s cousin Charles of Valois to renounce for twenty
thousand pounds of silver the kingdom of Aragon which had been given to
him by Pope Martin IV. to punish Peter for having invaded Sicily, but
which the Valois had never effectively occupied. The Angevin king was
thereupon set free, leaving three of his sons and sixty Provencal
nobles as hostages, promising to pay 30,000 marks and to return a
prisoner if the conditions were not fulfilled within three years. He
went to Rieti, where the new pope Nicholas IV. immediately absolved him
from all the conditions he had sworn to observe, crowned him king of the
Two Sicilies (1289), and excommunicated Alphonso, while Charles of
Valois, in alliance with Castile, prepared to take possession of Aragon.
Alphonso III, the Aragonese king, being hard pressed, had to promise to
withdraw the troops he had sent to help his brother James in Sicily, to
renounce all rights over the island, and pay a tribute to the Holy See.
But Alphonso died childless in 1291 before the treaty could be carried
out, and James took possession of Aragon, leaving the government of
Sicily to the third brother Frederick. The new pope Boniface VIII.,
elected in 1294 at Naples under the auspices of King Charles, mediated
between the latter and James, and a most dishonourable treaty was
signed: James was to marry Charles's daughter Bianca and was promised
the investiture by the pope of Sardinia and Corsica, while he was to
leave the Angevin a free hand in Sicily and even to assist him if the
Sicilians resisted. An attempt was made to bribe Frederick into
consenting to this arrangement, but being backed up by his people he
refused, and was afterwards crowned king of Sicily. The war was fought
with great fury on land and sea, but Charles, although aided by the
pope, by Charles of Valois, and by James II. of Aragon, was unable to
conquer the island, and his son the prince of Taranto was taken prisoner
at the battle of La Falconara in 1299. Peace was at last made in 1302 at
Caltabellotta, Charles II. giving up all rights to Sicily and agreeing
to the marriage of his daughter Leonora to King Frederick; the treaty
was ratified by the pope in 1303. Charles spent his last years quietly
in Naples, which city he improved and embellished. He died in August
1309, and was succeeded by his son Robert.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A. de Saint-Priest, _Histoire de la conquete de Naples
par Charles d'Anjou_ (4 vols., Paris, 1847-1849), is still o