THE \>\'ESTERN MEDITERRANEAN KINGDOMS 1200-1500collection of handsome revenues, were perpetuated without
major changes. Guicciardini is surely very unfair when he says
that Charles was content to leave the government of the south
of Italy entirely to his advisers, 'who partly out of inability and
partly out of avarice made a muddle of everything'.^17
At the time of the conquest, at any rate, such problems
were not yet visible. With Charles in Naples and Ferrandino
in Ischia, most of the country fell away from the house of
Aragon, though some remote coastal towns held out against
the French. Yet Charles's position was not as secure as his
triumphal entry into Naples perhaps suggested; this was by
far the biggest Italian state, and control of its further reaches
had eluded many of his predecessors. A long stay would
be necessary were the king to bond his new kingdom to the
house of France. Attempts to persuade Ferrandino and his
uncle (and heir apparent) Federigo to resign their claims
to royal status and to hand over their extensive estates, in
return for vast tracts of land in France, were met with firm
but polite refusal: if God and the people of the kingdom had
handed their kingdom to Charles, it was not for Ferrandino
to stand in the way.^1 H Charles assumed that he could solve
the problems of his new kingdom by appointing a lieuten-
ant (Gilbert de Montpensier), granting lands and office to
faithful Italian allies, and then taking his leave. This was
to underestimate first of all the residual if localised loyalty
to Ferrandino, and second the growing concern of the north
Italian powers that Charles's presence was generating more
trouble than peace. The pope was strangely forgetful of his
declared willingness to confer the kingdom of Naples on
Charles. The fall of Naples had not after all won Charles a
vast number of powerful friends.
On 20 May 1495, shortly after a formal coronation in
Naples, Charles left the Regno never to return. The return
journey was to prove more dangerous than his descent into
Italy. Old allies ganged up against him; the result of his vic-
tory had been to regenerate the Italian league, with Venice,
Milan and minor Italian powers attempting to block the
king's passage out of Italy. Whether this was entirely wise is
- History of lta(v, Book 2, cap. 4.
- History of Italy, Book 2, cap. 3. This statement may, rather, reflect
Guicciardini's views on the ability of men to alter their fate.