Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Pact Between Charles and Andrew of Hungary—Joan’s Homage to the Papal Legate—Andrew Ignored—Arrival of Andrew’s Mother—Andrew Upheld by the Pope—His Reprisals—“The Man Must Die”—The Queen’s Conspiracy—Last Meeting of Charles and Andrew—The Hunting Expedition—The Banquet in the Monastery—The Murder—Tempest Breaks Over Joan’s Head—An Evil Blow at Charles—Trial of Andrew’s Murderers—A Nightmare of Cruelty and Fear.

To judge from the sequence of events, it would appear almost certain that, in his amazing marriage with Princess Maria, Charles of Durazzo must have had the assistance—or, at least, the tacit approval—of Andrew of Hungary; and that, in return for this, Charles had promised Andrew that he would take his part and support him against the faction of the Queen. Certain it is, at all events, that, immediately after the marriage of Charles and Maria, the party of Andrew, his Hungarian barons and soldiers, redoubled in arrogance towards the Neapolitans, and their excesses of violence and rapine which, erstwhile, had been subjected to an intermittent restraint, now became such as to evoke not only complaints, but threats as well on the part of the unfortunate people. Andrew himself, however, took no notice of such protests, but appeared, rather, to approve the outrages committed by his underlings.

And as certain was it in the opinion of his enemies that the time was come when they might strike him with propriety as well as with impunity.

On August 31, 1344, Queen Joan came, surrounded by her friends, to the Church of Santa Chiara, there to do homage for her crown to the Papal legate, Cardinal San Martino de Monti; for the kingdom of Naples, having been bestowed by the Pope upon the House of Anjou after the deposition by them of that of the Hohenstaufen, was considered as a fief of the Church.

By this ceremony the claims of Andrew of Hungary to a share in the throne were formally ignored, and the single sovereignty ceremoniously confirmed to Joan; for her husband was in no way admitted to join with her in the act of homage, nor was there any reference to him by word or deed from first to last; thereafter, his position in the realm was that of its first subject and nothing more. In fact, he was simply the Prince Consort of Naples. During the ceremony—for he, like Joan, had come to it with a numerous armed retinue—the followers of the husband and wife not only kept up a brisk exchange of threats, but had actually to be prevented by repeated energetic commands from drawing their swords then and there. When it was over, and Andrew had returned to the Castel Nuovo, his heart on fire with rage and humiliation and disappointment, his first act was to despatch a message to his mother, Elizabeth of Poland, informing her of his resolution to depart forthwith from the country which offered him nothing but deception and betrayal.

Many months passed away, however, without either his carrying out his avowed intention or any answer reaching him from his mother; for, had he meant what he said in the letter, the letter would never have been written at all; but he would have gone himself instead of sending it. So he had hesitated in his choice of a course of action; and, hesitating, was lost.

In place of a return letter, his mother came to fetch him away with her on the vessel in which she had sailed from the port of Danzig; and no sooner was it known what she had come to do than there went up a sigh of thankfulness from all the Court, most especially from those who by her advent saw themselves delivered from the detestable necessity of assassinating the Hungarian Prince in order to insure their own safety from his jealousy and resentment. At once, too, the friends—or, rather, the party—of Joan set themselves to convince the Queen of Poland of their amiable intentions towards her ungracious son by overwhelming her with all manner of undesired civilities and entertainments. But nothing could procure them the confidence of the terrified mother, or turn her from her purpose of removing Prince Andrew from their midst.

The only person, though, who expostulated with Queen Elizabeth for her project of withdrawing her son from Naples was his courageous and resolute tutor, the Dominican, Father Robert, who implored her to have patience and courage for a little while until he should have received from the Pope, who was then living at Avignon, an answer to the entreaty despatched so long before and in which Prince Andrew’s claims to be the King of Naples—in accordance with the wishes of the deceased King Robert—had been submitted to the judgment of the Holy Father with an entreaty that he would ratify them.

But all that Father Robert could obtain from the thoroughly terrified Elizabeth was a delay of three days, at the expiration of which time, unless a favourable answer had been received from the Pope, she would set sail once more for Danzig, taking Prince Andrew with her.

Not until the evening of that momentous third day, as she was completing her preparations for departure, did the Dominican come hurrying into Elizabeth’s presence, having in his hands a sheet of parchment from which swung a seal upon a cord.

