Queen Isabelle landed at Naples in due course, and became the object of an extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm. Hailed as Queen, and with King René’s name ever reverberating from loyal lip to loyal lip, she made no mistake, she had no illusions, for she faced the fact at once that there were other claimants for the vacant throne and the uneasy crown. The King of Aragon she knew as a traditional rival, and with him she had to deal most seriously and methodically. He, indeed, directly news of the Queen’s death reached him, had seized the Castle of Gaeta, and thence had issued a proclamation claiming the vacant throne. The Duke of Sessa, the husband of Queen Giovanna’s favourite confidante, Duchess Sancia, claimed the throne as representing,--in descent from Robert, Count of Avellino, her second husband,--Maria of Calabria-Durazzo, sister of Queen Giovanna I. The Prince of Taranto, grand-nephew of Giovanna I.’s third husband and of her sister Maria’s third spouse, the Emperor of Constantinople, entered his claims to the whole kingdom. He pretended also that King Louis III., René’s brother, had before his death at Cosenza made him his heir of all Calabria. From a distant kingdom came still another claimant. The King of Hungary, Andrew, first consort of Giovanna I., had by her a son, it was affirmed, but who it was alleged had died in infancy. This child, it was maintained, was living, now grown to man’s estate. The child who died, and was buried as the Queen’s son, was the son of a servant in the royal suite, whilst the young Prince was removed from his mother’s care and carried off to Hungary, and thus reared. Isabelle brushed all these claims aside,--save that of Alfonso, who alone of the pretenders to the crown was prepared to take up, as he had done for years, the rights of Aragon in Naples, by force of arms. Everywhere throughout the kingdom the Anjou dynasty was popular; the country people swore by Louis III., and acclaimed the proclamation of René. The army alone was disaffected, and was corrupted by Spanish gold. The royal treasury at Naples was empty, the pay of the loyal troops was in arrears; corruption and fraud filled every department of State. The country gentry and peasantry were ruined; they had been taxed and supertaxed by the minions of Queen Giovanna II. From Provence and Anjou not much monetary help could be expected, and Lorraine and Bar were impoverished. All France was suffering from the wreck of the Hundred Years’ War. René’s ransom required almost every penny Yolande, Isabelle, and Marguerite, could raise by love and threat. What could be done? [Illustration: GUARINI DA VERONA PRESENTING HIS TRANSLATION OF STRABO’S WORK ON GEOGRAPHY TO KING RENÉ From a Miniature by King René. Albi Library _To face page 246_]