Charles of Anjou
Charles of Anjou was the younger brother of a saint, took the kingdom of Sicily from the Hohenstaufen at the pope's invitation, beheaded the last of them in the market square of Naples, was building a fleet to take Constantinople when Palermo rose at vespers, and died with half his kingdom gone. He was born in 1226, the last son of Louis VIII of France and the brother of Louis IX, got Provence by marriage in 1246 and Anjou from his brother, and went on the crusade to Egypt and was captured with the king. The papacy, which had fought Frederick II's family for forty years, offered his kingdom of Sicily to anyone who would take it, and in 1263 Charles accepted. He beat Frederick's son Manfred at Benevento in February 1266, where Manfred died, and Frederick's grandson Conradin at Tagliacozzo in 1268, and had the sixteen-year-old boy tried and beheaded at Naples, which Europe did not forget. He governed from Naples with French officials and heavy taxes, and he meant the kingdom as a base. He was senator of Rome, imperial vicar in Tuscany, protector of the Guelfs everywhere, king of Albania by purchase, king of Jerusalem by purchase, and by 1281 had the pope's blessing and a fleet assembled at Messina to restore the Latin empire at Constantinople. Michael VIII Palaiologos paid Sicilian conspirators and the king of Aragon, who had married Manfred's daughter. On Easter Monday 1282, as the bells rang for vespers at Palermo, the townspeople killed the French in the city and then across the island, and in August Peter of Aragon landed and was acclaimed king of Sicily. Charles kept the mainland, which took the name Naples, and spent his last years trying to get the island back; his son was captured at sea by the Aragonese in 1284. He died at Foggia in January 1285. The kingdom stayed divided between Angevins and Aragonese for a century and a half, and Dante put him in Purgatory.
- Lived: 1226 CE – 1285 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: king, monarch, general