“Now, God be thanked!” he cried, proffering her the parchment. “You see for yourself, Madam—the Holy Father consents, and your son is King of Naples and of Jerusalem! And, if I may say so, I think it is owing to me more than to any one else!”

And he went on to explain to the delighted Elizabeth how, without mentioning it to any one, he had taken on himself the responsibility of promising that certain laws prejudicial to the Church in the Kingdom of Naples should be abolished if the Pope would confirm the crown to Andrew of Hungary. At this juncture Andrew himself entered the room and was informed of the change in his situation by being hailed as King of Naples by the Dominican. At once the young man’s whole nature leapt out to grasp the splendour of his new power in an outburst of revengeful exaltation over those who had hitherto insulted and belittled him. Now, as he swore, they should indeed have reason to tremble for their former boldness, their contempt and defiance of him!

A few days later Queen Elizabeth sailed away from Naples, her head still full of forebodings; try as she would, she could not shake off the fears that beset her so increasingly for the safety of her son whom she was leaving behind with none but a handful of foreign adherents in the midst of a Court and of a people bent, as she felt certain, upon his destruction.

But these misgivings were in no wise shared by Andrew of Hungary, who now proceeded without loss of time to carry out his intention of punishing his seditious subjects.

The first of those upon whom his hand fell was one of the chief Councillors of the Kingdom, a certain Andrew of Isernia, who had been chiefly concerned in persuading Queen Joan—who had looked upon him as a father—to set at naught the provisions of King Robert’s will and to let herself be proclaimed the sole ruler of Naples to the detriment of her husband.

In passing be it said that, instead of at once making public the Pope’s recognition of him as King of Naples, with, of course, absolute rights of life and death over its people, Prince Andrew had chosen to keep the fact of his kingship a secret for a little time in order the better to enjoy the grim jest of his opponents’ ultimate discomfiture when they should learn of his real power over them. Nevertheless, in the meantime, he had not been able to resist tasting the fruits of sovereignty in the shape of an “hors d’oeuvre” to his banquet of reprisals; with the consequence that Andrew of Isernia was found dead one morning, near the Porta Petruccia of the city, bathed in blood, with a score of sword wounds on his body.

The news of Isernia’s murder was brought to Joan by Bertrand of Artois, who had learned also of Andrew’s confirmation as King by the Pope, as well as of the fact that a list of persons to be summarily dealt with had been drawn up by the Hungarian; and, supremely, that his, Bertrand of Artois’, name was the first upon the list.

This last item it was that finally removed any lingering scruples from Joan’s heart; for she loved Bertrand with all the passionate recklessness of her fiery nature, and the thought that his handsome head should roll upon the board of a scaffold maddened her against Andrew.

“That decides it,” she is said to have declared to her lover. “The man must die.”

And, when he left her, Bertrand of Artois went out to gather together the others who were also of his conspiracy in the Queen’s service—Robert of Cabano, and the Counts of Terlizzi and Morcone; Charles of Artois, the father of Bertrand himself; Godfrey of Marsano, High Admiral of the realm and Count of Squillace; and the Count of Catanzaro. With these men were allied several women—notably Catherine of Taranto, Empress of Constantinople, mother of that Louis whose beauty was splendid like the sun; Filippa, the mother of Robert of Cabano and of his sisters, the Countesses of Morcone and Terlizzi; those two dusky beauties themselves; and finally Donna Cancia, the laughing girl-demon and bosom-friend of the Queen.

To these was joined that same Tommaso Pace, valet to Prince Andrew, with whom the notary, Master Nicholas of Melazzo, had of late maintained the closest of relations in obedience to the orders of Charles of Durazzo. No wonder, then, that within an hour after the conference of the plotters Charles of Durazzo was in possession of every detail of it, as well as of the names of the plotters themselves.

Now, before the actual ceremony of Andrew of Hungary’s proclamation as King could take place, it was unavoidable that a few days should be devoted to making all suitable preparations for that event; for, so soon as Isernia’s killing had become known, Andrew had caused it to be announced that the murder was not a murder at all in reality, but merely a legal execution duly carried out by the person—a certain Conrad de Gotis—empowered to do so by Andrew himself as King of Naples by favour of the Pope. The unrest and uproar caused by this news in the city were such that Andrew had thought it prudent to retire thence into the neighbouring country until the time were come when, as crowned and anointed King, he should be endowed with a real and efficient majesty, the which he was as yet very far from possessing. In this intention, therefore, he had given out that he would go with the Court for a while upon a hunting expedition into the district between Capua Aversa.

