Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England

by Alison Weir

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  Early in 1158, Constance of Castile had borne Louis VII a daughter, Marguerite, prompting her husband to complain about "the frightening superfluity of his daughters."23 During his progress, Henry conceived the idea of marrying Marguerite to the Lord Henry. Should Louis die without a male heir, Marguerite would be his co-heiress with her sisters, and although the Salic law forbade succession to the throne by or through a woman, there is little doubt that Henry was confident of his ability to overcome this difficulty-- by force if necessary-- and annex the kingdom of France to his empire. Even if Louis did have a son, the marriage would bring peace between the two kingdoms and, Henry intended, a settlement advantageous to himself.

  Clearly, the best person to broach the delicate matter of this betrothal was Becket, who had a flair for diplomacy, and in the summer of 1158 Henry sent him to France to negotiate with Louis. By design, Becket travelled with a magnificent escort, twenty-four changes of raiment, and a heavily laden baggage train, all of which drew astonished comment from the French,24 whom it was of course meant to impress. Becket's purpose was to overwhelm Louis with this outward display of England's wealth, then persuade him to marry his daughter to the son of his rival. To sweeten the French, he brought with him rich gifts, including chests full of gold and barrels of ale. "Marvellous is the King of the English whose chancellor goes thus and so grandly," observed the Parisians. The ploy worked: Louis received Becket like a visiting prince, and when Becket left France, with his baggage train much lighter, he had secured Louis's agreement to the betrothal.

  At the end of July, the long royal progress came to an end when the King and Queen reached Winchester. On 14 August, having received news of his brother Geoffrey's death, Henry crossed to France, leaving Eleanor, nearly eight months pregnant, as co-regent with Richard de Lucy.

  Henry went first to meet King Louis beside the River Epte near Gisors on the Norman border, where the final terms of the marriage alliance were agreed upon: Marguerite was to have the Norman Vexin and the castle of Gisors as her dowry,25 although they were not to be formally handed over until 1164, unless the marriage had been solemnised earlier with the consent of the Church. In the meantime, they would remain in Louis's possession but in the custody of the Knights Templar. As a pledge of Louis's good intentions, Marguerite was to be handed over to King Henry immediately. Should the Lord Henry die before the marriage could take place, she would marry one of his brothers. This contract must have afforded Henry considerable satisfaction,

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  since it restored to him the Norman lands and rights ceded by his father to Louis in 1151. As for Louis, he was gratified that his daughter would one day be a queen, and comforted himself for the prospective loss of the Vexin with the knowledge that the betrothed pair would not be married for a long time yet; anything might happen in the meantime.

  Louis and Henry also discussed the future of Brittany, with Louis agreeing to support Henry's claim to be his brother's heir and recognising him as the overlord of Brittany, to the detriment of the rival heirs of Conan III. He then invited Henry to Paris to receive the Princess Marguerite.

  After the meeting, Henry rode straight to Brittany and took possession of Nantes, its capital,26 where the citizens, weary of civil war, afforded him a rapturous welcome as Geoffrey's rightful heir. His plan was to conquer the whole of Brittany, but as he had other priorities and claims on his resources at present, he was obliged to content himself with leaving his new vassal, Conan IV, grandson of Conan III, in charge at Nantes, confident that one day the whole of Brittany would be his.

  In September, attended by only a small retinue, Henry was warmly welcomed by Louis and the French nobility in Paris, where he refused much of the lavish hospitality on offer. The Parisians were surprised at the contrast between the soberly dressed English King and the magnificent Becket. During the visit, Queen Constance relinquished the six-month-old Princess Marguerite into Henry's custody. As a condition of the betrothal, Louis had stipulated that under no circumstances was his daughter to be brought up by Queen Eleanor; Henry therefore placed Marguerite in the care of the trustworthy Robert of Neubourg, chief justice of Normandy, whose castle stood near the French border.

