Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantium and the Crusades

The Comneni emperors and their foreign policy 

Page 6

At last, Manuel's envoys succeeded in seizing the passionately beloved Theodora and the children she had borne to Andronicus; incapable of enduring that loss, he resolved to make his submission to Manuel. Pardon was granted, and Andronicus apparently repented the follies of his stormy life. His appointment as governor of Pontus, in Asia Minor on the shores of the Black Sea, was a sort of honorable exile of a dangerous relative. At that time, 1180, Manuel died, and his son, Alexius II, a child of twelve, became Emperor. Andronicus was then sixty years old.

Such was the biography of the man in whom the population of the capital, exasperated by the latinophile policy of the Empress-regent, Mary of Antioch, and her favorite, Alexius Comnenus, reposed all their trust. Very skillfully pretending to protect the violated rights of the minor Alexius II, who was in the power of the wicked rulers, and to be a friend of the Romans (φιλορωμαῖος), Andronicus succeeded in winning the hearts of the exhausted population, who deified him. A contemporary, Eustathius of Thessalonica, said Andronicus to the majority of people, was dearer than God himself, or, at least, immediately followed him.

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/crusades.asp?pg=6