Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen
Page 46
So the beautiful new table – five and a half metres in diameter and three quarters of a ton in weight – was crafted and put into place. The royal family was put under a three-line whip: the king and queen, the older princesses, John of Brittany, John of Brabant and the new nun, Princess Mary, were all present. It is interesting, given Eleanor’s impending forty-fourth birthday, that the number of knights made echoed her age; perhaps another of the thoughtful gestures in which Edward improbably excelled. The Statute of Winchester was promulgated later, on 8 October 1285, in a second and separate stay. The intervening period was spent between Micheldever, Wootton and Woodmancott – close to some of the Walerand manors which Eleanor had in her eye for future acquisition, and which were duly acquired in her absence in Gascony.5
The second notable event of the period was the royal party’s first stay on the Isle of Wight. If one were perhaps to wonder what sent the royal party to the Isle of Wight at this time, the reader may by now guess the answer. In 1284, Eleanor had acquired a manor at Swainstone on the Isle of Wight. This manor was duly the royal base for the stay on the island.
The latter part of the year took the royal travellers into the West Country, Eleanor having been appointed to custody of the counties of Dorset and Somerset in summer, and having both long-standing and more recent acquisitions in those counties, as well as dower properties to inspect. Another stay was made at Eleanor’s property of Camel as part of this trip. Edward will also have been interested to inspect progress on his new town (daringly called Newton) on the shores of Poole Harbour; orders for the detailed laying out of the town were given in January 1286, before the royal party left Exeter. The primary impetus for this latter visit seems to have been an appeal to the king for justice from the family of a murdered precentor of the cathedral at Exeter. The case, in which the Mayor of Exeter and the Dean of the Cathedral were among the accused, had mysteriously failed to progress, and the family sought justice from the top. The king, reflecting his coronation manifesto of law and order, came to hear the trial personally, taking off only Christmas Day itself. However, Edward did not neglect his domestic duties either: for Christmas, Eleanor received from him a cup of gold worth £24, and a gold pitcher decorated with jewels and enamels.6
But among this domestic business, international news came at last: Philip III of France died of dysentery in early October 1285 in the course of his disastrous ‘Crusade’. It was closely followed by the death on 11 November 1285 of Pedro of Aragon. Eleanora was now, in name at least, Queen of Aragon. What is more, in the course of 1285, all the principal players – Philip of France, Pedro of Aragon, Charles of Anjou and Pope Martin IV – had died. There was now, therefore, a natural point at which attempts could be made to settle the disputes between the parties. Edward, who had been appealed to earlier in the dispute by both sides to act as a mediator, was the ideal person to try to bring about an accommodation. Further, he was now at liberty to so; and with a number of very real incentives.
The first was that of saving his eldest daughter’s marriage and thus providing Gascony with a good neighbour. The second, effectively the correlate of the first, was keeping France out of Aragon. The Aragonese marriage had been recommended by the need to keep a potentially difficult neighbour sweet; however, even at their worst, the Aragonese would hardly be so undesirable as neighbours as a French fief. Were the Crusade to succeed, and France to take Aragon, Gascony would effectively be encircled by France – a position not to be contemplated if anything could be done to avoid it. The third incentive, of course, was to save his amiable cousin Charles of Salerno from captivity.
So the arrangements for diplomatic activity began to be reanimated at once, and before the end of 1285 Edward had made arrangements for the despatch of Otho de Grandison and Henry Cobham to Rome. This time, there was no evasion from France. On the contrary, an embassy came early in the year, urging Edward to come to France as soon as he could and attempt to bring about a peace. The long-delayed trip was therefore back on.7
For Eleanor, this naturally meant trying to tidy up her various landholdings and bring into ownership any purchases which could be finalised in good time. February seems to have been the prime period for this, although a few deals trickled on into the later months. In the January–February period, Eleanor acquired new properties in Buckingham, Essex, the Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire and Sussex.8
There was time for a trip in February to Langley to the younger children, and then a move to London (probably accompanied by the nursery party) for the parliament at the end of February. This parliament had eyes cast abroad in anticipation of the royal visit, for the status of Gascony formed part of the topic of debate. Also coming to the fore was the question of the proposed Scottish match for young Edward: Alexander III died on 19 March 1286, and once it was clear that his young widow, Yolande de Dreux, would not provide a posthumous heir, young Edward’s intended bride, Margaret of Norway, was confirmed as Queen of Scotland, opening the vista of a peaceful annexation of Scotland, to complete the conquest of Britain.
