John Mansel returned to Castile. The official announcement of the marriage contract followed.
Henry wrote: Edward’s marriage will take place in Castile in October. Accompany our son to Gascony. He is to continue to Castile with his own retinue as these are Alfonso’s terms.
By the time she had finished reading Henry’s letter she was flushed, pleased and excited.
‘Willelma, bring cooling waters for my face. My heart is racing.’ Lady Mary held her whilst Willelma dabbed at her face. She took deep breaths. ‘Lord Edward is to be married.’ Her ladies congratulated her by cheering. If anyone had passed the painted chamber they would have seen the Queen swirl around with Lady Willelma, a letter in one hand and the other gesticulating wildly.
Ailenor summoned Edward to her side.
She heard his nailed boots clattering up the winding outside staircase from the practice yard. He entered breathless, smelling of hay and sweat. Ailenor stood in the middle of the room by the long oak table.
‘Sit,’ she said, gesturing to a chair placed by the fireplace. Edward swept his damp hair back and mopped his perspiring forehead with a linen cloth. He removed his gambeson and threw it over a bench.
‘Mother, I know I stink, but your messenger said to come to you with haste. Is all well? My father. . .’
She took one chair and he sat in the other. She pointedly held a small ball of dried lavender to her nose. Removing it she said, ‘That’s better. Edward, I did not intend to frighten you. All is well in Gascony. Your father has written with good news. Alliance with Castile has been announced. John Mansel is on his way to fetch us to Gascony.’
‘I really am to marry Lenora of Castile.’ His face was filled with joy. ‘I am to be a husband. When?’
‘We travel to Gascony soon as it is possible. You will continue to Castile without me but you’ll be accompanied by a retinue suitable for a great prince. You are to have great lands of your own.’
‘Gascony, of course, but other lands?’
‘Yes.’ She found she was crying tears of joy for her son.
‘Where?’
She drew breath. ‘Wales and Ireland.’ She saw how his eyes opened wide, even though he had inherited the accursed drooping eyelid. ‘Chester as well. It is a very important city. Here, see for yourself. Your father has been generous.’ She passed Henry’s letter to him.
Edward slowly read. ‘He doesn’t say I am to be called Earl of Chester or Lord of Ireland. I should have those titles, should I not?’
Ailenor folded her hands. ‘Henry still has those titles, but you will claim the revenues.’
‘The war in Gascony will end at last. Lenora’s brother won’t support the rebels any more. He won’t claim my duchy, just because my great-grandmother of Aquitaine was his great-grandmother also.’
‘Quite so. You must reach Castile by the thirteenth day of October so that gives us time to plan. We shall pass summer in Bordeaux with your father. How do you like this?’
‘Very much. Can Henry of Almain come with me?’
‘If your Uncle Richard agrees. You might like young Hal de Montfort as a companion as well?’
‘Yes.’ Edward thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps Father will allow me to join him in the fighting.’
‘I hope, by now, he has the rebels subdued. It must be safe for you to travel south to Burgos for your wedding.’
‘Without you both?’
She smiled broadly at her son. ‘Enough of this. We have planning ahead. I’ll consult with the tailors because your wedding garments must do us all honour.’ She studied him. ‘I hope you are not planning to grow taller by October. You are as long-legged as the antelope that dwells in Henry’s zoo. It seems no time at all since you were a child and now, my son, you are to be a great lord and rule Gascony. The future is yours and Lenora’s. Come closer. Let me give you my blessing.’
After she said a brief prayer over her kneeling son’s head, her hands placed over his long waving locks which were beginning to darken, Edward rose, leaning down and embracing his mother, his head touching hers.
‘No wonder they call you Longshanks,’ she said.
Gascony stopped simmering with discontent. Earl Simon returned to England. He was, at last, a wealthy man.
That September, as the leaves began to loosen from trees, golden, brown and crisp, Ailenor with Henry at her side, watched Edward leave for Castile. Swifts circled overhead flitting back and forth from nests in the castle walls. Edward sat proudly on the Arab stallion, Samson, which Henry had given to his son for his journey south. Hal and Harry rode by Edward’s side on equally handsome mounts. A glittering cavalcade of nobles and men at arms trotted into line behind the three young English lords.
