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Urban loses a friend
Urban seemed to have been a good choice, an austere reformer who the cardinals might mock behind their backs, but surely he would be good for the Church. The cardinals had not done their homework well. Urban VI might have been austere, but he was also prone to be high handed and rude and no sooner had he been elected than he managed through a lack of tact and bad manners to lose the support of many who should have been his natural allies. Here Theoderic de Niem tells how Urban managed to insult Otto the King of Naples during a visit to his villa at Tivoli.
Et cum infra festa huiusmodi dictus Otto sumpto prandio cum eodem Urbano, ut moris est, ei quodam die potum preberet in collatione in presencia quorundam cardinalium et aliorum magne auctoritatis virorum, dictus Urbanus ex fastu ciphum de manibus tanti principis stantis coram eo diu genibus flexis recipere tam diu tardavit,
Donec ad eum quidam ex eisdem cardinalibus diceret hec verba: “Pater sancta, tempus est, ut bibatis!” Nec fefellit in eo pro tunc illud: “Asperius nichil est misero qui surgit in altum.” nec illud: “Corde stat inflato pauper honore dato”. Et licet tunc sollicitaretur instanter, quod eandem pacem pro ipsius statu firmando benigne acceptaret, hoc tamen pro tunc facere non curabat credens se super pennas ventorum iam volare.
From Theoderic de Niem, De Schismate, Chapter VII