Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen
Page 25
Less progress has been possible in recreating the appearance of the city outside the complex. There was certainly a broad road from the Templars’ complex to the port. And apparently in the Genoese quarter there were roofed streets with shops facing the street, and courtyards behind. Overall, the atmosphere may well have been some way between the former Moorish cities familiar to Eleanor from her childhood and the Norman architecture with which she had become familiar in England since her marriage.23
However, as for that vagrant quality – atmosphere – the reports from earlier Crusaders suggest that Acre, despite its magnificence, may not have been the most congenial city in the world. James of Vitry called it a ‘second Babylon’ – citing the prevalence of murder, the easy availability of poison and the fact that certain clerics rented out their property to high-ranking prostitutes. Echoing this is Oliver of Paderborn, who called it ‘a sinful city and one filled with all uncleanness’. Meanwhile, Joinville, who accompanied Louis IX on his earlier Crusade, spoke of the ‘treacherous sins’ committed in Acre – and predicted that the inhabitants’ blood would be required to wash it clean. Edward’s discovery that the Venetian merchants were trading with the enemy suggests that not much had changed.
With this in mind, it may well be that, after the first excitement of arrival, Acre rapidly palled on the party. Although the Pelrinages et Pardouns de Acre, compiled between around 1258 and 1264, listed forty places of pilgrimage within the vicinity of Acre, it is unlikely that many of these could be explored in what was, in 1271–2, a warzone; and without a congenial town to enjoy, time must have hung pretty heavy. Aside from religious services and the preparations for the two forays which were made by their small contingent of troops, there was probably relatively little to do. One suspects that much chess – a favourite pastime of Eleanor and Edward – was played in this period. Other accounts of the Crusades refer to Crusaders playing dice – indeed, Louis IX caught Charles of Anjou playing dice en route in 1248 and threw board and dice into the sea.
Plainly Eleanor had recourse to her books. Most notably, this period sees the production by Eleanor’s clerk Mr Richard of the very first Anglo-Norman translation of the key Roman military handbook, Vegetius’ De Re Militarii. It was a work with which Eleanor would have been familiar from her own childhood, since it formed the backbone of the military advice in the Siete Partidas. However, this book was destined for Edward, who would be unlikely to read it in the original Latin. It is also tempting to place the production of the book as a Christmas gift for 1271. Considerable efforts had clearly been made to make it attractive to and engaging for Edward. One illustration shows him approaching Vegetius, and receiving instruction. Another is a most spirited depiction of a naval battle, perhaps inspired by the recent rout of Baibars’ fleet. It is also rather touchingly annotated with a note describing Edward’s dash to Kenilworth before Evesham as a perfect example of Vegetius’ principles.24
Eleanor would also have a chance to see at close range the recreations of the soldiers – there are, of course, recurrent stories of the Crusaders patronising prostitutes, but more innocently Joinville tells of soldiers building miniature versions of siege engines – with which they attacked each other’s dinners. And again and again talk would fall to home, the missed greenness of England, and families – including chats about marriages past and future. Joinville tells of some knights, themselves shortly to fall at Mansourah, passing another knight’s memorial Mass by discussing a possible remarriage for his wife.
Another absorbing topic of conversation will have been the history of the Crusades, and for the English this would involve tales of Richard the Lionheart. As Richard was a figure around whom many myths and romantic stories had aggregated over the years, there will have been much to hear. One aspect, however, can perhaps be traced into the approach which Edward and Eleanor later took to mythmaking domestically – the impact of Arthurian romance and chivalric approaches. Richard was closely associated with both of these. In particular, he was reputed to have taken Excalibur on Crusade and he organised the reburial of the reputed Arthur and Guinevere. Sadly, they were not inspired to imitate Richard’s approach to telling his own story by means of newsletters or accompanying minstrels – one of the reasons why material for this Crusade is so thin on the ground. Richard had sent regular bulletins back home and maintained an ‘embedded’ minstrel, Amboise, to whose work we owe some of the more poetic stories about Richard.25
Edward and Eleanor will also have had much to discuss about the future at home – how to occupy themselves after the Crusade in Henry III’s twilight years, and how they would conduct themselves once the throne passed to Edward. It is most likely that it was at some point during the crusading years that Edward and Eleanor decided on the role which she was to perform as queen – not simply to support him as a traditional queen, yet not to usurp his authority (unlike Eleanor of Provence). Eleanor’s role was to work as a businesswoman to build up a self-standing portfolio of property which could support a queen, as it was now apparent that at any one time appanages for two queens (the present and either the future or the past queen) would need to be available.
