Mariam of Vaspurakan

Bagrat, the son of king George I by his first wife Mariam of Vaspurakan, had been surrendered by his father at the age of three as a hostage to the emperor Basil II as a price for George’s defeat in the 1022 war with Constantinople.

The young child had spent the next three years in the imperial capital and was released in 1025.

He was still in the imperial possessions when Basil had died and had been succeeded by his brother Constantine VIII.

Constantine had ordered the retrieval of the young prince, but the imperial courier had been unable to overtake Bagrat, who was already in the Georgian kingdom.

After George I dies on August 16, 1027, Bagrat, aged eight, succeeds to the throne.

Queen Dowager Mariam now returns to prominence as regent for her son, sharing the regency with the grandees, particularly Liparit IV, Duke of Trialeti, and Ivane, Duke of Kartli.

By the time Bagrat becomes king, the Bagratids’ drive to complete the unification of all Georgian lands has gained irreversible momentum.

The kings of Georgia sit at Kutaisi in western Georgia from which they run all of what had been the Kingdom of Abkhazia and a greater portion of Iberia/Kartli; Tao/Tayk had been lost to the Empire while a Muslim emir remains in Tbilisi and the kings of Kakheti obstinately defend their autonomy in easternmost Georgia.

Furthermore, the loyalty of great nobles to the Georgian crown is far from stable.

Constantine VIII, shortly after Bagrat's ascension to the Georgian throne, sends in an army to take over the key city-fortress of Artanuji (modern Ardanuç, Turkey) on behalf of the Georgian Bagratid prince Demetre, son of Gurgen of Klarjeti, who had been dispossessed by Bagrat IV's grandfather, Bagrat III, of his patrimonial fief at Artanuji early in the 1010s.

Several Georgians nobles defect to the Empire, but Bagrat's loyal subjects put up a stubborn fight.

Constantine's death in 1028 renders the invasion abortive.

The queen dowager Mariam had paid a visit in 1030 to the new emperor Romanos III, negotiated a peace treaty, and returned with the high imperial title of curopalates for her son in 1032.

Mariam also brings him an imperial princess, Helena, as wife.

Helena is a daughter of Basil Argyros, brother of the emperor Romanos, and the marriage is a diplomatic effort to establish a strategic association.

However, Helena's death shortly afterwards at Kutaisi presents the Georgian court with the opportunity to pursue yet another diplomatic initiative through Bagrat's marriage with Borena, daughter of the king of Alania, a Christian country in the North Caucasus.

Liparit IV, Duke of Kldekari, had appeared on the political scene of Georgia in the late 1020s when he, as a holder of the fortress of Kldekari and later as a commander-in-chief of the royal armies, had proven himself as the defender of the boy king Bagrat IV and his regent, Dowager Queen Mariam.

His successful resistance to the invading imperial troops in 1028 and a victorious campaign against the Shaddadid dynasty of Arran in 1034 have made Liparit the most powerful noble in Georgia.

In 1038, Liparit had been on the verge of capturing the Georgian city of Tbilisi, which has been under Muslim sway for centuries, but the Georgian nobles, fearing his growing power, had thwarted the plan and persuaded the king to make peace with the emir of Tbilisi.

As a result, Liparit has turned into a sworn enemy of Bagrat and begins actively cooperating with foreign powers for vengeance.

In 1039, he had pledged his support to Bagrat’s half-brother Demetrius who enters Georgia with an imperial army to seize the crown.