THE VAMPIRE-MONARCH FROM HUNGARY
Charles’ Further Acts as Dictator—Rise of the Favoured
Louis of Taranto—Civil War—A Scheme of the Empress of
Constantinople—Interference of the King of Hungary—The Empress
Again to the Rescue—Hungary’s Advance—Death of the Empress—Flight
of the Neapolitan Nobles—Joan and Her Husband in Provence—Charles’
Well-merited Fate—The King of Hungary’s Vengeance—Government by
Execution.
This detestable butchery, strictly in accord with the criminal
procedure of the day, was but the beginning of a reign of terror in
the city and realm of Naples. The murder of Andrew of Hungary was soon
no more than a pretext to serve Charles of Durazzo for ridding himself
of all persons who, in any way, dared to manifest their disapproval of
his assumption of the Dictatorship of the Kingdom or to murmur against
his unbearable tyranny. Nor was it long before Louis of Taranto,
who by now had completely won the heart of Joan, and was seeking to
obtain from the Pope the dispensations necessary to make lawful their
irregular union, began to consider the high-handed and arrogant conduct
of Charles—whom and all whose works he abominated—as an intolerable
affront to himself. In consequence, having armed his retainers and
increased his forces as much as he could, Louis raised his standard as
King of Naples and Jerusalem and bade his loyal subjects rally to him
in opposition to the Albanian usurper of his sovereign rights.
In this manner there broke out a regular civil war throughout the
country; now the victory inclined to Louis, and now to Charles and
his ally, Robert of Taranto, the elder brother of Louis, and the
disappointed suitor of Joan. But a day soon came when there was no
longer left to Louis any more money; and without money he was naturally
helpless to pay his troops. Both he and Joan were in despair, when his
mother, the Empress of Constantinople, who was living with them, showed
the true mettle of which she was made.
Bidding the young couple take heart, Catherine of Taranto promised
solemnly that, if they would but lend her the half of their forces and
would content themselves with remaining for a week on the defensive
in the Castel Nuovo, she would bring them at the end of that time a
treasure such as they had never yet even imagined. To this proposal
they perforce consented; and the Empress, leading half her son’s army,
marched boldly out from Naples by the Porta Capuana, along the road
towards Benevento, and so came by way of the Caudine Forks to the
castle of Saint Agatha of the Goths, where Queen Joan’s former lover,
Bertrand of Artois, and his father, old Count Charles, were still
skulking from the law.
Now when Count Charles perceived that troops were preparing to besiege
him, and recognised their leader as the Empress, he sent out messengers
to enquire her intentions in coming thus with a large force into his
neighbourhood; to which Catherine replied, speaking as follows (her
speech is translated literally):
“My most beloved ones (‘Dilettissimi miei’), pray report to our
friend Charles that we desire to speak with him privately upon
a matter of equal interest to us both; and that he need feel no
uneasiness at seeing us come thus with an armed force to him,
for we have done so expressly for a certain purpose, the which we
will explain to him at our leisure. We know that he is confined
to his bed with an attack of gout and so we were not surprised
that he did not come out in person to greet us. And so pray
salute him from us and reassure him as to our intentions towards
him; and say that we would fain enter to him—if such be his
pleasure—with Master Nicholas Acciajuoli, our privy councillor,
and no more than ten of our soldiers, in order to confer with him
upon a subject too important to be confided to messengers.”
Completely deceived by the pernicious woman’s fair words as reported
to him, Count Charles sent out his son Bertrand to receive her with all
due ceremony, and to escort her to where he himself lay prostrate with
illness. Their meeting was cordial in the extreme; after expressing
the most heartfelt regrets at the venerable knight’s sad condition, the
Empress, so soon as they were alone together, lowering her voice, said
that her object in so coming to him was to consult him in regard to the
state of affairs in Naples and to enlist his active support on behalf
of the Queen. At the same time, she went on to say, there being no
immediate reason for her return to the capital, she would be more than
grateful for the favour of being allowed to remain yet a few days with
him at St. Agatha, in order to profit by his advice and to give him
some account of all that had come to pass in Naples during his absence.
It ended in Count Charles’ head being quite turned by the Empress’
flattery; so that he not only begged her to remain his guest for so
long as she pleased, but also gave orders for the gates of the castle
to be left open so that she might be accessible at all times to her
officers, civil and military, that were encamped outside the walls with
her army.
But the fatuous credulity of Count Charles was soon undeceived. At
a late hour of the following night, the gates of the fortress being
still open and its rightful inmates sound asleep for the most part,
the foolish old Count was suddenly awakened from his slumbers by the
Empress of Constantinople, who, followed by several of her soldiers,
entered his room, a dagger in her hand, and, advancing to his couch,
seized him by the throat.