‘I hope, my love,’ Henry said grinning at her, his eyes filling with moisture, ‘Edward discovers as much joy in his marriage as we have in our union.’ He took her hand. ‘And now, I have a surprise for you.’
‘How do you intend to surprise me?’
‘Louis and Marguerite have returned to Paris. Louis’s health has recovered. How would you like to visit your sister?’
Ailenor clasped her hands in front of her mouth, a young girl again for all her two score and ten years. ‘We are to visit Louis’s court? I am to see my sister?’
‘Both sisters: Beatrice too. And I have suggested Richard and Sancha join us.’
Tears welled up in her own eyes. She had not seen two of her three sisters since they grew up in her father’s castles. How they must have changed. She might not even recognise Beatrice, who had been a small girl when Ailenor had ridden all those years before to an unknown, hardly imagined future with a bridegroom who was by far her senior and whom she had loved from the beginning. Much time had shifted since Ailenor set out long ago on that winter journey to England. Her son was older now than she was then and today he had ridden off to his wedding. Ailenor glanced at the sundial in the courtyard. Time played tricks because so much time felt no time at all.
Henry tugged on his beard. He smiled. ‘You will see your mother too, my love. She is in Paris with Beatrice and Charles.’ He was gazing towards the sky where clouds were scudding over the castle, ‘I’ll visit Louis’s soaring cathedrals. I shall see the Crown of Thorns at last, the holiest of all holy relics.’ He clasped his hands in ecstasy. His blue eyes glazed over. ‘Our Houses Capet and Plantagenet will unite after so many years of dispute. We’ll make a long-lasting treaty.’
‘I never dreamed I would see my sisters and mother again.’ As they turned to climb the steps to the Great Hall, she added, ‘Paris is very fashionable. We must all have new clothes. Will there be time? I wonder would Lady Rosalind be able to visit?’
‘Our journey to Paris is planned for next year. You have plenty of time to send for her. We shall pass Christmastide in Gascony, bring Beatrice, Edmund, and baby Katherine here and travel to Paris in January. I have not seen this beautiful child. We may find a cure for Katherine’s inability to hear. You may ask Lady Rosalind and Sir Thomas. Simon must join us too.’ She smiled at that suggestion. ‘We shall return for Alix’s wedding next year. I think her betrothed will have had his tenth birthday by then.’
‘I think Alix can wait for a ten-year-old to reach maturity. She should remain with us until he is fourteen.’
‘As you wish.’
Ailenor, to her complete amazement, had become fond of Alix of Lusignan. She would suggest she joined her train of ladies when they visited Paris. The spirited Alix would not look forward to marriage with a boy so much younger than she, a difference of seven years, though no doubt she would manage him. Still, Paris would hearten her.
That night, Henry encased her hands in his own and whispered to her. ‘I was most fortunate, my dearest love, when Richard brought me that poem you wrote -’
‘Of King Arthur. . .do you have it?’
‘I do,’ Henry took her in his arms and stroked her long black hair. ‘And once he had discovered you as a beautiful bride for me, I wanted none other.
You are my enchantress.’
‘God destined us to be together,’ she said, drowsy with happiness.
The candle guttered and blew out. Windows rattled. A storm was on its way.
Author’s Note
I began researching The Silken Rose in 2016. It is the first in a trilogy concerning medieval queens who were regarded by many contemporary barons and chroniclers as ‘she-wolves’. All three were foreign. They were powerful queens. They upset elements of the nobility in different ways. Ailenor of Provence stands accused of nepotism. Eleanor of Castile stands accused of greed. And Isabella of France was ‘not one of us’. These women have, in various ways, not enjoyed untainted historical reputations. I feel they have been misjudged and in The Rose Trilogy my aim is to bring these three medieval queens out of History’s shadows and animate significant parts of their lives. In the novels you will discover their personalities, the medieval world they inhabited, and the plots and intrigues that influenced their lives.
