A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Joanna, of Naples
JOANNA,
Of Naples, daughter of Robert, King of Naples, of the Anjou dynasty, succeeded her father in 1343. She was then sixteen, handsome and accomplished. She had been for some time married to her cousin Andreas of Hungary; but this union was not a happy one. Andreas claimed to be king and to share his wife's authority, which, by her father's will, had been left solely to her. The conduct of Andreas, and his haughty manners, offended the Neapolitan nobility, and his Hungarian guards excited their jealousy. A conspiracy was formed by the nobles, and one night while the court was at Aversa, Andreas was strangled, and his body thrown out of a window of the castle.
Joanna went immediately to Naples, and thence issued orders for the apprehension of the murderers. Many persons were put to a cruel death as accessaries, but public opinion still implicated the queen in the murder. The same year Joanna married her cousin Louis, Prince of Tarentum. Soon after Louis, King of Hungary, the brother of Andreas, came with an army to avenge his brother's death. He defeated the queen's troops, and entered Naples. Joanna then took refuge in her hereditary principality of Provence. She soon repaired to Avignon, and, before Pope Clement the Sixth, protested her innocence and demanded a trial. She was tried and acquitted; and, out of gratitude, she gave up to the papal see the town and county of Avignon.
In the mean time, a pestilence had frightened away the Hungarians from Naples, and Joanna, returning to her kingdom, was solemnly crowned with her husband, in 1351. Joan reigned many years in peace. Having lost her husband in 1362, she married James of Arragon, a Prince of Majorca, and on his death she again married, in 1376, Otho, Duke of Brunswick; but having no children, she gave her niece Margaret to Charles, Duke of Durazzo, and appointing him her successor. On the breaking out of the schism between Urban the Sixth and Clement the Seventh, Joanna took the part of the latter. Urban excommunicated her, and gave her kingdom to Charles Durazzo, who revolted against his sovereign and benefactress. With the aid of the pope he raised troops, defeated the queen, and took her prisoner. He then tried to induce Joanna to abdicate in his favour; but she firmly refused, and named Louis of Anjou, brother of Charles the Fifth, King of France, as her successor. Charles then transferred Joanna to the castle of Muro, in Basilicata, where he caused her to be murdered, in 1382. She was a woman of great accomplishments, and many good qualities.