Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Joan Detained at Aix—Greeted as a Queen—Joan Pronounced Innocent—Plans to Regain Naples—Sale of a City—Return to Naples—Indecisive War—Proposal for Personal Conflict—Flight of the Royal Family—Maria’s Narrow Escape—Hungarians Repulsed—Pope Clement as Intermediary—Departure of the King of Hungary—Festivity in Naples—Death of Louis and Joan’s Further Marital Adventures—Joan in Trouble—Her Untimely End.

In those days of the King of Hungary’s assize in Naples, Queen Joan reached her county of Provence and began to travel across it from Nice, where she had landed, towards Avignon.

On coming to the town of Aix, however, to her astonishment and perplexity, her journey was interrupted by the townspeople, who, albeit they received her with every mark of respect, yet set a guard about the castle of the place, the ChÂteau d’Arnaud, in which she stayed; and refused to let her issue thence until, as they said, they should have had word from Avignon—but in regard to what matter they would not tell her at once. Only after two months had gone by did the Archbishop of Aix present himself before her with an explanation. It appeared that, at the very moment of Joan’s landing in Provence, news had been brought to Aix that the King of France had sent his son, the Duke of Normandy, to Avignon to negotiate with Joan as to the cession of Provence to the French Crown in exchange for a proportionate territory elsewhere; so that, on seeing Joan arrive thus timely in their midst, the people of Aix imagined, not unnaturally, that her presence among them must be connected with the negotiations in question. And, as they were determined to die to the last man rather than pass under the detested rule of the French, they had resolved, if need be, to keep the Queen a hostage among them, in order to prevent her from carrying on the dreaded negotiations. Having however, and to their great thankfulness, received from the Sovereign Pontiff himself an absolute denial of any such purpose of negotiation, they at once and with many apologies restored the Queen to liberty.

On leaving Avignon, what was her delight on seeing the beloved Louis of Taranto come out to meet her, accompanied by all the Cardinals then in attendance upon the Pope! Joan was now, indeed, greeted as a Queen by her people, who strewed the way with flowers, the while a number of mounted pages rode beside the royal pair, holding above them a canopy of crimson velvet; and, from every church the bells pealed out a welcome to the Sovereigns. In the castle they were received with all pomp and circumstance by the Holy Father, who embraced and blessed them; after which they took up their residence in the Ursuline convent; and a little later, to complete the gladness of Joan, her younger sister, Maria, now the mother of two baby girls, arrived at Avignon from the stricken city of Naples. After the death of her husband in the castle of Aversa, Maria, bearing her children in her arms, had taken refuge from the reprisals of the King of Hungary in the monastery of Santa Croce, where the monks took her in and fed and sheltered her during some days, although they knew that not only their lives but the existence of the monastery itself would fall a sacrifice to the Hungarian’s anger should he ever learn of their charity to the widow of Charles of Durazzo. At length she had contrived, thanks to the disguise of an old monastic gown, to embark with her babies upon a ship bound for Provence; and her account of the things that were being done by the Hungarian in Naples made both Joan and her husband long to get back there with an army behind them, that they, in their turn, might satisfy their vengeance.

About this time there arrived, too, at Avignon ambassadors from the King of Hungary to the Pope, demanding in no measured terms the formal condemnation of Joan as an accessory before the fact to the murder of her husband, and her deposition from the throne of Naples; and, most especially, that the Holy Father should give the kingdom instead to Louis of Hungary. And now the Pope appointed a day for Joan on which to plead her cause before him and to disprove the charges made against her if she could; and this she did so ably that those who heard her broke into loud applause, and the Pope pronounced her innocent before all the world, and the Hungarian envoys were compelled to go away empty—although, to this day, there are those who have their doubts as to the veracity of Joan’s denial of the sin imputed to her. At any rate, Pope Clement, who was a good and truth-loving Pontiff, believed her, and there is an end of it.

