Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen

by Seward, Desmond

  Strictly speaking, as in Henry’s reign, the regent of England was still the justiciar Ranulf Glanvill. But Richard was no friend to Ranulf and during the five weeks before the new king’s arrival Eleanor was ruler of England in all but name. To a woman so fond of power it must have been a most agreeable interlude. She showed her mettle as an administrator, issuing edicts that standardized weights and measures for wheat and cloth throughout the realm and established a single value for the coinage, putting an end to regional variations in the price of silver from which only bankers and moneylenders had profited. She freed the abbeys of their obligation to stable or pasture herds of royal horses, and founded a hospital in Surrey. Above all she ordered ‘that every free man in the whole realm swear that he would bear fealty to the lord Richard, lord of England and son of the lord king Henry and the lady Eleanor, in life and limb and earthly honour, as his liege lord, against all men and women living or dead, and that they would be answerable to him and help him to keep his peace and justice in all things’. She was also busy with arrangements for the forthcoming coronation of her son.

  After being acclaimed duke of Normandy, Richard sailed from Barfleur and landed at Portsmouth on 13 August. Next day he joined Eleanor at Winchester, and then mother and son rode to Windsor and thence to London. Richard was crowned king of the English in Westminster abbey on Sunday 3 September by archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, in a ceremony very like that used today. It seems to have been unusually splendid, to judge from contemporary chronicles: the crown was so heavy that two earls had to hold it over the king’s head.

  The coronation was followed by a banquet at which, according to the king’s orders, no woman or Jew was present. One wonders if the ban applied to the king’s mother. As for the Jews, some of their leaders tried to enter with gifts and, after being turned away, were set on by the mob; some of them were killed and a general massacre of Jews throughout London followed, much to Richard’s irritation.

  The new king was a very different man from his father, taking after Eleanor’s family, the impetuous and eccentric Poitevin dynasty. The least English of all English sovereigns, his tastes were in many ways those of an Aquitainan robber baron; he was cruel and predatory, fond of battles and plunder, and happiest when on campaign. At the same time, he had a poetic streak and was a troubadour like his great-grandfather William IX. He also possessed his great-grandfather’s love of display, which found expression in fantastic clothes. He was homosexual; and his mother was the only real love of his life. Even so, he did beget an illegitimate son, whom he wryly named Philip after his friend and enemy, the king of France. Indeed he had a rather odd sense of humour, together with a taste for the unexpected. He seems to have had small affection for England, which he had scarcely visited since his birth and of whose language he was totally ignorant; no doubt he winced at its uncouth Anglo-Norman French. Nevertheless the English cheered this tall and splendid new king with the red-gold hair. They knew nothing of his amorality and lack of scruple, of his sexual deviations, of his devotion to the weirder ideals of chivalry, of his reckless violence and brutality. Any change from Henry II’s last oppresive days appeared an improvement.

  It cannot be too much emphasized that Richard was devoted to his masterful mother, and Eleanor knew just how to control him. On his way to London he was informed that the Welsh had crossed the border and were raiding, burning and slaying. He announced that he would ride up at once and deal with them, but his mother ordered him to wait until he had been crowned, and he obeyed her. Later he not only restored her dowry in England but presented her with the dowries of the queens of Henry I and Stephen as well.

  At sixty-seven Eleanor was remarkably well preserved, in an era when old age began at fifty. Not even the empress Matilda had reached such an age, yet Eleanor had another decade and a half of vigorous, active life ahead of her. Probably she appeared strangely young to her contemporaries. Régine Pernoud makes the point that the fashions of the period helped Eleanor to preserve a youthful image; the nun-like wimple hid white hair and a wrinkled neck. And no doubt she continued to paint her face, in the way that had once so scandalized St Bernard and the French clergy. We know from the Pipe Rolls that she took trouble with her wardrobe. At the time of the coronation she ordered a cape that consisted of seven yards of valuable silk edged with sable and squirrel (it cost over £4). She also ordered dresses of red cloth similarly trimmed. It is possible that she owed her longevity and her enduring energy and vitality to the enforced rest that she had taken during her fifteen years of imprisonment. But in any case she must have possessed a magnificent constitution.

