The Borgias by Christopher Hibbert Page B

which stood ready athand with bridles but no saddles, and then both the King and Cesare departed.’
    That evening a courier arrived with news for Alexander VI that King Alfonso II had fled from Naples – ‘out of sheer cowardice,’ commented the contemporary French chronicler Philippe de Commynes – loading four galleys with treasure in order, so the letter reported, to sail to Sicily and then to Spain, to recruit forces against the French.
    The following evening, January 29, came the news that, in fact, Alfonso II, who had only been crowned by the pope’s nephew the cardinal of Monreale just nine months before, had now abdicated in favour of his son, Ferrante II, who had, on his father’s orders, contracted marriage to Isabella of Aragon, his father’s sister, ‘that he had ridden through Naples where he had received oaths of homage from all,’ and that he had set free all those nobles imprisoned by Ferrante I and Alfonso II, except for those known to be associated with the French, and these he had executed.
    On January 30 couriers arrived with even more dramatic news from Naples, this time concerning Cesare. As Burchard recorded:
    On Friday 30 January the Pope was informed that the Cardinal of Valence, disguised as a royal footman, had escaped from the French King’s court at Velletri. It was indeed true. The Cardinal had spent the night in the house of Antonio Florès, auditor of the Rota, where he had gone immediately on his arrival in Rome. When he had left the city in the company of the King he had taken nineteen pack animals with him, all richly caparisoned and so it seemed, laden with objects of value, but only two of these horses, in fact, carried plate and other costly items. On the first day of their journey, while the King and the Cardinal were riding towards Marino, these two horses lagged behind the rest and that evening returned to Rome. The Cardinal’s servants had declared to the French court officials that the animals had been captured and stripped of their loads. The other seventeen arrived at the court and after the Cardinal’s flight, the chests had been opened and were found to be empty. Well, at least that is what I was told, but I think it was not true.
     
    When he learned of Cesare’s disappearance, Charles VIII was furious. ‘All Italians are filthy dogs,’ he was quoted as having said, ‘and the Holy Father is as bad as the worst of them.’ The king suspected that Alexander VI knew very well where his son was and that he had been told beforehand of Cesare’s attempt to escape as soon as opportunity offered. The pope did, however, send his secretary to Charles VIII with his sincere apologies for his son’s behaviour.
    By the middle of February, Charles VIII had entered Capua, where, so it was said, strange portents had appeared. ‘One night as he slept in his chamber,’ reported Burchard, ‘he was woken twice by a dreadful voice; he opened a chest which was in his room to find a banner standing erect and, in his terror, made a vow that he would not return to France without having taken the Holy Land and reconquered the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem; he also promised to build and endow a chapel in Naples in honour of the Holy Ghost.’
    Charles VIII entered Naples on February 22, slipping quietlyinto the city to lodge in the Castel Capuano, because the three other royal castles, including Castel Nuovo, remained in the hands of troops loyal to Ferrante II. As a French chronicler observed: ‘On Sunday, after he had enjoyed an excellent dinner, [the king] put on his robes of state and, with joy not rancour entered the city in pomp, thus displaying his power there, although he did not have a proper entry on that day.’ Guicciardini reported the view of the populace: ‘The reputation of the last two kings was so odious among all the people and almost all the nobles, and there was much eagerness for the French regime.’
    Charles VIII was intent upon enjoying himself in Naples. The