Charles of Durazzo received a personal invitation from Prince Andrew to join him and the others of the party, but declined on the ground of his wife’s being extremely indisposed; this, the last meeting on earth of the two men, took place on the 19th of August in the year 1345, towards evening in a hall of the Castel Nuovo; it is said that, in declining Andrew’s invitation, Charles begged him to accept a very fine falcon from among those for which his perch was justly celebrated. The falcon presented by Charles to Andrew may have been a jer-falcon; but I cannot help thinking that, in all likelihood, the bird was a peregrine from the cliffs between Sorrento and Amalfi. With Charles was also Nicholas of Melazzo, from whom he had just been receiving the details of the Queen’s conspiracy; and Charles, as he himself understood triumphantly, was thenceforth to be master of the situation in the Kingdom of Naples.

The dawn of the next day saw a numerous cavalcade pass out from the gate of the Castel Nuovo and file slowly down through the city and so out into the misty lowlands towards Melito, where the sport was to begin. The illustrious company was headed by Andrew of Hungary in person, and beside him rode Queen Joan on a white palfrey; whilst close behind them pressed the throng of those who had sworn to return to Naples only when Andrew should have ceased to breathe. Never before had Andrew shown himself so gay, so responsive to all the delights of life and friendship as on that morning; although he knew that he, as well as the men who rode behind him, had death in his heart—the death of many among those very men who were now preparing to consummate their treachery by murdering him. But they, like Andrew of Hungary, were loud in talk and laughter, exchanging jests incessantly amongst themselves and even, now and again, with their victim himself as he turned in his saddle and threw back to them a challenge of wits.

Of all that festive throng two alone rode silent and preoccupied. Both were women. One of them, the Queen, kept her eyes fixed steadfastly on the landscape before her, from which the vapours were being rapidly scattered and dispelled by the sunrise, so that none might read her thoughts; whilst the other was an elderly German called Isolda, once the nurse of Andrew and now his mother’s ambassador, who, like Queen Joan, was too occupied with her own reflections to pay attention to what was going on about her. For old Isolda’s heart was heavy with an indefinable presentiment of some evil that threatened her beloved foster-child; and her powerlessness to analyse or to avert it was frightful to the faithful soul of her.

And so the August day grew to its full, hot and windless, and drew on to afternoon and sank to airless evening, whilst hawk after hawk soared into the grey-blue sky all a-quiver with the heat, after heron and duck; or, else, hung poised there, hovering a little before swooping down upon crouching hare or rabbit or partridge. But the main feature of the sport was the hunting of wild boars with hound and spear; at which Andrew of Hungary is said to have been an expert.

At dusk the royal party bent its way towards the town of Aversa, there to pass the night in the monastery of San Pietro a Maiella, a house of Celestine monks; for there was at hand no other building capable of sheltering so many persons and their horses. The choice of a fitting asylum for the Queen and her Consort and their followers was the business of the Grand Seneschal, Robert of Cabano; and he it was who undertook the necessary arrangements; by his orders a bed was prepared for Joan and her husband in a room at the end of a corridor on the third floor of the monastery and about sixty feet above the ground.

That night, the monks having retired long before to their cells, the great refectory of the monastery rang with the jests and laughter of the royal supper-party. Wine flowed in abundance; and none drank more deeply than did Andrew of Hungary; until Robert of Cabano rose and said that a draught of the same wine ought by rights to be given to each of the Hungarian sentries posted outside the monastery to compensate them for keeping their cheerless watch outside in the darkness. Which proposal was carried out with loud applause, in which the sentries who had been called into the hall to drink the health of the royal pair joined heartily, so that the place echoed to the thunderous shouts of “Long live their Majesties, the King and Queen of Naples!”

This feasting and good-fellowship was prolonged to a late hour, until at length the conspirators became impatient of Andrew’s wakefulness, and Bertrand of Artois remarked pointedly that the chances were against any of them rising betimes in the morning after sitting up so late the night before. To which Andrew answered scornfully that, speaking for himself, an hour or two of sleep was amply sufficient, and that in this he hoped he was not alone. But when the Count of Terlizzi expressed a doubt of Andrew’s being able to set an example of early rising under the circumstances, the Prince gave a challenge to all present, to be up as soon as he in the morning; after which he withdrew with the Queen to their apartment, and silence soon fell over all the building.