  To the disappointment of many, the new régime was very little different from that of king Henry. Richard retained all but a few of his father’s officials, even those who had opposed him, including William Marshal. (The latter, who always told the truth, reminded the king that, ‘I could have killed you, but I only killed your horse’.) Richard had no room for the adventurers who were his former companions; they were informed, with a certain irony, that traitors must not expect to be rewarded like honest men. The new chancellor was William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, a Norman of humble origins; and there was also a new justiciar, bishop Hugh Puiset of Durham. This was in no way a snub for Eleanor, who intended to accompany her son abroad. It is obvious that Richard wanted her to retain ultimate authority, to the point of over-ruling his ministers when necessary.

  The new king also tried to make sure of his two surviving brothers. He loaded John with presents, giving him castles and estates all over England and marrying him to Isabella — sometimes called Hawisa or Avise — of Gloucester, who was the greatest heiress in the land. His illegitimate brother Geoffrey received the see of York, though not without opposition from its clergy; however, when Geoffrey failed to obtain possession of his archbishopric and (worse) the revenues that he had promised Richard, the king revoked the appointment in a fit of rage. Richard also forbade John and Geoffrey to return to England during the next three years without his express permission. Later and most unwisely he relented in John’s case, apparently at Eleanor’s request. The queen mother can have had no illusions about her youngest son’s capacity for treachery, but perhaps she wanted him in the kingdom to ensure a smooth succession to the throne if his brother should be killed on crusade.

  Richard was obsessed by his expedition to the Holy Land. His officials combed the English ports for ships. As his father’s treasure — valued at 100,000 marks (£33,000) — was insufficient, everything was up for sale, ‘castles, towns and manors’ according to Roger of Howden. The king later joked, ‘I would have sold London itself if I could have found a buyer’. Geoffrey had to pay £3000 for his archbishopric. Richard was too impatient to wait for tax receipts to come in and literally auctioned not only lands but offices, honours and privileges of every kind; even William Longchamp had to pay something for his chancellorship. For 10,000 marks, king William the Lion of Scotland was allowed to buy back the castles of Berwick and Roxburgh, which strategically were of vital importance, besides purchasing other concessions including the renunciation of all homage. Using papal letters, Richard extorted considerable sums of money from men who had sworn to go on crusade but changed their minds. Sherriffs were removed so that their offices could be offered for sale, and certain officials who had grown rich under Henry II found themselves facing crippling fines. Richard also hoped to plunder the Jews, but a false rumour spread that he had ordered a full-scale massacre, and his subjects forestalled him by slaughtering every Jew they could find, burning their bonds and stealing their property. To do him justice, the king deeply regretted the massacre; not only did it lose him a great deal of money, but the Jews had been under his personal protection and their murder was therefore an insult to the king.

  So quickly did he amass funds that Richard’s expedition was ready to sail by the spring of 1190. It is said that he had hired or requisitioned a fleet of one hundred vessels, from the Cinque Ports and other southern English harbours,
and from Poitou and Normandy; among them was the Esnecca, the royal vessel that may have carried his mother to captivity fifteen years before. It has been estimated that the fleet provided transport for approximately 8000 men. The king himself preceded his armada, sailing from Dover on 11 December; he was ill and feverish, so that before he had even left England men said he would never return.

  Almost as soon as Richard crossed to France, trouble broke out between the justiciar Hugh Puiset and the chancellor William Longchamp, each claiming to be the other’s superior. The king held a council at Rouen on 2 February 1190 and later decided to make William Longchamp chief justiciar south of the Humber, while the north was to be under Hugh Puiset. Unfortunately, although their powers had been defined a little more clearly, there was still considerable ambiguity in their respective positions. Further unrest was inevitable.

