Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/28

 10 SICILIES (TiiK Two) the latter promoted public prosperity, and was stanch supporter of Pope Alexander III. and the cities o7 Lombardy against the emperor Frederick Barbarossa. William II. died with- out issue, and his kingdom was claimed by his aunt Con.tantia, win, had married the son , uphold her rights against the usurper Tancred and finally in 1194 united the king- dom of Naples and Sicily to the empire. On his premature death in 1197, his Italian crown passed to his son, afterward the emperor Fred- erick II. The exertions of this prince to an- nihilate the Lombard league and to strengthen uinion over Italy drew upon himself and his descendants the persecution of the papal court; and during the minority of Conradin, his grandson, the Roman see took the king- dom. Manfred, a natural son of Frederick II., the first regent for his nephew Conra- din, then king on the pretended death of this young prince (1258), was finally defeated and slain at the battle of Benevento (Feb. 26, 1266), by Charles of Anjou, who had been crowned as his successor by Pope Clement IV., and who now usurped the power in the two kingdoms. Conradin, the last of the Hohen- staufen, was utterly defeated at Tagliacozzo, Aug. 28, 1268, and beheaded at Naples, Oct. 29. The exasperation produced by Charles's despotism finally culminated (March 30, 1282, at the hour of vespers) in the revolt and- mas- sacre at Palermo provoked by the licentious brut.ility of a Frenchman, and the expulsion of the French from Sicily, an event known as "the Sicilian vespers," and Pedro III. of Aragon, the husband of Constantia, Manfred's daughter, became king. Charles strove in vain to regain possession of Sicily. For more than a century and a half the island (mainly ruled by a younger branch of the house of Aragon)
 * roMa, Her husband, Hen-
 * ml tho continental kingdom were separated

from each other, and the sovereigns of both -tyled themselves kings of Sicily. The destinies of the house of Anjou at Naples, ob- scured during the later years of Charles I. and the reign of his son Charles II. the Lame, brightened again under Robert the Wise (1309- -on of Petrarch ; but the reign of his granddaughter, Joanna I., was marked by all sorts of domestic crimes and disorders. Aft-r h.-r execution by order of the king of Hungary (see JOANNA) in 1382, a bloody con- tort raged between Louis I., the head of the second house of Anion, her adopted son, and of Durazzo, her lawful heir. The lat- illy triumphed, but was called to Hun- gary by discontented nobles in 1385, crowned i.l murdered soon after. His son Ladis- las, scarcely 10 years old, was overthrown by 'Irvine party, who called in Louis II. of AHJ..U in 1:1 si); but in 131)9 he reascended his 1 the adherents of his rival He was succeeded in UH by his sister Joanna II.. whose reign of 21 years was as shameful and disastrous as that of Joanna I. After adopting in succession Alfonso V. of Aragon and Louis III. of Anjou, she finally, on the latter's death, bequeathed the crown to his brother Rene. After a few years' war Rene was expelled by Alfonso V., who received the investiture of his new kingdom from Pope Eugenius IV., and thus reunited the two parts of the old monarchy. On his death in 1458 he left the kingdom of Naples to his natural son Ferdinand I., who finally maintained his rights against John of Calabria, son of King Ren6, while Sicily as well as Aragon fell to his brother John II. In 1494 the kingdom of Naples was suddenly conquered by Charles VIII. of France, and its possession was dis- puted by the French and Spaniards until Fer- dinand the Catholic became master of it in 1503, and was successively known as Ferdi- nand III. of Naples and Ferdinand II. of Sicily. The oppressive rule of the Spanish viceroys resulted in 1647 in the rising under Masaniello at Naples, and in other commotions; the distur- bances created by the former lasted for years, though Masaniello was speedily assassinated (July 16, 1647). During the war for the Span- ish succession the people sided with Philip V., the Bourbon king; but in 1707 they accepted his competitor Charles of Austria, afterward emperor of Germany as Charles VI., whose title to Naples was confirmed by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, while Sicily was given to Vic- tor Amadeus of Savoy. The latter exchanged Sicily in 1720 for Sardinia, and the two king- doms remained under the rule of Charles VI. till 1734, when they were conquered by Don Carlos, son of Philip V. of Spain, who was crowned at Palermo in 1735 as Charles III., and acknowledged as king of the Two Sicilies. In 1759, on his succession to the throne of Spain, his son Ferdinand IV. became king of Naples and Sicily. Under the influence of his wife Queen Caroline and her favorite the prime minister Acton, he joined the first coalition against France, and in 1799 the French estab- lished the Parthenopean republic in the Nea- politan territory. This was overthrown after a few months, and Ferdinand restored. He retained the island of Sicily with the assistance of England, but after his violation of the treaty of Paris which in 1801 he had concluded with France, Napoleon deposed the Bourbons, and in 1806 gave the throne of Naples to his brother Joseph, and in 1808 to Murat. In 1815, after the overthrow of Murat, Ferdinand was re- stored; and on Dec. 12, 1816, he assumed power over the two countries as Ferdinand I. of the (united) kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He abrogated the constitution which he had granted while in Sicily. The rising under Pepe in 1820 obliged him to adopt the Spanish lib- eral constitution of 1812, but with the aid of Austria he soon suppressed it. On his death, Jan. 4, 1825, he was succeeded by his son Francis I., who had become popular by his liberalism, but whose reign was notorious for his subserviency to Austria. He died in 1830.