Towards two o’clock there came a knock on the door of the royal bedchamber, followed by a second and a third; at the last of which Andrew sprang out of bed, calling out that he was awake and was coming at once. It is said that Joan, who had not closed an eyelid, was minded to warn her husband of his danger, but thought better of it and kept silence whilst he drew on his clothes and, going to the door, opened it—to find himself confronted by a group of men, including his valet, Tommaso Pace, who had knocked on the door, and Nicholas of Melazzo.

On the instant that Andrew showed himself, Bertrand of Artois, as some say, seized him by his long hair and tried to pull back his head; but he contrived to free himself, exclaiming, “This is a base jest!” Then, perceiving that the intentions of the group were really hostile, he endeavoured to retreat into the room for his sword, but was prevented from doing so by Nicholas of Melazzo, who thrust his dagger for a bolt through the staples of the door, whilst others, led by Bertrand of Artois and Robert of Cabano, flung themselves upon the Prince like a pack of wolves, trying to pull him down. But Andrew, now fighting with all his strength, threw them off, and fled from them, shouting loudly for help, and looking for an avenue of escape.

There was none, however, to be found; and at length, turning and twisting from his assailants, Andrew slipped and fell; so that Bertrand of Artois, the nearest of them, was enabled to grapple with him, on the floor, calling for a certain rope with which to strangle him. This rope, which was of silk twisted with gold threads, they had had made on purpose to kill the Prince with, because of a talisman that he was said to have received from his mother and that was held to render him invulnerable by steel or poison. It seems to me probable that Robert of Cabano had the rope ready in his hands and that, between them, he and Bertrand of Artois contrived to place it about the Prince’s neck; for, as Gravena tells us, when Robert of Cabano saw that one of their lot, the Count of Terlizzi, was turning away from the horrid scene, he made him take hold of the rope and help them to draw it tight; saying: “What are you doing, my brother-in-law? Here, take hold—the rope is long enough for each of us to put a hand to it. What we want are accomplices, not witnesses!”

And so, between them all, they dragged Prince Andrew to a balcony overlooking the garden of the cloister, and, lifting him up, threw him over, so that he was hanged. And when they knew that he was dead they let go of the rope; and the body fell down into the moonlit garden; and they went away to their beds.

But the din of the murder had awakened Andrew’s old nurse, Isolda, who now, looking out of her window, saw him lying there and thought that he was asleep. Going to the Queen’s room, the door of which was fastened on the inside, she called out to Joan, saying that the Prince was asleep in the garden. To which Joan only made reply, “Let him sleep,” and would not speak further. Then Isolda went and awakened the monks and made them go with her into the garden to where Andrew lay on the grass; and, when she saw that he was dead, she rent the night with her lamentations. And two of the monks knelt down by the corpse, one at the head and the other at the feet, and said the Penitential Psalms for the repose of the Prince’s soul, while two other monks went up to the door of the Queen’s room and asked of her through it:

“Oh, Queen, what are your commands that we should do with the dead body of your husband?”

But she would not return any answer to them; so they went away again, very greatly affrighted and troubled in spirit. And later they sent others of their company once and twice on the same business; but Joan either would not or could not speak with them, until at last the townspeople of Aversa gathered about the monastery gates, began to howl and to murmur amongst themselves, calling the Queen a murderess and saying that she was afraid to look upon the face of her dead husband. Nor did she show herself at all to them; but, later in the day, was borne out of Aversa and so back to Naples in a closed litter guarded by horsemen.

And now, at last, the tempest which had been brewing for so long in silence broke into lightning over the head of Joan.

Charles of Durazzo, who as husband to the heir to the throne, was now, next to Joan herself, the most considerable person in the kingdom—and, further, by reason of all he knew, far the most powerful—now took the chief direction of its affairs.

After leaving the body of Andrew of Hungary where it lay exposed for two whole days to the battering of the elements—for the weather had suddenly turned wet and gusty—at the foot of the monastery wall at Aversa, in order thereby to arouse to the full the compassion of the populace that flocked to behold it, as well as to arouse their indignation against the murderers, Charles ordered the remains to be brought in state to the Cathedral of San Gennaro in the city. There having rallied to him the dead Prince’s Hungarian barons, together with the Count of Altamura, he met the funeral procession and caused the coffin containing the body to be placed upon a catafalque, by which he took his stand.

“Oh, people of Naples, gentle and simple alike, behold your King, miserably strangled by his murderers!” he cried, drawing his sword and laying it upon the coffin. “I appeal to you to help me avenge him!”

And immediately the vast church rang and echoed with the roar of those to whom he addressed himself.

“Vengeance!” they bellowed, forgetting in their desire for savagery how, but a short while before, they had groaned beneath the insolent brutality of that same Andrew of Hungary. “Vengeance, vengeance, vengeance!”—and from out the sombre interior of the Cathedral the roaring gushed in a flood of terrible sound, filling all the streets with its clamour for blood. And, when the funeral was over, and the coffin had been put away in the place prepared for it in the left transept of the building, Duke Charles withdrew once more to his own palace, well pleased with what he had done, there to apply his energies to the work in hand.

Now it so happened that several of those who had conspired with Joan to make an end of her husband had lost no time in claiming the various rewards that they deemed to be due to them from her. Filippa Cabano and Robert, her son, as well as her daughters of Terlizzi and Morcone and their husbands, redoubled in arrogance and in the daring of their clamour for honours and money; whilst Cancia, their lascivious instrument and the handmaid of their Sovereign, now secured from punishment by that Sovereign’s impotence even to protest against her shamelessness, turned the Castel Nuovo into a place without a name. But of all Joan’s fellow-conspirators the one who asked her the most staggering price was her aunt, Catherine of Taranto, Empress of Constantinople, who asked that she should consent to announce her betrothal to Robert of Taranto, the Empress’ eldest son. To this insolent demand Joan could only summon sufficient strength to reply by asking a delay of three days, in which to make up her mind upon the subject; which delay was granted her, the Empress only stipulating that Prince Robert, in the meantime, should be allowed to take up his quarters in the Castel Nuovo and to see and speak with Joan at least once a day.

No sooner, though, did it reach the ears of Charles of Durazzo that Robert of Taranto was installed in the Castel Nuovo as a preliminary to his betrothal to the Queen than the Duke flung himself on to a horse and galloped furiously to the castle. On entering Joan’s presence, he spoke briefly and to the point. To begin with, she must create him Duke of Calabria in his own right, thereby acknowledging him to be the heir to the throne as the husband of her sister. And, as to Robert of Taranto, Charles absolutely forbade her to marry him or any other man without his express permission; threatening that, if she dared to do otherwise, he would reveal to the whole world his knowledge of her participation in the murder of Andrew of Hungary. This he did because he had no intention, whatsoever, of allowing her to marry again and so providing, possibly, a direct heir to the throne other than his wife and himself. And again, Joan, helpless to refuse beneath her burden of remorse and of terror both for herself and for others, had no choice but to temporise as best she could.

There was now no other course open to her than that of an explanation upon the subject of her situation with the Empress of Constantinople.

The latter, however, on learning of Duke Charles’ opposition to the marriage of her son to Joan, declared her resolution of striking him a blow that should assuredly wound him frightfully both in his affections as well as in the esteem of the public before whom, she assured Joan, he would be eternally dishonoured by it in the event of his refusing to listen to the voice of reason.

First of all, advised the Empress, Charles must be made acquainted with the fact that his veto of Joan’s espousal to Robert was without reason; for, in very truth, Joan was expecting shortly to become the mother of Andrew of Hungary’s posthumous child, who, in the natural course of things, must eventually succeed to the throne of Naples. Should Charles, however, in the face of this persist in placing obstacles in the way of Joan’s marriage to Robert, then the blow of which mention had been made—albeit the Empress had not divulged its nature, precisely—should be launched upon him. Furthermore, added the Empress, she herself would at once inform Charles of Joan’s expectation of soon becoming a mother.

Joan, it must be added, had told her aunt of Charles’ knowledge of the persons primarily responsible for Andrew’s death; so that the Empress should realise the peril that menaced her at the Duke of Durazzo’s hands.