After the discomfiture of the Hungarians, the Pope confirmed the marriage of the Queen to her cousin, Louis of Taranto, and bestowed upon the latter the title of King of Naples and of Jerusalem; he had already, on March 27, given him the Golden Rose. Simultaneously, the Holy Father sent an apostolic legate, Cardinal de Boulogne, to the King of Hungary, at Naples, to persuade him to cede the kingdom peaceably to its rightful sovereigns.

While the Cardinal was engaged on this difficult task, Nicholas Acciajuoli betook himself, likewise, into Naples and set about raising an army wherewith to drive out the Hungarians in the event of their refusing to listen to the Cardinal’s arguments. But, to maintain such an army, great expenses were unavoidable; and the Queen, who had sent him in answer to a deputation of Neapolitans entreating her to return and rule over them, was now obliged to raise money by every means at her disposal. For this purpose she sold all her jewels; but, these proving insufficient, she begged the Pope to buy of her the city of Avignon. To this he consented, and on June 19, 1348, gave her for it a sum about equal to sixty thousand pounds of our money. Which amply disproves the statement made by Alexandre Dumas,[12] who says that the sale took place on the day immediately prior to Joan’s trial, suggesting as he does that the Pope’s decision was influenced by his eagerness to acquire possession of the city—for the trial was held almost at once after Joan’s arrival at Avignon, on March 15.

In the meantime the King of Hungary had declined to accede to the Pope’s instance that he should retire from Naples to his own kingdom; and so there was nothing left for Joan and Louis of Taranto to do but to dispossess him at the sword’s point. Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Acciajuoli—and, in perhaps even greater measure, to the misrule of the Hungarian himself—matters were now ripe for an armed intervention in Naples, where every strong place had surrendered to the enemy, with the glorious exception of the castle of Melfi, of which Lorenzo Acciajuoli, the son of Nicholas, was the commander. From Melfi, where he had conferred with his son, Nicholas Acciajuoli travelled throughout the country, crying the Queen’s acquittal and the confirmation of her union with Louis of Taranto and proclaiming far and wide the great indulgences and blessings promised by the Pope to all who should submit themselves to their lawful rulers, Queen Joan and her consort, King Louis. And, finding himself everywhere greeted with tumultuous declamations of loyalty towards Joan and of detestation of the Hungarian, Acciajuoli returned to the Queen at Avignon with the news that she might safely entrust her cause to her own people.

On September 10, 1348, she left Provence for Naples, accompanied by her husband and her sister and the counsellors, Acciajuoli and Spinelli. But, when they came to the shores of Naples, they could not land in the harbour because all the castles on that side of the city were occupied by the Hungarians, so that they had to go on to where the mouth of the classic river, Sebeto, was crossed by a bridge, the Ponte Guiscardo; thence they were escorted by the nobles and townspeople to the Palazzo Adjutorio by the Porta Capuana, where they proceeded to establish themselves and their Court.

For many months the fortunes of war inclined first to one side and then to the other. It began by Nicholas Acciajuoli’s blockading the Hungarians in their strongholds, whilst Louis of Taranto employed his energies in reducing various of the rebellious barons to allegiance. Little by little, he extended his operations from the city of Naples into the furthest confines of the kingdom; until, by dint of perseverance, he had contrived to make himself, as it appeared, master of it. But suddenly his good-fortune deserted him, owing to his abandonment by one of the King of Hungary’s mercenaries whom Louis had seduced to the side of the Queen by heavy bribes. This was that Werner who styled himself “the enemy of God,” and who now resold himself to the Hungarian, to whose Vicar-General, Conrad Wolf (Conrado Lupo, as the chronicler makes it), he opened the gates of Benevento.

