urteen good men, magnates and popolani, whereof eight were Guelfs
and six Ghibellines, and their term of office endured for two months,
and there was a certain order in their election; and they assembled in
the house of the Badia of Florence, over the gate which goes to Santa
Margherita, and returned to their homes to eat and to sleep. And this
done, the said Cardinal Latino returned to Romagna to his legation
with great honour. We will now leave the affairs of Florence for a
while, and we will tell of other things which came to pass in those
times, and especially of the revolt of the island of Sicily against
King Charles, which was notable and great, and whence afterwards grew
much ill; and it was a thing well-nigh marvellous and impossible, and
therefore we will treat of it more at large.

[Sidenote: 1279 A.D.]

[Sidenote: 1281 A.D.]

Sec. 57.--_How there was a treacherous plot to cause the island of Sicily
to rebel against King Charles._ Sec. 58.--_How Pope Nicholas III., of the
Orsini, died, and how Martin of Tours, in France, was made Pope._ Sec.
59.--_How Peter, king of Aragon, promised and vowed to Paleologus and
to the Sicilians, to come into Sicily and take the lordship thereof._
Sec. 60.--_How the said king of Aragon set about preparing his armada,
and how the Pope sent to him and forbade him._

Sec. 61.--_How and after what manner the island of Sicily rebelled
against King Charles._

[Sidenote: 1282 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Par. viii. 75.]

In the year of Christ 1282, on Easter Monday of the Resurrection,
which was the 30th day of March, as had been purposed by M. John of
Procita, all the barons and chiefs which had a hand in the plot were
in the city of Palermo for Easter, and the inhabitants of Palermo, men
and women, going in a body, on horse and on foot, to the festival at
Monreale, three miles outside the city (and as those of Palermo went,
so also went the Frenchmen, and the captain of King Charles, for their
disport), it came to pass, as was purposed by the enemy of God, that a
Frenchman in his insolence laid hold of a woman of Palermo to do her
villainy; she beginning to cry out, and the people being already sore
and all moved with indignation against the French, the retainers of
the barons of the island began to defend the woman, whence arose a
great battle between the French and the Sicilians, and many were
wounded and slain on either side; but those of Palermo came off worst.
Straightway, all