Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/180

144 Principality of Capua as the price of Urban's assistance, soon after this broke into a convent and ravished a nun of high birth and great beauty. Complaints were made to the Pope. He laughed it off as a venial outburst of youth; but Butillo was forty years old. The new king's justice would not, however, endure the crime. A capital sentence was passed on Butillo. Pope Urban annulled the sentence, and Butillo was, if not rewarded, bought off by being given a wife, the daughter of the justiciary, and of the king's kindred, with a dowry of 70,000 florins a year, and a noble castle at Nocera. Thus satisfied, Urban excommunicated Louis of Anjou, declared him accursed, preached a crusade against him, and offered plenary indulgence to all who should take up arms against him.

The War of Inheritance ensued after the death of Joanna, devastating alike Naples and Provence.

Charles of Durazzo, whom Urban had crowned, had married his cousin Margaret, daughter of his uncle Charles, who had been executed in 1348 by Louis of Hungary, for having counselled the murder of his cousin Andrew. The father of Charles had been, as already intimated, poisoned by Joanna. Louis, King of Hungary, died in 1382; whereupon Charles claimed that kingdom, but was taken by Elizabeth, widow of Louis, thrown into prison, and murdered there by her orders. Charles left a son, Ladislas, and a daughter, Joanna. Ladislas was poisoned in 1414, as was supposed, and then Joanna II. became Queen of the Two Sicilies. Although twice married, she had no family, and she adopted Réné of Anjou and Provence as her heir, and died in 1435.

The whole pedigree is such a tangle, and the place of