There were therefore a number of ‘pie in the sky’ elements of this treaty – the North African expedition never happened, Henry was never absolved from his crusading vow and Navarre never did come under Castilian rule, maintaining its somewhat marginal existence until the sixteenth century. Putting these to one side, it is at first tempting to say that Alfonso did very well out of this treaty, in that he got a royal marriage for his sister at no cost to himself. But to regard this absence of dowry payment by Alfonso as a win for Castile is a mistaken approach.
Eleanor, even with no dowry, was no bad deal for Henry and England. To get a princess at all was a point of considerable value. But Eleanor represented rather more than a ‘mere princess’. She was the daughter of a great crusading king and the sister of a king who, at this stage in his career, promised to be a leading light in international terms, both through the affluence brought about by Ferdinand’s conquests and by reason of his own scholarship and Imperial connections. A Castilian connection was therefore very valuable. What is more, Eleanor was the only daughter of Ferdinand to come on the market; the only other daughter to live to adulthood became a nun. Further still, although Eleanor was not actually heiress to Ponthieu, she would have influence over her mother, who was now the regnant countess on Henry’s doorstep.13
Nor was this Henry’s only gain from the deal. On top of Eleanor’s personal claims, Henry got back lands which he had lost in Gascony; and most of all he got as near a guarantee of peace in Gascony as he could expect, given the nature of the Gascon nobles, especially Gaston de Béarn. He was certainly now safe from Castile, and also from Navarre, which would inevitably go down to the combined might of Castile and England, if it got out of line. The value of this guarantee was of almost inestimable value to him. Nor was he the only one to appreciate its value; the peace which the marriage brought bore fruit in the crucial relationship with France. Once the marriage was agreed, Louis IX realised he would be unable to foment useful discord in Gascony, and ultimately acknowledged Henry’s claims in Gascony by the Treaty of Paris in 1259.
In fact, a better question is, what did Alfonso get out of the deal? It must be recalled that he would see none of the money for which he had fought so hard. All he definitely got, in exchange for a dubious but valuable claim to Gascony, was the honour of knighting Edward and the further honour of a royal marriage into the English royal house – not the prize it might have seemed in Henry II’s time. Otherwise, his gains were speculative. Certainly Spanish historians have reproached Alfonso soundly for his stupidity in abandoning the claim for so little return. All in all, Alfonso appears to have obeyed the letter and the spirit of his father’s injunction as regards Eleanor and done his very best to ensure that she was well provided for.
From the beginning of April, implementation of the deal began: a safe conduct was issued for Edward at once, and on 22 April Alfonso ordered the Gascons to return to their allegiance to Henry. By 18 July, the final details were falling into place: the date was set for some time within five weeks of Michaelmas; Henry typically hoped for the Feast of St Edward the Confessor on 13 October. Two days later, Edward assigned dower lands to Eleanor: the towns of Stamford and Grantham, the castle and town of the Peak and the manor of Tickhill. On 23 July, John Maunsell was ordered by Edward to conclude the marriage by proxy; the letter refers to Eleanor’s ‘beauty and prudence’, of which Edward has heard by general report. Interestingly, this letter seems to be the only extant reference to Eleanor’s beauty, and its combination with ‘prudence’, as opposed to ‘charm’, ‘debonairité’ or ‘sweetness’, is an unusual one, suggesting that her serious nature had been mentioned to Edward by the envoys who had met her. In August, a Castilian embassy headed by Garcia Martinez, a diplomat who appears to have been appointed Eleanor’s ayo (tutor or governor) for the purposes of finalising the negotiations on her behalf, arrived in Gascony to accept the dower assignment.14
In all of this business, it will perhaps have been noted that Eleanor’s mother, Dowager Queen Jeanne, seems to have played no part. This apparently reflects the actualité, and the reasons for this shed light on Eleanor’s relations at this time with her immediate family. The truth was that by 1254, Eleanor’s mother and her eldest brother were embroiled in a very serious row – and her mother was also playing a starring role in a scandal of no mean proportions. The combination of the two was to place Jeanne firmly outside the circle involved in arranging the match and even to make her continued residence in Castile impossible.