Undeterred, though, by learning of his power over her, Catherine of Taranto betook herself immediately to the Palazzo Durazzo and boldly faced the arch-schemer. In wickedness and courage she was a match for him, and he knew it; so he received her news of the Queen’s condition with smooth words very delicately barbed and very poisonous. Thanking the Empress with every show of respectful gratitude for the honour that she had conferred upon him by coming thus in person with the all-important and all-welcome news; for himself he asked only the title of Duke of Calabria, which alone could enable him to watch over Joan’s interests properly and those of her child. Should the Queen, he added, see her way to complying with his request, then he should no longer feel it his duty to bring all the accomplices of her husband’s murder to justice; since, if Andrew of Hungary’s progeny were, in time, to occupy the throne, the murder itself would be rendered in a measure of no effect. In the event of Joan’s refusal, however, the enquiry already instituted in regard to the King’s assassins would be prosecuted to the bitter end without respect for any one whosoever—an eventuality which as Charles pointed out to the Empress, with a diabolical smile, might be very unpleasant for several of their mutual friends. By which she was made to understand that Charles was perfectly aware of her own share in that detestable transaction.

In answer, the resourceful Empress, careful to appear suitably frightened by Charles’ hints, declared her willingness to do all she could to promote his wishes, begging only a little time in which to bring the Queen round to a more yielding frame of mind; a favour that Charles could not help but grant her. And so they parted, with the mutual assurance of a complete understanding.

On returning to the Castel Nuovo, the Empress, having reported what had passed to the unhappy Joan, withdrew to consider her own plan of action in the struggle with Charles of Durazzo. At length, she hit upon a scheme so truly infernal as to claim preËminence over anything that had preceded it in the long list of her iniquities. She would strike her enemy to the heart; she would kill his intellect and break him as surely as with an iron bar upon the wheel, through the one person that he loved and venerated in all the world—his widowed mother, the saintly Duchess Agnes of Durazzo.

Now it chanced that, during those days, Agnes of Durazzo lay sick of a lingering and mysterious malady, the nature of which it was beyond the ability of her physician to determine. In all probability the Duchess’ disease was one of an internal tumour; be that as it may, it was in every symptomatic particular only too well adapted to the unspeakable purpose of the Empress, who forthwith set herself to disseminating rumours destructive to the reputation of the good and gentle Duchess. Not satisfied with this alone, moreover, she contrived by a hellish stratagem to deceive even the Duchess’ doctor, so that he believed himself justified in imparting his opinion to Charles of Durazzo, in person.

So that mad horror, as of a lost soul, took possession of Charles, and the desire of the Empress that his mind should become the prey of devils was fulfilled.

The luckless, blundering physician he dismissed curtly from his presence after their interview. An hour later the unfortunate man was discovered in a back street of Naples, stabbed to death,—but not before he had written out, by Charles’ orders, the recipe of a certain draught to be administered to his illustrious patient; which thing was done in the evening of the same day.

Shortly afterwards, Charles was hastily summoned to his mother’s bedside from the room in which he had spent the rest of that awful day alone with his thoughts after parting from the doctor. On entering that of his mother, her attendants withdrew, leaving the fast-dying woman alone with the son who had destroyed her in the interests of the family honour.

What passed between them no man may say with any certainty; all that is absolutely sure is that, when a few minutes had gone by, the scream of a man in intolerable agony of soul rang out through the stone corridor; and the Duchess’ servants, rushing to her room, found her lying dead in the arms of her stricken son, who himself was entreating her frantically to come back to him, sobbing as though his heart would break, and imploring the mercy of Heaven for his misjudgment of her.

From that hour there was something very dreadful in the look of the Duke of Durazzo, as though he were afraid of his own thoughts and were for ever struggling to free himself from their compulsion. The only person who understood a little of what was in his mind was, doubtless, the Empress of Constantinople, and, when she saw that the man was for the first time in all his life the prey of a hideous remorse, she became gradually afraid for herself and for her first-born, Robert of Taranto, for whom she was plotting to secure the hand of the Queen.

Towards the end of the time agreed upon between Joan and the Empress, for the former to make public her betrothal to Robert, who was still living in the Castel Nuovo, and while the whole town was lamenting the mysterious death of the beloved Duchess Agnes of Durazzo, there came to pass a thing which utterly set at naught all the calculations of the Empress and of her eldest son.

