For seventy years the papal court had been at Avignon, and the Romans were sore that the money accruing from the influx of pilgrims, litigants, and suitors to the Pope should flow into the pockets of the Avignonese instead of their own. Gregory IX. had come to Rome, urged thereto by S. Catherine of Siena; and there he died in 1378. Thereupon the Romans, armed and furious, surrounded the conclave of the Cardinals, shouting for a Roman Pope. At the time there were in Rome sixteen Cardinals; eleven were French, four Italian, and one Spanish. Intimidated by the menaces of the populace, quaking for their lives, the Cardinals elected the Archbishop of Bari, a narrow-minded man, of low birth, coarse manners, no tact, and, as proved eventually, of remorseless cruelty. He showed at once of what stuff he was made by insulting the Cardinals, and by threats of swamping the college with Italian creations. The Cardinals fled to Anagni, where they issued a declaration that the election was void, as it had been made under compulsion, and that their lives had been threatened. However, the newly-elected Pope assumed the name of Urban VI. As Archbishop of Bari he had been the subject of Joanna, and she hailed his elevation, and sent him shiploads of fruit and wines, and the more solid gift of 20,000 florins. Her husband, Otho of Brunswick, went to Rome to pay his personal homage. But his reception was cold and repellent, and he retired in disgust. Only four Cardinals adhered to Pope Urban. The Cardinals at Anagni proceeded to elect Robert, Bishop of Geneva, to the papal throne, and he assumed the title of Clement VII. Joanna had sent a deputation to Urban, headed by her grand chancellor, Spinelli. In public, Urban treated the deputation with a torrent of abuse, saying that he would eject the queen from her throne, and shut her up in a cloister; aye, and would put in her place a man capable of governing well. Spinelli replied that the people were content with their legitimate sovereign; that she was not fit for a cloister; and that if force were used she would find arms ready to defend her. Urban had thrown down the gauntlet. Joanna, furious at the insult, at once acknowledged Clement as Pope. At first the rival Popes hurled ecclesiastical thunders at each other; each denounced his rival as Antichrist, and each excommunicated his rival’s adherents. France, Spain, Scotland, the Two Sicilies, acknowledged Clement; Germany, Hungary, and England, and the major part of Italy, recognised Urban. All the fury of this latter was now turned against Joanna, and he sent a deputation to Hungary to incite Charles of Durazzo to take up arms against her. Charles was not willing to do so. He knew that now Joanna was an old woman, and most unlikely to have children, and that in a few years inevitably the crown would fall to him.