Daughters of Chivalry

by Kelcey Wilson-Lee

  In the middle of June that year, the Prince had an altercation with Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, the king’s Treasurer, and one of his most senior advisors. Langton had been a loyal servant to the Crown for more than a decade and served as Keeper of the Wardrobe throughout the early 1290s; he would have known the prince since boyhood, and it was perhaps this familiarity that he felt gave him licence to reprimand Prince Edward for his behaviour and his company. The prince responded with caustic fury; his precise words are unrecorded, but his father’s reaction is well attested; the king, livid at his son’s disrespect, was determined to teach him a lesson. He banished the prince from his presence, disbanded the detested gang of courtiers, and cut Edward off financially. A few weeks later, the prince was sent to Windsor Castle and ordered to remain there, with only two servants chosen for his company and the most meagre of allowances to enable him to eat. King Edward was aiming to chasten his heir, to shape his behaviour while he could, and to remove him from the negative influence of his friends, including the Gascon courtier Piers Gaveston, who the year before had been enriched with the guardianship of a royal ward at the behest of the prince. For young Edward, stripped of his household, his substantial income, and his close companions, it must have been a bitter blow, but he was powerless to change the situation as long as his father remained angry and alive – for surely none would dare to defy the king.

  Almost no one did, but early in July a messenger arrived at court with a letter bemoaning the king’s harsh treatment of his son and containing the seal of a great lord whose whole estate and purse had been placed at the hands of Prince Edward to procure whatever he needed. The act unambiguously sought to remedy the prince’s position, in direct confrontation with the king’s wishes. This bold gesture of open defiance could only have come from one of his subjects: his daughter, Joanna. Ever-ready to stand firm and without fear against her father, Joanna’s audacity in sending her seal to her brother shocked even the prince. He replied by letter to Ralph, offering assurance that his situation was not as dire as rumour suggested, and explaining that he did not suffer from any want. This, however, was not sufficient to distance himself from Joanna’s act of defiance, and the prince was careful to ensure he did not incur any additional wrath from their father. To that end, he gathered a group of knights in the private chamber of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace, to witness him dictate a formal deed in Latin, returning the seal to his sister, citing it as unnecessary, since their father provided for his sustenance. Joanna was not cowed, sending her own messenger back to tell Edward he should come and stay with her; he did not possess her unique readiness boldly to disobey their father’s orders, and politely declined.2

  Mary and Elizabeth also rose to their brother’s defence, as did their stepmother, though in less dramatic ways than Joanna. Mary first gained the permission of her father, before writing to suggest that her brother spend time at her comfortable apartments in Amesbury. As one of the king’s principal motives was to separate his son from the influence and company of his male favourites, an interlude within the walls of a nunnery would prove effective. Elizabeth, residing often at court with the king and queen, also wrote to her brother. She may have been involved with the queen’s request late in July that Edward lift the harshest aspects of his son’s punishment, including a ban the king placed on lenders in London from providing money to the prince. Writing from Windsor in early August, Prince Edward replied to his sister that he was well, but would be better if their father allowed Piers Gaveston and another close friend to join him at Windsor – and asked their stepmother Marguerite to pass the request to the king. The form of this letter provides a clear indication of the deep and apparent intimacy that had formed between Elizabeth and Marguerite, and also demonstrates Prince Edward’s understanding of the role that female intercession might play, even within families. While he did not dare ask his father to reinstate his favourites directly, he felt able both to appeal to his stepmother (which he did, directly, two days later in another letter), and to ask for the help of his sister, the queen’s companion and confidante. With the help of his sister and stepmother, by autumn the prince was forgiven and returned to court. Gaveston, however, remained out of favour for several months longer.3

  Undoubtedly the months before he returned to the king’s graces were uncomfortable for Prince Edward, who had learned he must bide his time as long as the old king lived. As for his sisters, the situation was far from straightforward – aiding their brother in his time of need might strengthen a bond with him as the future king, but alienating their father would be unwise. Mary was, of course, utterly reliant on her father’s generosity to maintain her lifestyle, and Elizabeth’s proximity to the king and queen may have checked any impulses she felt to defend her brother directly, so each focused their efforts on conventional intercession and made any offers to help only after checking with their father first. Only Joanna’s actions fell outside the boundaries of sanctioned behaviour – the gift of her seal presented an alternative financial dependency to her brother that threatened to undermine the lesson the king sought to teach him. She was able to make her bold offer not only because she remained throughout life unawed by her father’s position, but also because she had the independent means and lifestyle to withstand a degree of royal anger. Her father had seemingly learned to tolerate his daughter’s independent frame of mind – there is no evidence of friction between the king and the countess, who joined court for Christmas that year and received a golden clasp studded with emeralds from him as a new year’s gift.4

