Murder of Her Husband and Its Aftermath
Hearing of the Pope's reversal, a group of noble conspirators (the involvement of Queen Joanna remaining unproved) determined to forestall Andrew's coronation. During a hunting trip at Aversa in 1345, Andrew left his room in the middle of the night and was set upon by the conspirators. A treacherous servant barred the door behind him; and with Joanna in her own bedroom, a terrible struggle ensued, Andrew defending himself furiously and shrieking for aid. He was finally overpowered, strangled with a cord, and flung from a window. Isolde, Andrew's Hungarian nurse, heard his cries, and with her own screams chased the murderers off. She took the Prince's corpse to the church of the monks, and remained with it until next morning in mourning. When the Hungarian knights arrived she told them everything in their mother tongue so no one else would learn about the truth, and soon they left Naples informing everything to the Hungarian King.
She informed the papacy, as well as other states in Europe of the murder, expressing her disgust in the letters, but Joanna's circle of friends were thought to be most suspect. On December 25, she gave birth to a son. When she made public her plans to marry one of her Taranto cousins and not Andrew's younger brother Stephen, the Hungarians openly accused her of the murder.
Louis of Taranto was a seasoned warrior, who understood Neapolitan politics for having been raised at the court of Catherine of Valois, Joanna's aunt. After Joanna stated her intention to marry him, his brother Robert banded together with his cousin and erstwhile rival Charles of Durazzo against them. Some of Joanna's courtiers and servants were tortured and later executed including her Sicilian governess Philippa the Catanian and the latter's family. Louis was successful in driving his brother's forces back, but just as he reached Naples, it became known that the Hungarians planned to invade. Joanna made a pact with the Kingdom of Sicily, preventing them from invading at the same time and married Louis.
She married twice more; to James IV of Majorca and Prince of Achaea and Otto, Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. Her one son by Andrew died at a young age, as did her two daughters by Louis.
Read more about this topic: Joanna I Of Naples
Famous quotes containing the words murder of her, murder of, murder, husband and/or aftermath:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“It is a crime to put a Roman citizen in chains, it is an enormity to flog one, sheer murder to slay one: what, then, shall I say of crucifixion? It is impossible to find the word for such an abomination.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
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—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“The aftermath of joy is not usually more joy.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)