A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Joan
JOAN, Queen of Naples,
On the death of Robert of Anjou, king of Naples, in 1343, his kingdom, which was in a flourishing condition, descended to his grand-daughter Joan, who had married his relation, Andrew, brother to Lewis of Anjou, elected king of Hungary; a match which seemed to cement the happiness and prosperity of that house, but proved the source of all its misfortunes. Andrew pretended to reign in his own right; and Joan, though but eighteen years of age, insisted that he should only be considered as the queen's husband. A Franciscan friar, called brother Robert, by whose advice Andrew was wholly governed, lighted up the flames of hatred and discord betwen the royal pair; and the Hungarians, of whom Andrew's court was chiefly composed, excited the jealousy of the Neapolitans, who considered them as barbarians. It was therefore resolved, in a council of the queen's favourites, to put Andrew to death. He was accordingly strangled in his wife's antichamber; and Joan married the prince of Tarentum, who had been publicly accused of the murder of her husband, and was well known to have been concerned in that bloody deed. How strong a presumption of her own guilt!
In the mean time, Lewis, king of Hungary, brother to the murdered Andrew, wrote to Joan, that he would revenge his death on her and her accomplices. He accordingly, in 1348, set out for Naples by the way of Venice and Rome, carrying along with him a black standard, on which was painted the most striking colours of his brother's murder. He ordered a prince of the blood, and one of the accomplices in the regicide, to be beheaded. Joan and her husband fled into Provence, where, finding herself utterly abandoned by her subjects, she waited on pope Clement VI. at Avignon, a city of which she was sovereign as countess of Provence, and which, with its territories, she sold to that pontiff. Here she pleaded her cause in person before the pope, and was acquitted.
Clement's kindness did not stop here. In order to engage the king of Hungary to quit Naples, he proposed that Joan should pay him a sum of money; but, as ambition or avarice had no share in his enterprize, he generously replied, "I am not come hither to sell my brother's blood, but to revenge it!" and, as he had partly effected his purpose, he went away, 1359, though the kingdom of Naples was in his power.
Joan recovered her dominions only to become more wretched; for on the death of Clement, the Italians raised Urban VI. to the pontificate, and the French chose Clement VII. This occasioned a civil war in Italy; but at length Urban prevailed, and Clement, being expelled, retired to Avignon, the former residence of the French pontiffs, and Joan first experienced the effects of the former's vengeance.
This princess had imprudently espoused the cause of Clement; had been four times married, on the death of the prince of Tarentum to the prince of Main, whom she beheaded for having a mistress, and then to Otho of Brunswick, with whom she lived happily; but had no children by any of her husbands; she therefore adopted Charles de Durazzo, the heir to her kingdom, and the only remaining descendant of the house of Anjou in Naples. But Durazzo, unwilling to wait for the crown till her death, associated himself with pope Urban; who crowned him king of Naples, at Rome, in 1380, on condition he should bestow the principality of Capua on his nephew; deposed Joan, and declared her guilty of heresy and high treason.
These steps being taken, the pope and Durazzo marched towards Naples in 1389. The church plate and lands were sold to facilitate the conquest. Joan, mean while, was destitute of both money and troops. In this extremity, she invited to her assistance Lewis of Anjou, brother to Charles V. of France. But Lewis, whom she had adopted in the room of the ungrateful Durazzo, arrived too late to defend his benefactress, or dispute the kingdom with his competitor. The pope and Durazzo entered Naples, after having defeated and taken prisoner Otho, the queen's husband. All resistance appeared vain, she attempted to flee, but fell into the hands of the usurper, who, in order to give colour to his barbarity, declared himself the avenger of the murdered Andrew. Lewis, king of Hungary, was consulted in regard to her fate, and replied, she must suffer the same death she had inflicted on his brother, and Durazzo ordered her to be smothered between two mattresses in 1383. Thus perished the famous Joan, queen of Naples, of no moral virtue, but a woman of magnificence and generosity, a lover of learning, and a patroness of learned men: she was celebrated by Petrarch and Boccace, and her life and catastrophe have a singular resemblance to those of Mary, queen of Scotland.