“Oh, accursed traitor, you are now going to be punished as you
deserve!” she cried. And when he begged only mercy for his son—thinking
the Empress had in mind to slay them both, lest at any time they should
conspire against the kingship of her son, Louis of Taranto—and offered
to put her in possession of his entire treasury if only she would
spare the life of his adored son, to all his entreaties she answered
only that he must prepare to part for ever from his son, whom she had
decided to send away to the castle of Malfi; and that, as for Count
Charles himself, the probability was that he would end his days in the
dungeons of that of St. Agatha of the Goths. Prior to pronouncing these
sentences, however, she had compelled him to show her where his immense
treasures were concealed behind the wall of his bedchamber—a veritable
Aladdin’s cave of gold in bars and in plate and of precious stones.
The chronicler, Domenico Gravina, relates how that a few days later
Count Charles was found dead in his prison, the lips covered with a
bloody froth, and the wrists all gnawed away—so we may suppose him to
have died either of rage or of some corrosive poison; or, very likely,
of both. And not long afterwards his son Bertrand, in despair, hanged
himself from a grating in the vault at Malfi, into which he had been
transferred by order of Catherine of Taranto.
But retribution, as condign as it was merited, was about to fall upon
the head of that wicked woman.
On returning, laden with her ill-gotten spoils, to Naples, her triumph
was dashed to the ground to learn that, during her absence, Charles
of Durazzo, her ancient enemy and that of her house, had once more
sent word to Joan, demanding that she should instantly create him Duke
of Calabria, and so acknowledge him to be the rightful heir to the
throne as the husband of her sister Maria. This demand the Queen had
rejected with contumely; and Charles, stung to madness by her refusal,
had thereupon sent back word to inform her that he had accordingly
written to King Louis of Hungary, inviting him to take possession of
the kingdom and promising to deliver to him the chief murderers of his
brother Andrew, who had so far escaped the just consequences of their
iniquity.
It was now indispensable, as Joan saw clearly, to secure the public
opinion of Europe to her side in the life-and-death struggle with her
implacable foe. Therefore, she sent ambassadors to plead her cause with
the Florentine Republic and to exonerate her of the crime generally
imputed to her of having caused the murder of her husband. She even
wrote in the same sense to the Hungarian King himself; but only
received for reply a letter in which Louis of Hungary enumerated the
proofs against her—her disordered life both before and after marriage;
the exclusive power that she had arrogated to herself; the fact that it
had been in no way owing to her exertions that King Andrew’s murderers
had ever been brought to justice, and that she had so quickly taken
another husband in his place—all of which certainly pointed to Joan’s
aggravated guilt.
Indeed, the King of Hungary had already, on receipt of Charles of
Durazzo’s letter, written back to accept the offer of the throne and
to say that he would at once set about making preparations for coming
down to Naples at the head of a large army of Hungarians. For, apart
from Charles’ invitation to him, King Louis, stirred up by love for his
murdered brother, as well as by the tears of their mother, Elizabeth,
and the incitement of the Dominican, Father Robert, who, after Andrew’s
demise, had taken refuge in Budapesth, was now entirely bent on
avenging his brother to the utmost of his ability.
He had in the past made strong endeavours to obtain from the Pope at
Avignon a condemnation of Joan herself and of her accomplices of the
Blood Royal, complaining that whereas the less prominent members of
the plot against his brother had suffered the just penalty of their
sins, yet the principal authors of it had been let to go unpunished;
and that Joan herself, the most guilty of all, had been suffered to
continue with impunity her career of shameless immorality. To which
the Holy Father had answered that the Queen’s conduct, both during and
after the murder of her husband, was of a surety most blameworthy; but
that, no tangible proof of complicity in Andrew’s death having been
brought against her, he, the Pope, although willing to do justice to
all parties in so far as in him lay, could not condemn Joan upon mere
hearsay evidence. Should such good and solid evidence be produced
before him against her, however, he would not fail to deal with her
accordingly; until then he must suspend judgment.
As before, it was again the Empress Catherine who came to the rescue
of the situation in which her son and his wife were now placed by
the action of Charles of Durazzo in inviting Louis of Hungary’s
intervention against them. As she saw clearly, the only thing left for
them to do now was to come to terms with their nearest enemy Charles
himself, and to bribe him to combine with them against the invader who
was already hastening to overwhelm them. Accordingly,, she arranged a
truce with Charles; and, together with Joan and Louis of Taranto, met
him in the gardens of the Castel Nuovo, where it was agreed between
him and Joan that he should be created Duke of Calabria and formally
acknowledged as the heir to the throne. In return he was to join forces
with Joan and Louis against the King of Hungary. So soon as this
agreement had been carried out, Charles, who now saw himself within
measurable distance of the throne itself, set out from Naples with
all the troops that could be spared for the purpose, for the city of
Aquila, where the populace was already declaring for Louis of Hungary.
