Bourg, which was visited by Edward and Eleanor on their first visit to Gascony in July 1255, is now partially subsumed in the sprawl of Bordeaux, but still exists, with some beautiful medieval stonework. Three factors other than its name suggest it as the place mentioned. First, there is one reference in the records during the ‘Burgus Reginae’ period to documents being issued at Bourg-sur-Gironde. Secondly, later materials establish that Burgus Reginae had a port, at least by 1301. Thirdly, there are references to Burgus Reginae sending wine to England, and Bourg-sur-Gironde has had a thriving wine trade almost since time immemorial. The evidence from the Gascon Rolls is ambivalent. There is a reference to sending wines to ‘nove bastide Burgum Reginae’, but at the same time the message refers to Pierre de la Roquetaillade – who was castellan of Bourg-sur-Gironde. Moreover, the absence of any other reference to Burgus Reginae in the Gascon Rolls, when there was plainly a considerable stay, is suggestive.27
The remainder of spring 1288 was spent in the vicinity of Bordeaux, with a few small visits nearby; but again the court returned to the city in time for the anniversary of the death of Anonyma, before moving off southwards in June via Dax and Bayonne back to Oloron, where most of July was spent.28
Eleanor continued to correspond regarding her properties throughout this period, and in June she acquired further lands: manors at Lockerly and Avon in Hampshire. However, the indications are that, despite this and despite the healthy location high in the Pyrenees (which now abounds in spa towns), Eleanor’s health was deteriorating further. From early August we find her based in Asasp-Arros on the road to Urdos near the border, where she was again unwell – syrups and other medicines bought in Bayonne were brought to her by her doctor, Peter of Portugal. Significantly, while Edward went on to Urdos, arriving on 28 August, and thence to Jacca in Aragon, Eleanor is recorded from 30 August to late September in a place variously described as Montyor, Montoyar, Montyor, Mountinor. This location is mysterious. It could be, as Trabut-Cussac suggests, Montaner, just north of Tarbes, but in context such a significant move seems unlikely, particularly when we next find Eleanor with Edward at Oloron at the end of September. More likely, particularly given one reference in the household records is to ‘Montan de Aspe’, is that it is a small place on or near the road somewhere between Asasp-Arros and Oloron which has since ceased to exist.29
On 28 October 1288, the waiting finally came to an end; a replacement for the Treaty of Oloron-Sainte-Marie was signed at Canfranc in Aragon, just on the far side of the Gascon border. Edward certainly attended. Whether Eleanor accompanied him is unclear, but in the absence of any references to her elsewhere, and in the light of the fact that this was a major event, it is probably safe to infer that she did. Under this treaty, the Sicilian question was ignored and the bulk of the liabilities of Charles as to hostages and financial securities were to be discharged initially by Edward. Charles was put under an obligation to procure peace for Aragon with the Pope and the King of France within three years. Seventy-six hostages, including three of Charles’s sons, numerous important Gascons (among them Gaston de Béarn and Arnald de Gaveston) and some leading lights of the English court (including Otho de Grandison and John de Vescy) were to be sent to Aragon as hostages. Edward was to provide 23,000 marks of silver at once and Gaston de Béarn was required to pledge most of his lands as security for the payment of the remaining 7,000 marks.
At Oloron in mid-October a grand cavalcade was formed up and marched down to the road towards and past Urdos and over the border to Canfranc, where they were received by Alphonso – doubtless with his own extensive retinue. In the days which followed, there was a series of meetings, at which the completed web of agreements, guarantees, counter-guarantees and payments were put into place. The money (in a variety of currencies, which cannot have helped matters) had to be counted and receipted. The locations and conditions of the hostages’ custody were finalised and they bade farewell to any members of their families who had accompanied them.