Alfonso’s relationship with Jeanne seems to have been stormy for some time, as Ferdinand’s injunction to Alfonso on his deathbed hints. The reasons behind this are interesting. In the first place, although the relationship between a stepmother and stepson of approximately equal age was never likely to be very easy, Jeanne had apparently had cause to resent Alfonso from even before her marriage. The original plan of Blanche of Castile had seen Jeanne marrying Ferdinand and her younger sister Philippa marrying Alfonso; papal dispensations for both marriages had been obtained. However, Alfonso had very strong views indeed about the nobility of his descent, which can be seen in the Cantigas, where he trumpets his noble descent by reference to his mother and states that his first great advantage was that Ferdinand III had given him life ‘through a woman of great lineage’. Alfonso therefore flatly refused the marriage, and made much of the noble descent of the wife he eventually took – Violante of Aragon.14
The slight and the huge loss which the marriage represented to the position of her family was not likely to be lost on Jeanne. A second royal marriage would have improved her family’s political importance immensely. As it was, Philippa did not marry until comparatively late and then married (as his third wife) the Count of Eu, a lesser member of the prolific de Lusignan family, and, after his death, a scion of the House of Coucy; both respectable but by no means brilliant marriages.
To add to this original point of friction there was a considerable dispute about property, in particular the dower which Jeanne held as queen. As noted in Chapter 1, the Castilian concept of dower involved the wife entering into ownership of the property at once, and not merely on the death of her spouse. While the approach whereby dowry, the gift from the wife’s family, outweighed or replaced dower was prevalent elsewhere in Europe and was gaining ground in parts of Iberia (including in Alfonso’s own plans), it had not yet established itself in Castile. Queens in Castile therefore held and ruled substantial portions of the royal demesne as their own, as, for example, Berengaria had done with the disputed border forts. This gave them greater personal wealth and opportunities for patronage than was common elsewhere.16
It was common practice for queens to swear fidelity to the king and to his heir in respect of such property. Jeanne, however, refused to submit her properties to Alfonso’s authority. Alfonso then took a hard line about whether certain other properties gifted by Ferdinand to Jeanne were properly alienable from the Crown, and he refused to acknowledge her rights to them. Attempts were made to resolve the resulting disputes, but by 1252 there are records of litigation between Jeanne and Alfonso. This ongoing dispute explains Ferdinand’s charge to Alfonso on his deathbed to treat Jeanne with the same affection and deference as if she had been his mother and give her all the honours which were her due. There is doubt whether Alfonso respected his father’s wishes in this regard. Ferdinand’s will left certain lands to Jeanne, including some at Cordoba and Jaén, but Alfonso denied her seigniorial rights over them and may also have actually withheld their benefits from her as well.17
At odds with Alfonso, Jeanne found a sympathetic ear close to home. There was no firm principle of primogeniture established in Spain, and it was therefore possible for younger sons to have hopes of the throne. Doubtless with this in mind, the colourful Enrique – reputedly the best soldier and diplomat of all the sons – had refused to recognise Alfonso as Ferdinand’s heir in 1246. Once installed as king after Ferdinand’s death, Alfonso in turn refused to recognise the grant
of certain lands to Enrique under his father’s will, a move which pushed him into rebellion.
Jeanne and Enrique sympathised with each other over their problems with the intractable Alfonso and Jeanne even attended a meeting which Enrique held with his allies at Burgos. This closeness led to rumours that the two were lovers. The commentators suggest that this is unlikely to have been true – Jeanne, although only thirty-two at Ferdinand’s death, was still a good ten years older than Enrique. However, it is obviously possible, and two factors suggest that it may indeed have been the case. The first is Jeanne’s later choice of a second husband of limited means, which suggests that she had a taste for handsome or charming men. The second is the storyline of Enrique’s later work Amadis de Gaula: its theme is a forbidden love between a penniless prince and a queen. Certainly there was very considerable gossip about them at the time, as traces of it still survive in the fragmentary records.18
Ultimately, Jeanne’s relationship with Alfonso seems to have reached a point where her position was totally untenable. She was apparently not consulted by him over Eleanor’s marriage and she did not even attend the wedding, choosing to leave Castile in the summer before the wedding, even though by this stage all the arrangements were in place. The ostensible reason for her departure was that she was to assume her position as Countess of Ponthieu after her mother’s death. However, since her mother had died in 1250 this was a very threadbare excuse indeed, and the probability is that her disappearance at this stage was intended to embarrass Alfonso.
