GIOVANNA II. DA NAPOLI--“SI COMME A REGINA GIOVANNA!”
I.
“Like Queen Giovanna” was, alas! a common saying in the Two Sicilies
what time Giovanna II. was Queen of Naples. A term of immeasurable
reprobation, it implied the stripping of the woman of every shred of
moral character, the baring of the Queen of every claim to honour. If
Isabeau of Bavaria was the worst Queen-consort, then Giovanna II. was
the worst Queen-regnant, perhaps, the world has ever seen. Her story
needs telling truthfully with care.
Giovanna II., Queen of Naples, was the only surviving daughter of
Charles III., “_Carlo della Pace_,” King of Naples and Count of
Provence. Her mother was Margaret, daughter of her great-uncle Charles,
Duke of Durazzo; hence her parents were cousins, and were both in the
direct line of succession from Charles I., Count of Anjou, the fourth
son of King Louis IX.,--St. Louis of France,--who had married Beatrix,
Countess of Provence in her own right. Giovanna had seven brothers and
sisters, all of whom died in infancy except Ladislaus, born in 1376;
she was his senior by five years, having first seen the light of day on
April 27, 1371.
[Illustration: GIOVANNA II. DA NAPOLI AS THE VIRGIN MARY
From a Painting by Antonio Solario (“Lo Zingaro”). (_Circa 1420._)
National Museum, Naples
_To face page 216_]
The Queen’s father’s predecessor as occupant of the throne of Naples
had been his second cousin, Giovanna I., the eldest surviving
grandchild of King Robert, “_Roberto il Buono e Saggio_.” She died
childless in 1382, although twice married, first to Andrew, King of
Hungary, and secondly to Lodovico, Prince of Taranto. By her will she
purposely passed over the Princes of the Durazzo family, and named as
her successor Louis II. d’Anjou, King of Sicily and Jerusalem and Count
of Provence. The Queen’s first marriage was celebrated September 24,
1333, when she was only seven years old, her boy-husband being fifteen.
The Pope created Prince Andrew King of Naples six years later, upon his
succession to the throne of Hungary. Without the slightest compunction,
Charles, son of Lodovico, Count of Gravina, seized his cousin’s empty
throne, and maintained himself thereupon for five years, his little
daughter Giovanna being just ten years of age. The death of Queen
Giovanna I. was due to the instigation of Charles. He entered Naples at
the head of a strong force of cavalry, seized the palace, and took the
Queen prisoner. She was conducted to the Castle of Muro, overlooking
the road from Naples to Melfi, and there, with her lover, Otto of
Brunswick, suffocated under a feather bed by two Hungarian soldiers.
This outrage was committed in revenge for the death of King Andrew,
which was ordered by Giovanna I., his consort.
Charles III., King of Naples, died in 1386, leaving to his son
Ladislaus the royal succession, with his widow, Queen Margaret, as
Regent. They with the Princess Giovanna, sixteen years of age, were
fugitives from castle to castle, pursued by the troops of Louis
d’Anjou. Nevertheless, Margaret was an astute mother, for when
Ladislaus was eighteen years old she espoused him to Constance,
daughter of the Count of Clermont in Sicily, a very wealthy heiress.
What matrimonial projects were hatched or addled on behalf of Princess
Giovanna during her father’s lifetime we know not, but almost the first
matter taken in hand by King Ladislaus was an advantageous marriage for
his sister. This was a very complicated business. First of all, neither
he nor she cared very much for matrimony; he was a libertine, and she
shared his freedom and his depravity. Next, each suitor for the hand
of Giovanna retired disgusted by the loose morals of the Neapolitan
Court and by the avarice of the King and his sister. However, at
length a match was arranged between the Princess and Prince William,
son of Leopold III., Duke of Austria. The actual nuptials, however,
were postponed for one reason or another until 1403, when Giovanna had
reached the considerable age of thirty-two. The princely couple went
off to Austria, where they remained more or less unhappy until 1406,
when the Prince died suddenly and suspiciously, many said by the hand
or direction of his ill-conditioned wife.
The widow returned at once to Naples to fill the place of honour
vacated by her brother’s wife, his second consort, Maria di Lusignan.
Queen Constance he had divorced in 1391, and married the daughter of
the King of Cyprus the same year. The ostensible reason for rejecting
Constance was the failure of her father to pay her dowry. She was a
lovely girl and virtuous,--a rare quality at that time,--and became
the idol of the Court. Queen Maria had scarcely been seated on the
throne, when she also fell from her high station. Ladislaus said she
was delicate and in consumption, and no wife for him. One day, when
she and the King were assisting at Mass in the cathedral, she heard
with the utmost astonishment and dismay the Archbishop read a Bull
of Pope Boniface IX. annulling her marriage with Ladislaus. At the
conclusion of the citation the prelate advanced to the Queen’s throne
and demanded her wedding-ring. Too stupefied to resist, the pledge of
her married state was torn from her finger, and she was carried away
to a remote convent under the care of two aged nuns. Three years after
this outrage the King relented of his cruelty, and married her to one
Andrea di Capua, one of his favourites. He took a third wife in 1406,
Marie d’Enghien, the widow of Raimondo d’Orsini, some six months after
the return of his sister from Austria. She is said to have survived
Ladislaus. Some letters of hers are preserved at Conversano, near Bari,
in the Benedictine convent.
The advance of Louis d’Anjou upon the capital roused Ladislaus to
action, and he hastily gathered together an undisciplined army, and
set forth to withstand his rival to the throne. A decisive battle was
fought at Rocca Secca, May 19, 1411, wherein Ladislaus’s troops were
routed, but Louis failed to follow up his advantage, and Ladislaus
retained his throne and continued his debauches.
Early in 1412 Queen Margaret, mother of the King and of Giovanna,
died somewhat suddenly. She and her entourage had taken refuge from
a visitation of plague, which spared neither prince nor peasant,
at her villa at Acquamela, six miles from Salerno. She was buried
privately in the Cathedral of Salerno, in the crypt over against the
marble sarcophagus which contained the ashes of St. Matthew. Whatever
influence she may have exerted during the youth of her son and daughter
for their good was speedily dissipated, and as soon as Ladislaus
had obtained the crown he took steps to circumscribe the liberty of
his mother. She appealed to her daughter Giovanna for sympathy, but
found none, and the poor old Queen, who had survived her consort,
Charles, for six-and-twenty years, was consigned to the Convent of the
Annunciation, “so as to be out of the way of mischief,” as her daughter
phrased it. The natural rôle of mother was entirely out of place in a
palace or at a Court ruled by a libertine and a prostitute.