The need for such work would only have been emphasised as the bills for the Crusade racked up. Prestwich powerfully recounts the list of monies which Edward received (and obviously spent) on the Crusade: 70,000 livres from Louis of France, £31,000 by way of the grant of a twentieth, 6,000 marks from the Jewry, plus Edward’s own revenues. And still, in early 1272, Edward was calling for further funds – he needed 3,000 marks in Acre as soon as possible and the total of his borrowings from his main financiers only, the Ricciardi, was £22,364. There are also references to debts of 2,000 marks to the Hospitallers’ Paris branch, 7,000 livres owed to Italian merchants, plus nearly 28,000 livres owed to the Templars.26
The other matter which was, of course, central to Eleanor’s existence during the Crusade was her role as child bearer – and practically throughout the campaign she was pregnant. By the time of the conclusion of the peace treaty in April/May 1272, it is likely that the birth of her next child was imminent. This is probably the reason why, although Edmund departed for England almost at once, Edward and Eleanor did not. Some accounts put it down to Edward’s refusal to accept the peace, and there may certainly have been a desire on his part to pause a while and see whether the peace held; but realistically Eleanor and Edward simply could not move at once. The sensible thing was for them to await the birth of Eleanor’s next child and head home in summer.
The new baby was a daughter known to posterity as Joan ‘of Acre’, in honour of her birthplace. As with so many of Eleanor’s children, precise details for the birth are lacking and we know only that she was born sometime in spring 1272. Inferentially, however, it seems likely that she was born in May itself, since Eleanor makes her next – and most famous – historical appearance in June 1272, and at that time she was plainly neither about to give birth or awaiting churching.
Before this great event, however, was to come another piece of sad news: the death on 2 April 1272 of Richard of Cornwall, aged sixty-two. Richard was a great loss to the Royal family, and his death also provided a considerable family problem – Richard had, after all, been charged with the custody of Eleanor and Edward’s children in their absence. Although backup plans had been made, they were to entrust the children to Henry of Almain, who was also dead. It would have been fairly obvious that Eleanor of Provence would move to fill the gap and assume the role which Edward and Eleanor had expressly denied her on their departure, as she did. However, it appears that in the circumstances Eleanor and Edward were content with this approach – there is no trace of their trying to put in place any other arrangement; nor did they hurry home. Doubtless they accepted that, as matters had transpired, Eleanor was the best option, both politically and for the children – as a devoted mother and grandmother, her household would have been a familiar one to the small children.27
But events at home were soon overshadowe
d by the one event in Eleanor’s life which can properly be called well known: the assassination attempt on Edward – and Eleanor’s reputedly heroic actions to save him. Here, the myth and fact (so far as it can be established) are regrettably at some variance. The backstory is as follows: if the authorities cited earlier are correct, Edward refused to sign the truce. He then also failed to vacate the area as the rest of the Crusaders did. Whether or not he had any warlike intent – and it seems unlikely that he did, given Baibars’ huge military superiority – his presence was regarded with disquiet by Baibars. It may be that Baibars was concerned that Edward planned to stay and link up with the kings of France, Aragon and Sicily who had all spoken of resuming the Crusade in around 1273. Possibly also Baibars was vexed at the real check on his progress which the Crusade had achieved, and attributed it to Edward as the Crusade’s leader. For whatever reason, it is certain that Baibars arranged to have Edward assassinated.
