Following the death of Peter,
Prince James
was crowned king of Sicily in Palermo in February 1286. The
eldest son, Alfonso, was tentatively king of Aragon, but his title as
Alfonso III
would not be confirmed until April. However, Alfonso did not
wait to be confirmed but instead moved against King James of Mallorca,
swiftly conquering Mallorca
and Ibiza, and later Minorca, so that by 1286
the Balearic Islands were under direct control of Aragon.
In France, Philip IV had come to the throne at the age of
seventeen, and while relatively young, he would prove to be a shrewd
ruler. Charles of Salerno was still a prisoner of the Aragonese, so the
Count of Artois was to act as regent of the Regno until his eventual
release. In Rome, the anti-French faction in the papacy had obtained
enough influence to block the election of another French pope and force a
compromise with the election of a member of the local Savelli family,
Honorius IV. Each of the parties had enough internal problems that there
was a very real incentive to end the war. However, reaching an agreement
that satisfied all of the parties would prove extremely difficult.
The year 1286 had started with an embassy to Rome sent by King James of Sicily offering homage to the pope in return for recognition of his title. However, in many ways Honorius IV had not gained any insights to the current problems from watching the defeats of his predecessors. He was still unwilling to acknowledge the independence of Sicily and responded by excommunicating James, Queen Constance, and the entire population of Sicily. Moreover, in an attempt to win back the populations of Calabria and Apulia which had gone over to the Aragonese side, he made the same promises Martin IV and Charles of Anjou had to reform the Angevin government, promises which were received with the same level of skepticism as the earlier proposals. Edward I of England, whose papal ambassador Odo of Grandisonhad called the war "the scandal of Christendom", attempted to mediate between France and Aragon, but the papal refusal to separate Sicily from the Regno stalled any comprehensive settlement, and the talks dragged on into 1287.