Ladislaus died sadly and alone. His unnatural sister refused to be with
him, and all his butterfly courtesans gave to themselves wing when
sickness and death entered the royal palace. He died August 6, 1414,
leaving no lawful offspring by his three wives, but a numerous family
of natural children. No Salic Law governed the succession to the throne
in the kingdom of Naples, consequently Giovanna became Queen.
The widowed Queen Giovanna had not married again, although she counted
lovers by the score; but within a few months of her accession she took
steps to ally herself with a Prince who should be the handsomest and
wittiest of the time. This determination of Giovanna was noised abroad
all over the capitals and Courts of Europe, and forthwith a troop of
eligible suitors passed through the ports of Marseilles and Genoa, each
bent on taking the ribald Queen at her word. The romance reads like a
fairy tale, for each princeling and prince was put through his paces
to show his qualifications in person and in purse; for, desperately
wicked as she was, the Queen had a commercial sense, and her exchequer
stood sorely in need of replenishment. Taken for all in all, Juan
d’Arragona, son of King Ferdinand, was the champion of physical beauty,
knightly courtesy, and financial competence; but he was no more than
a precocious lad of seventeen, whilst the Queen was forty-five. A
matrimonial union was ruled to be impossible, and the pride of Aragon
would not suffer a scion of her royal house to become the plaything of
a lewd Queen.
Giovanna very unwillingly transferred her affections to an
older suitor,--the champion, if we may so write, of the heavy
weights,--Jacques de Bourbon, Comte de la Marche, of the Royal House of
France, and their nuptials were celebrated in the Cathedral of Naples
on August 10, 1415. He very soon discovered that, strong man as he was,
he had a wily woman to contend with. He began to assert his marital
rights, and required Giovanna to accord him equal honours with herself;
at the same time he utterly failed in the reformation of the conduct
of his wife. She served herself upon him as she willed, but she mostly
willed to serve him not at all, and to transfer her favours, as before
their marriage, indiscriminately to whilom paramours. Like a lion
wounded in his den, Roy Jacques,--for so he called himself,--struck out
at his supplanters, and, with his past-master knowledge of the rapier
and its uses, he pricked to death not one but many lovers of the Queen.
The Neapolitans were man for man with Giovanna, and indignant with her
consort. Strange to say, perhaps, for us who read the story of the
time, evil royal communications had wholly corrupted the morals and the
manners of all classes in the realm.
Incited by toadies and sycophants, Giovanna at last took the upper hand
against her spouse, and on September 13, 1416,--little more than a year
after their marriage,--she ordered his imprisonment in the Castella
dell’ Ovo, a fortress of such strength that Froissart said: “None but
the devil can take it!” Thence, however, he escaped, but with a price
upon his head,--fixed by his inconstant mistress,--and took up his
residence at Besançon, with the white cord of St. Francis d’Assisi
round his loins. There he died, having renounced the world, the flesh,
and the devil, a wiser and a disillusioned man, in 1436.
Giovanna, released from the bonds of matrimony, greatly to her relief,
gave herself unreservedly into the arms of every man dare-devil enough
to risk the consequences. Of these, perhaps the first whose name and
maldoings chroniclers have preserved was Pandolfo Alopo, a base-born
athlete, a very handsome fellow, and a seductive guitarist to boot.
He responded to his royal mistress’s amours, and she appointed him
Seneschal of the kingdom, with authority to use her signet-ring. Very
soon, mentally and morally undisciplined as he was, he exceeded the
length of Giovanna’s tether, by exciting her jealousy with respect to
her Maids of Honour. Short was his shrift. Seized, bound, and tortured
with nameless indignity and cruelty, his mutilated body was cast into
the sea off the fair island of Nisida, where the vicious vixen held
orgies equal in atrocity and bestiality to those of Tiberius in Capri.
Sforza da Colignola stepped gaily in the bloody footmarks of Alopo. He
was the chief of the Queen’s pages, and had been reared under her eye
and at her will; he had, moreover, a fell influence over his mistress,
as witness time out of mind, ever since his teens, of her enormities.
He, indeed, gained the upper hand of Giovanna, and, being an adept in
martial exercises, held his own against all comers. For a time he left
the intimate service of the Queen, and became a soldier of fortune,
winning laurels and prizes all along his way. Secretly he sympathized
with the claims of the House of Anjou, judging shrewdly enough that
under the white lilies of Louis he would have a better hold upon his
position at the Court of Naples than he would under the red bars of
Alfonso of Aragon.
Giovanna felt the thraldom of Sforza’s strength of character and his
knowledge of her past, and because no one seemed willing to take her
at her word, and rid her of his presence, she turned herself about and
fixed her confidence on Sergianni Caracciolo. Upon him she showered
riches and honours, but in return he made himself her master.
The Queen’s choice of favourites was not, however, confined to men
of merit or of high degree. Every good-looking youth or well-favoured
man upon whom her eyes chanced to rest was enrolled in her household.
She frequented athletic meetings incognita to view the personal
qualifications of vigorous youths, and spent her evenings in
surreptitious visits to her stables and her kennels. The men of her
choice were offered no alternative, but when the guilty intercourse was
consummated the lucky-luckless companion of her couch was expected to
commit suicide or for ever leave his home on pain of imprisonment and
torture if he tarried four-and-twenty hours.
Perhaps no figure of a man fascinated Queen Giovanna more completely
than did the handsome person of Bartolommeo Colleone of Bergamo. His
family had become impoverished by the bitter feuds of the Guelphs and
Ghibellines, so at eighteen the young lad bid his parents farewell
and started off to win his way in military adventures. He travelled
south to Naples, and at twenty was as lusty and as strong as any man
he met. Of a strict habit of body, he performed feats none others
dared. Giovanna sent for the good-looking stranger, and pitted him
against the ablest youths of Naples. In leaping, running, and casting
of heavy weights, no one could surpass him. Instantly the Queen fell
in love with him, and appointed him her esquire, with ready access to
her boudoir, where she denied him nothing. His final reward was the
cloister of St. Francis d’Assisi, which became his prison, and his
mouth was sealed. How he escaped torture no one has recorded.
It would be long, and certainly distasteful, to give a full list of all
those who shared the vampire caresses of the peccant Queen; but brief
is her story of how Giovanna destroyed the fair fame of her house and
the honour of her country. Of her it was written: “_Ultima Durazza fiet
destructio regnum_” (“The last Durazzo shall destroy the kingdom”).
II.
Whilst Giovanna was thus prostituting herself and her kingdom, and
Alfonso of Aragon was biding his time, a movement was on foot in Anjou
and Provence, under the strong hand of Queen Yolande, to win back the
rights her husband had abandoned to the succession of the Neapolitan
crown. Her eldest son,--a boy not yet out of school,--should place that
crown once more upon the head of an Angevine Sovereign or perish in the
attempt. Men and arms and allies were all requisitioned, and elaborate
preparations were made at Marseilles and Genoa for the embarkation of
the “army of Naples.”