Within this period the royal family, despite the press of business, found time for what at first appear to be two boating trips for simple pleasure: one at the end of February to Brentford, for which two barges were handsomely fitted up, and a more substantial trip in April to Gravesend, in which the king and queen travelled by barge and the princesses by ship.
It may be, though, that the limited programme of this period and the boat trips are both markers of the beginnings of Eleanor’s move into the ill health which was henceforth to plague her. Until 1285, despite almost constant childbearing and a busy programme of national and international travel, she seems to have enjoyed robust good health. From this point on, however, her health seems to have become decidedly unsatisfactory. Certainly there are signs that she had an illness in the winter of 1285–6, as medicines were provided for her several times, including in February. The illness seems to have lingered: in March a mensura – a wax candle of the same height as the subject, which was burned before a favourite saint – was purchased. This could indicate continuing illness or recovery, but in April there is another record of medicines being sent for, which indicates the former is more probable.9
Despite ill health and all the preparations, there was the usual spring trip to Quenington and Down Ampney in the Cotswolds, emphasising the fondness which the king and queen had for this location, plus short stops in Chichester, Langley and Westminster. At the latter stop Edmund of Cornwall, Edward’s double cousin – Richard of Cornwall’s son by Eleanor of Provence’s sister – was placed in charge of the realm. Then, after stops at Leeds and Canterbury, the party reached Dover, where the queen mother and princesses assembled to see them off. The party finally departed for Wissant, still a favoured crossing point from England, on 13 May 1286 – about a year later than originally intended. The plan was probably to make a stay abroad of no more than a year; in fact they were not to return for over three years – and the group which returned would be sadly diminished.
The party was substantial and included key friends and advisers such as Robert Burnell and John de Vescy, as well as the Lancasters, and the earls of Lincoln, Gloucester and Pembroke. The transfer was conducted over a period of about four days, with some of the ships making three crossings in that time. The need for this becomes clearer when one appreciates that the core group was supported by a thousand horses and eight ships of kitchen equipment. On arrival, Edward collected the recent communications to him from Charles of Salerno’s sons and his people of Provence, as well as news of his designation as Alphonso’s agent for making a truce. Less welcome was the news that Pope Honorius had stated that the dispensation which had been granted for Eleanora’s marriage did not apply to a union with the family of the late King of Aragon. For Eleanor, there seem to have been family meetings: the wardrobe book reveals gifts to her French Fiennes relatives and to her distant cousin the lord de la Plaunche, whose children now joined Eleanor’s household.10
&nb
sp; On arrival, the royal party proceeded to Amiens to meet the new eighteen-year-old French King, Philip IV ‘le Bel’ (the Fair) of France. This was in some ways quite a family occasion. Philip was the son of Edward’s cousin, and, as the son also of Isabelle of Aragon, the nephew of Eleanora’s fiancé. His thirteen-year-old wife, Jeanne of Navarre, was the daughter of Blanche of Lancaster by her first marriage. But there was a generation gap: Edward and Eleanor, now in their mid-forties, were old stagers by comparison. The conjoined royal party proceeded to Paris, where the English royals lodged at the monastery of St Germain-des-Prés, on the left bank of the Seine. June and July were then spent in Paris with much socialising, including a banquet on the Feast of the Trinity which cost £151, and also, it would seem, plenty of shopping – jewels were sent home to the princesses and a crown of sapphires, emeralds, rubies and pearls, given by the King of France, was sent on to Eleanora. Edward gave Eleanor some gold cloths and the crystal and jasper chess set which the Master of the Temple gave him.