Quite how this took place will probably never be known – there are a variety of accounts. One tells us that the assassin had gained a position as a servant, another that he was a known emissary, a third that he was part of an embassy bearing gifts. One particularly complex version has the assassin pretending to betray the sultan to gain access to Edward. Some accounts are more circumstantial than others, with some suggesting that Edward was just rising from his siesta and that he was lured away from the members of his household who surrounded him by a suggestion that a further message was for Edward’s ear only.
However, what does appear clear is that, on 17 June 1272, Edward’s thirty-third birthday, an assassin got close enough to Edward to stab him, possibly with a poisoned dagger and probably in the arm. That the wound was no worse was down to Edward’s own reactions – he is reported to have struggled with the assassin and killed him in doing so, or at least seriously injured him with a mighty kick, his own dagger being out of reach. There is no account from anyone who was present, but Walter of Guisborough, one of the main English sources, and probably the least unreliable, records that Edward was stabbed in the arm with a poisoned dagger and his life was despaired of until a surgeon cut inflamed flesh from the wound. Eleanor’s only role in this version is to be led away weeping and lamenting by Edward’s brother Edmund and John de Vescy, who is reputed to have tried to calm her with the remark, ‘Better that you should shed tears than that all the English land should weep.’ Of course (as the careful reader will have noticed), this account itself cannot be fully trusted – Edmund had left soon after the truce was signed. However, it is at least near-contemporaneous, whereas the account which elevates Eleanor’s role does not emerge until the next century.28
The other versions of the story are threefold. The first is a short account in a book called Historia Ecclesiastica written in the 1320s by an Italian Dominican, Bartolomeo Fiadoni (also known as Ptolemy of Lucca), who recounts a ‘popular tradition’ that Eleanor ‘showed great faithfulness; for with her tongue she licked his open wounds all the day, and sucked out the humour, and thus by her virtue drew out all the poisonous material’. This version was, perhaps unsurprisingly, picked up by the Spanish historian Sanctius and retold with variations in English in the late sixteenth century. From these comes the high romantic tradition of Eleanor’s heroism.
Just to complicate matters, there is another late version of the story which gives Eleanor’s role to Otho de Grandison. The bottom line appears to be that while we cannot be satisfied that Guisborough’s version is quite accurate (a sensible reinterpretation would be to allocate the roles of friends who removed Eleanor from Edward’s bedside to Vescy and Grandison, great friends of Edward and Eleanor and of each other), it is likely that it is his story which is at least roughly true. Thus, in all likelihood Edward was attacked and wounded, and, whether by reason of poison or lack of hygiene or otherwise, the wound festered and became dangerous. The possibility of poison is supported by the fact that he made a will on 18 June, which would suggest that within a day of the injury it was considered that he might die. The list of executors appointed by Edward is interesting: Otho de Grandison, John of Brittany, William de Valence, Roger de Clifford, Payn De Chaworth, Chaworth’s son-in-law Robert de Tybetot, Robert Burnell and Antony Bek. With Edward’s life in danger, an unpleasant operation to excise the affected flesh, which Edward might also not have survived, was necessary. Eleanor was at his bedside at this point and, unsurprisingly given their devotion and her recent childbirth, became hysterical and had to be removed by the couple’s friends.29
The rough veracity of the Guisborough version, it should be noted, is also supported by the facts of the next few months – as will be seen, Edward and Eleanor’s return was slow, and at some point this was ascribed by at least one friend to Edward’s need to recuperate.
In August, William of Valence left Acre. On 14 September, John of Brittany left, presumably with his wife, Edward’s sister Beatrice. Edward and Eleanor followed on 22 September 1272 for Sicily, leaving behind a small force under Jean de Grailly and Hamo Lestrange, one of the young Marchers, who had used his time on Crusade to arrange a marriage with the heiress of Beirut.30
Edward and Eleanor’s party arrived at Trapani in October or November and stayed into the New Year. The prolonged stay which Edward and Eleanor made in Sicily may be attributable to the fact that Edward was still recovering from his injuries; this is certainly the suggestion of a letter from Gregory X to Eleanor at around this time. While they were there, however, it is clear that Eleanor took the opportunity to intercede for her brother Enrique – with rather limited success. In late 1272, Charles did order Enrique’s prison to be cleaned and it was perhaps in this less rigorous confinement that the imprisoned knight errant wrote Amadis de Gaula.
