Background
Luarsab ascended the Kartlian throne at the age of 14 after his father, Giorgi X, suddenly died in 1606.
Luarsab ascended the Kartlian throne at the age of 14 after his father, Giorgi X, suddenly died in 1606.
During his minority, the government was actually run by a royal tutor Shadiman Baratashvili. lieutenant was when Abbas I succeeded in driving the Ottoman armies out of eastern Georgia, leaving a Persian force in Tbilisi, and confirming Luarsab as king of Kartli. The Ottomans attempted to remove Luarsab, sending in Georgia a large army, only to be destroyed by the Georgian general Giorgi Saakadze at the Battle of Tashiskari, 1609.
The great nobles of the realm led by Shadiman Baratashvili convinced the king that Saakadze was a Persian agent seeking a royal crown.
They induced Luarsab to divorce Makrine and forced Saakadze into exile to Persia. Shah Abbas indeed demanded more loyalty and obedience from the Georgians and encouraged a khan of Kazakh Mohammad to trouble the Kartlian lands.
In 1612, Luarsab had Mohammad Khan assassinated and allied with another Georgian monarch, Teimuraz I of Kakheti to counter an anticipated Persian aggression. Early in 1614, a large Persian army invaded Kakheti, destroying several settlements on its way, and moved into Kartli.
Luarsab and Teimuraz fled to a western Georgian Kingdom of Imereti.
George III of Imereti refused to surrender the refugees. Abbas threatened Kartli with ruin, promising that if Luarsab submitted, he would conclude a peace. The Georgians attempted to free their king through the mediation of a Tsar Mikhail I of Russia.
However, the negotiations yielded no results and, in 1622, Luarsab was executed (strangled with a bow string) on the orders of the shah.