In the meantime the King of Hungary had declined to accede to the Pope’s instance that he should retire from Naples to his own kingdom; and so there was nothing left for Joan and Louis of Taranto to do but to dispossess him at the sword’s point. Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Acciajuoli—and, in perhaps even greater measure, to the misrule of the Hungarian himself—matters were now ripe for an armed intervention in Naples, where every strong place had surrendered to the enemy, with the glorious exception of the castle of Melfi, of which Lorenzo Acciajuoli, the son of Nicholas, was the commander. From Melfi, where he had conferred with his son, Nicholas Acciajuoli travelled throughout the country, crying the Queen’s acquittal and the confirmation of her union with Louis of Taranto, and proclaiming far and wide the great indulgences and blessings promised by the Pope to all who should submit themselves to their lawful rulers, Queen Joan and her consort, King Louis. And, finding himself everywhere greeted with tumultuous declamations of loyalty towards Joan, and of detestation of the Hungarian, Acciajuoli returned to the Queen at Avignon with the news that she might safely entrust her cause to her own people. On September 10, 1348, she left Provence for Naples, accompanied by her husband and her sister and the counsellors Acciajuoli and Spinelli. But when they came to the shores of Naples they could not land in the harbour because all the castles on that side of the city were occupied by the Hungarians, so that they had to go on to where the mouth of the classic river Sebeto was crossed by a bridge, the Ponte Guiscardo; thence they were escorted by the nobles and townspeople to the Palazzo Adjutorio by the Porta Capuana, where they proceeded to establish themselves and their Court. For many months the fortunes of war inclined first to one side and then to the other. It began by Nicholas Acciajuoli’s blockading the Hungarians in their strongholds, whilst Louis of Taranto employed his energies in reducing various of the rebellious barons to allegiance. Little by little he extended his operations from the city of Naples into the farthest confines of the kingdom; until, by dint of perseverance, he had contrived to make himself, as it appeared, master of it. But suddenly his good fortune deserted him, owing to his abandonment by one of the King of Hungary’s mercenaries whom Louis had seduced to the side of the Queen by heavy bribes. This was that Werner who styled himself “the enemy of God,” and who now resold himself to the Hungarian, to whose Vicar-General, Conrad Wolf (Conrado Lupo, as the chronicler makes it), he opened the gates of Benevento.