The political separation of the island and continent of Sicily was now complete, but none foresaw its long duration. The period immediately succeeding the death of Charles of Anjou was one continuous struggle between Naples and Palermo, the former striving to regain lost supremacy, the latter to retain conquered independence. For a moment the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, torn in twain by a great popular movement, was on the point of reuniting; the great result obtained by the Sicilian Vespers seemed about to be lost, and the Vespers themselves to lose their rank of revolution, and subside into the vulgar category of revolts and insurrections. Strange to say, the foreign dynasty that had profited by the successful rebellion, was itself on the eve of destroying the work of its partisans. After the ephemeral reign of Alphonso III. King of Arragon, eldest son and successor of Don Pedro, Don Jaime, second son of this Prince, united upon his head the crowns of Sicily and Arragon. The will of the two deceased kings had been to keep these crowns separate. Don Pedro verbally, Don Alphonso by a written will, had called the Infante Frederick, son of one and brother of the other, to reign in Sicily so soon as Don Jaime should take possession of the hereditary sceptre of Arragon and Catalonia. Jaime disregarded their wishes. He kept Sicily, not for himself, but to restore it to the enemies of his family, to his prisoner, now chief of the house of Anjou, agreeably to a secret treaty they had entered into during the captivity of Charles II. If M. de St Priest is correct in placing the first negotiation of this treaty so far back as the summer of 1284, soon after the action in which Charles lost his liberty, it is difficult to understand what could then have been Don Jaime's motives. His father and elder brother dead, it is more easy to explain them. We must remember that before falling into the hands of the terrible Ruggiero de Lauria, Charles, then Prince of Salerno, commissioned by the King of Naples to make concessions to his subjects, had proclaimed a political reform, under the auspices of Martin IV. After the death of this Pope, his successor Honorius, also a declared partisan of the house of Anjou, extended still further these political privileges, and the convention known in the history of Naples as the Statutes of Honorius (Capitoli d'Onorio) there long had the force of law. In view of these privileges, imposed by papacy, and conceded by the dynasty whose despotism had driven Sicily to revolt, the dynasty established by that revolt was compelled to bid higher for popular approbation. The rival royalties began a dangerous race in the path of reform. The Arragonese could not allow the Angevine to surpass him in generosity. Don Jaime saw himself compelled to make such concessions to the clergy and aristocracy, that Sicily retained but the mere shadow of a monarchy. The authority awaiting him in Arragon was certainly not more absolute; but there, at