Finally, however, the treaty and its subsidiary documents were completed – and this was sufficient to win the liberty of Charles of Salerno. He then returned with Edward and Eleanor and their much-diminished party to Oloron, where he executed subsidiary agreements (themselves guaranteed by an array of French and Italian nobles) to perform his obligations to the English Crown. Charles then left to return to Provence and make arrangements for the provision of the rest of his hostages, taking with him John de Vescy, who had been released early by Alphonso – very probably as a recognition of his personal work in bringing about the treaty.30
The next few months, awaiting the return of the hostages, were spent predominantly at the recently improved town of Bonnegarde on the border of Béarn. The hostages were much in Eleanor’s mind – during this period she sent gifts of Brie and fruit to the families of the local lords who had stood hostage. In early February, a trip was taken to Lucq de Béarn near Oloron, where the court made offerings on the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the king and queen pressed on to Abos near the border, perhaps to meet with Aragonese representatives.
It was during this period, on 10 February 1289, that John de Vescy died at Montpelier. He was still only forty-four years old. The distressing news apparently reached the royal party – and his wife, who was in attendance on Eleanor – on 13 February, and immediate arrangements were made to send members of the household to bring back his bones to the royal party at Oloron to enable them to be taken home for burial in Alnwick Abbey. Arrangements were also made to send a priest to pray for him at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin of Rocamadour and to the monks at Oloron to say Masses for his soul. The urgency with which these steps were taken conveys something of the shock and distress which the loss of this closest of close friends must have had on Edward, Eleanor and the entire party. It was also, probably, that key point at which the first of their close contemporaries died, a point which inevitably brings intimations of mortality to those left behind. Edward, of course, was some years older than John de Vescy – approaching his fiftieth birthday. Eleanor, too, was older than de Vescy by a few years, and not in the best of health.31
To add bad to worse, Edward and Eleanor had to part very shortly after this, for a rare period apart. He was to press on to the border to meet the hostages. It seems to have been a mark of her own ill health that, on this occasion, Eleanor did not accompany Edward; presumably the journey through the high mountain passes in winter was considered inadvisable for her. The separation seems to have been a difficult time for the pair – one of their longest separations, coming on top of the news of John de Vescy’s death and Eleanor’s own protracted illness. Touchingly, the records show Edward sending Eleanor not just letters but also ‘gingembras’ while he was away. It is tempting to equate the latter with gingerbread, which was apparently first baked in France in the thirteenth century. However, gingembras is more likely a reference to preserved ginger, which was used as one of the more palatable medicines in the physicians’ repertoire of the time. Whichever it was, however, it bespeaks a thoughtful concern for his absent wife.
On Eleanor’s side, there is ample evidence of her missing her husband – letters to him are recorded as being sent repeatedly. But alongside this, she was plainly avid for news of the hostages – messengers were sent again and again for any rumours about the hostages, and both Edward and Robert Burnell sent her messengers back with the latest rumours they could find. Clearly Eleanor and the court around her were concerned lest more bad tidings were heading their way. And, as always, even with illness and concerns for the hostages, Eleanor continued to work: the wardrobe records contain evidence of her correspondence with her staff in England, and on 7 February 1289 she acquired a wardship of lands near Huntingdon.