The party also probably took the opportunity to visit the Sainte-Chapelle where France’s kings and some of their privileged great were buried. Isabelle of Aragon had received a lovely tomb here – a sparkling white marble effigy evoking her youth and beauty. Alphonse of Brienne also lay here; as did his sister Marie. Most of the kings had received similar treatment to Isabelle – striking tomb effigies in marble or polished stone, arranged in orderly ranks. But the greatest of them, including Philip Augustus, Charles the Bald and Louis VIII, were given a special treatment: their tombs featured gilded bronze images.
As well as pleasure and sightseeing, there was plenty of business. Homage had to be performed to the new king for the lands held from him, including Eleanor’s territory of Ponthieu, and more carefully, in the light of the position under the Treaty of Paris, for Gascony. And, of course, there was the small detail of a truce between France and Aragon which had to be ironed out. However, with plenty of willingness on both sides to create a period for discussion of the issues, Edward received all the authorities he needed and a year’s truce was duly agreed in late July.11
Immediately with the prospect of negotiations for peace, there also came discussions about the fulfilment of Eleanora’s marriage; Alphonso, looking to rivet English interests to his, wrote to Edward to seek his co-operation in bringing this about as soon as Edward arrived in Paris. Edward, in turn, promised that once the truce was in place he would seek a dispensation from the Pope, with a view to sending Eleanora to her husband, and a meeting then took place between Edward and his nominal son-in-law. But when Otho de Grandison reappeared from Rome, carrying a yet further reiteration of the papal veto against the Aragonese marriage, it was plain that the dispensation was unlikely to be forthcoming, at least until Alphonso made peace with the papacy. The focus therefore shifted to negotiating a treaty which could bring this about.
There were also, as always, issues in Gascony, which were brought to Paris for the purpose of getting a head start on the business of the Gascon part of the trip. But here there was not only business for the king. It would seem that Eleanor was actually conducting Gascon business for Edward on her own – the Gascon Rolls report Edward ratifying an agreement reached between the Crown and the Viscount of Fronsac through ‘our dearest consort Eleanor’ – the result of yet another of Eleanor’s forays as an arbitrator. It seems that a dispute between Edward and the viscount had resulted in a decision on liability, and the question of the assessment of the amount of the claim, which concerned property values, was remitted by consent to Eleanor. Away from her property interests, Eleanor was therefore making herself useful effectively as Edward’s deputy in business concerning Gascony, and obviously was considered sufficiently knowledgeable on property matters to reach an appropriate result.
This overt exercise of royal power came at a time when Eleanor will finally have felt her position as queen to be unchallenged; Eleanor of Provence, now aged sixty-two, had finally taken the veil at Amesbury on 7 July. From this point on, her correspondence (though still active and demonstrating a will to exert influence) is almost always commenced ‘Eleanor, humble nun of the order of Fontevrault of the order of Amesbury’; the claim to be Eleanor, Queen of England, is dropped at last. Yet not quite all was rosy; July also saw medicines being paid for on Eleanor’s behalf.12
The Paris visit also offers one of the most interesting vignettes of the royal couple. Apparently, one day Edward and Eleanor were sitting by a window and chatting together in a room with some of their attendants when a bolt of lightning passed through the window between them, and actually struck two attendants, who were killed instantly. Trivet, writing for Mary, regarded the incident as interesting mostly from the perspective of the royal couple’s escape as a sure sign of divine favour. However, more compelling is the intimate domestic portrait painted by the incident: the royal couple, together among a crowd and absorbed in each other’s company, present an irresistibly romantic picture which verifies the existence of a continually engaging and interesting marriage.
