But at this juncture, Joanna made a fatal mistake. Hearing of what the
Pope had done, and supposing that Charles would at once comply with his
urgency, she declared that she disinherited Charles, and bequeathed
all her rights to the Two Sicilies and to Provence to Louis of Anjou,
second son of King John of France.
Thereupon Charles hesitated no longer. He raised an army in Hungary,
and prepared to invade Neapolitan territories. Pope Urban hired the
services of a ruffian captain of a Free Company, Alberic Barbiano, to
assist. Urban was not, however, prepared to support Charles without
getting some advantage out of him, and he bargained with him that the
Principality of Capua should be given to his nephew, Butillo Prignano.
When Charles arrived in Rome, Urban decreed the deposition of Joanna,
and invested Charles with the sovereignty, and himself crowned him. In
the meantime Urban was busy in forming a party in Naples against the
Queen, to whom Clement had fled. Among the twenty-six Cardinals whom
he created in one day were several Neapolitans of the highest families
and dignities in the kingdom. He degraded the Archbishop of Naples,
and appointed in his room Bozzato, a man of influence and of powerful
connexions in the city. By this means he secured a faction in Naples,
opposed to Joanna and to her Pope. The new Archbishop set himself at
the head of the opposition. Clement was so alarmed for his safety that
he embarked, escaped to Provence, and retreated to Avignon.
The Hungarian and Papal forces marched into the kingdom of Naples, and
met with no organised resistance. Joanna was besieged in the Castel
Nuovo, and Otho of Brunswick was captured in a sortie. Joanna in vain
awaited help from the Duke of Anjou, and was forced by famine to
surrender. She was confined in Muro, and at first was well treated, as
Charles hoped that she would revoke her will in his favour. But when
he saw that she was resolved not to do this, he sent to ask the King
of Hungary what was to be done with her. The answer was that the same
measure was to be meted out to her that had been measured to Andrew;
and she was either strangled whilst at her prayers, or smothered under
a feather bed, on May 12th, 1382.
She was buried first at Muro, and then her body was transferred to
Naples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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