  Early in 1306, while the family were gathered at court, news arrived that rebellion had broken out again in Scotland, and the king once more rallied his son and his men for war in the north. In March, a Scottish nobleman who had previously pledged his allegiance to Edward dared to allow himself to be crowned king of an independent Scotland at Scone. His name was Robert Bruce – the Earl of Carrick in the ancient kingdom of Galloway and Lord of Annandale near the border with north-west England. For King Edward’s daughters and their stepmother, this fresh outbreak of war meant their husbands left for the north once again – that summer the king’s armies, captained by Humphrey de Bohun and Ralph de Monthermer, met the enemy with a vengeance. The conventions of gentlemanly warfare – by which local populations might be mercilessly slaughtered, but captured nobles were allowed to purchase their freedom through ransom payments – were swept aside, in a manner suggesting that the English noblemen had tired of incessant war and were determined to crush the rebellion once and for all. King Robert’s own brother, Neil, and other Scottish nobles were executed without the traditional recourse of ransom, such as that which had ultimately freed Henri of Bar after his captivity in France. Nor were the usual modes of intercession given credence: when Queen Marguerite and others pleaded with Edward to spare John de Strathbogie, the Earl of Atholl, on account of his status, the king reportedly replied he should merely be hanged higher than the others.5

  Far to the south, Elizabeth and Joanna knew about Scotland from their previous journeys there, and about the nature of war from their experiences during rebellions in Holland and Glamorgan, as well as from witnessing the siege at Stirling Castle. As they awaited messengers from the north, news also arrived from Brabant, where tensions had been simmering for years between the weavers, whose skilled labour was enriching the Low Countries, and the patrician merchant class who were enriched by it. That spring, the weavers of Brussels rose in revolt, ransacking the townhouses of the duchy’s most prosperous merchants, and threatening the great ducal palace that was perched at the top of Coudenberg, the hill overlooking the city, and where Margaret was in residence. According to a Brabaçon annalist, rather than flee the rampaging crowds, the duchess appeared before the weavers, urging them to disband and return to their homes and workshops. It is not known exactly what she said, but her words and the sturdy walls of the fortress were enough to keep the mob at bay, and when Jan returned from a huntin
g expedition at Tervuren, he and his men chased the rebels from the city and reconfirmed the privileges of the patrician merchant class.6

  Given the real dangers that Joanna, Elizabeth, and Margaret had been exposed to on account of their position as noble ladies, it is impossible not to wonder what these princesses made of their father’s treatment of Robert Bruce’s wife, daughter, and sister – their counterparts in Scotland – who were caught up in the hostilities of 1306. They had taken refuge at Kildrummy Castle, one of the great strongholds of Scotland, which was wrapped within a tall curtain wall and set against a deep ravine. The ladies were under the protection of King Robert’s brother, Neil, when the fortress was besieged by Prince Edward’s army, under the command of Humphrey de Bohun. The ladies escaped (with the unfortunate Earl of Atholl, hanged ‘higher than the rest’, as their escort) before the siege broke, and fled north to Tain in the Highlands, where by local tradition they claimed sanctuary in the chapel of St Duthac. However, any notion of sanctuary was ignored, and they were soon handed over to the English. Robert’s queen, Elizabeth de Burgh, was the daughter of one of Edward’s staunchest Irish allies and had close links to the English court, which may have ameliorated her treatment. She, her young stepdaughter, and one of her sisters-in-law, would spend the next eight years imprisoned, albeit in relative comfort, at various castles and convents in England, until they were released in 1314 as part of a prisoner exchange of English lords taken captive at the Battle of Bannockburn. The imprisonment of the Scottish royal ladies cannot but have served once again to remind Joanna, Mary, and Elizabeth of the danger they would face as representatives of the English royal family, should their own father or brother be overthrown. Special horror awaited Robert’s youngest sister Mary, at twenty-one an exact contemporary of Elizabeth, who was taken to Roxburgh Castle near the border with England, and kept inside a cage that was probably outdoors or exposed to the elements, where her punishment could be observed by passing Scots and serve as a reminder of the power of the English king.7

  One other Scottish noblewoman shared Mary Bruce’s fate: Isabella MacDuff, the daughter of the Earl of Fife and one of Earl Gilbert’s two disinherited daughters with Alice Lusignan. Isabella had boldly claimed, on behalf of her brother (a minor residing at Edward’s court in England), the Earl of Fife’s traditional ceremonial privilege of crowning the new King of Scotland. When she learned of the plan to crown Robert, she travelled to Scone, but arrived the day after the ceremony, which had therefore to be repeated. Her husband, one of King Robert’s greatest foes among the Scottish nobility and a supporter of the English king, reputedly wished his wife dead on learning that she had personally placed the crown on the head of his enemy. As the only member of the MacDuff family who was able to exercise their historic right, Isabella faced a dilemma – and she sided ultimately with preserving the privileges of the earls of Fife, to great personal cost. For her temerity, Edward ordered that she waste away, in a cage in the shape of a crown, placed outside the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed; there she languished, for all to see, through four cold Scottish winters, before being transferred to more humane conditions. Her disappearance from the records soon after her transfer suggests she likely died from the effects of her long-term torture. Even while she was his prisoner-on-display, the English king arranged a marriage between Isabella’s brother and his granddaughter, Mary de Monthermer. How galling it must have been for Isabella that the woman responsible for her mother’s disinheritance – Joanna of Acre – would also claim for her progeny the proud Earldom of Fife, Scotland’s most prestigious noble lineage.

