ABSTRACT
According to many of the chroniclers on whose accounts we base our reconstructions of the Neapolitan revolt of 1647–48, the intervention of Henri de Lorraine, fifth duke of Guise, in Naples was inadvertently advantageous to the Spanish cause. In this chapter, I argue that this is a reasonable point of view and draw attention to episodes that clearly show the Duke's estrangement from France and his resolve to lay the foundation for his own monarchical rule in Naples. Guise dissimulated his ambition during the first few days of his stay in Naples, but it was already evident to the more acute observers, and gradually became evident to many more, partially because the authors of poems written at his behest began to hail him as the future king (see Plates 5 and 6). But neither the middle class – who at the time of Guise's arrival in Naples, on 14 November 1647, nourished the aspiration of turning the already proclaimed republic into a reality – nor the nobility, most of whom were still loyal to Madrid, could allow him to go that far. The reasons for the failure of his intervention in the Neapolitan political context are thus quite obvious. But it is instructive for the history of political discourse to take a more detailed look at events.