The consequence of Werner’s treachery was to force Louis of Taranto to fall back upon Naples; when the King of Hungary, on learning of it, made all speed to rejoin his troops—he had fled from Italy for a while to escape an epidemic of the plague—before Aversa, bringing with him heavy reinforcements. Landing at Manfredonia, he advanced, practically unopposed, so swiftly as to take his adversary completely by surprise. Having made himself master of the fortresses of Trani, Canosa, and Salerno in rapid succession, thus hemming in Louis of Taranto on the east and on the south, he proceeded to lay siege to Aversa on the north of Naples. This new move threatened disaster to Joan and her husband, who, being forced to remain on the defensive in Naples, were obliged to witness the spectacle of as gallant a resistance as was ever made by any beleaguered garrison; and that without being able to come in any way to the assistance of Pignatelli, the commandant of the place, and his heroic soldiers, who only numbered about five hundred men, as against some seventeen thousand of the enemy’s forces. During three months Pignatelli flung back the King of Hungary’s attacks upon the town; until finally, despairing of taking Aversa by assault, the Hungarian resolved to reduce it by starvation.

Gradually the circumstances of the little garrison became hopeless; so that Pignatelli was confronted with the alternative of surrender or of death either by starvation or in a last grapple with the besiegers. To add to the general distress, a fleet of vessels bringing reinforcements to Queen Joan from Provence under the leadership of Renaud des Baux—some relation this, I fancy, of that terrible Chief Justice, the Count of Monte Scaglioso—and upon the timely arrival of which all depended, was delayed by contrary winds so that none could say where it was or whether it would ever arrive at all.

Under these circumstances, Louis of Taranto, abhorring the thought of allowing the brave Pignatelli and his soldiers to sacrifice themselves to no purpose (seeing that the ultimate surrender of Aversa was inevitable), sent a message to the King of Hungary inviting him to a personal encounter, in the same spirit in which the Emperor Paul Petrovitch sent a similar challenge to King George III of England. Louis of Taranto’s proposal to the Hungarian was simplicity itself: that he of them who should kill the other should be King of Naples and of Jerusalem. To this the King of Hungary consented, with the advice of his counsellors, stipulating only that the combat should take place in the presence of the Emperor of Germany, as CÆsar and sovereign lord of all the princes of the West; or of the King of England, as a friend of both parties; or of the Patriarch of Aquileia, whose pretensions to equality with the Pope the Hungarian appears to have been by way of encouraging in revenge for Clement VI’s decision in favour of Joan.

These proposals, however, came to naught, for in the meanwhile Aversa surrendered to the Hungarians; so that there was no longer any call for him to risk his life for nothing. He had only to close in upon Naples, and the doomed city must at once fall into his hands; it was not more than twelve miles from Aversa to the capital and the Hungarian advance guard under Lupi was soon visible to the Neapolitans at the Porta Capuana; for it was easier for them, being mounted troops, to approach the city from the direction of Poggia than from that of Capodimonte, the more direct but more hilly road to Aversa.

Providentially, it was at this moment that the ships of Renaud des Baux hove in sight of Naples and speedily came to anchor in the port. Now it chanced that Maria of Durazzo with her two children had taken refuge from a possible sack of the city by the Hungarians in the Castel dell’ Uovo, that, as the reader will remember, stands upon a rock surrounded on three sides by the sea and connected with the mainland by a causeway on arches. Both John and Louis, being occupied in the town itself at the time of the fleet’s arrival, and supposing that Maria had already preceded them on board the flagship, remained at their posts until the last, encouraging their people and exhorting them to hold firm against the foe. But the Neapolitans, preferring surrender to possible annihilation, sent out a deputation to the King of Hungary to beg for terms; to the great anger and sorrow of their rightful sovereigns, who only now, when all seemed over, reluctantly sought the shelter of Des Baux’s vessels, off the Castello dell’ Uovo. Here, being now much pressed for time, they embarked on the nearest of the ships and, still in the belief that the Duchess of Durazzo was safe on board that of the Admiral, they gave the signal to depart and sailed out of the harbour followed, as they imagined, by the rest of the fleet; for it was now drawing on to night, and too dark for them to see clearly what was taking place in rear of them.

