So that Charles of Durazzo was now the husband—and it need hardly be said, the master—of the thirteen-year-old heir to the throne. And when, after curbing the useless rage in her heart, Joan summoned the pair to receive her congratulations, she realised her folly in quarrelling with that all-daring and remorseless man; also, she understood that nothing short of the throne itself—let the price be what it might—would ever satisfy his lust of power and glory and hate.
Thenceforth, the temptation of Joan to be, in very truth, at once the real ruler of her own dominions and, at the same time, the arbiter of her own destiny, increased and grew to terrific powers; the desire to satisfy her wishes absolutely in everything became a kind of diabolical possession, sweeping away every consideration of virtue and of mere worldly prudence; save only when, in rare intervals of reaction, she would fall upon her knees in the solitude of her chamber, her face in her hands, sobbing as though her heart would break with the horror of her situation.
CHAPTER XII A MEDIÆVAL NIGHTMARE
Pact Between Charles and Andrew of Hungary—Joan’s Homage to the Papal Legate—Andrew Ignored—Arrival of Andrew’s Mother—Andrew Upheld by the Pope—His Reprisals—“The Man Must Die”—The Queen’s Conspiracy—Last Meeting of Charles and Andrew—The Hunting Expedition—The Banquet in the Monastery—The Murder—Tempest Breaks Over Joan’s Head—An Evil Blow at Charles—Trial of Andrew’s Murderers—A Nightmare of Cruelty and Fear.
To judge from the sequence of events, it would appear almost certain that, in his amazing marriage with Princess Maria, Charles of Durazzo must have had the assistance—or, at least, the tacit approval—of Andrew of Hungary; and that, in return for this, Charles had promised Andrew that he would take his part and support him against the faction of the Queen. Certain it is, at all events, that, immediately after the marriage of Charles and Maria, the party of Andrew, his Hungarian barons and soldiers, redoubled in arrogance towards the Neapolitans, and their excesses of violence and rapine which, erstwhile, had been subjected to an intermittent restraint, now became such as to evoke not only complaints, but threats as well on the part of the unfortunate people. Andrew himself, however, took no notice of such protests, but appeared, rather, to approve the outrages committed by his underlings.
And as certain was it in the opinion of his enemies that the time was come when they might strike him with propriety as well as with impunity.
On August 31, 1344, Queen Joan came, surrounded by her friends, to the Church of Santa Chiara, there to do homage for her crown to the Papal legate, Cardinal San Martino de Monti; for the kingdom of Naples, having been bestowed by the Pope upon the House of Anjou after the deposition by them of that of the Hohenstaufen, was considered as a fief of the Church.
By this ceremony the claims of Andrew of Hungary to a share in the throne were formally ignored, and the single sovereignty ceremoniously confirmed to Joan; for her husband was in no way admitted to join with her in the act of homage, nor was there any reference to him by word or deed from first to last; thereafter, his position in the realm was that of its first subject and nothing more. In fact, he was simply the Prince Consort of Naples. During the ceremony—for he, like Joan, had come to it with a numerous armed retinue—the followers of the husband and wife not only kept up a brisk exchange of threats, but had actually to be prevented by repeated energetic commands from drawing their swords then and there. When it was over, and Andrew had returned to the Castel Nuovo, his heart on fire with rage and humiliation and disappointment, his first act was to despatch a message to his mother, Elizabeth of Poland, informing her of his resolution to depart forthwith from the country which offered him nothing but deception and betrayal.
Many months passed away, however, without either his carrying out his avowed intention or any answer reaching him from his mother; for, had he meant what he said in the letter, the letter would never have been written at all; but he would have gone himself instead of sending it. So he had hesitated in his choice of a course of action; and, hesitating, was lost.