With him went also Robert of Taranto, who had become reconciled to
his brother Louis in this the hour of the latter’s greatest danger.
And, just as they departed for Aquila, the Empress Catherine, who was
watching the troops defile along the street towards the Porta Capuana,
was taken suddenly ill and died, without speaking again, in the evening
of the same day.
In the meantime the King of Hungary had already entered Italy from
the north, and had struck into the Neapolitan territory on the side
of Apulia; and the news of his coming filled the Court of Naples with
dismay. For it had been hoped that his progress might have been stayed
by a legate whom the Pope had sent to meet him at Fogligno, within a
long day’s march of the Neapolitan frontier, and to bar the way to him
with a threat of excommunication if he dared to advance any further
without the permission of the Holy Father; but the Hungarian had
refused to pay any attention to Papal remonstrances, and had continued
on his way through the States of the Church into the Kingdom of Naples.
On learning of these events Queen Joan, hastily assembling such of
the nobles as she knew to be loyal to her, made them swear fidelity
to Louis of Taranto, her husband, and then took ship by night in one
of her own Provençal galleys for Marseilles, the port of Avignon,
which belonged to her—so that she was, in a sense, the landlady of the
Pope. So soon, then, as Joan had departed to seek refuge at the Papal
Court, Louis of Taranto, taking with him his dead mother’s Counsellor,
Nicholas Acciajuoli, set out with a small force for the citadel
of Capua on the River Volturno, thinking there to check the enemy.
Unhappily, though, the Hungarian monarch, obtaining information of his
adversary’s movements, turned aside, and, marching round the flank of
the Neapolitan forces by way of the mountains of Alife and Morcone,
seized upon the city of Benevento, in rear of Louis of Taranto’s army.
At Benevento, however, the King of Hungary was met by a deputation of
Neapolitan subjects, who, frightened by the rapidity of his advance,
as well as by the Queen’s flight and by the sudden departure of her
husband for they knew not what place, had decided to make the best
terms they could for themselves with the revengeful newcomer. And so
they brought him the keys of the city, and made submission to him as
the rightful successor of the late King Robert. The news of this event
soon reached Louis of Taranto’s army, and at once a vile panic set
in, and very soon Louis found himself deserted by all save only the
faithful, intrepid Acciajuoli; for there was more courage beneath the
lawyer’s gown than beneath the breastplates of all the army. Resistance
to the Hungarian was no longer possible for Louis; and, together with
Acciajuoli, he returned to Naples in the evening of the day on which he
had learned of the Hungarian’s arrival at Benevento. At Naples, Louis
was met by his brother Robert and by Charles of Durazzo, both of whom,
as well as all his other relations, entreated him to go away at once,
lest he should bring down the wrath of the Hungarian upon them and upon
the whole city. Turning his back upon the cowards, Louis went down to
the seashore and, accompanied as ever by the loyal Acciajuoli, embarked
in a crazy, rotten rowing-boat manned by four sailors, thanks to whose
devotion he ultimately reached Leghorn; whence he shortly joined Queen
Joan in their kingdom of Provence.
The King of Hungary being encamped at Aversa, Charles of Durazzo and
Robert of Taranto now repaired there to him with the purpose of turning
away his anger from themselves and their families. They were received,
to their great consolation and encouragement, with every possible
manifestation of benignity; the King even going so far as to enquire
after their youngest brothers, Louis of Durazzo and Philip of Taranto,
and to express the most lively desire to make their acquaintance as
soon as possible. Finally he begged they might be sent for, in order,
as he put it, “that he might make his entry into Naples in the midst
of all his family.” With these requests their elders made all speed to
comply, so that, within a few hours, the boy, Louis of Durazzo, and the
young man, Philip of Taranto, were with them in the castle of Aversa,
the Hungarian headquarters. On their being presented to him, the King
embraced them, and chatted with them a little while; after which he
made them, with their elder brothers, sit down with him to supper, not
parting with them until a late hour of the night.
