down in 1192 can be found in one of the Old French continuations of William of Tyre's chronicle, but I cannot for the life of me find a copy of this damned book that won't break the bank. So until we decide as a society that education is a human right not relegated to the special few who can both afford and handle college, I'm gonna have to give you the abridged version I got from bloggers who at least claim to have read the text themselves. I mean hey, the Internet has never led anyone into spreading misinformation before, right?

Alright, some context: the island of Cyprus had been a Roman province ever since they plucked it out of the Pharaoh's cold dead hands during the dying days of the Republic. By 1185, however, it had already become a meme to pick apart bits of Byzantine territory like ants on a discarded ham sandwich, and the Byzantines themselves wanted in on the joke. Specifically, one Isaac Komnenos, a distant cousin to Emperor Andronikos, decided that just being “a distant cousin to Emperor Andronikos” wouldn't be very profitable. He'd just gotten out of an Armenian prison and could've really used a win. So, he set himself up as Emperor of Cyprus, which pissed off Andronikos, but he went the way of all Roman Emperors in September when a popular uprising quite literally tore him to shreds. While Andronikos's successor (confusingly also named Isaac), tried to reclaim Cyprus, the odds were never in his favor, and he was busy being a usurper himself, so our Isaac was more or less free to just turn Cyprus into his personal frat house. Any unfortunate bastard who wrecked on his shores would almost immediately be taken as hostages, which he was only able to get away with until April 1191, when he took Joan of England and Berengaria of Navarre. They were respectively the sister and betrothed of King Richard the Lionheart, who is the last man on Earth you want to upset. This insult royally pissed off Richard, who proceeded to do what he always did when someone pissed him off: absolutely annihilate the island and put Isaac in chains. Silver chains, mind you, because once Isaac was finally captured in June, he played the part of the little bitch, and begged Richard not to put him in “irons”. Remember to always word your sniveling very carefully, folks.

Richard wasn't here to be king of Cyprus though. He was on his way to tumble with Saladin in the Third Crusade, and to do that after splurging on this little detour, he needed some fast cash. Luckily for him, he had the Grand Master of the Templar Order, Robert de Sablé, tagging along with him to function as a walking piggy bank. King Richard sold Cyprus to the Templars at the cost of 100,000 bezants (gold coins, essentially), and at last we cue in Armand Bouchart (I've also seen it spelt Arnaut, Hernault, Reynald, and a few other variants, but Assassin's Creed calls him Armand so that's what I'm rolling with). Robert de Sablé placed Bouchart as governor of the island, but took most of his men with him to help lift the Siege of Acre. Bouchart was therefore left with a contingent of only 14 Templar knights proper, 20 sergeants, and 74 infantrymen. That's not exactly the sort of numbers you want when you're supposed to be running an island full of people already extremely unhappy with the previous usurper.

There was also one small problem with the whole buying Cyprus from Richard for 100,000 bezants thing: the Templars didn't actually have 100,000 bezants. Instead, what they had to do was give Richard a down payment of 40,000 bezants, and raise the other 60% by taxing the shit out of the Cypriots. As you can imagine, this made the Templars exceptionally unpopular, and that's not even to mention the fact that the island's Orthodox Greek population couldn't imagine a fresher Hell than being ruled by a bunch of Catholic frogs. I can't either, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. By April 1192, the people had finally had enough of Bouchart and his despotic Templars. On Easter Sunday, the citizens of Lefkosia stirred into open revolt, forcing Bouchart and his Knights to barricade themselves inside the city's castle. Trapped inside with no sign of the siege letting up, the Templar garrison held council, said their prayers, and decided there was no other way out. In a desperate Hail Mary, the Templars charged out the front gates of the castle, decked in full armor and sword, and slaughtered their way through any protestor who got between them and the harbor. This caught the rioters off guard just enough for the Templars to push through and escape to Acre with their tails between their legs.

Armand Bouchart falls out of the historical record after reporting back to Robert de Sablé that Cyprus was more trouble than it was worth. Evidently, de Sablé agreed, deciding to sell the island back to Richard right there and then. However, Richard still didn't give half a rat’s ass about being king if Cyprus. He was too busy probably plotting the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat. So instead, Richard sold the island to Guy de Lusignan, who had just been robbed of his chance to sit on the throne of Jerusalem by the afformentioned Conrad. Guy arrived in May to take over where the Templars left off, though that wasn't the end of Templar activity in Cyprus. The Knights were allowed to retain the castles they had occupied throughout the previous year, and after Acre fell in 1291, the retreating Templars made Cyprus their central headquarters until King Philip IV of France turned their last Grand Master into a briquette in 1314. The moral of the story: don't spend money you don't have. You'll always end up paying the price sooner than you'd intended.

Design notes, this one turned out to be refreshingly straightforward. There's no surviving images of Armand Bouchart himself that I could dig up, but I did find a statue of a generic Templar knight on display in the castle of St. Hilaron in Zeytinlik. That served as my primary baseline, throwing in my own little extrapolations here and there. I tried to find more information to cite regarding the statue, as it's clearly a modern art piece, but all I could find is that it was apparently unveiled during the 17th annual Olive Festival… whenever that was. If miraculously the people who made this statue stumble across this page, I apologize for ripping you off. Your statue is pretty tight. Feel free to link your credentials below. Aside from that, there's not much else to say about this piece. I kept the shapes simple, in line with the statue, cause this is another case where the subject only has a couple paragraphs to his name in the historical record, so there wasn't much point in coming up with anything too flashy.