It so happened that one day Robert of Taranto had gone out riding with Charles of Durazzo, whom the astute mother of Robert had, since the demise of Duchess Agnes, persuaded her son to conciliate by every possible means in his power. Now both Robert and his mother had overlooked, or were in ignorance of, the surpassing love that Louis of Taranto, the youngest of Robert’s two brothers, had for some years borne to Joan; which love Louis had kept in check to the best of his ability while Andrew of Hungary lived. But, now that Joan was a widow and the prize of any man bold enough to snatch it from the rest, Louis of Taranto felt no hesitation in doing so when the opportunity offered.

Therefore, it came about that, on his return to the Castel Nuovo, Robert found himself shut out. Despite his clamour to be admitted, as he termed it, “to his own house” and his threats to exact bloody retribution from the sentries within for keeping him waiting, he received no attention from anybody until his mother came out to him, trembling and confused, to say that in his absence his brother Louis had effected an entry into the castle and had compelled Joan to go through a form of marriage with him.

The effect of the news upon Robert may be easily imagined. After staring, speechless, at his informant for a few minutes, there broke from him a cry of rage and, turning his horse, he tore off at a gallop towards the Palazzo Durazzo. Here he found Duke Charles in the company of the Duchess Maria and informed them as well as he could, for fury, of what had taken place. It ended in Charles’ promising him that he would leave no stone unturned to prevent the necessary confirmation by the Pope of the union of Louis with the Queen; and that, so long as he, Charles of Durazzo, lived, no such confirmation should be put into practice.

That same day he wrote to the Pope at Avignon asking for a Papal enquiry into the murder of Andrew of Hungary and laying before the Holy Father the names of those implicated in it; thus he hoped to obtain the deposal of Joan from the throne and the reversion of it to himself as husband of the next rightful heir, Maria of Anjou; also to insure the destruction of the Empress of Constantinople as a participant in Andrew’s death.

It was long before the Pope’s answer reached him, and, when at last it did, it was rather disappointing. For Clement VI replied with a Bull dated June 2, 1346, addressed to Beltram des Baux, Count of Monte Scaglioso and Chief Justice of Sicily, bidding him draw up a charge against the murderers of King Andrew—who were formally anathematised—and to punish them with the utmost severity. A secret codicil to the Bull, however, expressly forbade the Chief Justice to proceed against or in any way to implicate in his handling of the case either the Queen herself or any of her relatives. So, to avoid causing still more lamentable disorders in the already distracted kingdom, any such malefactors of the Blood Royal, added the Pope, would be dealt with later by himself, alone, as the Supreme Head of the Church and Suzerain lord of the Kingdom of Naples.

The Count of Monte Scaglioso showed himself no laggard in discharging the duty thus entrusted to his zeal and ability.

Within three days from the reception of the Papal Bull he was able to announce that the trial of the late King’s murderers would be held on the following day in the great hall of San Luigi in the Castel Nuovo, the same vast apartment in which Pope Celestino V had abdicated the Pontificate in 1294. In the hall were seats for all the principal nobles of the kingdom round about that of the Chief Justice himself. The two accused persons were both men—Tommaso Pace, King Andrew’s valet, and Nicholas of Melazzo, the confederate of Charles of Durazzo and the same who had played the part of Judas as well as that of “Omri who slew his master.” Both were brought from their prison to the Castel Nuovo to undergo a preliminary torture that should make them confess their guilt at once and so save the time and trouble of their judges.

On the way from the prison to the palace the accused passed by Charles of Durazzo, to whom the wretched notary whispered, it is said, a promise to reveal nothing of what had formerly passed between them on condition that Charles would provide for the other’s widow and orphans; to which the Duke assented with a nod of the head.

And Nicholas of Melazzo kept his word; for, during all the torments to which he was presently subjected, he held his mouth and played the man. But with the valet it was very different; no sooner did Tommaso Pace feel his arms being dislocated at the shoulder in the torture known as that “of the Cord” than he shrieked for mercy, swearing to tell everything and imploring to be conducted before his judges. And now there ensued the first of a series of hellish scenes that were to follow each other in the drama of mediÆval reprisal, that nightmare of cruelty and fear.

