Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/108

82 devotion to the Spanish cause. The army halted at Benevento; and the general sent his summons to the city of Naples, inviting it in the most courteous terms to resume its ancient allegiance to the legitimate branch of Aragon. It was hardly to be expected, that the allegiance of a people, who had so long seen their country set up as a mere stake for political gamesters, should sit very closely upon them, or that they should care to peril their lives on the transfer of a crown, which had shifted on the heads of half a dozen proprietors in as many successive years. With the same ductile enthusiasm, therefore, with which they greeted the accession of Charles the Eighth or Louis the Twelfth, they now welcomed the restoration of the ancient dynasty of Aragon; and deputies from the principal nobility and citizens waited on the Great Captain at Acerra, where they tendered him the keys of the city, and requested the confirmation of their rights and privileges.

Gonsalvo, having promised this in the name of his royal master, on the following morning, the 14th of May, 1503, made his entrance in great state into the capital, leaving his army without the walls. He was escorted by the military of the city un-der a royal canopy borne by the deputies. The streets were strewed with flowers, the edifices dec-