He therefore decided to levy an extraordinary tax, which was dressed up in part as the traditional levy on the occasion of his being knighted. In the context of general austerity following the civil unrest of the past year or so, and when the papacy was seeking a tax of a tenth in support of Henry III’s supposed intention to go on Crusade in Sicily, it needs hardly be said that, however much good Edward was doing in managing individual grievances, this was a step which was hugely unpopular and provoked further unrest.41
Quite how serious this was is unclear: Henry III had a tendency to ‘spin’ facts (or even invent stories) to suit his convenience. One should therefore perhaps not give too much credence to his announcement in April 1255 that he had to send reinforcements to Edward. However, it is certainly the case that military steps were being taken on a number of fronts, which indicates a fairly tense situation; in July Edward was besieging the fortress of the Comte de Gramont and he also reinforced Fronsac, occupied Guiche, and improved the fortifications at Bayonne (sending for materials from his territory in Ireland).42
Finally, in looking at what was done during the course of the year, the records of Edward’s travels, in which he was probably mostly accompanied by Eleanor (when the vicissitudes of pregnancy allowed) already show signs of a more active style of government than that of his father. Henry’s year in Gascony was relatively static, with a number of stops for between two weeks and a month. Edward, however, was constantly on the move, albeit with a number of bases to which he made regular returns, such as Bordeaux itself and Saint-Macaire, a pleasant fortified village just outside Bordeaux which housed a substantial priory dedicated to St Sauveur. It is highly unusual to see a stay of longer than a week at any location; far more common are two-night stops as he repeatedly visited Bayonne, Dax, Saint-Sever, Bazas, Castillon, Bergerac and other major towns throughout the region – as well as stopping in La Réole to see how it was settling down. This is consistent with Edward’s much more active style generally, with his interest in administration, which would encourage him to see the details on site.43
Having marshalled the evidence for this first period of government, one is forced to wonder whence came this interest and this active approach, so different from that of his father. One credible answer is not far to seek – this approach was consistent with the hands-on style of government which was the norm in Castile. It is probably too much at this stage to look simply to Eleanor, but in the weeks surrounding the marriage Edward had ample time to consult with the experienced and didactically minded Alfonso, to assist in forming his views as to how he would manage his first solo venture. Alfonso, too, will have been within easy reach for correspondence in this first year. But Eleanor had also been brought up in this school of thought, and had witnessed her father’s administrative business at close range; she will certainly have wanted to see her husband develop as a ruler in the style of her father. It therefore seems probable that Edward’s first foray into government was inspired by ideas received from his new Castilian family, and supported by Eleanor.
Meanwhile, for Eleanor the year will have been an important learning curve too. Not only would she have to familiarise herself with a new court and way of doing things, and a complete new cast of characters, she will also have wanted to begin to bring her Anglo-Norman French up to scratch – the French that she spoke with her mother will almost certainly have been Picard. It is likely that between this, her pregnancy and illness, the discussions which she shared with Edward as to the infinite series of Gascon problems and her natural concerns about Edward’s first military forays, time will not have hung heavy on her hands.
Apart from the learning which each had to do during the year, it appears clear that this was a very important time for Edward and Eleanor as a couple, providing them with a relatively unsupervised period in which they could build a relationship in a normal fashion. In this, the sojourn seems to have been a thoroughgoing success, laying down some of the ties which held them together so firmly in later years. In both these respects one can perhaps discern a very modern parallel; in today’s English royal family, both the queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge vouch for the importance of just such a period of relative normalcy before joining full-time royal duties. The success of the year is reflected in the considerable fondness which both developed and later manifested for the area – which is apparent in the fact that they returned more often than appears to have been necessary to Gascony in the years ahead, with visits in 1261–2, 1273–4 and 1286–9. It is also vouched for by Trabut-Cussac, who prior to his death studied Edward’s Gascon endeavours more closely than any other scholar. He describes Edward as having a particular fondness and solicitude for Gascony.44
The pair seem too to have established close relationships with a number of those who were around them at the time, forming the nucleus of what would become a stable and harmonious domestic court. Otho de Grandison and Ebulo de Montibus were of course present. So was an English Montfort, Peter, and very possibly John de Vescy – both of whose families later allied with Eleanor’s. Guy de Lusignan, too, is frequently glimpsed as present in the records, and may have met his future wife, Eleanor’s cousin, Jeanne of Châtellherault, during this year.
With so much going on and being learnt, it might seem puzzling that Edward and Eleanor did return to England so soon. However, the answer is simple: it was not their decision. On 17 August, Henry III had sent in unequivocal terms to recall Edward from Gascony, indicating that he should go to Ireland and announcing who should take charge in his stead. Although Edward had notionally received Gascony as part of his provision on marriage, Henry had not actually renounced his title as Duke of Aquitaine to him; short of rebellion, Edward therefore had to leave Gascony. One can readily imagine that he did so reluctantly – indeed, the period of time which he spent crossing i’s and dotting t’s before he finally left on 29 November speaks for that, as well as for his enthusiasm for the administrative side of his job. So too does the position as regards Peter of Savoy. It was intended that Edward should hand over the reins in Gascony as soon as possible after the arrival of Peter of Savoy, appointed by Henry as seneschal. Edward, however, did no such thing. Peter arrived in September, but Edward did not leave Gascony until late October, continuing to do business via his own appointees (including Eleanor’s cousin Michael de Fiennes) until late in October; Peter of Savoy’s name is notable by its absence from the records.45
One final point can be noted. There is every sign that by the end of the first year Edward was already devoted to Eleanor. The evidence for this comes from the documents surrounding his return. It was certainly Henry III’s idea – in fact his command – that Edward should not return to England at all at this time, but instead go to Ireland until Easter 1256 to see to the affairs of his second territory. But when Edward did finally leave Gascony, he instead followed Eleanor back to England, flouting the instruction to go to Ireland. In Edward’s open defiance of his father’s command we can see a strong desire not to be too long away from Eleanor. For the next thirty-five years, only dire necessity would keep them apart.46
5
The First Years in England
Eleanor, now just under fourteen years old, arrived in England at Dover early in October 1255. She is reported as having come with a large retinue, probably composed of a good number of their English court from Gascony, but without either Edward or adequate smart clothing. This last lack immediately provides another insight into the how the compatible tastes of Eleanor and Edward had already manifested: while the Henrician court was a very dressy place, Edward as king eschewed royal purple or rich clothing, preferring more everyday clothes, and Eleanor also seems to have lacked a taste for expensive clothing. For her formal entry into the court, the plain attire she had brought with her was deemed completely unacceptable, and the costs of making good her wardrobe were met by her father-in-law, Henry III, who wanted her to make a good impression – not least perhaps because his own stock was
currently rather low, with heated debates occurring at the October parliament over his demands for funding for his Sicilian project.
Henry therefore sent her 100 marks to purchase what she needed, and a choice of decent palfreys to ride upon. It seems likely that Henry had originally wanted to welcome Eleanor in time for the feast of St Edward on 13 October, but her late arrival and inadequate supplies made this impossible. Instead, Henry put her in the charge of the castellan of Dover Castle, Reginald de Cobham, asking him to look after her and escort her to London by way of Canterbury, where she was to spend St Edward’s Day instead in the company of, among others, Edward’s old tutor in arms, Nicholas de Molis. As well as his other gifts, he sent her a variety of offerings to be made at Canterbury ‘and other shrines along her road’: a silver alms dish, which he had ordered as long ago as July, two gold brooches for offering at the shrines of Edward the Confessor and Thomas Becket, and twelve silken cloths, six of arras and six of gold. A stop at Canterbury will have been congenial to Eleanor too, as affording an opportunity to visit the shrine of Becket, whose veneration had been introduced to the Castilian royal family by Eleanor of England.1
Following this programme, Eleanor arrived in London on St Etheldreda’s Day, Sunday 17 October 1255. The London to which Eleanor came was a place which is difficult for us to picture, with the vision of the enormous modern city embedded firmly in our minds. Contributing to the difficulty is the absence of any contemporaneous description of the city as a whole – the nearest description is that given by William FitzStephen, Becket’s biographer, some century earlier. To bring it up to date, the best that can be done is to add details of buildings which are known to have been built in the intervening period, and vignettes which emerge from London’s administrative records.
Approaching the city as Eleanor will have done, from the south, the first thing to note is that there was effectively no London south of the river. With the exception of one or two sizeable buildings and gardens in the ownership of the Church or monastic orders, the countryside ran right up to the river – or at least to the commencement of the marshland which abutted on the river in many places. For London in the thirteenth century was a much lower-seated and more watery place than its modern incarnation, where the many streams which meandered down to the tidal Thames have been enclosed and the banks of the river built up to make flooding an almost unimaginable contingency.
The route over the river was by boat or by London Bridge – the route Eleanor will likely have used. However, the amazing view which this structure (a massive version of Florence’s Ponte Vecchio) ought to have afforded did not exist, since it was built up on either side with shops, whose rents, notionally at least, paid for the upkeep of the bridge.
On the north side of the river, the city fell effectively into three parts. The first, and only recognisably urban part, was the City of London itself, which was still substantially bounded by the Roman walls, in which six gates – Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate and St Paul’s Ludgate – provided the routes in from outside the walls (Moorgate had yet to be put in place). Outside the walls, some wharves and shipyards now extended east along the bank of the river, and some commercial development had also begun in the north-east segment, in the area known as Houndsditch. This was a rather marshy area, which attracted crowds for skating during the winter months. There were also some more elegant developments a little outside the city wall to the north, before the commencement of fields, pastures and watermills leading to the great forest of Hampstead, which contained deer, boar and even wild bulls. The Knights of St John, the Benedictines and the Carthusians had all set up substantial priories to the north-west towards Clerkenwell, and we know that at some point in the thirteenth century the bishops of Ely and the earls of Gloucester built their own palaces at Ely Place and Clerkenwell.
On the eastern boundary of the city stood the Tower of London, which was, in 1255, very much in the course of improvement by Henry III. His works included luxurious private quarters for king and queen, with a great hall between them, and an expansion of the boundaries of the Tower. The king’s quarters were sited on the first floor of Wakefield Tower (then known as the Blundeville Tower) and there was a private watergate east of that tower for royal use. The queen’s chambers apparently resembled a bower, with roses painted on a white background. Other features of the improvements included new curtain walls, crowned with a range of new towers, completion of an inland moat and a sparkling coat of white paint on the White Tower. In addition, the Tower featured a zoo or menagerie of some size. From early in the 1240s the Tower had housed the odd wild animal, such as the three leopards sent by Emperor Frederick II. But in 1251 the main royal menagerie, then sited at Woodstock, was moved to the Tower. Among its inmates were leopards, lynxes and a camel, but the pièces de résistance at the time of Eleanor’s arrival were the polar bear, presented by King Haakon of Norway in 1252, and the elephant, which had recently been sent as a present by Louis of France following the successful meeting between the two kings in December 1254. The polar bear was kept on a leash and allowed to fish in the Thames. The elephant was housed in a house (prudently designed so that it could be put to other uses if required) some forty feet long and twenty feet wide; it died in 1258. After this, its bones were used to make reliquaries for Henry III’s increasing collection at Westminster Abbey and its house was used as a place of imprisonment, inter alia for Jews accused of coin clipping.
In contrast to the Tower’s burgeoning importance, the castles which held the western end, Baynard’s Castle and Mountfitchet Castle, were in a state of considerable disrepair, their destruction having in fact been ordered by King John and at least partly carried out. In due course (and with Eleanor’s active support) these sites would be given to the Dominicans or Black Friars for their London establishment.
To the west of the city walls flowed the substantial River Fleet, powering mills where Turnmill Lane now stands, and descending into the huge valley of modern Farringdon Street before exiting into the Thames. Some sense of its scale can be obtained by standing on Holborn Viaduct, the site of the old Holborn Bridge (named after the stream of the Hole-burn, which joined the Fleet near this point), and envisaging the two small islands which stood in the stream between the banks at the base of Fleet Street, forty metres asunder, and which provided the base for the lower river crossing, which Eleanor would have followed. The river was navigable as far as the bridge – at least periodically – for the effluent from the Smithfield slaughterhouses and the nearby tanneries tended to silt it up. Through the City also ran the smaller, but still significant, River Walbrook, which entered the city by what would later be Moorgate, with banks at (appropriately) Bank and Mansion House, reaching the river slightly to the east of the modern Cousin Lane. This river was crossed by means of a substantial bridge in the vicinity of Poultry, which can have been no pleasant business, because it was reported at about this period to be no better than an open sewer, full of dung and refuse.
The glory of the city was St Paul’s Cathedral, sited much where the existing building lies but probably resembling a slightly larger version of Salisbury Cathedral. It had one of the tallest spires in Europe, a majestic nave and exquisite stained-glass windows. At the time of Eleanor’s arrival, it was undergoing an extension which would see it enclose the nearby church of St Faith’s, and replace its roof with new wood – a decision which was to doom the building four centuries later.2
The second coherent part of London lay round the dogleg curve of the Thames to the south-west. Here was a substantial enclave which was built up around the royal palace of Westminster and its neighbour Westminster Abbey. Around these major centres were dotted satellite dwellings and palaces. The kings of Scotland maintained a house, known as Scotland Yard, and some of the major courtiers also had houses in the near vicinity of the court – in later years, Otho de Grandison would have a house near Westminster of such size that a parliament was held there. Quite how large Westminste
r was at this stage is unclear. In the eleventh century there were fewer than a hundred dwellings here. By 1300 that number would have risen to around 3,000. At the time of Eleanor’s arrival it probably therefore presented the appearance of a small town in its own right. Dotted nearby were small villages and farms, such as the grouping right opposite the turn in the river known as Charing, in which some houses and gardens had been granted in the 1230s by the Marshal family to the Augustinian priory of St Mary at Roncevaux. In the intervening years these had been converted into the priory and Hospital of St Mary Rounceval.
Between the two London centres of the City and Westminster lay the Strand and Fleet Street, along which ribbon development was in the process of occurring. The first colonists appear to have been the Knights Templar, who in the late twelfth century abandoned their base in Holborn for a large compound between Fleet Street and the river, just west of the city walls. Their church housed the body of William Marshal and his sons, and had originally been destined to be Henry III’s own final resting place. Their compound was also used as a safe deposit for valuables by many. They were bordered by the Carmelites or White Friars, whose establishment was slightly nearer the City walls. Then followed more palatial developments. The greatest of these was the palace of the Savoy – owned, of course, by Peter of Savoy, on land gifted to him by Henry III. It was later to become the home of the earls and dukes of Lancaster. Another palace known to be in existence at the time was York House, the residence of the Bishop of Norwich, built sometime before 1237 and whose watergate can still be seen in the Embankment Gardens.3
Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen Page 13