Another contrasting intercession which the pair sought to make with Charles of Anjou was in respect of Henry of Almain’s murderers, the young Montforts, who had not yet been handed over to justice and were understood to be hiding out somewhere in the Apennines. Again, the success of the intercession was rather limited. While Charles promised that his new vicar of Tuscany would do all in his power to bring the fugitives to justice, no concrete results eventuated.31
Late in December or very early in the year 1273 came major news: Henry III was dead. The news probably came in the form of a notification of Henry’s death and burial, and a pledge of loyalty from the bishops and nobles of England. Henry had died on 16 November 1272 at the age of sixty-five, after fifty-six years as king. Although the news cannot have been much of a surprise – sixty-five was considered a very good age, Henry had been in ill health for some time, and Edward had been urged to come home earlier in the Crusade because of this – Edward was very upset indeed. Indeed, Charles of Anjou remarked on the fact that he grieved more for his father than he had the year before over the death of his heir. Edward’s reply was that while children could be replaced, a father could not. For Eleanor, too, the loss of Henry will have been a grief. Henry had been in many respects a congenial companion to her, with their shared tastes for domestic comfort and finery, and he was the member of the family who had been closest to her in the dark days of de Montfort’s victory and her daughters’ deaths.32
Yet, too, for both, there must have been a sense of destiny fulfilled. Their crusading obligations discharged, they could return home – as king and queen.
9
The Triumphant Return
In 1273, Edward and Eleanor started their homeward journey as king and queen via Italy, Gascony and Paris. They had, in response to a letter from the regents in England urging their speedy return, promised to hurry back. But that was not how matters turned out.
In early January, the Pope wrote to Eleanor directly, asking her to induce the king to visit him. This direct contact and other direct letters from the Pope to Eleanor are interesting, demonstrating how Eleanor was regarded as a significant diplomatic contact by the papacy in her own right, and indicating, too, that she had built up a close personal relationship with the pontiff i
n his crusading and diplomatic days. In the light of Edward’s desire to see the Montforts brought to justice, and the failure of Charles of Anjou to provide action on this front, this offered a valuable opportunity to pursue an alternative route to vengeance.
There was also an opportunity to eclipse the French king. In 1271, the new king, Philip III, had headed home with the remains of his father, Louis IX, in what was part funeral, part royal tour of acclamation. The route he had taken had been via Orvieto, Florence, Bologna, the Mont Cenis pass to Lyons and then on to Paris. Adopting the same route for their return offered Edward and Eleanor the chance to point up the contrast between the failed and successful Crusaders. For them, as Tyerman points out, this rather mediocre Crusade had paid fine dividends on the PR front: Edward was considered distinguished, as the sole king in Western Europe to have campaigned in the Holy Land itself. The truce was given its full value – particularly among the Italian merchants who had such good markets in Acre. And, of course, the attempt on his life added a considerable touch of romantic glory, particularly when combined with the emerging invention of Eleanor’s role in saving her husband.1
Accordingly, the royal couple left Charles of Anjou in mid-January, accompanied by young Charles of Salerno, who accompanied them to the frontiers of the Regno. From there they pressed on, arriving in Rome on 5 February and at the papal court in Orvieto (where political and military conflicts had forced the papacy to withdraw) on 14 February 1273. The welcome was at once warm and magnificent – that due to a friend and to an acknowledged Crusader, with all the cardinals in attendance. It seems possible that on this occasion the Pope presented Edward with the papal accolade of a golden rose, traditionally given to the foremost prince in Christendom. While at the papal court, Edward at once began to campaign for sanctions to be imposed on Guy de Montfort for the murder of Henry of Almain. But the matter was not straightforward – Guy’s father-in-law was very influential, and the younger Montfort brother, Amaury, was one of the pope’s own chaplains.2