The expedition of Louis III. to Naples was hurried forward in
consequence of the breach between Queen Giovanna and the nobles
of Naples. Her disregard of their allegiance, and her appointment
to all the more important posts under the Crown of men of obscure
origin who had commended themselves to her by their physical charms
and coarse obscenities, caused a disruption in the political economy
of the kingdom. The Queen was deaf to the expostulations of her
Barons, and ordered them severally to their estates, where, fuming
with indignation, they armed their retainers and stood ready for any
emergency. The arrogance of King Alfonso drove many would-be adherents
into the camp of his Angevine rival, and an influential deputation of
aggrieved dignitaries made its way to Marseilles to tender to Yolande,
the Queen of Sicily and the mother of Anjou, their homage, and to
assure her of their cordial support for the youthful King if only she
would permit him to show himself at the head of an overawing force
before the capital.
There is a romantic story concerning King Louis’s journey to Naples
told by Jehan Charantais, esquire to the King, in a letter to Queen
Yolande. The fleet of Genoese and Provençal galleons was driven by
adverse winds, it is related, and sought refuge under the high cliffs
of Sicily. Whilst weather-bound, the young Prince landed with a company
of knights in search of adventures. As they came ashore a number of
girls greeted them with showers of roses, and tossed them handfuls
of kisses. One, more daring than the rest, ran up to the youthful
Sovereign, wholly ignorant of his identity, and gave him a nosegay of
crimson blooms tied with a lovers’ knot of blue ribbon. Accepting the
good-omened offering, Louis loosened his surcoat to insert the fragrant
spray, when his kingly medallion fell out at the foot of the damsel.
She at once picked it up and ran away, laughing provokingly. The Prince
followed her, caught her, recovered his badge of sovereignty, and gave
his captive in exchange a sounding kiss. But Leonora,--such was her
name,--had discovered who he was.
That same day a missive was brought aboard the flagship by a Sicilian
fisherman. It was in Leonora’s handwriting, and bore her signature.
She told him she was about to be sent to Naples by her parents as a
Maid of Honour to the Queen. She had very much disliked the idea, and
had refused to go, because Giovanna was the daughter of a usurper, as
was reported, and because she bore so evil a character. “Now,” she
added, “that I have seen and spoken to _my_ King, and have received
his embraces, I am ready to go at all hazards and do my utmost in his
cause.”
Louis dillydallied with his Sicilian mermaid, and their loves continued
for wellnigh a fortnight before his fleet was ready to put to sea
again. Fair Leonora, too, took her departure, saying, as she bid
adieu to her lover: “We shall meet, dear Prince, again in the Queen’s
boudoir.”
[Illustration: KING RENÉ RECEIVING THE HOMAGE OF A VASSAL, 1469
From a Miniature, MS. Fifteenth Century. National Library, Paris
_To face page 226_]
Louis III., a well-grown lad of seventeen, and as manly as he was
fit mentally, arrived off the city of Naples on August 15, 1420, to
maintain his right to the throne more bravely and more successfully
than either his father or his grandfather had done. He had just
fallen in with the fleet of the King of Aragon, but in defeating his
hereditary enemy his own flotilla was so greatly worsted that he was
unable to take the city by storm. He landed, however, and betook
himself to Aversa to present his homage to Queen Giovanna. Shocked by
her lustful overtures, he departed precipitately to Rome, and there
bided his time. The Queen’s failure to seduce the young Sovereign
threw her once more into the arms of King Alfonso, whom she formally
proclaimed her heir on September 24 the same year. Three years passed
whilst the adherents of the House of Anjou suffered forfeiture of
goods, liberty of person, and many cruel punishments and tortures.
Alfonso, a natural son of King Ferdinand the Just, King of Aragon
and Sicily, was forty years of age, remarkably handsome, talented and
capable, ambitious, but generous and devoted to the fair sex. He was,
however, entirely unresponsive to the amorous approaches of the Queen.
His rejection, his scorn, and his independence of action, roused in
Giovanna keen feelings of resentment. She had named him heir to Naples;
she could just as easily disinherit and discard him. On June 24,
1423,--good St. John the Baptist’s Day, a festival of major obligation
in the Church,--the Queen caused proclamation to be made at Mass and
in the markets that, “owing to the incompetence and pretensions of
the King of Aragon, he is thereby disinherited, and is no longer to
be recognized as successor to the throne of Naples.” A plot, indeed,
or more correctly plots, were revealed to Giovanna whereby Alfonso
was implicated in a conspiracy to seize the Queen’s person, imprison
her, and ultimately to poison her. On May 22 of the same year he had
taken the bold step of arresting Gianni Caracciolo, the Queen’s chief
favourite. This roused Giovanna to action. She ordered Caracciolo’s
immediate release, and bade Alfonso quit Naples at once, or remain at
his peril. Greatly to her surprise and relief, he took his departure,
and left the field open to his youthful rival.
The Queen’s next step was to send to Rome, and invite her “beloved
cousin,” as she called Louis, to return to her assistance in driving
the Aragonese out of Naples, and to accept the succession to her
throne. She bade him to have no fear of misunderstandings of the past,
but to regard herself as nothing more than a well-intentioned relative.
Louis, now grown to manhood, with ripened experience of warlike
tactics and political strife, and, be it said, of women and their ways,
entered Naples in state on April 10, 1424. His arrival in Southern
Italy cheered the desponding spirits of the Angevine party and roused
their zeal. Adherents flocked to the banner he set up, and men and arms
were ready at his beck and call. A very important personage allied
himself with the young King-adventurer--none other than Sforza, the
famous _condottiere_. He gathered around him a considerable number of
distinguished malcontents and disappointed favourites of the Queen, who
in no way concealed their intention of revenging the insults she had
heaped upon them, as soon as they gained a promising opportunity. News
of this determination very soon reached Giovanna’s ears, and she shut
herself up in her palace with her maidens and her toadies, and declined
to receive King Louis or his envoys. At the same time she summoned to
her presence Braccio Fortebraccio di Mantova, another of her renowned
_condottieri_, and Constable of Sicily, the avowed rival and enemy of
Sforza, and suffering under a decree of excommunication of Pope Martin
V.
Leonora, immediately in attendance on the Queen, managed very
skilfully to convey intelligence of all that passed in Giovanna’s
secret councils to her royal lover. She told him that, in spite of her
recent proclamation, the Queen had sent her favourite Court Seneschal,
Gianni Caracciolo, to the King of Aragon to implore him to come and
rescue her, and put the coalition to flight. She asked Alfonso to
accept the title and estates of Duke of Calabria, as appertaining to
the heir-presumptive to the Neapolitan throne. This daring courtier
pressed his attentions upon the Queen, demanding not only a share of
her bed, but a share of her throne. Leonora told Louis all the ins
and outs of this intrigue, and warned him to be on the alert; for
should Caracciolo’s presumption become known in Naples, there would
be a general revolution. Sforza, on his side, was not prepared to
allow his rival Hercules an unquestioned victory at Court. He demanded
admission to the palace, and an interview with the Queen, before whom
he challenged Caracciolo to mortal combat.
