mid the appalling
anarchy into which the kingdom was then plunged as a result of a wrong
and an ill judged attempt to right it.

Good King Robert the Wise had wrested the crown of Naples from his elder
brother, the King of Hungary, and had ruled as a usurper. Perhaps to
quiet his conscience, perhaps to ensure against future strife between
his own and his brother's descendants, he had attempted to right the
wrong by a marriage between his brother's grandson Andreas and his
own granddaughter Giovanna, a marriage which had taken place ten years
before, when Andreas was but seven years of age and Giovanna five.

The aim had been thus to weld into one the two branches of the House of
Anjou. Instead, the rivalry was to be rendered more acute than ever, and
King Robert's fear of some such result contributed to it not a little.
On his deathbed he summoned the Princes of the Blood--the members of
the Houses of Durazzo and Taranto--and the chief nobles of the kingdom,
demanding of them an oath of allegiance to Giovanna, and himself
appointing a Council of Regency to govern the kingdom during her
minority.

The consequence was that, against all that had been intended when the
marriage was contracted, Giovanna was now proclaimed queen in her
own right, and the government taken over in her name by the appointed
Council. Instantly the Court of Naples was divided into two camps, the
party of the Queen, including the Neapolitan nobility, and the party of
Andreas of Hungary, consisting of the Hungarian nobles forming his
train and a few malcontent Neapolitan barons, and guided by the sinister
figure of Andreas's preceptor, Friar Robert.

This arrogant friar, of whom Petrarch has left us a vivid portrait, a
red-faced, red-bearded man, with a fringe of red hair about his tonsure,
short and squat of figure, dirty in his dress and habits, yet imbued
with the pride of Lucifer despite his rags, thrust himself violently
into the Council of Regency, demanding a voice in the name of his
pupil Andreas. And the Council feared him, not only on the score of
his over-bearing personality, but also because he was supported by the
populace, which had accepted his general filthiness as the outward sign
of holiness. His irruption occasioned so much trouble and confusion that
in the end the Pope intervened, in his quality as Lord Paramount--Naples
being a fief of Holy Church--and appointed a legate to rule the kingdom
during Giovanna's minority.

The