Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/178

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142
THE RIVIERA

an army in Hungary, and prepared to invade Neapolitan territories. Pope Urban hired the services of a ruffian captain of a Free Company, Alberic Barbiano, to assist. Urban was not, however, prepared to support Charles without getting some advantage out of him, and he bargained with him that the Principality of Capua should be given to his nephew, Butillo Prignano: When Charles arrived in Rome, Urban decreed the deposition of Joanna, and invested Charles with the sovereignty, and himself crowned him. In the meantime Urban was busy in forming a party in Naples against the Queen, to whom Clement had fled. Among the twenty-six Cardinals whom he created in one day were several Neapolitans of the highest families and dignities in the kingdom. He degraded the Archbishop of Naples, and appointed in his room Bozzato, a man of influence and of powerful connexions in the city. By this means he secured a faction in Naples, opposed to Joanna and to her Pope. The new Archbishop set himself at the head of the opposition. Clement was so alarmed for his safety that he embarked, escaped to Provence, and retreated to Avignon.

The Hungarian and Papal forces marched into the kingdom of Naples, and met with no organised resistance. Joanna was besieged in the Castel Nuovo, and Otho of Brunswick was captured in a sortie. Joanna in vain awaited help from the Duke of Anjou, and was forced by famine to surrender. She was confined in Muro, and at first was well treated, as Charles hoped that she would revoke her will in his favour. But when he saw that she was resolved not to do this, he sent to ask the King of Hungary what was to be done with her. The answer was that the same measure was to be meted