Giovanna was delighted that such redoubtable champions should worst
each other on her account. Her vanity was flattered--and that is a
happy condition for a scheming woman. Undoubtedly she most favoured
Caracciolo, but Sforza’s fine physique appealed to her irresistibly,
and she fanned his passion. If Caracciolo was for the moment master
of her heart, Sforza was master of her future, and she was happy. One
day she invited the rivals to join her in the chase, and she rode
between them. She cared little for hunting save as an incentive to
amorous relations. Tiring soon of the exercise, she expressed a wish
to dismount and saunter in the forest glades, but her mood lead to
an extraordinary contest. Caracciolo threw himself at once off his
mount, and gave the Queen his hand to rid her of her pommel. Sforza,
seeing his advantage, pressed his horse against the Queen’s and
seized her other hand. Each hero pulled his hardest, until Giovanna
was compelled to cry aloud for pain! Then, slipping quietly down, she
ordered Sforza to release her. This token of non-preference excited the
_condottiere’s_ passion. “If Caracciolo,” he hissed out, “had not been
so clumsy, your Majesty would not have been so greatly disarranged!”
“It is not you,” replied the Queen, “that should dare to regulate my
conduct, or, for the matter of that, your rival’s. Hold your tongue and
leave me; your presence is not grateful just now!”
“As you will, madam,” said Sforza fiercely. “Yes, I will leave you with
the favourite of your heart, but you ought to know that you cannot
treat thus a man like me!” Then he turned to Caracciolo, and exclaimed
in a tone of scornful disdain: “As for you, I advise you to use all
your wits and all your resources, for you will stand in need of them!”
Giovanna was on that day absolutely overcome by her physical passions.
She cared for nothing, and the last sight the enraged Sforza had of
her was locked in her lover’s arms and reclining on a mossy bed, lost
to the world around. The erring Queen speedily came to her senses with
respect to the position Sforza had taken up; and when she learnt that
he had thrown in his lot for better or for worse with Louis III.,
under a pretext, she despatched Caracciolo to Rome to claim the Papal
reversal of his excommunication, and to assure the Pope of her filial
devotion to the Holy See. Before he departed, Giovanna required him to
deliver up his sword as Seneschal of the kingdom, which she promptly
offered as a bribe to Sforza.
Meanwhile Leonora had not been idle. She had spoken to the Queen
often and passionately about the comeliness and the gallantry of her
hero, contrasting his buoyant physical excellences with the blazé
proportions of Alfonso,--not knowing that he had rejected Giovanna’s
lustful overtures,--until she expressed herself desirous of confirming
his appointment as her heir. Leonora wrote thus to King Louis: “Come
not yet to the palace; but arm your fleet, and recruit what troops you
can. Sforza is loyal, but Caracciolo is your enemy, and he is powerful.
Besides him you have to reckon with Braccio and with King Alfonso. You
have need of prudence and daring.”
The position of affairs, so far as the Queen was personally concerned,
was perilous in the extreme. On one hand, the King of Aragon did not
hide his intention of capturing her, and consigning her and her maidens
and men to a castle in Catalonia, and then he would be absolute master
of the kingdom of Naples. On the other hand, Louis, aided by Sforza,
whom she had so grievously outraged, was determined to win back his
ancestral inheritance, Queen or no Queen, but he in no way threatened
her life or liberty. The Queen fled with her Court to the Castle of
Capua, and there established herself. Sforza followed her, and, whilst
avowedly protecting his Queen, made her his prisoner, and then, with
the assistance of the fleet of King Louis, caused Alfonso, who with
Braccio was investing the city of Naples, to seek refuge in Castel
Nuovo, whence he set sail to Aragon for reinforcements and supplies.
Leonora,--still with the Queen and still devoted to the cause of King
Louis,--wrote to him again, bidding him adventure himself to Aversa,
whither Giovanna retired after the departure of King Alfonso. There
Louis found her, and, in spite of advancing years and the disordered
life she had led, noted her good looks, her grace of manner and of
speech, and her general attractiveness. “Her eyes,” wrote Leonora,
“flashed wonderfully, and her cheeks reddened passionately directly
she beheld again her good-looking young cousin.” Giovanna greeted him
at the top of the grand staircase of the palace, and addressed him in
gushing terms: “The brave deeds you have accomplished, gallant Prince,”
she said, “have added greatly to your renown. Enter, victorious King,
my peaceful abode, take a well-merited repose, and receive from me,
your devoted admirer, the homage of a thankful Princess, who is greatly
charmed at beholding you in full possession of your lawful estate.”
Extending her hand, she led the young King to the apartments which had
been prepared for him.
Louis, bowing profoundly, deprecated the services which had gained
such honours as the Queen had bestowed upon him. “I have achieved
success in your name, Madam, and for your pleasure,” he replied. They
supped together, and then, bidding all the company and the servants to
withdraw, she conversed with her visitor upon every subject that came
uppermost in her mind, but eventually laid herself open to receive the
supreme pleasure she had in contemplation. Louis was inflexible, and
all her tenderness and affection found no response. At last she said:
“I do not know what more I can do. You, Sire, accept gladly the rights
your arms have won, but what is more precious still you refuse--these
arms of mine which are ready to do your will and pleasure.”
Giovanna then lowered her gaze and sat mute, awaiting Louis’s reply
with palpitating breast. She might very well have hummed the kissing
song of Ronsard:
“On soit d’un baiser sec, ou d’un baiser humide,
D’un baiser court, ou d’un baiser qui guide
L’âme dessuz la bouche, et laisse tréspasser
Le baiseur.”
“Maybe the kiss is cold, maybe it’s warm;
A kiss and off, or a kiss that clings,
And guides the ardent lover ’neath the lips
Till he finds no way to escape.”
“No, madam,” at last spoke the young Prince, greatly embarrassed by
the Queen’s words and looks, “it shall never be said that I seek the
means for impairing your royal prerogative; you shall retain that,
I pray, in its entirety so long as Providence sees good to preserve
you to your people.” Then he politely withdrew from the chamber and
sought his own lodging. Again on the morrow the King and Queen dined
together privately. Giovanna was dressed superbly in royal robes and
wore priceless jewels, but her manner was strangely marked by languor
and vexation. Their conversation was forced and restrained in turn.