  During the eight years that the Scottish women languished in various prisons – convents, castles, and cages – there is no record that Edward’s wife or any of his daughters sought to intercede or plead for clemency on their behalf, despite their regular efforts to secure pardons for those implicated in serious crimes, including murder. Perhaps the parallels between them and their Scottish counterparts were too upsetting for the princesses of England to contemplate, or perhaps they did attempt to argue with their father and were rebuffed. A further possibility, however, was that none of the English royal ladies desired or tried to intercede on behalf of their Scottish counterparts because they felt little solidarity with them, despite the obvious parallels in their lives. For royal women in the age of chivalry, identity was ultimately wrapped up in family rather than gender, and if they felt little sympathy with Isabella MacDuff and Mary Bruce, it was because those women were the enemies of their father, of their family, and of England. Perhaps they felt the Scottish women deserved what they got.

  At Winchester in the spring of 1306, Elizabeth, Mary, and Marguerite were joined by two young relatives, each of whom was on the cusp of marriage: Joanna of Bar and Eleanor de Clare. Joanna was the only daughter of the late Princess Eleanora and Count Henri of Bar. She had arrived in her mother’s homeland for the first time in the autumn of 1305, aged about ten – considerably younger than any of her aunts when they had travelled abroad – in preparation for her marriage to a young English nobleman. Her grandmother, Eleanor of Castile, would have been horrified at the prospect of such a young child marrying but, as an orphan, Joanna of Bar had few advocates to argue on her behalf, and none who could outrank her grandfather and guardian, the King of England. For his part, Edward undoubtedly intended to do his best by his granddaughter in bringing her to live with his wife and securing her marriage into one of the English nobility’s foremost families. Weeks before her wedding, the king also sought to secure the future of her brother, finalizing a prestigious marriage and helping him recover his patrimony from the French king; clearly the future of his grandchildren weighed heavily on Edward’s mind.8

  The second niece was Eleanor de Clare, the eldest daughter of Joanna of Acre by her first husband, Gilbert. Eleanor was thirteen in 1306 and knew her aunt Mary well, having spent at least part of her childhood under her tutelage at Amesbury. Edward doted on his granddaughter, buying her a robe of costly deep-green silk, imported from Tripoli in Lebanon, and providing her with a dowry of two thousand pounds. Her bridegroom was to be Hugh le Despenser (remembered as ‘the Younger’), the son of the Earl of Winchester. Hugh was aged about twenty and was a close friend of Prince Edward – he would soon be knighted alongside the prince. Hugh’s connections meant it was an excellent match. As plans for the two weddings progressed, none could have foreseen the unhappiness that awaited Joanna in her marriage to John de Warenne, nor how Eleanor’s husband would tear apart her family and play a leading role in the tragic downfall of her uncle’s reign.9

  The women were at Winchester on 6 May, when Marguerite gave birth to a baby girl. The new princess was given the name Eleanor – a perhaps surprising gesture in honour of the king’s first wife, as well as his mother and eldest daughter. Within three weeks after the child’s birth, and after far fewer than the forty days traditionally granted new mothers to recover before travelling, Marguerite and her friends were required back at court in Westminster. There they were met by Joanna, who had travelled to court to see her daughter get married to Hugh le Despenser. Her fifteen-year-old son Gilbert most likely accompanied her, interrupting his intensive military training, as well as her other daughters, Margaret and Elizabeth. On arrival in Westminster, the royal family found that court was filled with carpenters and food deliveries, as the final preparations were being made for the knighting of Prince Edward. The prince had turned twenty-two in late April, and in celebration of this birthday his knighting ceremony was to be held on 22 May – Whitsuntide, or the great Christian feast of Pentecost. It was not only his age that meant it was time to knight the prince but, for the king, the ceremony also brought the opportunity to levy another tax – guaranteed by Magna Carta – needed to support the renewed war in Scotland. By the end of the following year, 26,500 pounds had been raised in support of the prince’s knighting ceremony. Counting on some of these funds, and keen to gather a body of warriors who would be loyal to his son, the king proc
laimed that all young men of sufficient age wishing to obtain a knighthood, and possessing sufficient income to fund the expensive enterprise, were to travel to Westminster to be knighted at royal expense, alongside their future king. Nearly three hundred young men answered the summons, so many that overflow housing had to be provided at the compound of the Knights Templar, on the River Thames between Westminster and London. Fruit trees and courtyard walls were pulled down at the Temple to accommodate a field of colourful tents, where the young nobility of England slept and ate in the days leading up to the feast. There, and back at the royal Palace of Westminster where the royal women were staying, enormous quantities of meats and bread were delivered, and pavilions and scaffolding were erected to stage the celebrations.10