Kingdom of Naples
The
Kingdom of Naples was an informal name of the polity officially known as the
Kingdom of Sicily which existed on the mainland of southern Italy after of the secession of the island of
Sicily from the old
Kingdom of Sicily after the
Sicilian Vespers rebellion of
1282. King
Charles I of Sicily (Charles of Anjou) was forced to leave the island of
Sicily by
Peter III of Aragon's troops. Charles, however, maintained his possessions on the mainland, customarily known as the "Kingdom of
Naples," after its capital city. Charles and his
Angevin successors maintained a claim to Sicily, warring against the
Aragonese until in
1373, Queen
Joan I of Naples formally renounced the claim.
Queen Joan I also played a part in the ultimate demise of the first Kingdom of Naples. As she was childless, she adopted
Louis I, Duke of Anjou as her heir, in spite of the claims of her cousin, the Prince of Durazzo, effectively setting up a junior Angevin line in competition with the senior line. This led to Joan I's murder at the hands of the Prince of Durazzo in
1382, and his seizing the throne as
Charles III of Naples. The two competing Angevin lines contested each other for the possession of the Kingdom of Naples over the following decades. Charles III's daughter
Joan II (r. 1414-1435) adopted
Alfonso V of Aragon (whom she later repudiated) and
Louis III of Anjou as heirs alternately, finally settling succession on Louis' brother
René of Anjou of the junior Angevin line, and he succeeded her in
1435.
René of Anjou temporarily united the claims of junior and senior Angevin lines. In
1442, however,
Alfonso V conquered the Kingdom of Naples and unified Sicily and Naples once again as dependencies of
Aragon. At his death in
1458, the kingdom was again separated and Naples was inherited by
Ferrante, Alfonso's illegitimate son.
When Ferrante died in
1494,
Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, using the Angevin claim to the throne of Naples, which his father had inherited on the death of King René's nephew in
1481, as a pretext, thus beginning the
Italian Wars. Charles VIII expelled
Alfonso II of Naples from Naples in
1495, but was soon forced to withdraw due to the support of
Ferdinand II of Aragon for his cousin, Alfonso II's son
Ferrantino. Ferrantino was restored to the throne, but died in
1496, and was succeeded by his uncle,
Frederick IV. The French, however, did not give up their claim, and in
1501 agreed to a partition of the kingdom with Ferdinand of Aragon, who abandoned his cousin King Frederick. The deal soon fell through, however, and Aragon and France resumed their war over the kingdom, ultimately resulting in an Aragonese victory leaving Ferdinand in control of the kingdom by
1504.
The kingdom continued to be a focus of dispute between France and Spain for the next several decades, but French efforts to gain control of it became feebler as the decades went on, and Spanish control was never genuinely endangered. The French finally abandoned their claims to the kingdom by the
Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in
1559.
After the
War of the Spanish Succession in the early 18th century, possession of the kingdom again changed hands. Under the terms of the
treaty of Rastatt in
1714, Naples was given to
Charles VI, the
Holy Roman Emperor. He also gained control of
Sicily in
1720, but Austrian rule did not last long. Both Naples and Sicily were conquered by a Spanish army during the
War of the Polish Succession in
1734, and
Charles, Duke of Parma, a younger son of King
Philip V of Spain was installed as King of Naples and Sicily from
1735. When Charles inherited the Spanish throne from his older half-brother in
1759, he left Naples and Sicily to his younger son,
Ferdinand IV. Despite the independence and unity of the two Kingdoms under a single ruler from 1735 onwards, they remained constitutionally separate, in a merely personal union under the Bourbon Kings.
In late
1798, Ferdinand IV was expelled from the mainland by French Revolutionary forces and forced to flee to Sicily. The French armies installed a
Parthenopaean Republic, but this proved short-lived, and a peasant counter-revolution inspired by the Clergy allowed Ferdinand to return to his capital early the next year. Ferdinand's decision to ally with the
Third Coalition against
Napoleon in
1805 proved more damaging. In
1806, following his victory over the allied armies at
Austerlitz, Napoleon installed his brother,
Joseph as King of Naples. When Joseph was sent off to Spain two years later, he was replaced by Napoleon's brother-in-law
Joachim Murat. Ferdinand, meanwhile, was forced to flee to Sicily, where he retained his throne. Despite Napoleon's defeat in
1814 and the lobbying efforts of Ferdinand and his supporters, Murat was allowed to retain the throne of Naples by the Great Powers. However, with most of the powers, and particularly Britain, hostile to him and dependent on the uncertain support of Austria, Murat's position became less and less secure over the year following Napoleon's abdication, so that when Napoleon returned to France for the
Hundred Days in
1815, Murat declared for him, only to be defeated by Austrian forces at
Battle of Tolentino and forced to flee. Ferdinand IV was restored, and after Napoleon's defeat at
Waterloo he captured Murat in an attempt to regain his throne and had him executed by firing squad.
The next year,
1816, saw the formal union of the Kingdom of Naples with the
Kingdom of Sicily into the new
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
*
List of monarchs of Naples and Sicily*
History of Naples