Now there were with the King of Hungary two noblemen of Naples, Lillo
of Aquila and the Count of Fondi, both of them brave and honourable
gentlemen and haters of cruelty and treachery. And, when Charles of
Durazzo went to bed that night, these came to his bedside and bade
him beware, for that the Hungarian was a tyrant and no gentleman and
that, for all his fair words, he had only that morning taken council
with his followers that he might put Charles himself to death and send
the other Neapolitan princes in captivity into Hungary. But to these
warnings Charles turned a deaf ear, although Lillo persisted in them
and implored him, for the sake of all he held dear in this world, to
save himself with his brothers and his cousins; until Charles angrily
bade his well-wishers to leave him in peace.
All the next day the demeanour of the King continued the same until the
evening, when, as they were all at supper, Charles received yet a last
warning of his danger from Lillo of Aquila, who was waiting upon him at
table.
“Oh, why does your Highness refuse to listen to me?” he whispered.
“Fly—fly—there is still time to save yourself.”
But Charles, irritated by Lillo’s persistency, threatened, unless he
held his peace, to repeat his words aloud to the King; and Lillo could
only bow in submission, whispering as he did so:
“At least, I have done my duty; and now may the will of God be done,
likewise, in regard to you.”
At that moment the King rose and confronted Charles, with a terrible
countenance; so that the latter was now, at last, rudely awakened from
his dream of security.
“Ah, traitor, now I hold you in my hand!” cried the King. “Be sure that
I will do justice upon you—full justice—for your crimes,—your daring
to march against my city of Aquila—you, by whose invitation I came to
give peace to this miserable land that has groaned so long beneath the
burden of you and yours.”
He then went on to reproach Charles with having been, together with
his mother’s brother, Cardinal de Périgord, the means of postponing
the coronation of Andrew, and so of bringing him to his untimely end;
furthermore, he accused Charles of designing to obtain the kingdom
for himself by his abductive marriage with the Princess Maria, his
own, King Louis’, intended bride; which last delinquency had all along
rankled fearfully in the King’s mind, so that as he referred to it
his voice broke into a shout of fury. And then, turning away from the
excuses and pleadings for mercy of his victim, he ordered the Voivode,
Stephen of Transylvania, to take charge of all the prisoners and to
keep them for the night in a room near his, the King’s, own apartment.
The next day King Louis, having visited that balcony in the Castle of
Aversa from which the dead body of his brother Andrew had been hanged
and then thrown into the garden below, sent an order to the Voivode
Stephen that he was to have Charles of Durazzo brought by soldiers to
that same place and that they were to cut his throat; but the King
himself did not stay to witness the execution. And when word of the
King’s order was brought to the Voivode, he told Charles to follow
him; and, together with some soldiers, they went out to the room of
the balcony. There the Voivode asked of Charles whether he wished to
confess his sins to a priest; who answered in the affirmative, and
so one of the monks came to him from the monastery, and heard his
confession, and absolved him in so far as he was able to do. After
which Duke Charles knelt down over against the fatal balcony and
commended his poor soul to God, and was killed by having a very sharp
knife drawn across his throat (so that his head was nearly severed from
his body) by one of the soldiers, whilst another plunged a sword into
his heart that he might die quickly. And when the thing was done they
threw the dead body of the Duke over the balcony into the garden.
After that, King Louis rode away with all his army from Aversa to
Naples, being met on the way by a large deputation of nobles and
citizens of whom he took no notice, refusing to acknowledge their
greeting or to ride beneath a canopy they had provided for his entry
into the capital. On arriving in Naples the King at once gave himself
up to the work of vengeance. The first to die was Donna Cancia, who,
ever since the death of the other regicides, had been lying in prison;
she was burned alive in the Mercato. Soon after Cancia’s death the
King ordered the arrest of the Count of Squillace, Godfrey of Mansano,
promising to spare him if he would deliver up one of his relations,
a certain Conrad of Catanzaro, accused of having been among those
privy to the murder of Andrew. To this infamy Squillace consented,
saving his life by betraying Conrad to the Hungarian authorities,
who had him broken alive, as is related, upon a wheel studded with
razor-blades,—but I incline to doubt this for more reasons than one.
But, instead of assuaging the rage of King Louis, these monstrous
executions seem only to have filled him with a further appetite
for blood. As during the usurpation of power by Charles of Durazzo
after King Andrew’s murder, so now executions multiplied to such an
extent that they threatened soon to become the principal medium of
government; just as, four centuries and a half later, in the time of
suppression of 1799, there set in an epidemic of frantic denunciation,
the general terror making of society a hot-bed of the basest passions
and motives—avarice, cowardice, and hate. And soon the people began to
think how they might rid them of the ghastly incubus that had come to
prey upon them in the person of the vampire-monarch from Hungary.