  In February the king’s council was joined by that indispensable adviser, the queen mother. She brought with her poor Alice of France, Richard’s betrothed, whom Eleanor was determined he should never marry. It was now that she unwisely persuaded Richard to release John from his oath to stay out of England. As was customary, she endowed many abbeys and convents to pray for the success of the crusade and for her son’s safe return. Among the beneficiaries were the Knights Hospitallers of the priory of France, who received the entire seaport of Le Perrot near La Rochelle, and her beloved nuns at Fontevrault. She took up residence at Chinon, where she had last been as her husband’s prisoner: she was magnanimous enough to make a special endowment at Fontevrault for prayers ‘for the repose of Henry’s soul’.

  Early in the summer of 1190 king Richard and king Philip met at Gisors to discuss the final details of their joint crusade. Philip insisted on discussing the position of his half-sister Alice, demanding that Richard should marry her before setting out on an expedition from which he might possibly never return. The English king stalled. He refused to surrender either Alice or her dowry, but argued that as women were not allowed to ride with their husbands on this crusade, the marriage must wait until he came home. Accordingly Alice remained in confinement at Rouen.

  After saying goodbye to Eleanor at Chinon, Richard went to Tours, and finally set out on his crusade on 24 June 1190. The departure was not altogether happy, the crusaders weeping as they parted from their tearful families. There had been an ominous incident; when the English king received the insignia of a pilgrim — a staff and a flask — the staff broke in his hands. Nevertheless Richard went on to Vézelay (where half a century ago Louis and Eleanor had listened to St Bernard preaching the second crusade) and joined Philip. The joint armies marched at last on 3 July. Philip sailed from Genoa and Richard from Marseilles. The main English fleet had already left England, intending to join the king en route, but had been delayed by storms in the Bay of Biscay. He himself proceeded on a leisurely voyage down the west coast of Italy. When he reached Sicily he found his fleet waiting for him at Messina.

  Richard was forced to stay longer in Sicily than he had expected. His brother-in-law William II had died in 1189, the last legitimate male of the royal house of Hauteville, and the throne had been seized by William’s illegitimate cousin, count Tancred of Lecce. The latter’s position was extremely insecure, as the legal heir was the formidable Henry of Hohenstaufen, the future emperor Henry VI, who had married an Hauteville princess. Tancred needed all his resources to maintain himself against this menacing claimant, so he refused to hand over to his predecessor’s queen, Joanna, either her dowry or her legacy, and placed her in close confinement at Palermo. Richard was hardly the man to let his sister be treated in such a way. He immediately demanded her release, whereupon Tancred grew alarmed and sent her to him at Messina with some money, but still kept both the dowry and the legacy. The English king thereupon stormed one of Tancred’s castles, which he gave to his sister to use as a dower house. Tancred was popular with his subjects, and fighting broke out between the English and the townsmen of Messina, which Richard then seized ‘more quickly than a priest can say his matins’; he allowed his soldiers to sack the town thoroughly, announcing that he was going to keep it as a surety.

  During this time Eleanor had not been idle, although she was now nearly seventy. By way of Bordeaux, she had ridden over the Pyrenees to Pamplona, the capital of king Sancho the Wise of Navarre. Here, on behalf of her son, she asked for the hand of Sancho’s daughter Berengaria. Richard of Devizes tells us that Richard had met Berengaria during a tournament at Pamplona and infers that the king had been strongly attracted by her intellect. This may well mean that she had a taste for the gai saber and troubadours, in which case she was a princess after Eleanor’s own heart. The chronicler also tells us ungallantly that Berengaria was more accomplished than beautiful. However, the match was probably Eleanor’s idea. She wished to make sure that her son would never marry Alice of France. One can only guess at the reasons why the queen mother hated Alice so much: was it because she was her supplanter’s daughter, or because she had been Henry’s mistress, or did Eleanor fear a strong will that might threaten her own power?

