Pope Urban VI. having excommunicated Joan, the first queen of Naples,
intrusted the execution of the sentence to Charles de Duras, whom that
queen, a few years before, had declared her legitimate heir. This
prince appeared at the gates of Naples, in which city he had many
partisans. A great number of the inhabitants came over the walls to
bring refreshments to his troops, by whom he learnt that the city was
divided into three factions, the most powerful of which demanded him
for king. Two Neopolitan knights serving in Charles’s army, took a
novel means of obtaining entrance to a besieged city. It had always
been deemed that the sea formed a sufficient defence at what was called
the Gate Conciara, and it was neither closed nor guarded. The knights,
under the guidance of some deserters, swam close under the ramparts and
entered the open gate without obstruction. They then advanced into the
market-place, crying aloud, “Long live Charles Duras and Pope Urban!”
Followed by the populace, they opened the market gate and admitted
Charles and his army. The next day he laid siege to the castle, in
which the queen had taken refuge. Joan, reduced to the last extremity
by famine, having no vessel in which to escape, and no resource but in
her husband, Otho of Brunswick, who was made prisoner by Charles, was
obliged to surrender.