Baldwin III of Jerusalem and Melisende and Fulk reconciled and conceived a second child, Baldwin III's brother Amalric. Baldwin III was 13 years old when his father Fulk died in a hunting accident in 1143, and Baldwin III was crowned as co-ruler alongside his mother, echoing Melisende's own crowning alongside her father as his heir. Yet Baldwin showed little interest in the intricacies of governance. With a woman and a child ruling Jerusalem, the political situation was somewhat tense; the northern crusader states of Tripoli, Antioch, and Edessa increasingly asserted their independence, and there was no king to impose the suzerainty of Jerusalem as
Baldwin I of Jerusalem his adoptive father, but he did nothing when the rioters broke into the citadel on 9March. Thoros and his wife were captured and murdered. On the following day, the townspeople acknowledged Baldwin as their ruler (or "doux"). He assumed the title of count and established the first crusader state. The Seljuqs had captured Edessa from the Byzantines in 1087, but Alexios I Komnenos did not demand that Baldwin hand over the town. MacEvitt argues that the local population did not regard Baldwin's ascension as "a change in regime, but the replacement of one strongman with vague Byzantine ties with another