Another heroine of this war was Jane de Belleville. Her husband, Oliver, Lord of Clisson, was accused of holding secret intelligence with the English; and in 1343 Philip de Valois, without waiting till the evidence should be well substantiated, caused him to be decapitated. The widow, burning for revenge, sold her jewels, and with the proceeds equipped three vessels. After sending her son, a lad of twelve, to England, to ensure his safety, Jane cruised about the coast of Normandy, attacking every French ship which came in her way, and ravaging the country for a mile or so inland. This female corsair was frequently seen, with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other, amidst the smoking ruins of a castle, or the smouldering heaps of a destroyed village, directing with inhuman exultation the ferocious cruelties suggested by her thirst for vengeance. * * * * * While King Edward and Philip de Valois were devastating France in their contests for the crown, the Romagna was the scene of a fierce struggle between the Pope, the Visconti, and the various nobles and cities of Italy. After having lost a great part of his territories, Innocent II. reconquered the States of the Church by means of the Cardinal Legate Egidius Albornez. But the Papal governors were so tyrannical that the nobles of the Romagna, with few exceptions, fought desperately to maintain their independence. Francesco d'Ordelaffi, lord of Forli, was the last to give way. He was ably seconded in his brave resistance by Marzia, his wife, a member of the house of Ubaldini. While he was defending Forli he entrusted the town of Cesena to his wife; and in the beginning of 1357 the husband and wife separated. Marzia took up her station in Cesena, with a garrison of two hundred knights and an equal number of common soldiers. She was accompanied by her son and daughter, and by Sgariglino de Petragudula, the wise counsellor of the Ordelaffi family. The town was soon invested by a force ten times as numerous as the garrison. At the end of April some terrified burgesses opened the gates of the lower town. But Marzia, recollecting the words of her husband, who declared that unless the Pope offered him honourable terms he would sustain a siege in every one of his castles, that when they were all taken he would defend Forli, the walls, the streets, his own palace, even to the last tower of his palace, before surrendering his rights, retreated to the upper town with those soldiers and townspeople who remained faithful. Sgariglino having proved to be a traitor, she caused him to be executed; his reeking head was flung from the battlements amongst the besiegers.