JOAN I. of Naples, daughter of King Robert of Naples, of tho .Anjou dynasty, succeeded her father in 1343. She was then only sixteen years of age, handsome and accomplished. She had been married already some time to her cousin Andreas of Hungary, bat their tempera and tastes did not sympathise together. Andreas claimed to be crowned king and to share his wife's authority, which by the will of her father had been left solely to her. His coarse and haughty manners offended the proud native barons, and the Hungarian guards who attended him excited their jealousy. A conspiracy was formed, and one night, while the court was at Averse, the conspirators, who were of the nobles near his person, seized and strangled him, and threw his body out of a window of the castle. There seems little or no doubt that Joan knew of the plot, and that she did nothing to prevent the crime. As soon as it was perpetrated sho repaired to Naples, and thence issued orders for the apprehension of the murderers. Torture was employed to find out the conspirators, but the result of the interrogatories was kept secret. Many persons high and low were put to a cruel death, but public opinion still implicated the queen herself in the conspiracy. The same year Joan married her relative Louis, prince of Tarentum. Louis, king of Hungary, and brother of Andreas, came with an army to avenge his brother's death. He defeated the queen's troops, entered Naples, and Joan took refuge in her here ditary principality of Provence. She repaired to Avignon, and there, before Pope Clement VI., she protested her innocence and demanded
a trial. The pope and his cardinals acquitted Joan, who from gratitude gave up to the papal see the town and county of Avignon. A pesti lence in the meantime had frightened away the Hungarians from Naples, and Joan, returning to her kingdom, was solemnly crowned with her husband In 1351. Joan reigned many years in peace over her fine dominions. Having lost her second husband in 1362, she married 'a prince of Majorca, and on his death she married in 1376 Otho, duke of Brunswick; hut having no children by any of her husbands, she gave her niece Margaret in marriage to Charles, duke of Durazzo, who was himself related to the royal dynasty of Anjou, and appointed him her successor. Soon afterwards the schism between Urban VI. and Clement VII. broke out, and Joan took the part of the latter. Urban excommunicated her, and gave the investiture of the kingdom to Charles Durazzo, who with the darkest ingratitude revolted against his sovereign and benefactress : with the assistance of the pope he raised troops, defeated the queen, and took her prisoner. He tried to induce Joan to abdicate in his favour, but the queen firmly refused, and named as her successor Louis of Anjou, brother of Charles V., king of France. Charles then transferred Joan to the castle of Muro in Basilicata, where he caused her to be strangled or smothered in her prison in 1382, thirty-seven years after the death of her first husband Andreas.