  On 23 September 1158 Eleanor presented Henry with a fourth son, who was named Geoffrey27 after the King's late father and brother. The Pipe Rolls show that, after her confinement, she heard a great many cases in her own assize court, travelling through Hampshire, Kent, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Devon. In Salisbury, on 29 November, she issued a judgement in favour of Matilda, Dowager Countess of Chester, and a certificate confirming a quitclaim. All of this business Eleanor carried out "by writ of the King from over seas."

  That November, with their newfound friendship cemented by the marriage alliance of their children, Henry escorted Louis through Normandy on a pilgrimage to the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, where the chronicler Robert of Torigni was Abbot. On their arrival, both kings

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  heard mass together and dined with the monks in their refectory. Having visited Marguerite on the way home and approved the arrangements made for her care, Louis returned to Paris with rich gifts from Henry and was heard to declare that there was no one he esteemed so highly as the King of England. "Wonders never cease," observed Robert of Torigni dryly.

  Towards the end of the year, Eleanor joined Henry at Cherbourg in Normandy for Christmas, leaving Robert de Beaumont in charge in England. Early in 1159, the royal couple were in Normandy, staying at Rouen and Argentan, although it was not long before they set out on another tour of Aquitaine. It was at around this time that Henry conceived a plan to reassert Eleanor's ancestral rights to the county of Toulouse. It is hard to believe that he was not influenced to do so by Eleanor, although he would have realised for himself, as Louis had eighteen years earlier, that there were considerable advantages to be gained from the acquisition of a wealthy domain that encompassed the key trade routes to the Mediterranean.28

  In April, at Blaye north of Bordeaux, the King and Queen met Raymond Berenger V, Count of Barcelona, who was at war with Raymond V, Count of Toulouse; Henry formed an alliance with Raymond Berenger,29 who agreed to support his claim to Toulouse and offered his daughter Berengaria as a bride for the Lord Richard, a plan that came to nothing. However, when King Louis heard of Henry's intentions, he begged him to desist, for the sake of their alliance, since Raymond of Toulouse was not only his vassal but also his ally and brother-in-law, being married to his sister Constance, whose son was the heir to Toulouse: Louis did not want to see his nephew dispossessed.30

  Nevertheless, Henry persisted, demanding of Raymond V that he relinquish Toulouse to Eleanor. Raymond naturally refused and in May, Henry, by exacting punitive taxes, began raising a large army, summoning the lords of England, Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine, and even the King of Scots, to meet him at Poitiers in June. Becket was given command of seven hundred knights. Louis was still protesting; when Henry pointed out to him that he himself had pressed Eleanor's claim to Toulouse and was therefore in no position to complain about Henry doing the same, he refused to abandon Raymond.

  At Poitiers, where his formidable force had gathered, and where Eleanor was probably to remain throughout the campaign, Henry was joined by the Count of Barcelona and disaffected vassals of the Count of Toulouse. On 24 June, the army marched south through the Perigord and took Quercy a fief of Toulouse, with its fine city of Cahors. Early in July, Henry's forces laid siege to the city of Toulouse itself. Shortly afterwards, Louis himself arrived and took charge of the city's defences.

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  Henry was in a difficult position. He wanted Toulouse, and was confident of his ability to take it, but he was equally reluctant to break his oath of allegiance and make war on his overlord-- not so much out of loyalty to Louis, but because it would set a dangerous precedent for his own vassals.31 Ignoring the advice of Becket, who urged him to carry on with the siege,32 he withdrew from Toulouse and deployed his men in ha
rrying the surrounding area, in the hope of driving Raymond to surrender. He also sent a force north to raid the royal demesne, hoping to lure Louis away. But the French King, who was determined to protect the birthright of his sister's sons, would not leave Toulouse.33

  By the time autumn came, Henry's army had been decimated by dysentery due to insanitary conditions, and at the end of September he was obliged to abandon the campaign; afterwards, he arranged a truce until the following May. From Toulouse, Henry rode north to Limoges and thence to Beauvais in Normandy to deal with a threatened invasion by Robert of Dreux. There is no record of him visiting Eleanor in Poitiers en route, and he was probably in too much of a hurry. Husband and wife were, however, reunited in time for Christmas, which they celebrated at Falaise in Normandy. It was one of the bitterest winters of the century.

