The viceroy, terrified into virtue at these excesses, which the long oppression of his court and his own tyranny had provoked, and finding the insurrection spreading through the provinces, consented to all the demands of Masaniello and his followers. By a treaty which he concluded with the insurgents, he solemnly promised the repeal of all the taxes imposed since the time of Charles V, and engaged that no new duties should thenceforth be levied; he guaranteed the ancient and long-violated privileges of parliament; and he bound himself by oath to an act of oblivion. A short interval of calm was thus gained; but the perfidious viceroy employed it only in gratifying the vanity of Masaniello by caresses and entertainments; until, having caused a potion to be administered to him in his wine at a banquet, he succeeded in unsettling his reason. The demagogue then by his extravagances and cruelties lost the affection of the people; and Arcos easily procured his assassination by some of his own followers.
[1647-1648 A.D.]
The viceroy had no sooner thus deprived the people of their young leader, whose native talents had rendered him truly formidable, than he immediately showed a determination to break all the articles of his compact. But the people, penetrating his treachery, flew again to arms; and the insurrection burst forth in the capital and provinces with more sanguinary fury than before. Again Arcos dissembled; and again the deluded people had laid down their arms; when, on the appearance of a Spanish fleet before Naples, the citadels and shipping suddenly opened a tremendous cannonade on the city; and at the same moment some thousand Spanish infantry disembarked and commenced a general massacre in the streets. The Neapolitans were confounded and panic-stricken at the aggravated perfidy; but they were a hundred times more numerous than the handful of troops which assailed them. When they recovered from their first consternation, they attacked their enemies in every street; and after a frightful carnage on both sides, the Spaniards were driven either into the fortresses or the sea.
After this conflict, the people, who, since the death of Masaniello, had fallen under the influence of Gennaro Annese, a soldier of mean birth, resolved fiercely and fearlessly to throw off the Spanish yoke altogether. It chanced that Henry, duke of Guise, who by maternal descent from the second line of Anjou had some hereditary pretensions to the Neapolitan crown, was at this juncture at Rome on his private business; and to him the insurgents applied, with the offer of constituting him their captain-general. At the same time they resolved to erect Naples into a republic under his presidency; and the duke, a high-spirited prince, hastened to assume a command which opened so many glorious prospects of ambition. The contest with the Spanish viceroy, his fortresses, and squadron, was then resumed with new bloodshed, and with indecisive results. But though the Neapolitans had hailed the name of a republic with rapture, they were, of all people, by their inconsistency and irresolution, least qualified for such a form of government. In this insurrection, they had for some time professed obedience to the king of Spain, while they were resisting his arms; and even now they wavered, and were divided among themselves. On the one hand, the duke de Guise, outraged by their excesses, and grasping perhaps at the establishment of an arbitrary power in his own person, began to exercise an odious authority, and showed himself intolerant of the influence of Annese: on the other, that leader of the people was irritated at finding himself deprived of all command. In his jealousy of Guise, he basely resolved to betray his countrymen to the Spaniards; and in the temporary absence of the duke, who had left the city with a small force to protect the introduction of some supplies, he opened the gates to the enemy (1648 A.D.). When the Spanish troops re-entered the capital the abject multitude received them with loud acclamations; and the duke of Guise himself, in endeavouring to effect his flight, was made prisoner, and sent to Spain. In one of those gloomy Spanish dungeons he was kept a prisoner and mourned for some years the vanity of his ambition.
[1648-1674 A.D.]
Thus, in a few hours, was the Spanish yoke again fixed on the necks of the prostrate Neapolitans; and it was riveted more firmly and grievously than ever. As soon as their submission was secured, almost all the men who had taken a prominent share in the insurrection, and who had been promised pardon, were seized, and under various pretences of their having mediated new troubles, were either publicly or privately executed. The traitor Gennaro Annese himself shared the same fate—a worthy example that neither the faith of oaths, nor the memory of eminent services are securities against the jealousy and vengeance of despotism. That despotism had no longer anything to fear from the degraded people who had returned under its iron sceptre. The miseries of Naples could not increase; but they were not diminished until the death of Charles II and the extinction of the Austrian dynasty of Spain in the last year of the century.
The sister kingdom of Sicily had long shared the lot of Naples, in all the distresses which the tyrannical and impolitic government of Spain could inflict upon the people. The Sicilians were only more fortunate than their continental neighbours, as the inferior wealth and resources of their island rendered them a less inviting prey to the insatiable necessities of Spain, to the drain of her wars, and the rapacity of her ministers. But even in Sicily, which by the excellence of its soil for raising corn seems intended to be the granary of Italy, the Spanish government succeeded in creating artificial dearth and squalid penury; and in the natural seat of abundance, the people were often without bread to eat. Their misery goaded them at length nearly to the commission of the same excesses as those which have just been described at Naples. A few months earlier than the revolt under Masaniello the lower orders rose at Palermo, chose for their leader one Giuseppe d’Alessi, a person of as low condition as the Neapolitan demagogue, and under his orders put their viceroy, the marquis of los Velos, to flight. But this insurrection at Palermo was less serious than that of Naples and, after passing through similar stages, was more easily quelled. The Sicilian viceroy, like Arcos, did not scruple at premeditated violation of the solemnity of oaths. Like him, he swore to grant the people all their demands, and a total amnesty; and yet, after perfidiously obtaining the assassination of the popular leader, he caused the inhabitants to be slaughtered in the streets, their chiefs to be hanged, and the burdens which he had been forced to remove to be laid on again.
This detestable admixture of perfidy and sanguinary violence bent the spirit of the Palermitans to the yoke, and Sicily relapsed into the tameness of suffering for above twenty-seven years; until this tranquillity was broken, during the general war in Europe, which preceded the Treaty of Nimeguen, by a new and more dangerous insurrection. The city of Messina had, until this epoch, in some measure enjoyed a republican constitution and was governed by a senate of its own, under the presidency only of a Spanish lieutenant, with very limited powers. This freedom of the city had insured its prosperity: its population amounted to sixty thousand souls, its commerce flourished, and its wealth rivalled the dreams of avarice. The Neapolitan historian asserts that the privileges of the people had rendered them insolent; but there is more reason to believe that the Spanish government looked with a jealous and unfriendly eye upon a happy independence, which was calculated to fill their other Sicilian subjects with bitter repinings at the gloomy contrast of their own wretched slavery. Several differences with successive viceroys regarding their privileges had inspired the citizens of Messina with discontent; and at length they rose in open rebellion against their Spanish governor, Don Diego de Soria, and expelled him from the city (1674 A.D.). Despairing of defending their rights, without assistance, against the whole power of the Spanish monarchy, they had then recourse to Louis XIV, and tempted him with the offer of the sovereignty of their city, and the eventual union of their whole island with the French dominions. Louis eagerly closed with a proposal, which opened at least an advantageous diversion in his war against Spain. He was proclaimed king of Sicily at Messina, and immediately despatched a small squadron to take possession of the city in his name.
[1674-1679 A.D.]