The rule of the House of Durazzo was contested by the Dukes of Anjou of the House of Valois, who led several military expeditions into the kingdom. In the end Queen Joanna II, being heirless, recognized Duke Louis III in 1426 as Duke of Calabria and heir. Louis predeceased her, but his brother René inherited his claim. Joanna recognised René as her heir before her death.
Louis I, Duke of Anjou, was the adopted heir of Joanna I. He succeeded her, de jure, on her death in 1382. His descendants fought the House of Durazzo, mostly in vain, but not without any successes, for the throne until an agreement was reached between Louis III and Joanna II whereby she recognised him and his house as her heirs. René, Louis's brother, succeeded Joanna in 1435.
René had a contestant in King Alfonso V of Aragon who had been previously considered as a successor by Joanna II but had been later discarded in favour of René's brother. Alfonso conquered the kingdom manu militari and René was forced to flee. René's claim was inherited by either his nephew (Charles IV of Anjou, who died in 1481, leaving his claims to French king Louis XI) or his grandson (René II of Lorraine). The latter's descendants continued to claim the throne of Naples, as did the French kings, down to 1529, and intermittently until 1559.
The kingdom was conquered by a Spanish army in 1734, during the War of the Polish Succession. Together with Sicily Naples was recognized independent under a cadet branch of the Spanish Bourbons by the Treaty of Vienna in 1738.
In 1816 King Ferdinand IV merged the two Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily into the new Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and took the new title of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies.
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