  Henry had now been out of England for seventeen months, but since his presence was still needed on the continent-- he would be based mainly in Normandy for the next three years-- he arranged for Eleanor to cross the Channel, not only to keep an eye on the affairs of his kingdom, but also to arrange for the immediate transfer of funds from his treasury, which he needed urgently. On 29 December 1159, in the face of a violent tempest, the Queen sailed from Normandy with young Henry and Matilda in the royal ship Esnecca (the Snake). Having docked safely at Southampton, she rode to Winchester to collect the royal gold. She then escorted it back to Southampton and herself accompanied it on its voyage on the Esnecca to Barfleur. After it had been handed over there to Henry's trusted officials, Eleanor returned to England.

  The records indicate that for the next nine months the Queen was very busy with her duties as regent, doubtless exercising an authority that would never have been hers had Becket not remained in France with Henry. Despite the severe weather, Eleanor embarked on an extensive tour of the country, which suggests that she wished to see for herself that it was being administered properly: the Pipe Rolls record her presence in London, Middlesex, Southampton, Berkshire, Surrey, Cambridge, Winchester, and Dorset. It is unlikely she would have undertaken such a tour for private reasons.

  While she was in residence in Winchester Castle, she paid £22 13s 2d

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  "for the repair of the chapel, the houses, the walls and the garden of the Queen, and for the transport of the Queen's robes, her wine, her incense and the chests of her chapel, and for the boys' shields, and for the Queen's chamber, chimney and cellar."34 During her stay she authorised thirteen writs for Exchequer payments amounting to £226 for her own expenditure and £56 for that of the Lord Henry. In London, she had the royal cups regilded at a cost of two silver marks.35 During this period many writs were issued in her name.

  In May, the truce with Louis and Raymond V expired, but Henry had come to terms with the fact that he had no realistic prospects of conquering Toulouse. Although Louis confirmed Henry in all his lands save Toulouse, and their alliance was salvaged, the two kings were essentially enemies once more;36 as William of Newburgh observed, the confrontation at Toulouse marked the beginning of forty years of intermittent warfare between England and France.

  During the summer Archbishop Theobald pleaded with the King to return to England, reminding him that it was a long time since he had seen his children: "Even the most hard-hearted father could hardly bear to have them out of his sight for long," he wrote. His appeal fell on deaf ears; Henry had his hands full on the continent, and although, in September 1160, he commanded Eleanor to join him in Rouen, bringing with her the Lord Henry and the Lady Matilda,37 his motive was political rather than personal. The Queen of France was about to bear a child, and if it were a son, Henry hoped to arrange for his betrothal to Matilda. Eleanor must have travelled in some comfort, for the cost of her voyage in the Esnecca amounted to £7.38

  Henry then took the Lord Henry to the border to meet Louis and present the boy as his heir to Normandy. The child went on his knees before the French King and did homage for the duchy, with his father looking on.

  On 4 October, after a difficult confinement, Queen Constance bore a second daughter, Alys, "and passed from this world."39 Desperate for a male heir, King Louis, now forty, immediately arranged to marry Adela of Champagne, the sister of his future sons-in-law, Count Henry of Champagne and Count Theobald of Blois, both of whom were hostile to Henry II.

  News of Louis's betrothal dashed Henry's hopes of ever absorbing France into his empire. Even if Adela failed to bear Louis a son, the powerful House of Blois would conspire to subvert his schemes. It occurred to him that Counts Henry and Theobald might even persuade Louis to abandon his alliance with Henry, in which case he would lose all hope of recovering the Norman Vexin.