Yet all was well. On 9 March, the English and Gascon hostages were released, being met at the Spanish border by Edward. And while Eleanor had held them firmly in her thoughts, it would appear that one of them, at least, Otho de Grandison, had
likewise thought of her amusement while separated from her – he gave her the slightly troublesome present of a lion and a lynx, for which carriage, goat meat and a keeper had to be provided. They and their keeper, Jakemyn, were later to find their way to the Tower of London.32
The party could now begin to make plans for a return. Unsurprisingly, after three years and the various illnesses and losses that they had brought, there seems to have been no desire to stay. William of Hotham, who appears to have been attached to the royal party for a considerable portion of the stay and who had actually turned down the honour of a second regency at the University of Paris in favour of supporting Edward and Eleanor, reported to his friend Henry Eastry, Prior of Canterbury, that the king’s stay ‘in these parts has seemed too long to both him and his’. Given William’s affiliation with the Dominicans, Eleanor’s devoted support to their order, and his previous intimacy with the pair in Wales, it seems probable that he was reporting Eleanor’s own feelings, related direct to him. It would hardly be surprising if she were keen to return home from this trip. While Edward had gained stature as a mediator, it had been at a near-ruinous financial cost; despite Charles of Salerno’s best intentions, there is no record of his ever repaying the 30,000 marks paid on his behalf by Edward.33
The party spent April in Condom, where Eleanor, still in correspondence with her office, acquired another wardship in Kent. But judging by the wardrobe reports, which show payments to a Doctor Leopard ‘when the queen was ill in this region’, Eleanor was still not recovered. From Condom, the party began to break up, with Otho de Grandison and William of Hotham departing to negotiate with the Pope, Charles of Salerno and the leader of the Pope’s forces. The main royal party moved back into the Dordogne, staying in St Emilion and Libourne before passing on to Saintes. At Libourne there are plenty of records of loose ends being tied up – the Gascon Rolls show tens of decisions by Edward being published in mid-June.
Among them is another evidence of Eleanor’s own conduct of local business during the stay; Edward ratifies a peace which Eleanor (again ‘our most beloved consort’) had ‘made and decreed’ between two warring families, that of Amanieu de Fosse and William Raymond de Pinibus. The clear picture is that Eleanor herself was the person deputed to deal with the details of this, and authorised to effectively state terms agreeable to the Crown, with Edward ratifying the decision at a later date. Taken together with the earlier settlement negotiated by Eleanor and the absence of any remark as to these dealings, this suggests that during their Gascon stay there was a fairly active role for Eleanor in mid-level diplomatic issues, which was accepted by those around the royal couple and by petitioners. Again, as with the property transactions, Eleanor assumed an executive role in Edward’s administration without fuss and without outcry; she acted independently, but was always perceived as acting for the king.34
The starting point for the return journey was to pay a short visit to Eleanor’s cousin Viscountess Jeanne at Châtellherault, after which Eleanor sent her cousin a charming guest gift of scarlet cloth and some furs. After this, in July 1289, the party set off for home, on the way taking in a number of famous shrines and relics: the relics of St Leonard at Brou near Noyant, the tear of Christ at Vendome, Sancta Camisa (or tunic of the Blessed Virgin Mary) at Chartres, unnamed relics at the Abbey of Coulombs, the Crown of Thorns and a nail from the feet of Christ at St Denis, and the head of John the Baptist at Amiens. At many of these stops, offerings were made on behalf of the royal couple’s children, proving that the family was much in their mind.35
While making this pious tour, however, the patience of Edward and Eleanor with the institution of the papacy must have been sorely tried; news came just at this point that the Pope had abrogated the Treaty of Canfranc, absolved Charles of Salerno of his vows under it, crowned Charles King of Sicily and renewed the excommunication of Alphonso. To add insult to injury, he had also granted to Charles, in aid of his Crusade against Aragon, the papal tenth which had been previously collected in aid of Edward’s own proposed Crusade. All the efforts (and expense) of the past three years had apparently been for nothing. It is hardly surprising that Otho de Grandison, Edward’s ambassador to the Pope, upbraided him in round terms, stating that his king was amazed that the Pope should have encouraged the dispute rather than making some effort to bring about peace. The diatribe had some results: the Pope agreed to send an envoy to try to bring about peace. But, for the present, Canfranc remained a dead letter and Eleanora’s marriage no nearer.
The end of the month finally brought the party into Eleanor’s own county of Ponthieu, where a stay of a couple of weeks was made between the capital city of Abbeville and the Cistercian abbey of Le Gard at Picquigny (between Abbeville and Amiens). Here, the affairs of her county were reviewed, a new seneschal appointed – and Eleanor acquired a new attendant in the form of her cousin Marie de Pécquigny, before moving to Boulogne. However, even with such a pleasant family addition, it can have been with little sense of satisfaction that the party finally left France from Wissant on 12 August.36
16
The Last Year, Death and Remembrance
When Eleanor arrived back in Dover on 12 August 1289, she had just over fifteen months to live.
