Beatrice of Naples, widow of King Matthias…
April 1500 CE
Beatrice of Naples, widow of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and Croatia, had married her second husband, Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary, in 1491.
At the death of Matthias Corvinus on May 6, 1490, the Bohemian King had pursued the Hungarian crown also, and in order to obtain more support for this, he had secretly married Beatrice on October 4.
Beatrice had had great support by the Hungarian nobility, and the nobility had demanded of Vladislav that he marry her.
After the union became public, this had caused an scandal, because Vladislaus II is bigamous, as he had not been not granted a divorce from his first wife, Barbara of Brandenburg, by the pope.
Her husband now claimed that he did not regard his marriage to Beatrice as legal, and that he had been forced to marry her against his will, and in 1493, a commission was issued to investigate.
This situation has lasted for the past ten years, while Vladislaus has become increasingly desperate for an heir, because his Neapolitan consort is unable to bear him children.
Barbara has meanwhile fought against her family for a divorce from Vladislaus II; also, she had become secretly engaged in 1495 with the knight Conrad of Heideck.
As a punishment for her independent behavior, Barbara had been imprisoned in Plassenburg until Heideck broke off the engagement.
Five years later, on April 7, 1500, Pope Alexander VI finally declared dissolved both marriages of Vladislaus II, and Beatrice is forced to pay the costs of the trial.
She retires to Ischia, where she will die eight years later.
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