Ailenor of Provence is the first of these foreign queens. She is followed by her daughter-in-law, Eleanor of Castile, whose skill at acquiring and developing property was frowned upon by the barons who lost properties to her. She provoked complaints from the Church because of her methods such as taking on debts from money lenders and foreclosing on debtors’lands. The third queen in the trilogy is Isabella of France who was Eleanor of Castile’s daughter-in-law. Ailenor of Provence outlived her daughter-in-law, but Eleanor of Castile died long before her son Edward II married Isabella of France.
Why was Ailenor of Provence considered a ‘she-wolf’? She was twelve or thirteen years old on her marriage to Henry III. The actual year of her birth is not set in stone; I allowed her thirteen years which may be authorial licence. She seems to have been determined to embrace queenship, giving alms to the poor, endowing abbeys, and being a good mother and devoted wife. She came from a poor country, yet Henry was astute when he made this alliance with Provence and Savoy because although impoverished, Provence was strategically important. Provence and Savoy guarded routes south into Italy and the Mediterranean. It was a romantic territory, a land of the troubadour culture popular during the High Medieval period of the magnificent thirteenth century.
Ailenor never brought Henry a dowry and was not from the ‘top drawer’ of European nobility. However, she was alleged to be beautiful, educated, intelligent, and fashionable. Margaret Howell writes in her biography about Ailenor of Provence:
Eleanor of Provence, her mother, her sisters and her daughters were all described as beautiful. What did it mean? Superficially it seems that medieval chroniclers were entirely uncritical in attributing beauty to any young woman of high birth. Here one must avoid anachronisms. Thirteenth-century chroniclers frequently mention beauty and manner in close association, and the second might powerfully reinforce the first. . . from Matthew Paris’s superlatives it seems likely that Beatrice of Provence and her daughters had a generous measure of natural advantage.
Henry was happy to send a request to Ailenor’s father, Raymond of Provence, for his second daughter’s hand in marriage and to break off his marriage alliance with Jeanne of Ponthieu, a betrothal that had run into problems because, encouraged by France, the Pope would not give Henry his permission to marry Jeanne, on the grounds of consanguinity. France did not like the alliance between England and Ponthieu, one that could potentially strengthen Henry strategically and threaten French territories. Jeanne was heir to her mother’s territory of Ponthieu and also to Aumale, which lay within Normandy. The French King Philip Augustus had seized Normandy from King John of England in 1205 and Philip’s heirs could not risk England recovering land in the area and re-establishing control of Normandy. In fact, Jeanne’s father had promised that he would not marry off his daughters without the permission of the King of France. Queen Regent, Blanche of Castile, invoked that promise on behalf of her son Louis IX.
Jeanne of Ponthieu later married Ferdinand III of Castile. Her daughter was Eleanor of Castile, who in this novel is betrothed to Ailenor and Henry’s son, Edward I.
Ailenor arrived in January 1236 with her uncle, William of Savoy. He was the first of Ailenor’s Provencal relatives to be advanced by Henry III. William of Savoy, a bishop, became one of Henry’s chief counsellors. Another uncle, the charming Peter of Savoy, later arrived, and was made an advisor and given property, the Honour of Richmond in Yorkshire. Peter built the Savoy Palace in London. Handsome, reforming Uncle Boniface became Archbishop of Canterbury.
Many talented clerks arrived in England from Savoy and Provence. They were employed in the treasury and other areas of government that had traditionally been the prerogative of the English barons. The barons felt such jobs were theirs to distribute and control. Moreover, as Savoyard marriages were made with English heirs and heiresses, it limited the field for the English aristocracy. Matthew Paris, chronicler, wrote at the time:
Before the said council was broken up Peter of Savoy, earl of Richmond, came to the royal court at London bringing with him some unknown women from his distant homeland in order to marry them to the English nobles who were royal wards. To many native and indigenous Englishmen this seemed unpleasant and absurd, for they felt that they were being despised.