  There was no time to lose, therefore. The marriage of Henry's son

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  and Louis's daughter must take place without delay. Louis's consent was implicit in the marriage contract, so there was no need to consult him beforehand. All the King needed was the Church's special dispensation for the marriage of two minors. It so happened that, following a schism in 1159, rival popes had laid claim to the triple crown of St. Peter, and at that very moment two cardinal legates, emissaries from Pope Alexander III, were at Henry's court, seeking his support for their master. It was therefore easy for Henry to procure a dispensation.40

  At the King's command, Marguerite was brought by her guardian from Neubourg (Eure) to Rouen, and there married to the Lord Henry in the presence of the two legates, one of whom, Henry of Pisa, officiated at the nuptials. The bridegroom was five, the bride not yet three-- "as yet little children crying in the cradles."41 After the wedding Henry took Marguerite into his own household as a hostage against any reprisals by her father;42 this naturally meant that she would be brought up in the care of Queen Eleanor, against Louis's express wishes. Henry also demanded that the Knights Templar surrender the Vexin to him immediately, which they did willingly. The King at once proceeded to fortify Gisors and other border strongholds.43

  On 13 November, Louis married Adela of Champagne. When he found out how Henry had tricked him, he was furious. He protested that, since his daughter's wedding had taken place earlier than he had intended-- he insisted, with some exaggeration, that he had not expected it to happen for another ten years-- he was not obliged to surrender her dowry. But it was too late, and he had to content himself with expelling the Templars from Paris44 and encouraging Theobald of Blois to take to arms against Henry. Fearing that Touraine was under threat, Henry hastened south and took Theobald's castle of Chaumont on the Loire as a warning. At that point the arrival of winter put an end to the fighting season.

  Honour satisfied, Henry withdrew to Le Mans with Eleanor and their children, and there kept court in great state throughout Advent and Christmas.

  On 18 April 1161 Archbishop Theobald, who had been such a true friend to Henry, died, leaving the King faced with the problem of finding another such to replace him. Immediately he thought of Becket, but the Empress Matilda and the respected Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford (Bishop of London from 1163), warned him that the chancellor was too worldly a man for high ecclesiastical office.

  There the matter rested, for in the spring of 1161 Henry was busy preparing for war against Louis, strengthening his castles on the Norman border and in Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. At the same time, he

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  was building a new royal residence outside Rouen. Trouble in Aquitaine, however, took him south in the summer. "Among other vigorous deeds, he laid siege to Castillon-sur-Agen, and took it within a week, to the wonder and terror of the Gascons."45 The sparse surviving evidence suggests that he was also pursuing a policy of installing Norman administrators in the duchy, in an attempt to enforce centralised government upon its unruly barons. Unlike Eleanor, he did not repose much confidence in the ability of her uncle, Raoul de Faye, to act as her deputy.

  His interference was widely resented. "The Poitevins withdrew from their allegiance to the King of the English because of his pruning of their libertie
s."46 They even tried to have his marriage to their duchess dissolved, sending a deputation to the cardinal legates with a genealogical table showing that Henry and Eleanor were within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity. But the legates were still busy ingratiating themselves on Pope Alexander's behalf. Thus Henry was able that year to secure the canonisation of the Saxon king Edward the Confessor and so enhance the prestige of the English monarchy.

  While he was in Poitiers Henry inspected the work being done on the choir of the new cathedral and gave orders for the building of another new church, as well as new city walls, bridges, a market, and shops, setting new standards in town planning. He also arranged to have the great hall of the ducal palace refurbished with arcaded walls and bigger windows.

  Eleanor had remained in Normandy. She was pregnant again, and at Domfront Castle in September 1161 47 she gave birth to her second daughter by Henry, who was named Eleanor in her honour and baptised by Cardinal Henry of Pisa; Robert of Torigni was her godfather. Three years had elapsed since Eleanor's previous child had been born, and historians have conjectured why, after bearing four children in as many years, there was such a gap. It may have occurred because, having presented Henry with three healthy sons in quick succession, Eleanor felt she deserved a rest from childbearing. She may simply not have conceived. Or, as several writers have suggested, she may have had a child whose birth and early death were not recorded by the chroniclers.

  John Speed, the English antiquarian whose History of Great Britain was published in 1611, had access to sources now lost to us, and he records that Henry and Eleanor had a son named Philip, who was born between 1158 and 1162, but died young. Yet Francis Sandford, a genealogist who at the end of the seventeenth century made a detailed study of the royal line, does not mention him. It is possible that he existed: mediaeval chroniclers did not always mention royal infants who died young. Although William, Count of Poitiers, died at the age of