THE v\'ESTERN MEDITERRANEAN KINCDOMS 1200-1000that Peter of Aragon found it hard to hold on to his sup-
posed allies in the struggle agianst the Angevins. On the other
hand, Peter was well attuned to the need to supply Sicily with
its own king and dynasty, rather than to bring it, like Valencia,
under his direct rule; the logistical problems of ruling Sicily
from Spain apart, it was a Hohenstaufen whom the pro-
Aragonese rebels wanted, not a member of the house of
Barcelona. Hence it made sense to leave his wife in control
in Sicily when he returned post-haste to Catalonia in 1283,
in order to fend off a French invasion, and then, with the
approval of a Sicilian parliament, to bequeath Sicily to his
second son james, while the Spanish lands went to his eldest
son Alfonso. As King Peter well understood, 1282 saw not an
Aragonese conquest of Sicily, but a Hohenstaufen restoration.
CONCLUSION
By the year 1266 the papacy had apparently achieved its
great oqjective of securing a friendly ruler on the throne
of Sicily; but it was precisely the security of Charles's tenure
of the Sicilian throne that was soon placed in doubt, as
rebellion broke out in 1267-68, and much more seriously in- Charles was certainly dedicated to what he saw as God's
purpose, and yet he found himself drawn into the same
quicksands which had buried the house of Hohenstaufen:
the attraction of alliances with the Guelfs in northern Italy
put an end to the official notion that his sphere of opera-
tions was confined to the south; his insistence on solving the
problem of the Greek Church by the sword created a host
of enemies across the Mediterranean; he constantly clashed
with the Aragonese over issues such as control of Tunis,
Sardinia and Provence. On the one hand, the pope knew
that only a well-heeled prince would be able to carry through
the expensive war of conquest that destroyed Manfred; on
the other hand, Charles's other lands drew him into wider
affairs, and as count of Provence from^1246 he was already
a significant actor on the north Italian political stage, with
major interests in neighbouring Piedmont. Moreover, the
papacy soon discovered that Charles's own resources were
insufficient to pay for his war of conquest. Thus the invasion
of Sicily drained papal reserves as well.