After the repast they adjourned together to the lovely gardens of the
palace, which were brilliantly illuminated and filled with a numerous
and festive company. The best musicians, of the capital and the most
excellent jongleurs of foreign and native fame forgathered to do honour
to the royal guest. Dances and flirtations were the order of the
evening, and among the Queen’s maidens was the lovely girl from Sicily,
Leonora. Louis saw her immediately, and it was not very long before
they were _tête-à-tête_ in a grotto hidden from public gaze.
The royal romance reached a climax when Louis avowed himself the
devoted admirer and lover of the girl. He even proposed a clandestine
marriage, but Leonora begged him with tears not to press his suit. She
revealed to him the real character of her mistress, and warned him that
if Giovanna became conversant with the liaison, then she herself would
be done to death, and he, Louis, would probably be assassinated. “You
may,” she said, “refuse to marry the Queen, but she will never pardon
you if you marry anybody else.”
Again, the third day of Louis’s visit to Aversa, the Queen arranged
meals and meetings alone with the Prince, whose morals and whose
manhood she was striving so consumedly to seduce. The Queen’s eyes had
in them not alone the lure of lust, but the flash of passion and the
flame of resentment. Louis again excused himself her presence, and,
making his way to his tryst with Leonora, heard as he approached the
grotto the high-toned voice of Giovanna beating down the frightened
protests of his _innamorata_--they were together in the grotto! The
Prince revealed himself, only to meet the scornful invectives of the
jealous Queen. She demanded to know the nature of Louis’s relations
with her serving-maid, and when she had heard the story she turned upon
Leonora like a tiger. Louis stepped before the terrified girl, and bade
Giovanna abate her fury and not lay hands upon a woman whom he loved.
“Leonora has done more than you, madam,” he exclaimed, “to mount me on
the throne of Naples, and you shall not cause me to descend therefrom!”
The Queen, at last realizing the manner of man with whom she had to
deal, was intimidated by his boldness, and presently she left the
grotto. Leonora still refused Louis’s proposition, and before the day
dawned she had taken her flight from Aversa, and was well on her way
to Rome, to claim sanctuary. She wrote a farewell letter to her royal
lover, which a faithful dependent of her father safely conveyed to
Naples. King Louis offered the old man every possible inducement to
reveal the hiding-place of his young mistress, but he never broke the
seal of secrecy which Leonora placed upon him, and Louis and Leonora
never met again.
Louis managed to evade the embraces and the advances of the Queen. He
had been espoused to the Princess Margaret of Savoy, and although he
used the liberty of a vigorous and a level-headed young manhood under
the silver-feathered ægis of Prince Cupid, he was not forgetful of his
troth. Having broken the back of the opposition of Alfonso of Aragon,
and being confident of the support of Genoa and Milan, he lived in
comparative comfort and peace; but he withdrew into Calabria, where he
was for a time, at all events, safe from the intrigues of Giovanna.
During this interval the young King made repeated visits both to Angers
and Chambéry, to greet his devoted mother, revive the sweet memories
of his boyhood, and to cultivate the love of his fiancée Margaret, now
growing rapidly to womanhood.
The whole of France was once again in a ferment. The English,
driving all before them, captured almost all the possessions of the
Crown. Charles VII. was a fugitive, and his consort Marie, Louis’s
beloved sister, broken-hearted. René, his younger brother, was fighting
for his own in Bar and Lorraine. With the chivalry and self-sacrifice
which distinguished all the children of Louis II. and Yolande, he
placed his sword at the disposal of his brother-in-law, and fell
into line with the defenders of his native soil. None of the French
King’s allies held themselves more stoutly, nor were anything like
so dependable, as was the young King of Sicily and Naples. His royal
person and his coroneted helmet were ever foremost in the battle; his
bravery was inspiring. When matters seemed to be hopeless and the flame
of France’s honour appeared to be extinguished, the miraculous mission
of the Maid of Domremy cheered the hearts of all true patriots. She
chose René as her _preux chevalier_, and her place was at the head of
the troops under his orders. Louis III. had another post of danger to
fill; he and his command were told off to keep watchful eyes upon the
movements of the Duke of Burgundy. By his excellent strategy he kept
the English apart from their allies, and rendered the co-operation of
the Burgundians impossible.
[Illustration: KING LADISLAUS AND QUEEN GIOVANNA II.
From a Monument by A. Ciccione. Church of San Giovanni a Carbonara,
Naples
_To face page 236_]
The relief of Orléans was followed by the amalgamation of the two
French armies, led so brilliantly by the Angevine royal brothers,
and the victorious hosts of France swept Charles and his Court along
with them triumphantly to his _Sacré_ at Reims. Released from his
duties as coadjutor to the King of France, Louis returned south again,
and at Geneva he and Margherita di Savoia were united in the bonds
of matrimony. The royal couple left immediately for Marseilles, and
sailed away to Naples, accompanied by a strong squadron of war-galleys
of Venice and Genoa; for the Venetians, recognizing the courage and
the ability of the young King, and desirous of gaining some of the
commercial profits of Neapolitan trade, joined their forces to the
banner of the Angevine King of Naples.
Once more in his capital he discovered Queen Giovanna wholly under the
influence of Gianni Caracciolo, who had assumed regal attributes, and
was personally carrying on an intrigue to supplant his authority. Louis
immediately sent for the usurper, asked him about his pretensions,
and warned him that if the Queen, as he said, had named him her
Lieutenant-General, he (Louis) was his undoubted Sovereign. Caracciolo
took the King’s assumption of his kingly rights quite nonchalantly, and
replied insolently that as long as Giovanna lived he was the mouthpiece
of her Government.
The favourite of the Queen was not a _persona grata_ at her Court.
His arrogance and presumption raised up enemies on every side; in
particular, the old nobility looked askance upon a courtier of his
low origin. Sergianni was by name a Caracciolo, by birth the son of a
common woman--so it was said. The Queen’s Mistress of the Robes was
Covella Ruffo, Duchess of Sessa,--her husband was a pretender to the
crown,--and she voiced the palace discontent. She boldly demanded of
Giovanna the immediate disgrace of her Seneschal, and proclaimed the
Court preference for King Louis and his fascinating consort Margherita.
The Queen indignantly stood by Caracciolo, and forbade the Duchess to
name the matter again. Within ten days,--it was August 25, 1432,--the
body of the favourite was picked up by brethren of the Misericordia
and given decent burial. In the dead man’s heart, plunged up to the
hilt, was the jewelled poniard of the Duchess of Sessa! The incident
passed, for the Queen deemed it inexpedient to ask for explanations;
besides, she had become wearied by the obsequiousness of her Minister,
and she had other fish to fry! With rare commercial acumen, she seized
all Caracciolo’s belongings,--most of them he had received from
herself,--and actually, with feminine inconsequence, shared them with
the Duchess!