In August, having achieved the truce, Edward and Eleanor took their leave of the French court and began to make their way to Gascony, at no great pace. Part of the delay is attributable to a certain amount of sightseeing; the route took them via Pontigny, where Edmund of Abingdon, the Archbishop of Canterbury who baptised Edward, was buried and thence along the beauties of the Loire via Blois, Amboise and Langeais to the family burial centre at Fontevrault. The party reached Saintes around the middle of September and the remainder of that month and the first part of October were spent in inspecting the territories reclaimed under the finalised Treaty of Paris – principally in the area between Saintes and Saint Pierre d’Oleron.13
Yet part of the delay in reaching Gascony was apparently attributable to ill health generally among the travelling party: the wardrobe records evidence repeated purchases of medicines for its members and provision for care for those who had to be left behind, though the nature of the malaise is not clear. And Eleanor did not escape: in among the other medical expenses there are payments for medicines and syrups bought for Eleanor ‘at Saintes and elsewhere’, implying a fairly lengthy period of illness or repeated episodes of illness within a short period.14
Thus it was only in late October that the group reached Libourne, a bastide founded by the late Roger Leyburn in 1270, during his tenure as Seneschal in Gascony. From there the party continued touring the newly conceded lands: the itinerary which can be reconstructed for November shows stops in and around Bergerac, before heading further inland and south via Cadouin and Monpazier. The latter is a bastide which has, over time, proved one of the best advertisements for Edward’s scheme of ‘bastidisation’ – the seeding of new bastide towns throughout the region. It survives in charmingly picturesque fashion to this day, and visitors can even explore it from the Hotel Edouard Ier. At the time of Edward and Eleanor’s 1286 visit, however, it was simply one among a number of fledging bastide towns; Edward had founded it only the year before and it was presumably still in the course of construction – though sufficiently far advanced for an overnight stay. From there, the party went on to Agen via Villeneuve-sur-Lot, arriving late in the month, before exploring the eastern borders of the Agenais at Roquecor and Montsempron, returning to Agen in the middle of the month.
The mobile nature of the trip provides an opportunity to mention an ongoing theme in the household accounts throughout the time in Gascony: horses and their equipment are key. Again and again, horses (white, bay, ‘morello’ or dark bay and more) are bought and sold, harness is repaired, or new harness bought. On one occasion Eleanor even sends all the way to England for some particularly favoured piece of harness; the keen horsewoman’s conviction that a particular mount will go best under the guidance of a key piece of kit speaks to us clearly. The impression conveyed, when glancing through the household records, is that the mobile court was akin to a travelling hunt, with the officers in charge of the horses very much the heart of day-to-day bu
siness, and discussion of all matters equine being a running theme.
The mobile nature of this phase of the trip also seems to indicate that the health of the party generally and Eleanor in particular had improved. But the respite was temporary; again at Agen there are records of medicines and syrups being purchased for the queen, revealing that her health was again giving trouble. The travelling and her ill health did not, however, stop Eleanor from keeping up with her work; her correspondence with her office in England proceeded alongside her despatches for harness, and in November there are records of her acquiring a wardship in Essex. It was probably also at around this time that Eleanor learnt that Hugh Despenser, the stepson of the Earl of Norfolk, had married Isabel Beauchamp without royal licence. As Eleanor had the wardship of the lands of Isabel’s first husband, this affected her business; and out of sight was emphatically not out of mind: she demanded recompense in the sum of 1,000 marks from Despenser – a debt which he acknowledged early in the new year, pledging lands as security.15
Christmas was spent in the familiar surroundings of the priory of Saint-Macaire near Bordeaux. The holiday was observed with the usual celebrations, with the priory hall serving as the king’s great hall and a large bill for candles being run up. The incorrigible Gaston de Béarn (now in his early sixties) gave a vastly suitable present of chargers for the king and queen, and Anthony Bek gave a hound – a present more likely to please Eleanor than Edward. So too was Edmund of Lancaster’s gift effectively a gift for Eleanor – a quantity of Brie cheese, doubtless sourced through his wife’s contacts. All of these tend to indicate that pleasing Eleanor was very much a priority for the court. It was perhaps on this occasion that the pleasing Limoges-made clasp featuring her arms was given to Eleanor. And more general jollification was plainly in order, too. Echoing the parties of the Welsh tour, there was much music; 125 minstrels were paid for performing over the holiday period. It would seem likely that the peaceful routine of the abbey was much disturbed by their distinguished guests. Among these was a new face – Marie of Brittany, daughter of Edward’s sister Beatrice, who seems to have joined the court (with her substantial household) following the death of her father and to have stayed mostly at court until Eleanor’s death.16