Not until they reached Gaeta, towards noon of the following day, after fighting their way through a dreadful storm, did they realise that the Admiral’s ship with the Queen’s sister on board was not with the rest of the squadron that now came toiling, ship by ship, at long intervals into the harbour. What had happened to it? Had it sunk or been flung ashore by the waves during the night at some lonely spot upon that inhospitable coast? This was the agonising question that Joan asked of herself and of Louis and of all about them. And none could answer her.

Suddenly, as all hope of her ever again holding her sister in her arms seemed to be on the point of vanishing from before Joan’s eyes, a cry of joy broke from her where she was leaning upon the gunwale of the vessel, her gaze fixed upon the sea and the cloud-scuds to southward. Hastening to her side, Louis saw that a ship in difficulties, a considerable distance from them, was being driven, in spite of persistent “tacking,” towards them in the harbour of Gaeta. Thinking it must be the Admiral, Louis hoisted signals to him, that he should join them; but, to his amazement, no attention was at first paid to his signals; by which I mean to say that Louis had flown the Royal Standard and that the other only continued the more desperately to endeavour to keep out to sea.

Of a sudden, though, the newcomer’s sails were seen to collapse and fall to the deck; and, judging from the way in which she was tossed and rolled about by the waves, albeit without changing her position, the watchers could see that she had cast anchor. Without further delay, Louis, in order to put an end to Joan’s suspense, ordered a boat to be lowered and, together with several of his comrades-in-arms, sprang into it and was rowed out—not without considerable difficulty—to the vessel in the offing.

On drawing alongside, their feelings may more easily be imagined than described at hearing the cries of a woman in distress come to them from out the creaking, storm-tossed galley which was unquestionably that of Des Baux. Moreover, the deck was crowded with sailors, who now called to them to come quickly. Clambering over the side by means of a rope-ladder thrown down by the crew, Louis of Taranto and his comrades rushed towards the Admiral’s quarters at the poop end of the deck, to find his cabin shut and barred, the while the voice of Maria of Durazzo called to them from within, with redoubled energy, to come to her assistance. In an instant they had broken down the door and, surging into the roomy cabin, found themselves in the presence of Maria and of the Admiral, who was endeavouring to stifle her cries and to push her, with the help of his son, Robert des Baux, into a cupboard of the apartment.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Louis of Taranto smote the Admiral with his sword, so that he fell dead, whilst Maria sank on to a couch, her face in her hands to shut out the sight of the killing. But, having slain the Admiral, Louis was content and ordered Robert des Baux to be merely put in irons and taken with them back to the other vessel, where Queen Joan was waiting so feverishly to learn if her sister were alive and on board or not. And when Maria at last rejoined the Queen she told her how, having once taken her away from the Castel dell’ Uovo on his flagship, the Admiral, instead of sailing in the wake of the rest of the fleet, had shaped his course for Marseilles; how he had tried to compel her to marry his son, and how at length the sailors, learning of it, and angered at his attempt to make the coast of France instead of following the Queen, had broken into mutiny on coming within sight of the ships at Gaeta.

It would seem that the younger Des Baux was less to blame in the affair than his father. At any rate, there is no evidence to show that he shared the latter’s fate; although this may well have been owing to the fact that, soon after Louis of Taranto’s return with her sister to the Queen, news was brought to them from Naples of a sudden change in the situation there. It appeared that, soon after the departure of the Queen and her husband from the city, the answer of the King of Hungary to the deputies sent out to surrender the city to him was received and made known to the inhabitants. But of such a nature was it, so atrociously haughty and so sinister withal, that, rather than submit themselves to so despotic and so resentful a Prince, the unhappy Neapolitans declared their intention of dying with arms in their hands in the defence of their families and their homes. No sooner did the Hungarians learn of this resolve than a desperate attack was delivered by them upon the Porta Capuana, which they succeeded in penetrating, and compelled the defenders to fall back towards the harbour and the fortresses in the southern quarter of the city.