As the two prisoners were being taken from the cell where they had been tortured to the hall of San Luigi, up a narrow, winding stairway, the Count of Terlizzi, who was bringing up the doleful procession with several of his men-at-arms—he having been present at the torturing of both the accused, and being in terror of what Tommaso Pace might be about to reveal—suddenly sprang upon the valet (who was walking behind Nicholas of Melazzo and their gaolers) and with the help of one of his soldiers dragged him back into an embrasure of the stairway and there, taking him by the throat, forced him to put out his tongue, which they cut out with a knife. Then, pushing the fainting wretch before them, they rejoined the procession; but not before Pace’s howls had drawn the attention of Charles of Durazzo, who, like Terlizzi, had been a witness of what had taken place in the torture-chamber. So struck was he by the horrid energy of Terlizzi’s act, and understanding its purport as he did, Charles fell for an instant beneath the spell of the very danger which he had so laboriously created for the removal of Joan and Louis of Taranto from his path. It may be that there rang in his ears, together with the miserable valet’s inarticulate protests, the words of the Psalm—“he hath digged a pit for others and is fallen into it himself”; at any rate, he glanced at Nicholas of Melazzo and, halting the procession, drew him aside to where they could speak without being overheard. And Nicholas, reading the half-formed purpose in his face, once more whispered his promise of secrecy. Whereupon Charles, recovering his courage, promised on his part to take care of the notary’s family, adding a command that Nicholas should name every person concerned in the King’s assassination to the Chief Justice, excepting Charles himself, and the Queen and the members of the royal family.

This command Nicholas obeyed implicitly; but when the Chief Justice began to question Tommaso Pace for a confirmation of the notary’s evidence, the mutilated valet could only open his mouth and point to where his tongue had been.

Nevertheless, the Chief Justice ordered the immediate arrest of such of the conspirators as were present in the hall of San Luigi—Robert of Cabano and the Counts of Morcone and Terlizzi, the last of whom had thus gained nothing by his barbarity upon Tommaso Pace. Of the other conspirators, Filippa Cabano and her two daughters, together with Donna Cancia, were thrown into prison immediately afterwards; and the rest, the Lords Mileto, Catanzaro, and Squillace, being warned in season, saved themselves by flight; old Charles of Artois and his son Bertrand being still secure in their fortress of Sant’ Agata of the Goths, near what was probably the real site of the Caudine Forks and from which, centuries later, the last Father of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori, was destined to take his episcopal tide as Bishop of Sant’ Agata; where he died in the year 1788.

And, when Nicholas of Melazzo had concluded his testimony, he was sentenced, with his accomplice, Tommaso Pace, to be dragged at the tail of a horse throughout the town and then hanged by the neck in the Mercato, the great market square, in which square Conradin of Hohenstaufen and Frederick of Baden had been decapitated by order of Charles I of Anjou in 1268, after the battle of Tagliacozzo. It was in this same square of the Mercato that Masaniello’s rebellion broke out, in the Seventeenth Century; and here took place also the execution of the misguided Liberals in 1799.

The sentence upon the notary and the valet having been forthwith carried into effect, the other prisoners were on the following day taken out of the Castel Nuovo and conveyed on to a galley in the bay, their hands tied behind their backs and having each a hook passed through their tongue to prevent them from calling out any mention of some forbidding name in passing to the crowd. When they had been tortured on the galley—a precaution for which the Count of Monte Scaglioso would seem to have been answerable—and their depositions against one another duly written down and signed, needless to say they were, one and all, condemned to be burned alive.

The next morning the crowd (composed mainly of descendants of the slaves of the long-ago Romans) filled all the ways from the prison to the Mercato, where on the side towards the Church of Sant’ Eligio—the usual spot on which executions usually took place being before the other Church in the piazza, the ancient Church of Santa Croce—was erected a huge pile of wood and many bundles of twigs about a number of posts with staples to them. This was the pyre.

From an early hour the populace had been swarming the city, tossed and churned hither and thither by its ravening for blood—no matter of whom—and by its impatient excitement for the gratification of its lust of cruelty. At last, however, its waiting was rewarded and there went up to the heavens a roar of pleasure as the prison-gates were thrown open and the spectacle began of the procession to the Mercato. I need not describe it, save to say that all along the way the condemned, each in a separate cart, were tortured in a revolting manner with scourges, razors, and red-hot pincers, so that several succumbed to their sufferings before reaching the pyre intended for them. Amongst those who died thus was Robert of Cabano, Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom, and the only one of them all who refused to utter the least sound by which to betray his torments to the mob. And when, finally, the dying unfortunates were all made fast to the stakes and fire was put to them, that same mob rushed over the intervening soldiers, extinguishing the flames and seizing the still palpitating bodies, tore them in pieces for the sake of the bones, with which to make whistles and dagger-handles.