III.
Whilst Louis was strengthening his position at Naples, Duke René
of Bar and Lorraine was languishing in the Tour de Bar at Bracon,
vanquished at Bulgneville and crushed by the Duke of Burgundy. Louis
added his protest against his brother’s retention in captivity to that
of all the Sovereigns and peers of France, and his appeal was carried
by Queen Margherita to her father, the Duke of Savoy, whose influence
was great with the Court of Burgundy. René’s release on parole for
a year was largely due to the intercession of his brother. Giovanna
expressed a wish to see “my other cousin of Anjou,” as she put it, and
Louis pressed his brother to bend his steps to Naples and recruit his
health and spirits in the sunny, merry South. The Duke’s first step,
however, was to hurry off to Nancy to fold his heroic wife Isabelle and
darling children to his breast; here, too, to regulate many affairs
of State awaiting his decision. To Angers next he boated, to pay his
filial homage to his courageous, resourceful mother, Queen Yolande, and
to relieve her of some of the worry of government. René, too, had much
business to do at the Court of King Charles of France, and his loyal,
devoted subjects in Provence demanded his presence. So passed nearly
the whole of his twelvemonth’s grace.
Giovanna’s reception of her “cousin” was affectionate in the extreme,
and she was warm in her admiration of “another handsome Prince of
Anjou.”
Nothing, however, would suit her until René became her guest, and as
such he went through all the weird experience of his elder brother. It
mattered not to the Queen that he was a married man with a loving wife
and dear children; what mattered to her was that he was good-looking,
brave, and gallant. To be sure, René’s serious manner disconcerted her,
and his artistic tastes bored her, but under his studious courtesy she
tried to believe that he was hiding a lively response to her amorous
advances. In the presence of “_il galantuomo Re_,”--by which term she
always saluted Louis,--Giovanna named René second heir to her kingdom,
and successor to the title and estates of the duchy of Calabria. She
carefully refrained from inquiries about Duchess Isabelle; indeed,
she ignored her existence altogether, and in this line of conduct she
was quite consistent, for she had declined to receive the young Queen
Margherita when Louis entered Naples with her in state.
René, however, was instrumental, whilst under the fascination of Queen
Giovanna, in effecting two matters of importance for the kingdom of
Naples and its people. She had instructed Giovanni Capistrani, a
perfervid son of Rome, and at the same time an admirer of the Queen,
whom she had appointed Court Chamberlain, to persecute the Jews and
drive them away from Naples; all such as refused exile he was ordered
to put to death. René interposed in the interpretation of these
decrees, and gained the Queen’s consent to allow the persecuted race to
remain on two conditions: (1) That they should not exact unjust usury;
and (2) that they should be marked by a yellow cross to differentiate
them from the Christian subjects of the Crown. René further suggested
to Giovanna that the Church needed her patronage, that she herself
would go the way of all flesh, and that some accommodation with
Heaven was very desirable. The Queen laughed his counsel to scorn,
and badgered him for a crusader and a churchling, but his words went
home even to her hardened, sensuous heart. Capistrani’s unexpected
action, moreover, greatly moved her; he resigned his Court offices and
emoluments, and meekly entered a monastery of St. Francis d’Assisi.
Duke René returned to his prison at Dijon, and King Louis took
his bride off to Cosenza, the capital of Calabria, where a second
marriage was celebrated on August 15, 1433, to allay the scruples
of prejudiced adherents of the Neapolitan throne. A rumour had been
spread,--originating, it was said, with the Queen herself,--which
affirmed that Margherita was not the wife, but the mistress, of the
royal Duke! Eighteen short months of marital bliss were enjoyed by
Louis and Margherita, broken, alas! by a fresh attack by Alfonso in
force on Naples. A naval battle off Gaeta, 1434, ended disastrously
for the fleet of Aragon. Arrayed against it were the allied forces of
Genoa, Venice, Florence, and Milan. Alfonso and his brother Juan were
taken prisoners, and carried off to Milan by Duke Filippo Maria. Then
a blow fell on the young Queen and upon the whole kingdom of Naples,
which made itself felt even in the morbid heart of Queen Giovanna.
King Louis caught fever besieging the city of Taranto, and was borne
swiftly off to Cosenza, where he died, in his own fond Queen’s arms,
on November 15, 1434. Few Princes have made themselves so universally
loved as Louis III. of Sicily and Naples, and never were there so
many sad hearts and tearful eyes in the kingdom of Naples as when his
beloved body was laid out for burial in the Cathedral of Cosenza.
Giovanna never again recovered her spirits; to be sure, she did not
renounce her evil ways, but she set about in a hurry to put into
execution Duke René’s suggestions. Among belated pious deeds, she
rebuilt and refounded the Church of Santa Maria dell’ Annunziata by
way of penance for her bad life, and there she was buried in front of
the high-altar. A simple slab of marble points out, in the absence of
a grandiose monument, the place of her sepulture. She died February 2,
1435, and no woman wept for her, and no man felt grieved. If it is true
that “the evil which men do dies with them,” then we must not rake up
the tainting memories of an evil past. Giovanna II., Queen of Naples,
has passed to her last account, and before Heaven’s tribunal will she
stand, alongside with the victims of her vampire-love. Faraglia, in his
“_Storia della Regina Giovanna II. d’Angio_,” makes a brave attempt to
whitewash the character of the Queen, and he records many interesting
details in her daily life. “Every morning,” he says, “she rose with the
sun, spent one hour at Mass and private devotions; then she applied
herself to the study of music and literature; at noon she breakfasted,
generally alone, the afternoon she gave to exercise, and before dinner
she bathed in a bath supplied with the milk of one hundred asses.”
Apparently the Queen gave no time to affairs of State, and she had not
much leisure for company. Undoubtedly Queen Giovanna was the friend of
art and craft, but only so far as their exponents helped to enhance her
own attractions and luxuries. Antonio Solario--“Il Zingaro”--was her
favourite painter, and, by the oddest of irrational conventions, he has
represented her in an altar-piece as the Virgin Mary with the Infant
Christ, and surrounded by a court of saints!
With what feelings the news of the death of Louis III. at Cosenza
was received by René in his prison chamber at Tour de Bar we may
well imagine. The hold of his house upon the kingdom of Naples was,
of course, of the weakest; and if the late King upon the spot, free
to move what troops and stores he had at will, was unable to retain
command of Naples, how could a captive Prince away in Burgundy hope to
enforce successfully his claim as his brother’s heir?