She and Edward were greeted by their family, two of whom – Edward and Elizabeth – would hardly recall their parents after a three-year absence in their five- and six-year-old lives. The older girls, perhaps under the influence of their grandmother, had decked themselves out in brand-new cloth of gold dresses trimmed with green velvet. The next day, the family proceeded to Canterbury, where they were joined by a large assembly and sumptuous celebrations of their return were staged. During the course of the party which ensued, Edward sent to invite Archbishop Pecham to join in, but the archbishop refused because archiepiscopal ceremonial required that he be preceded by a procession and cross which, with the precedent of Henry II and Becket in mind, he felt might not be taken kindly. When Pecham’s concerns were explained to Edward, he summoned a clerk and, tongue firmly in cheek, had drawn up and sent straight back a formal sealed proclamation permitting the pompous archbishop to have his cross borne before him in the presence of the king.
The general situation which confronted the returning royals was considerably less light-hearted. In the prolonged absence of the king, general lawlessness had increased, with armed gangs roaming the countryside. Nor were these malefactors all of lower castes – in 1288 the regent warned four earls about riding around the country and causing trouble. There were also considerable bodies of clergy, merchants and townspeople who considered that they were being hemmed in by government.
Edward’s solution was to implement measures which indicated that the king was minded to deal with all forms of malfeasance. So, in October, he announced that there would be a general review of grievances. He then set in train an examination of the justices for corruption, which examination revealed considerable cause for concern, with many justices, including Chief Justice Thomas Weyland, being convicted and losing their jobs. There was, therefore, in late 1289 a perceived need to make sure that one’s deputies were doing a good job and not acting unfairly.1
Eleanor thus faced a dual imperative on her return. The first was to make sure that her property business yielded as much as possible, given the Crown’s desperate need for money. The second was to review the way in which her estates were being run, in the light of her long absence and the current climate of feeling regarding abuses.
The royal party’s first stop was for a break of two weeks or so at Leeds Castle, where at least some time for pleasure was found: the party celebrated the marriage of Eleanor’s cousin Marie de Pécquigny to Almeric de St Amand. But it should not be supposed that the stop was all leisure. The likelihood is that Leeds, as department centre for the Kentish properties, offered a good location for Eleanor to catch up with her local interests. That this was in her mind is put beyond doubt when one traces the royal party’s next steps, which were to Rayleigh and E
astwood, both parts of Eleanor’s dower assignment; and then to Nayland in Suffolk, another part of the dower assignment. On the way, she contrived to make stops through Essex near to all but one of the groups of properties which she held in that county. From Nayland the southern Suffolk properties could be inspected, and the next destination was Melford, convenient for the middle and western Suffolk lands, followed by Bury St Edmunds, close to both the northern Suffolk lands and the Cambridgeshire holdings.
At this point, however, rather than striking back to London, or making direct for Eleanor’s Norfolk holdings, the party moved on (at no great pace) to Walsingham, home to the famous shrine. It is more than likely that the purpose of this visit was to seek intercession in relation to Eleanor’s health. This inference is supported by the surprisingly long time taken on the Essex leg, with over a week spent at Rayleigh, and by the circumstances surrounding the next stage in the tour. This did indeed take the party to Eleanor’s Norfolk properties, starting with Burgh, the administrative centre for that area; but after another unusually long stop of five days, we find two boatmen of Spalding being hired to row the king, queen and attendants from West Dereham in Norfolk to Ditton in Cambridgeshire, by way of the Isle of Ely. Green saw this as a medieval boating holiday. It seems more likely that the cause was Eleanor’s increasing ill health. But naturally, it finished right in the middle of Eleanor’s Cambridgeshire properties.2
Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen Page 48
