Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Instantly, moreover, her Hungarian husband and his partisans, Father Robert, the Dominican Friar, together with divers Hungarian nobles and Giovanni Pipino, Count of Altamura, one of the most powerful lords of the kingdom and the most hated by the people, held counsel among themselves as to how they might best defeat the projects of the Queen’s party. This, they decided, could only be done by acquainting King Andrew’s mother, Elizabeth of Poland, and his brother, King Louis of Hungary, with the terms of King Robert’s last will, and of how a conspiracy had been set on foot to deprive King Andrew of his rightful share in the government of Naples. Also, a complaint in the same terms was to be sent to the Pope at Avignon, and a request made of the Holy Father that he would issue a Bull of coronation on King Andrew’s behalf, thereby duly confirming him in his rights of, at least, equal sovereignty with Joan, his wife. At the same time, Father Robert tried to impress upon Andrew the advisability of coming as soon as possible to some kind of understanding upon the subject with Joan herself before her favourites should have alienated her affections entirely from him.

These favourites whom the good monk had in mind were some of them men and some of them women. Of the men—Robert of Cabano, Louis of Taranto, and Bertrand of Artois—we have already seen something; of the women we have as yet made acquaintance with only two—Filippa Cabano, the mother of Robert the half-breed, and formerly governess to the Princesses Joan and Mary; and the Empress of Constantinople, their aunt and the mother of Louis of Taranto and his brothers. Besides Donna Filippa and the Empress, however, there were three others who had influence over Joan—the Countesses of Terlizzi and Morcone, daughters of Donna Filippa, and, lastly and supremely, a young and lovely girl of sixteen, known simply as “Cancia,” who occupied, officially, the position of tiring-woman to the young Queen.

Cancia had been put into this employment by her protectress, Donna Filippa, in order that, by her wiles and companionship, she might corrupt the spirit of Joan and render her the more averse to the remonstrances of Father Robert, the Dominican, on behalf of Andrew of Hungary, his pupil; and so bring her more and more under the influence of her lover, Robert of Cabano, Filippa’s own son. And Cancia had played her part so effectually that, it is said, Joan loved her more even than she did her own sister, Princess Mary.

And, as it happened, Donna Filippa was beginning to suspect that, at last, Joan was tiring of her intrigue with Robert, and that she might at any moment turn elsewhere for the love denied her by her rightful husband—for life without love was insupportable to Joan’s passionately affectionate nature.

Old King Robert—Robert the Wise, as he is commonly styled—was buried behind the high altar in the Church of Santa Chiara that he had built himself; where his splendid Gothic tomb may be seen to this day, having on it his likeness both as King and as Franciscan monk; for he was a Tertiary of Franciscans and died, as becomes one, in their uniform. In the same Church are to be found the tombs, too, of many of the actors in the tragedy of Queen Joan; of her father and mother and her little sister Maria; and of Maria’s children by three successive husbands, together with the graves of Charles of Durazzo and of Raimondo Cabano, the Seneschal. And here, in passing, I would like to say that there are no Churches in the whole world that can compare with the old Churches of the city of Naples for the number and the beauty and the poignant interest of the tombs that these contain.

Some days after King Robert’s burial in Santa Chiara, Joan was approached by Filippa Cabano with a request that she would create Filippa’s son, Robert, Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom in succession to his father, who was but shortly deceased; also, that he might receive the title of Count of Eboli. To both these outrageous demands the young Queen at first turned a deaf ear; not until Filippa—who was accompanied by Robert in person—threatened to make known to all the world the fact of Joan’s new intrigue with Bertrand d’Artois did the young Queen surrender to her demands. It would seem that Filippa had, for some time, suspected the cooling of Joan’s fondness for her son; and so had determined to obtain from her for Robert a commanding and unassailable position in the State.

In that same State of Naples, then, there were already two increasingly definite factions, each with a different aim: the party of the Dominican Father Robert and of the Hungarian nobles, that sought to bring about the supremacy of King Andrew and the subjugation of Queen Joan; and the party of Donna Filippa, with their programme of “Naples for the Neapolitans”—that is, firstly, of securing sole sovereignty for the Queen, and, secondly, of making the Queen herself the puppet of their own will and the instrument of their aggrandisement.

And round about these openly contending factions there prowled, watchful and ruthless, Charles of Durazzo, seeking only the opportunity to make himself master of the situation. There were no lengths to which Duke Charles was not prepared to go in order to attain his aim and to satisfy the ambition that devoured him; no crime, however frightful, from the contemplation of which he shrank as a means to his end. Cost what it might, he would be King of Naples and of Jerusalem. The chroniclers describe him as a pale man with close-cropped hair and a thick beard; and, when agitated, he had a trick of frowning. Charles of Durazzo had felt greatly aggrieved at the bestowal of Joan’s hand in marriage upon Andrew of Hungary; for he, Charles, had been the nearest in blood of all King Robert’s nephews to the throne, and to him, as such, Joan ought to have been given. But never for an instant had he allowed so much as a glimpse of his disappointment to be seen by any one; never once had he suffered a breath of complaint to escape him.

Nevertheless, his resolve was only the stronger for the iron self-discipline of the man; and, now that Joan was Queen, the hour was come for him to try the first of the two alternatives by which he was to achieve his object. He was still a bachelor, and Joan had found favour in his eyes by reason of her loveliness; therefore, before having recourse to the other expedient that he had laid out for himself in case of need, Charles had determined to attempt the enlistment of Joan’s coöperation in his designs.

With this object he obtained a private audience of the Queen, and straightway proceeded to lay siege to her sympathies by every kind of flattery and the most skilful hints of the dangers that threatened her from the side of ungrateful and grasping favourites. Though he named no names, yet Joan understood only too well whom he meant and could not help evincing signs both of her comprehension and of her agreement with him. From that he went on to speak more particularly of the popular rejoicing at her succession to the throne; and, finally, of the universal regret that she should be compelled by an unkind fate to share that throne with one in every way unworthy both of herself and of it.