As the Hungarians were, however, advancing through the black, deserted streets upon the Castel Nuovo in the hope of capturing at least a portion of the royal family, the amazing rashness of their venturing thus under cover of night into the midst of an hostile, well-armed, and well-barricaded populace suddenly became patent to the Neapolitans; as well as the extreme exhaustion of the Hungarian men and horses. No sooner had the Neapolitans recognised their opportunity than they seized it, flinging themselves upon their enemies, whom they now beat back to the Porta Capuana and out through it into the country beyond, amidst great slaughter and an indescribable confusion, taking no prisoners but killing all who fell into their hands.

This was practically the end of that war of the Hungarians against Queen Joan and Louis of Taranto, after whom messengers were despatched that night to Gaeta, asking them to return and to lead their subjects once more against the foreigners, who, said the message, had been beaten back from Naples and were in full retreat upon their former eastern base about Benevento. Soon after the return to Naples of Joan and Louis, however, a truce for twelve months was arranged between them and the Hungarian, who was now more willing to listen to reason than he had been before; so that when the Pope was invited by Joan to mediate between them, he welcomed the suggestion thankfully enough. Pope Clement’s first proposal, though, that Joan should make the King of Hungary the heir to her crown, and so put her sister Maria out of the succession, Joan refused even to contemplate; and then the Pope suggested that she should pay a lump sum in cash to the King of Hungary as ransom for all the fortresses that he still held in his hands in the Kingdom of Naples; in return for which he was to abandon all further claims upon and to the Crown.

To this Joan agreed willingly; but, when the proposal was made known to the King of Hungary, he said: “It is not for money or lands that I have fought, but for vengeance on my brother’s murderers. But now my work is done; the angry shades are satisfied, and I am going back to my own country.” Nor would he accept so much as a single piece of money for all the strong places and the power that were still his in the Kingdom of Naples; but gave all over, undefiled by money, to Joan, and then departed as he had come, triumphant and unapproachable.

After Louis of Hungary had gone away, there came a legate from the Pope to crown Louis of Taranto as King of Naples and to solemnly ratify once more his marriage with the Queen. All of which was carried out on May 25, 1351, and the next three days, with an accompaniment of much feasting and tourneys; also a general amnesty was issued to all who had in any way taken part against their lawful sovereigns in the late wars. The ecclesiastical ceremonies took place in the Chapel of Justice built by Charles II, to which Joan afterwards added the Church called “Chiesa dell’ Incoronata,” in memory of her wedding to Louis of Taranto. Among the frescoes in the Church are portraits of Joan and of Louis and of the infant son of the Duke of Calabria, all painted by Roberto di Oderisio or, as some say, by his master, the great Giotto himself. It is recorded that the festivities passed off to the satisfaction of all and were only marred by a single untoward event. For it happened that, as King Louis was riding back from his coronation beside the Queen, and was passing through the Porta Petruccia towards the Castel Nuovo, a party of ladies threw down upon him an immense quantity of flowers, making his horse rear up and break the rein. To save himself, lest it should fall and crush him, the King sprang out of the saddle; but in doing so he loosened the crown so that it fell from his head into the roadway and was broken into three pieces. And that same day there fell sick and died his infant daughter by Joan. However, the King forbade that the festivities should be spoiled by mourning; and so they were carried to their conclusion. And in memory of his coronation King Louis instituted the Order of the Knot.

The short rest of his life, though, was full of wars and disquiet and disillusionment, for he was constantly employed in repressing rebellion and in checking the independent tendencies of his barons. Among the most formidable of the disturbers of his peace was Louis of Durazzo, brother of that evil Charles who had perished by order of the King of Hungary at Aversa. Louis of Durazzo was defeated, however, and ended his days in the Castello dell’ Uovo. But he left behind him a son, Charles, whose life was spared in answer to the pleading of Joan, who took charge of him and loaded him with kindnesses and married him to her niece, Margaret, the daughter of Maria of Durazzo and of that other Charles.