  Meanwhile Philip, who had now arrived in Sicily, was quarrelling once more with Richard about Alice. The French king pretended that he was angered at not having been given a half share of Messina, but the real reason was his half-sister; soon he and Richard were refusing to speak to each other. It was six months before Tancred gave way, paying Richard the vast sum of 40,000 bezants in gold, and betrothing his daughter to Richard’s nephew and heir presumptive, the young Arthur, duke of Brittany, with a dowry of equal value. Richard mollified Philip by presenting him with a large part of the treasure that he had extorted from Tancred. The two monarchs wintered pleasantly in Sicily, though the Capetian chafed at both the delay and the expense. He sailed for the Holy Land as soon as possible, on 30 March 1191, and thus missed the arrival in Sicily of the English queen mother.

  Eleanor and Berengaria had ridden over the Alps and all the way down the Italian peninsula to Brindisi. It was another daunting journey for such an old woman, yet she had undertaken it for the most statesman-like reason: she wanted to see that her favourite son not only repudiated Alice, but would marry a biddable princess and beget an heir. Richard himself may not have been over-interested. During his stay in Sicily he had knelt at a church door in Messina, bareheaded and naked save for his breeches, and publicly begged for absolution from his vices; four years later a saintly hermit was to reprove the king to his face for the sin of Sodom, to such effect that when he fell ill shortly afterwards he again did penance and recalled his wife to his side. Whatever his private feelings about marriage, however, Richard was too fond of his mother to go against her wishes. He sent a Sicilian ship to collect the two women, and rode across the island to meet them at Reggio. They reached Messina on the very day that Philip of France set sail.

  Eleanor’s reunion with Richard — and also with Joanna, a child when she had last seen her, but now twenty-five — was a short one. As it was Lent, Berengaria’s marriage could not be celebrated, but the king assured Eleanor that he would marry the princess as soon as possible, and the queen mother entrusted her future daughter-in-law to Joanna’s care. Mother and son seem to have discussed problems of state: no doubt the distressing news that the English magnates were already quarrelling with the chancellor William Longchamp. Then on 2 April 1191, having spent only four days at Messina, Eleanor set off on the long journey home. A few days later Richard, accompanied by Joanna and Berengaria, sailed for Acre. His mother was not to see him again for nearly three years.

  Escorted by the archbishop of Rouen (Walter of Coutances) and other great lords, Eleanor crossed the straits of Messina and rode up to Rome. She arrived there on Easter Sunday in the midst of the festivities for the coronation of the agreeably named Hyacinth Bobo (Giacinto Bobone) as pope Celestine III. The octogenarian pontiff was an old friend with whom she had been on good terms since he was in France in the early days of her first marriage, and also from a later period when he had b
enefited by her second husband’s patronage. She had little difficulty in obtaining a legateship for the archbishop of Rouen, which if necessary she could use to bring William Longchamp to heel. She also extracted papal confirmation of the appointment of Geoffrey Plantagenet as archbishop of York, despite the opposition of William Longchamp and the English clergy. This was not generosity but shrewd politics: as archbishop he would finally abandon any thoughts of the crown, and he might prove a useful ally. Her only other business in Rome was to drive a hard bargain with the Roman moneylenders over her travelling expenses. She left the Eternal City as quickly as possible, crossing the Alps and passing through Bourges on her way to take up residence at Rouen. It was almost exactly the same journey that she had made with Louis nearly forty-two years earlier.

  In the meantime Richard’s fleet was scattered by a storm off Cyprus. Some vessels were driven ashore and wrecked; they were plundered by the Cypriots, who imprisoned the survivors. The Cypriots also refused to allow Joanna and Berengaria’s ship to shelter in Limassol harbour. Infuriated, Richard landed with his troops and in a matter of days had seized the entire island, together with its ruler, the self-styled ‘emperor’ Isaac Comnenus, whom he personally knocked off his horse and had placed in silver fetters (he had given his word not to put him in irons). He took the opportunity to marry Berengaria on 12 May in the Orthodox cathedral at Limassol, with much pomp. We do not know what Berengaria wore, but Richard appeared in a tunic of rose samite and a cape sewn with gold crescents and silver sunbursts, a scarlet cap decorated with gold beasts and birds, and cloth of gold buskins with gold spurs. The festivities lasted for three days.