Robert of Anjou (231) , King of Arles, presently on the throne, and Giovanna, his granddaughter (who is not the heir for Arles, however, even though she is the closest relative. Robert needed a male heir and he didn't have one when he died.) The situation of the 60 year old Robert of Anjou (King of Arles and Naples) is a complex one. King Robert is the great-grandson of Louis VIII of France (in the direct male line,) through the latter's youngest son, Charles, who became King of Naples by papal dispensation in 1265, and on the battlefield in 1266 and 1268. So, his Salic lands would escheat to his closest male relative in the senior line when his branch of the family dies out. This would be the

         1.King of France (although there were a few other, lower ranking, contenders) if the latter is a Capetian. However, the Capetian dynasty (the direct male line) ended in 1328 with the death of Charles the IV. That brought our own Philip VI to the throne, a great-great-grandson of Louis VIII (through the female line.) However, Arles had been declining as a separate kingdom for some time and was, in this period, a de facto part of France. After Robert d'Anjou died without a male heir, the pretense of Arles being a separate kingdom was dropped and the Arles lands became French. Naples was never firmly held by the French and for several generations after the Hundred Years War French armies periodically campaigned in Italy to get it back. They never really succeeded.

         2. Humbert de la Tour du Pin (100), through a very complex relationship which makes him "residual heir" if Robert's other heirs die out.

         3. Alfonso XI of Castile (8), through his great-grandfather Alfonso X's mother, a cousin to Frederick II of Hohenstaufen.

         4. Pedro IV Berenguer (197), King of Aragon, through his great- grandfather Pedro III, who wed the grand-daughter of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen.