Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen

by Sara Cockerill

  An interesting question at this point is where Eleanor went. Edward, we know, stayed in England. It has been suggested that on this occasion Eleanor did not remain with him, but instead went with her in-laws. The reason for this suggestion is the apparent meeting between Henry and Eleanor of Provence and Eleanor’s mother Jeanne and brother Ferdinand, evidenced by their obtaining privileges for Ponthevin merchants. However, Eleanor was reported to be with Edward on Henry and Eleanor of Provence’s return in spring. She did not, unlike her sisters-in-law (who are mentioned in correspondence as being with the king), receive any presents from Eleanor of Provence at Christmas 1259, which the king and queen spent abroad. Further, her health (unlike his and the queen’s) is not mentioned by Henry in letters to Hugh Bigod to be transmitted to Edward. All this suggests powerfully that Eleanor passed up the opportunity to see her family in order to remain with her husband.10

  Once his family and mentors had gone, Edward seized back his castles and replaced the council-appointed custodians with his own appointees. This was not just a snub to the council, but to Eleanor of Provence, who was in alliance with the council, and some of whose Savoyard henchmen had been put in charge of these castles. Then, to further put fuel on the fire, Edward, in concert with de Montfort, began to argue that Parliament could be gathered in Henry’s absence – in the face of Henry’s clear prohibition on Parliament being convened while he was still in France. This was the touch point for a row between Edward (and presumptively Eleanor) and his parents which was never entirely resolved.

  Within weeks, both sides were raising arms. Then Henry sent home as his representative none other than the Earl of Gloucester, with whom Edward was by now embroiled in a violent disagreement over their competing claims to Bristol Castle. The outcome was disastrous. Gloucester, possibly maliciously, reported back that Edward was planning to dethrone his father in a military coup. The king’s party continued to prepare for war, with Henry summoning those barons and knights he thought he could trust, and Gloucester raising his own forces. Fortunately Richard of Cornwall, arriving back from his imperial interlude, took the sensible middle line and had the gates of London closed and guarded against both factions and arms issued to all men over the age of fifteen.11

  At this point Edward and Montfort and their retinues (including Eleanor) holed up in the hospital of St John at Clerkenwell, where they stayed for weeks while the process of mediation inched forward. It seems plain that Edward was incandescent with Gloucester, but still more so with his mother, who he blamed for joining with Gloucester to create the situation. To make bad worse, Eleanor of Provence herself intervened to prevent reconciliation. Henry would have reconciled with Edward readily – indeed, he acknowledged that if he only saw Edward he would not refrain from embracing him – but his mother needed to get Edward back under control to maintain her own power base and would not reconcile short of capitulation by Edward.12

  Pausing here for a moment, it is perhaps not a great leap to speculate that the situation brought about by a queen who took on an overtly political role and competed for power with her own husband and son was a very formative experience for the eighteen-year-old Edward; and may well have contributed to the role to which Eleanor was later to be confined by Edward (despite her stronger claims to a political role based on her greater intellectual attainments). Here, therefore, we see the origin of the fact that under Edward there would be absolutely no overt political role for Eleanor – and her consequent position in the shadows.

  Edward found that, short of giving his parents the rebellion which they had imagined, he had no way back but capitulation. He was forced to eat humble pie – brought before his father in a set piece of contrition in St Paul’s Cathedral – and to yield his castles back up to be run by new appointees. A month later, he was brought to sign up to a new reconciliation with Gloucester. Meanwhile, he had to stand by and watch while Montfort was put on trial by Henry, at the behest of Gloucester and Eleanor of Provence. The final straw came as the trial drew to a close. On 20 July 1260, news came that Edward’s castle at Builth Wells – recently taken from the custody of Edward’s Marcher appointee, the formidable Roger Mortimer – had been besieged by Llywelyn, had fallen and had been razed to the ground.

  Edward’s immediate reaction was fury that his property had been lost by the men appointed against his will and determination to go to war. He borrowed money and a month after the castle fell Edward was to be found in Chester preparing for action, with a muster planned for early September. Once again, however, his position was undermined by Henry, Eleanor of Provence and their advisers; on 1 September 1260, Henry agreed a two-year ceasefire and the attack was called off.13

  While Edward prepared for war in Wales, Eleanor seems to have been being something of a trial to Henry in another way – hunting freely in the royal estates. One entry in the Close Rolls has her pardoned for taking no fewer than eight hinds without permission in the Forest of Dean while giving her permission to do likewise round St Briavel’s Castle in Gloucestershire. Later, in November, she was given permission to take six hinds in each of the forests of Braden and Gillingham.14

  Also at around this time news came of Eleanor’s mother’s remarriage to a Jean De Nesle, Sieur De Falvy et de Herelle. He was a connection of the de Coucy family into which Eleanor’s aunt Philippa de Dammartin had married and seems, judging by the facts that he brought no notable alliance or property and that he outlived Jeanne by over a decade, to have been a handsome, and possibly younger, man. There is no sign that Eleanor took badly to this match; she will doubtless have borne in mind that it was prudent for any countess in her own right to be married. It is not clear how closely linked in time were Jeanne’s remarriage and the death of her eldest son and heir apparent Ferdinand, which occurred at some point in the early 1260s, leaving Eleanor a potential heir to the county of Ponthieu, and increasing her political importance in English eyes.

  Meanwhile, the Welsh ceasefire which his father had agreed left Edward in a very difficult position. He could not turn his attention to the Welsh question before 1262, in the face of the ceasefire. His relations with his parents and their advisers would inevitably lead to disagreements if he remained. At the same time, his interest in Gascony needed guarding in the light of the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris in the previous winter and the revival of hostilities between Gaston de Béarn and Esquivat de Chabanais. The obvious practical solution was, therefore, to remove himself from court to Gascony – but to achieve that he needed the co-operation of his father’s (or rather his mother’s) advisers, who, on the evidence of the Welsh affair, would be likely to sacrifice his interests to their own.

  The result was an apparent volte-face of staggering proportions. In late September 1260, Edward and Montfort united with Gloucester, and with their combined power they were able to seize control of the council. There was no display of force or open political statement this time, but all the main ministers were replaced. Hugh Bigod was replaced by Hugh Despenser, a friend of Montfort, brother-in-law of Philip Basset and, like Peter de Montfort a member of Edward’s household in Gascony. Montfort’s trial was quietly dropped. However, the alliance came at a price dictated by Gloucester, which was a halt to the legal and administrative reforms which Edward had championed. The coup, though radical, was all but silent – the only overt sign of the new state of affairs was the ceremony in October when Edward knighted Montfort’s eldest sons, Henry and Simon. Indeed, so silent was the coup that it has only fully come to light recently in Maddicott’s research on Simon de Montfort.15

  Some might suggest that this alliance, which committed Edward to Gloucester’s essentially anti-reformist policy of allowing great magnates to investigate and correct abuses in their own territories, gives the lie to Edward’s actual commitment to reform. It was indeed changes of this sort which gave Edward his second-best-known nickname ‘the Leopard’: a beast believed to be more cunning than a lion and thought to gain its way by deceit. However, it is more likely
that the commitment to reform was real and that the change was truly one of practical necessity. Certainly Edward’s discomfort with this alliance of convenience is strongly suggested by his immediate retreat from England. Rather than staying to keep the new junta in power, he instead decamped with his large retinue, to which the elder Montfort sons, Henry and Simon, were now added.16

  In this one trip in late 1260 to early 1261 can be seen brought together three of Edward’s major preoccupations in this period. The first was Gascony – consistently with his actions for the past year or more, once it became apparent that his position in England left him little to do, either for his lands there or the process of reform, Edward headed for Gascony to resume the reins of power and his administrative reforms there. His court was in Gascony before Christmas, and stayed there until March, missing a major family event – the wedding of his sister Beatrice to John of Brittany, which took place on Christmas Day in 1260. This gives the lie to the more usual account that Edward went abroad to participate in tournaments. He did participate in tournaments, it is true, but on the way down to Gascony. He also gave serious attention to the business of government.17

  Nonetheless the tournament participation, which certainly did occur in these years, deserves to be counted in the list of priorities. It is not fair to say (as Matthew Paris tends to suggest, and subsequent commentators tend to accept) that participation in tournaments was a sign of irresponsibility or fecklessness. In context, it represents a commitment to establishing himself as personally skilled in arms and a leader in battle. In Eleanor’s family this would be done in actual campaign, but for Edward, in the absence of actual war, in no other way were such skills to be learnt and practised until they came with facility. Richard I, England’s most famous martial king, was a firm believer in the tournament’s use as a training ground for knights, specifically licensing tournaments to improve the quality of English knights, and Alfonso’s Siete Partidas recognises the role of tournaments in keeping fighters in training.

  Moreover, whatever the view of Henry or Matthew Paris or the subsequent commentators, success in tournaments was far from a negative point in European society. It is, of course, well known that William Marshal first came to prominence as the great star of the tournament circuit of his era, and that the skills he honed here led to success in actual conflict in his later life, appointments and ultimately the bestowal of an earldom and lands sufficient still to be a point of vibrant debate between his heirs a century later. Nor had this route to distinction passed away – as we have seen, Eleanor’s own uncle by marriage, John of Brienne, took exactly the same route to renown and even royalty. Accordingly, the derogatory tone directed to this aspect of Edward’s life at this time should be discounted both as impractical and as out of step with broader perceptions of the time.18

  Again, one may ask why Edward took this course – given that it was certainly not going to be at his parents’ behest. The case for Eleanor’s involvement in this is also quite compelling. It is perhaps natural, given Edward’s later reputation as a warrior, to assume that his fondness for tournaments was innate; and it may be that he would have been keen on such pursuits without Eleanor at his side. However, the assumption is not necessarily a safe one. Three points are worth noting in this regard. The first is that he did take up the tournament circuit shortly after their marriage – despite the fact that he was brought up to despise tournaments. The second is that, consistent with that upbringing, he had never shown signs of any such interest prior to their marriage – unlike, for example, Henry the Young King. The third is that Eleanor, in contrast, was brought up among those who regarded training in arms as a vital accomplishment for a king, active participation in battle on his part as a sine qua non, and tournaments as the best substitute.

  The final point of focus (in which we may again see Eleanor’s hand) is that, on his way down to Gascony, Edward reunited with the Lusignans in Paris, where Aymer was on his deathbed, thereby making it plain that he had not abandoned them and that he continued to ally himself with them. To reinforce the point, he (as in 1258) appointed Guy de Lusignan his lieutenant in Gascony, and (almost certainly in concert with Eleanor) arranged the marriage of Geoffrey de Lusignan to Eleanor’s cousin Jeanne, Countess of Châtellherault, the daughter of Eleanor’s maternal aunt Mathilde.19

  Thus, throughout the period from the beginning of the barons’ revolt one can detect Edward working at acquiring particular skill sets that he would need in the future: in particular, learning the ropes of government and reform in a hands-on way and learning to be a military leader. Eleanor’s hand in assisting in positioning Edward away from his mother’s influence, maintaining their interest in Gascony and Wales and steering Edward in the direction of the skills which he would be required to exercise as a successful king and did not yet possess cannot be definitively proved, but seems to be strongly indicated, as one would expect, given her upbringing.20

  Meanwhile, by April 1261, without Edward’s retinue to hold them back, the Savoyards had moved to regain power and Edward, out of funds, was forced to return. It is plain that when Edward returned in April with Pembroke, he did so with the intention of maintaining the junta via the ties he had re-established with the Lusignans. Yet Pembroke was nobody’s tool. Forming the view that he was more likely to get his estates in England and Wales restored via Henry than Gloucester and Montfort, he rapidly went over to the king’s party.21

  Edward’s position was next to impossible. He had loyalties to his parents and his uncle, and yet also to Montfort and the cause of administrative reform. Within the erstwhile junta the aspects of administrative reform to which Edward was pledged were still being blocked by Gloucester, while his parents and the Savoyards were now claiming to espouse and to be the defenders of this aspect of reform. He had settled Gascony in concert with the useful Lusignan alliance, and to move away from that alliance would inevitably cause problems. As to money, Edward had considerably overspent in past years, both in defence of his lands and in the acquisition of his proto-army. On this point, he was much more likely to get funds from the royal–Lusignan alliance in power than the Montfortian one out of power: Montfort was always short of money himself and Gloucester was unlikely ever to assist.

  Ultimately the bottom line won, and in May Edward defected to the royal party. But significant numbers of Edward’s supporters, including some close friends, refused to defect with him. Most notable among these were Henry of Almain and Roger Clifford. If anything were needed to add bitterness to a very difficult period, it rapidly transpired that if Edward had made his move in belief that the Savoyard faction were indeed pledged to real reform, they and his parents had played him for a fool.

  Henry simply procured a papal dispensation absolving him from his oath to uphold the Provisions of Oxford and annulled all the initiatives introduced under its aegis. Although Edward did not follow the stampede of those whose disgust at this move sent them into alliance with Montfort, there is strong evidence to suppose that he was appalled at this move. Apparently, when told that the king had obtained a letter of dispensation for Edward too, Edward’s reaction was to renew his own oath. However, he was effectively stuck with the royalist side; as Morris points out, it was hardly practical for him to turn back to Montfort, having only defected scant weeks before, and all the financial imperatives for his defection still stood. It is also possible that he and those around him began to sense that the dispute would end in arms and with an actual challenge to Henry’s rule, which Edward would be bound to defend, think what he might of his father as a king. But his action in leaving the country again at once surely marks his profound dislike of this move.22

  So Edward, Eleanor and their companions set off again for Gascony in July 1261, where he returned to dealing with the problems of the duchy (never in short supply). Again, examination of what he did while there gives the lie to suggestions that this period of his life was idle and feckless and instead reinforces the impression of a king in training. He pr
omulgated a new constitution for the city of Bordeaux, which gave him a better base for controlling the Colomb–Soler feud. He reformed the coinage and dealt with numerous issues of law and order.23

  He also took some military steps to extend the territory under his control, in particular in the strategically important valley of Soule. In early November 1261, in an episode which has not attracted the attention of any of his biographers, he made a significant demonstration of force at the town of Mauléon which resulted in the submission of the troublesome viscounts of Soule. Certain lands, including Mauléon itself, were reluctantly ceded by the viscounts to Edward in exchange for other lands. Interestingly, Edward proceeded to fortify the town in bastide form – the very first evidence of Edward’s interest in bastidisation. Supplementing the existing fortress, the ‘haute-ville’ was protected by an external wall and arranged around a central rectangular place, surrounded by arcaded houses or shops. A similar exercise was performed at Villeneuve-lès-Tardets (today Tardets-Sorholus).

  This little-known interlude raises some fascinating questions. In particular, whence came the interest in fortifying towns? Richard I was the first Plantagenet to play with the concept in Gascony, with the foundation of Marmande in 1182, and Mont de Marsan and Nogaro had been locally founded even earlier. Since then little had been done in Gascony proper, though foundations had flourished in the Agenais under Louis IX’s brother Alphonse of Poitiers – provocatively close to the Gascon border. Henry III was of course not interested in military building, and Simon de Montfort seems to have had little interest either. The first proper new foundations in Gascony were to be built by Edward in 1265 (Monségur and Montpouillan). The work at Mauléon therefore represents a new departure. While the new towns of the Agenais probably had some influence, it is also likely that Eleanor’s own experience of the use made routinely in Castile of fortified towns, the emphasis placed on refortifying existing towns to a new user’s requirements and the injunctions reflected in the Siete Partidas that a good king minds the walls of his towns will have had some influence in turning Edward’s thoughts in this direction.