This situation as illustrated in the novel was further exacerbated when Henry brought his half-brothers and two half-nieces to England after the death of his mother, Isabella of Angouleme, in June 1246. Spectacular marriages were made for his relatives, in particular that of Joan, the granddaughter of William Marshal and the Marshal heiress, to his half-brother William of Valence. Again, Matthew Paris wrote in 1247:
In the same year on the ides of August, on the lord king’s advice and recommendation, Joan, daughter of Warin de Muntchensi, was married to William of Valence, the lord king’s uterine brother. Since the eldest son and heir of the above Warin was dead, his daughter Joan, the only one still alive, was due for a very rich inheritance. Thus the nobility of England devolved in a large measure to unknown foreigners. Moreover Alesia, half-sister to the king, was married to John, the young earl of Warenne.
Henry’s half-niece, Alix, married Gilbert de Clare. This was not to be a happy union. The presence of Henry’s half-brothers and -nieces in England did bring a degree of conflict between him and Ailenor. For a time, as historians write, it was King’s men and Queen’s men. It seems they resolved the situation, so I adhered to this within the novel. Just outside the novel’s timeline, Henry made peace with France. He and Ailenor visited Paris. She was for a time reunited with her sisters and mother.
It is also fact that Ailenor was supportive of Simon de Montfort, at least until the 1260s when conflict in England between the King and his barons became imminent. Ailenor then spent years in France, separated from Henry, loyally raising mercenaries to fight for her husband. The civil strife was provoked by Henry’s persistent demands for extra finances but it was more because of a general dissatisfaction with Henry’s methods of government exacerbated by widespread famine. The relationship between Simon de Montfort and Henry reached crisis point at the time of Earl Simon’s trial in the 1250s.
Henry enjoyed fashion as did Ailenor. He was extravagant, a lover of pageantry and expensive building works such as Westminster Abbey. They as did their children, loved the Arthurian legends and believed in them. Ailenor came from Provence which had a troubadour following as had Aquitaine. She believed in the stories and in the tradition of courtly romance popular during the twelfth century. Like Henry’s grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, she would conduct intellectual discussions on the subject of love. She was, I suggest, a romantic queen who saw herself as a latter day Guinevere. Unlike Guinevere and Arthur, she remained totally loyal to Henry and there is no evidence that he was other than loyal to Ailenor throughout the marriage.
The barons’ desire to control Henry’s spending, challenge his determination to protect Gascony - an expensive project - along with Ailenor’s and Henry’s nepotism, were factors that contributed to
the Barons’ War of the next decade. Henry flouted the rules laid down in the Magna Carta. He made promises to his barons to curb his spending over and over again. The specific events leading up to the conflict are omitted from The Silken Rose because I had to make choices about what to include. Therefore I ended this book with Edward’s betrothal to Eleanor of Castile because she will be the subject of the second novel, The Damask Rose, which opens in 1264 during the conflict.
Outside the remit of this book, Henry became embroiled in a war against the Hohenstaufen Dynasty in Sicily on behalf of Pope Innocent IV, in return for the title of King of Sicily for his son Edmund. When Henry’s treasury dried up Innocent withdrew the title and offered it to Charles of Anjou. Finally, Simon de Montfort became the leader of those who wanted to uphold the Magna Carta and ensure that the king surrender more power to the baronial council. Earl Simon and the barons supporting him initiated a move towards reform. The Provisions of Oxford of 1258 abolished absolute monarchy, giving power to a council of twenty-four barons to administer the business of government and provide a Parliament. Henry made the oath to adhere to the Provisions, but bought the support of France by relinquishing claims to Normandy and with French support won a papal bull to release him from his oath. By April 1263, Simon de Montfort returned to England and gathered dissident barons together at Oxford. Fighting broke out in the Welsh Marches and by the autumn of 1263 both sides had raised large armies.
For The Silken Rose, I decided to introduce a subplot, the story of an imagined character, Rosalind. Her narrative intersects with that of Ailenor. My purpose was to view Ailenor through another lens; to introduce City craftsmen and women; to give the story another dimension highlighting the importance of English embroidery during the thirteenth century.
The Silken Rose Page 35