In Provence and Anjou and beyond the borders of his dominions, with
Bar and Lorraine, and with the sympathy and assistance of friendly
Sovereigns and Princes at home and abroad, he had, of course,
numberless loyal subjects, friends, and allies, but among them all
not one could enthuse his cause as he could himself in person. Three
devoted Princesses,--Yolande, Isabelle, and Marguerite,--were doing all
they could to free him from his captivity. Their efforts were in the
schools of sympathy and politics, but they could not lead troops or
command a victorious army. No doubt René was depressed and in despair
at the apparent paralysis of all effective assistance. Then came the
crushing intelligence that Giovanna, the Queen of Naples, was dead, and
that he (René) was _de facto_ King. This must have made him desperate.
He had no resources, and there appeared no possibility of his obtaining
possession of his rights. How he chafed and fumed as he paced his
spacious chamber, and how defiantly he must have gazed through its
barred windows and at its closed door! Duke René’s brain must have
reeled.
Relief, however, came in quite an unexpected sort of way. One morning
the bolts of his door were noisily shot back, and upon the threshold
he beheld two foreign gentlemen unknown to him. They knelt and kissed
his hand; then they offered him a permit from the Duke of Burgundy, a
sealed letter from Duchess (now Queen) Isabelle, and a great official
despatch from the lately deceased Queen Giovanna. The two emissaries
were devoted adherents to the House of Anjou-Provence--Baron Charles de
Montelar and Signore Vidal di Cabarus. They came, as their credentials
ordered, directly from the deathbed of the Queen, to tell him from
her that, “for the sake of the love I had for King Louis,--now, alas!
departed,--I chose his noble brother René as my heir and successor.
Long live King René!” Into his hand the two gentlemen delivered the
Sovereign’s medallion and its royal chain of gold, and again they did
obeisance to their new Sovereign.
René accepted their homage chivalrously, if sorrowfully, but his eye
wandered to the smaller packet held by di Cabarus, for he saw it was
addressed to him in his dear wife’s handwriting. Tearing open the
cover, he read with tears in his eyes the startling news that--
“Even whilst thou, my fond spouse, readest these presents, I,
thy loyal wife and royal consort, am setting off at once, well
mounted and numerously attended, to Marseilles to take shipping
for Naples, there to receive in thy name the homage of the
Estates and to assume the government. I am taking with me our
second boy, Louis, with Yolande and Marguerite, to show them
to thy Neapolitan subjects, but Jean I shall send to thee to
comfort thee, by the grace of the Duke of Burgundy. My sweet
mother will accompany him to cheer thee and to tell thee of my
good estate. Fare thee well, beloved.
“Your ISABELLE.
“AT NANCY, 1434.”
Isabelle had learned promptness and wisdom from her good
mother-in-law, Queen Yolande, as well as decision and courage from
her father, Duke Charles, and all these royal virtues she exhibited
magnificently at this extraordinary juncture. The two Neapolitan envoys
had, it appeared, gone direct to Nancy to learn their new Queen’s
pleasure, and had thus become the bearers of her exhilarating mandate.
René received the intelligence of the masterful action of his spouse
with mixed feelings. He knelt at his prie-dieu, and thanked God and the
saints for the noble self-sacrifice of his wife; then, rising proudly
from his knees, he embraced his two visitors, bestowed upon each a ring
from his own fingers, and gave them instructions to carry his duty to
the Duke of Burgundy, praying for his instant release, and then to
proceed to Marseilles to convey to Queen Isabelle his blessing and his
approval of her splendid enterprise. No sooner was he left to himself
once more than he collapsed, weeping like a child and chiding his
Maker and his captor in language lurid and forcible. The irony of his
position nearly drove him mad.
Queen Isabelle landed at Naples in due course, and became the object
of an extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm. Hailed as Queen, and with
King René’s name ever reverberating from loyal lip to loyal lip, she
made no mistake, she had no illusions, for she faced the fact at once
that there were other claimants for the vacant throne and the uneasy
crown. The King of Aragon she knew as a traditional rival, and with
him she had to deal most seriously and methodically. He, indeed,
directly news of the Queen’s death reached him, had seized the Castle
of Gaeta, and thence had issued a proclamation claiming the vacant
throne. The Duke of Sessa, the husband of Queen Giovanna’s favourite
confidante, Duchess Sancia, claimed the throne as representing,--in
descent from Robert, Count of Avellino, her second husband,--Maria of
Calabria-Durazzo, sister of Queen Giovanna I. The Prince of Taranto,
grand-nephew of Giovanna I.’s third husband and of her sister Maria’s
third spouse, the Emperor of Constantinople, entered his claims to
the whole kingdom. He pretended also that King Louis III., René’s
brother, had before his death at Cosenza made him his heir of all
Calabria. From a distant kingdom came still another claimant. The King
of Hungary, Andrew, first consort of Giovanna I., had by her a son, it
was affirmed, but who it was alleged had died in infancy. This child,
it was maintained, was living, now grown to man’s estate. The child who
died, and was buried as the Queen’s son, was the son of a servant in
the royal suite, whilst the young Prince was removed from his mother’s
care and carried off to Hungary, and thus reared.
Isabelle brushed all these claims aside,--save that of Alfonso, who
alone of the pretenders to the crown was prepared to take up, as he
had done for years, the rights of Aragon in Naples, by force of arms.
Everywhere throughout the kingdom the Anjou dynasty was popular; the
country people swore by Louis III., and acclaimed the proclamation of
René. The army alone was disaffected, and was corrupted by Spanish
gold. The royal treasury at Naples was empty, the pay of the loyal
troops was in arrears; corruption and fraud filled every department
of State. The country gentry and peasantry were ruined; they had been
taxed and supertaxed by the minions of Queen Giovanna II. From Provence
and Anjou not much monetary help could be expected, and Lorraine and
Bar were impoverished. All France was suffering from the wreck of the
Hundred Years’ War. René’s ransom required almost every penny Yolande,
Isabelle, and Marguerite, could raise by love and threat. What could be
done?
[Illustration: GUARINI DA VERONA PRESENTING HIS TRANSLATION OF STRABO’S
WORK ON GEOGRAPHY TO KING RENÉ
From a Miniature by King René. Albi Library
_To face page 246_]
The new Queen had come to Naples to claim and hold the kingdom for her
husband, and she made up her mind that she would try every expedient
to that end, cost what it might. To steal and to borrow were not lines
of conduct that appealed to her, but she could beg, and beg she did.
Upon this circumstance historians have fastened, and have written
more or less eloquently in praise of a dauntless Queen. After making
up her mind to this course of action, Isabelle at once put it into
operation, and an immense sensation was created in the city when their
beautiful and virtuous Queen, clothed simply in native Neapolitan garb,
without jewels or marks of royalty, took her place morning by morning
outside the palace, in the open square, a macaroni basket in her fair,
white, ringless hands, and there pleaded eloquently, in her sweet and
musical voice, for contributions for the honour of the King and for
the defence of the city. By her side, clad in Neapolitan costumes,
were her three little children--innocent, fresh, and comely. “It was,”
wrote a chronicler, “a spectacle to move the heart and soul of a marble
statue--if such it hath. A Queen of high degree and impeccability
humbling herself for her new country’s good. Looking upon her and her
children, one conjured up the base contrast offered to our outraged
nature by the late Queen, of infamous memory.”
