Joan II of Naples
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Joan II (June 23, 1373 - February 2, 1435) was Queen of Naples from 1414 to 1435. She also used the title queen of Jerusalem, Sicily and Hungary.
Biography
Joan was born at Zadar (Dalmatia), the daughter of Charles III of Naples and Margherita of Durazzo. In 1414 she succeeded her brother Ladislas of Naples to the throne of Naples: at that date she was 41 and was already widow of her cousin Jadwiga of Poland's rejected fiancée, William of Austria. In 1415 she married secondly James of Bourbon, Count of La Marche.Her reign was marked by power struggles of her various paramours and adoptive heirs. Chief figures in kingdom included Muzio Sforza, Pandolfello Alopo, Giovanni Caracciolo. She adopted Alfonso V of Aragon and Louis III of Anjou as heirs alternately, finally settling succession on Louis' brother René of Anjou (later René I of Naples).
She had to defend her kingship from Louis II of Anjou and then his son Louis III of Anjou, whom she however later adopted.
Joanna II was childless. She adopted firstly in 1420 Alfonso V of Aragon and secondly (1423) Louis III of Anjou. After the latter's death in 1434, her adoption went to the next brother of the deceased, René of Anjou.
Her line of Durazzo, and the whole senior Angevin line of Naples itself went extinct with her own death in 1435. (The line of Durazzo had succeeded in being hers-general of Angevin kings of Jerusalem, Sicily and Hungary with the death of Jadwiga I of Poland in 1399). Joanna's heir general in kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily and Hungary and the heir-general of the line of Charles I of Sicily was Charles VII of France.
Joan left her kingdom by testament to René of Anjou. Alfonso V, whom she had repudiated, launched a conquest to have Naples.
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