King Charles I of Sicily (Charles of…

King Charles I of Sicily (Charles of Anjou) had been forced to leave the island of Sicily by the troops of Peter III of Aragon following the secession of the island of Sicily from the old Kingdom of Sicily after the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282.

Charles, however, had maintained his possessions on the mainland, customarily known as the "Kingdom of Naples," after its capital city.

Charles and his Angevin successors had maintained a claim to Sicily, warring against the Aragonese until 1373, when Queen Joan I of Naples had formally renounced the claim.

Queen Joan had also played a part in the ultimate demise of the first Kingdom of Naples.

As she was childless, she had adopted Louis I, Duke of Anjou as her heir, in spite of the claims of her cousin, the Prince of Durazzo, effectively setting up a junior Angevin line in competition with the senior line.

This had led to Joan I's murder at the hands of the Prince of Durazzo in 1382, and his seizing the throne as Charles III of Naples.

The two competing Angevin lines now contest each other for the possession of the Kingdom of Naples.

Ladislas, the son of Charles III and Margherita of Durazzo, had in 1386 become the King of Naples from the age of nine under his mother's regency.

The last male member of the senior Angevin line, he has been constantly opposed through the 1390s by Antipope John XXIII as well as by Louis II of Anjou, the current head of the junior Angevin line, who contests the throne.

Louis had successfully seized Naples from him in 1390, but is expelled again in 1399.