Money flowed in fast and full, and the wicker cash-box daily carried
almost more weight of copper and silver, and of articles of jewellery,
than the fine strength of the virago Queen could support. Isabelle
set about a thorough overhauling of the resources of the national
exchequer. She personally rallied troops, and inspected militarily her
recruits; arrears of pay were forthcoming, and the better-disposed
men of affairs she intuitively selected, and thus purged the seats
of government. The King of Aragon, amazed at Isabelle’s courage and
ability, refrained from attacking Naples. “I’ll fight with men,” he
said, “not with a woman!” he exclaimed. “Let us see what she will do.”
The state of Naples in general, and of the Court in particular, was
worse than that of any Augean stable. Indeed, of Court, strictly
speaking, there was none, for the less disreputable nobles had long
ago gone away to their country estates, taking the seeds of corruption
with them to sow among their tenantry. The coteries which gathered
around the abandoned Queen like eagles round a carcass were split up
into murderous, lustful parties, and divided among evil-conditioned
brothels. Every man was every woman’s prey, and every woman at the
mercy of a libertine. The whole city was a colossal orgie, and its
inhabitants sunk in the slough of unmitigated filth. The turpitude of
Pompeii found a parallel in the unrighteousness of Naples. To pull
aside the veil which merciful Time has placed over those years of
banality and crime would be a sacrilege.
“Down among the dead men let them lie!”
Queen Isabelle, aghast, pulled her veil more closely over her fair
features, fixed her teeth, and clenched her hands. Giovanna and all
her doings were taboo to her, and by the example and precept of a
good woman she gradually accomplished what appeared to be a Herculean
task--she brought the Neapolitans to their senses. Mind, in those
rapidly pulsating Southern natures, quickly controls action, and the
human animal is not all bad even when so predestined by Providence.
Isabelle’s administration of the kingdom of Naples during the three
years of her sole government was by way of being a moral renascence
of humanity, and, when René joined his noble consort, the roses which
decorated his triumphal entry were richly perfumed by his wife’s sweet
culture.
The prisoner of Bracon was set unconditionally free in 1437, and he
hurried away to Marseilles, passing through his beloved country of
Provence, hailed everywhere and by everyone with ecstatic devotion.
At his port of departure for Naples he was met by Queen Yolande.
Never was there a more affecting scene: the mother,--still bearing
traces of her early beauty and grace,--bowed down with grief and aged
prematurely; the son grown older than his age under the rigours, mental
and physical, of his long imprisonment, but still devoted, grateful,
and chivalrous. Yolande had fain pressed René to remain in France and
comfort her declining years, for, were they parted, she felt that she
never more should fold him to her heart--a heart pierced deeply by
the premature death of Louis. Yet she played the Spartan mother, not
spectacularly but sincerely, and, hushing the sobs of parting, she
bravely waved the King of Naples her last farewell. His father and his
brother had both traversed the way René was taking; their experience
would doubtless be his.
René had a great reception at Naples, and his joy was unclouded when
he embraced his noble wife and his four young children, with tears
coursing down his cheeks. His recognition as Sovereign was celebrated
in the cathedral. There he and Isabelle knelt hand in hand in thankful
confidence. Not long did the new King remain in the bosom of his
family. Alfonso broke his parole, and prepared a fresh expedition to
attack Naples. René went off at once to Rome, Florence, Venice, Genoa,
and Milan, to rally help in his emergency. During his captivity the
King of Aragon had played the cards so adroitly that he had succeeded
in detaching the Duke, his captor, from the triple alliance. Moreover,
he gained over to his side Pope Eugenius IV. by promising to make
Sicily a fief of the Church. The Aragonese attack failed, though the
forces at King René’s command suffered terribly.
At this juncture Queen Isabelle and her children, except the heir to
the throne, returned to France, much against her will, but obedient to
her royal consort’s wishes. Jean, Duke of Calabria, now a promising lad
of nearly thirteen, remained with his father at the post of danger.
Alfonso was by no means discouraged; he intended to be master of Naples
cost him what it might. In 1440 and 1441 he made fresh assaults on
Naples and other seaports of the Calabrian peninsula. All of these René
resisted triumphantly, but at Troia, on October 21 in the latter year,
Alfonso in person defeated René’s army under the command of Sforza and
Sanseverino, and made good his footing in the kingdom of Naples. He
further pressed home his attack upon the capital by seizing the island
of Ischia, where he compelled the women, whether married or not, to
wed his victorious soldiers. René wearied of the contest; he had been
warring for twenty years, and he yearned for repose. The Neapolitans
quickly took his measure, and his indecision and slackness of energy
disheartened his principal supporters. His troops fell away from him,
and when, in May, 1442, the King of Aragon once more summoned the
capital to surrender, René meekly handed over the keys to his enemy,
and made his escape to Marseilles. Alfonso on June 2 entered Naples in
triumph, and put an end to the rule of the Angevine Kings.
Alfonso has been styled “the Magnanimous”; perhaps “the Philosopher”
would fit his character better. He was a student of metaphysics and a
classicist to boot, and, moreover, he had a ready wit. He hated dancing
and frivolity, and once remarked that “a man who danced only differed
from a fool because his folly was shorter!” An ideal domestic menage
appeared to him to be “a blind wife and a deaf husband.” His treasurer
was one day giving out scrip for 20,000 ducats, when an officer
standing by exclaimed: “Alack, if I only had that amount I should be a
happy man!” “Take it,” replied the King!
Nevertheless, Alfonso was hated by his new subjects quite as
thoroughly as René had been beloved. The war dragged on; in Calabria
the Prince of Taranto raised once more the banner of Anjou, and
Giovanni Toreglia, a cousin of Lucrezia d’Alagni, Alfonso’s last
mistress, seized Ischia for Jean, Duke of Calabria, René’s eldest son.
René himself made two more attempts to regain Giovanna’s inheritance:
in 1458 and 1461; but Charles VII. and Louis XI. each failed him in
turn with reinforcements. Last of all, Jean, Duke of Calabria, was
decisively defeated at Troia in 1462 by Ferdinand I., Alfonso’s bastard
son, who succeeded to the throne of Naples after his father’s death in
1458, a man treacherous and vindictive, and a libertine. “_Sic transit
gloria mundi_” may be written as a footnote to the story of Naples in
the fifteenth century.