The barons of the Latin Empire then elected Peter II of Courtenay, a cousin of King Philip II Augustus of France, as the new Latin Emperor. Receiving news of his election, Peter assembled a small army of 160 knights and 5,500 foot and horse, and set out from France. After being crowned by Pope Honorius III in Rome, he set sail from Brindisi in April 1217. Peter landed at Dyrrhachium, which he had promised to conquer and return to Venice, while his wife Yolanda of Flanders sailed on to Constantinople. As in the Norman invasion of William II of Sicily () in 1185, Peter intended (after capturing Dyrrhachium) to follow the ancient Via Egnatia to Thessalonica, wresting Albania and Macedonia from Epirote control in the process.