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King Manfred had married his daughter Constance to the Infant Peter, elder son of
the Aragonese king, James I 4 (Giacomo I). As though foreseeing the future, Pope
Urban and King Louis IX of France had opposed the marriage, but Manfred was
still on his throne; his friendship was significance to Aragon.
With Manfred killed and Corradino beheaded and Manfred´s
sons languishing in prison, Constance (cousin to Corrado of
Antioch) became the heiress of the Hohenstaufen cause in
Italy. Her husband Peter was devoted to her and proud of her
descent. Constance as the sole and legitimate descendant of
the house Swabian, tried to take possession of the Kingdom of
Sicily urging her husband Peter to intervene in the affairs of
the kingdom of Sicily.
In 1276, Constance, with her husband, was crowned queen of Aragon. (Above
Constance Coat of Arms; Hohenstaufen Eagle and Aragon coat of arms).
Charles regarded his Sicilian territories as a springboard for his Mediterranean
ambitions, which included the overthrow of the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII
Palaeologus, and the capture of Constantinople, then the richest city in the western
world. Although his rule was quite just, unrest was simmering in Sicily because the
island played a very subordinate role in Charles's empire — its nobles had no share
in the government of their own island and were not compensated by lucrative posts
abroad, as were Charles's French, Provençal and Neapolitan subjects; also the taxes
were heavy but they were spent on Charles's wars outside Sicily, making Sicily
somewhat of a donor economy to Charles' nascent empire. As Runciman put it,
"(The Sicilians) saw themselves now being ruled to enable an alien tyrant make
conquests from which they would have no benefit"
The unrest was also being fomented by agents of the Byzantine Emperor Michael
Palaeologus who was desperate to thwart Charles's projected invasion of his
empire, and of the Aragonese king Peter III, Manfred's son-in-law, who saw his
wife Constance as rightful heir to the Sicilian throne.
4 James I the Conqueror (Catalan: Jaume el Conqueridor, Aragonese: Chaime lo
Conqueridor, Spanish: Jaime el Conquistador, Occitan: Jacme lo Conquistaire; 2 February 1208 –
27 July 1276) was the King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellierfrom 1213 to
1276. His long reign saw the expansion of the Crown of Aragon on all sides: into Valencia to the
south, Languedoc to the north, and the Balearic Islands to the east. By a treaty with Louis IX of
France, he wrested the county of Barcelona from nominal French suzerainty and integrated it into
his crown. His part in the Reconquista was similar in Mediterranean Spain to that of his
contemporary Ferdinand III of Castile in Andalusia.
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 153 of 200