Worn out by incessant campaigning, King Louis fell victim to a malarial fever on June 5, 1362, in the forty-third year of his age.

Soon afterwards Joan married James of Aragon, King of Minorca, who had first fallen in love with her at Avignon, where the history of his fortunes and adventures, combined with the melancholy handsomeness of him, had made a deep impression both upon Joan and upon her sister. For James of Aragon had spent no less than thirteen years of his life as a prisoner in an iron cage, and was even said to have been reduced to the necessity of begging his bread. No sooner was he married to Joan than he devoted himself to making war upon Pedro the Cruel, the usurper of his throne, and died near Navarre, in 1375.

After King James’ demise, Joan married again, as her fourth husband, Duke Otho of Brunswick; by now, having no children alive of her own, she adopted as her successor Charles of Durazzo, her nephew by marriage, whose life she had saved.

During the next few years Joan, as the result of a quarrel with Pope Urban VI (who as Bartolomeo Prignani had been formerly one of her own subjects), gave her support to the anti-Pope, Clement VII, whom she sheltered in the Castello dell’ Uovo. For this she was promptly excommunicated, being at the same time declared deposed from the throne, whilst her subjects were formally relieved of their allegiance to her. The Crown of Naples was bestowed by the Holy Father upon Charles of Durazzo, whom Joan had already proclaimed her successor and who now showed his gratitude in the following remarkable manner: Hastily borrowing an army from his great uncle, old King Louis of Hungary, who was still alive, Charles set out for Naples, where his wife and their two children were even then living as honoured guests and relatives under Joan’s roof. So soon as she learned of this, Joan sent word to Louis of Anjou, brother of the King of France, to say that she appointed him her successor instead of Charles and begging him to come to her aid against the latter.

On the approach of Charles’ army, Joan sent out his wife and children to plead with him that he would treat her generously; but, instead of doing so, Charles laid siege to Joan in the Castel Nuovo; her husband, Duke Otho, he had blockaded behind him in the castle of Aversa. At length, though, the German fought his way through the containing force before Aversa and fell upon Charles of Durazzo’s flank and rear guard by way of Piedigrotta. Long the unequal combat raged, but at last when Otho himself, after being wounded and having broken his sword, and, thanks to his leading his men and becoming separated from them in the midst of the enemy, had been taken prisoner, the little remnant of his followers, surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, had no choice but to surrender. Whereupon, Charles of Durazzo redoubled his efforts against the Castel Nuovo and, shortly afterwards, succeeded in taking it; after which he wrote to the King of Hungary to say that the Queen of Naples was his prisoner and asking that monarch’s good pleasure in regard to her.

Some months now passed, during which Otho of Brunswick, on promising to quit Neapolitan territory for ever, was given his liberty; and the French army of Louis of Anjou compelled to abandon its march upon Naples. At the end of that time an answer was received from the King of Hungary, commanding that Joan should be put to death as a last propitiatory sacrifice to his murdered brother.

Since the taking of Naples the Queen had been sent for safekeeping to the castle of Muro in Calabria.

On the 5th of May, 1385, as she was praying in her room there, that looked out over the ravine and the town below, the door was opened very stealthily, so that the Queen thought it was one of her maids and did not turn her head to look at the intruder. Nor did she ever, in all probability, see who it was that had entered; for, in the same moment, a cord was slipped over her head and swiftly drawn tight about her throat as only a man of strong hands could draw it; so that she died instantly, her unfinished prayer upon her lips. And the four Hungarian soldiers, who had seen her die, left her lying there and went away quietly to report to their commanding officer that the thing was done as it had been ordered. And the cord with which they had done it was the same with which Andrew of Hungary had been strangled at Aversa; so, at least, it is said.