Two interesting points regarding Eleanor emerge from this little byplay. The first is that Eleanor cannot have escaped being aware of the difficult relations between her mother and Alfonso throughout her childhood and yet she apparently managed herself to maintain good relations with him. He certainly went to considerable efforts to ensure that she was well provided for, though this could not benefit him, and possibly the less that was asked on Eleanor’s behalf, the more he could himself have gained. And certainly she felt more than simply dutiful to him: her correspondence with and support for him in later years might just be put down to familial imperatives, but the christening of one of her sons as Alphonso (an outlandish name to the English ear) vouches for a very real affection.19
Part of this may be linked to the second point emerging from this story: this period will have provided Eleanor with an object lesson in the importance of the rules which she had been taught on the maintenance of good habits, of quiet deportment and, of course, of suppressing her temper; and the difficulties a queen who abandoned these principles might attract. It is a lesson which she appears to have learnt to admiration. In later years, although associating very closely with many of her husband’s unmarried friends, not a whisper ever appears about her. It appears that, on this point at least, she saw her mother’s approach as the worse course and preferred the teaching of Alfonso. Indeed, given this obvious closeness of view and affection between Alfonso and Eleanor, and Jeanne’s decision to leave Castile and not to support her young daughter through her marriage, one may well infer that the bond between Eleanor and her mother was not particularly close.
It is worth noting at this stage, as it was a precursor to later problems in which Eleanor tried to assist Alfonso, that Alfonso’s troubles with Enrique and Jeanne in this period did not come in isolation. The chief nobles of Castile chiefly fell into factions behind the two pre-eminent families of de Lara and de Haro. The latter family had been in the ascendant since the days of Berengaria’s regency. However, Ferdinand had been tolerably even handed with the de Laras, keeping them happy enough to be peaceful. Alfonso, however, openly favoured the de Lara faction. Unsurprisingly this resulted in a good deal of disaffection, at a time when the nobility were no longer gainfully employed in the reconquest. The result was an alliance between Enrique, the de Haros and Jaime of Aragon, which hampered Alfonso’s control over both Seville and the north. In 1254, Enrique and Jaime agreed an alliance by the marriage of Enrique to Jaime’s daughter Costanza, the sister of Alfonso’s own queen. However, within the year Alfonso, chiefly through Queen Violante’s intercession with her father, had brought an end to this proposed marriage and the appearance of peace had returned. The price of Alfonso’s speedy rejection of his father’s modus operandi would come later.20
Meanwhile, Jeanne left Castile with her son and heir apparent, Ferdinand. Her younger son Luis (who was probably only just eleven years old) was left behind in the custody of Alfonso, who, in fulfilment of his vow to his father, made provision for him, investing him as Señor de Marchena and Zuheros. This was probably because he had practically no inheritance prospects in relation to Ponthieu. Henry issued safe conducts for Jeanne and Ferdinand on 16 July, they spent some time at Bordeaux with the English royal family in August and she was back in Abbeville, capital of Ponthieu, on 31 October, the day before Eleanor’s wedding.21
Meanwhile, what of the groom? He set out on 29 May 1254 with his mother, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a large company of knights, magnates, officials and courtiers. The size of the expedition can be gauged by reference to the scale of the preparations which were made for it: bridges and hurdles were ordered for 300 ships, ships were requisitioned, including all the ones in London capable of carrying sixteen horses. The honour of providing the ships for the main passengers had been divided among the Cinque Ports and Yarmouth, Winchelsea drawing the queen and Yarmouth drawing Edward. However, when the ships were assembled the men of Winchelsea were enraged by how much better Yarmouth’s ship was and attacked it, killing some of the Yarmouth men, carrying off the (obviously superior) mast and fitting it onto their own vessel.22
Edward and his entourage arrived in Bordeaux around 10–12 June. He was housed separately from his parents, his mother staying in a house which she had used on a previous visit. Henry was absent; he was still reducing the troublesome fortress of La Réole, where the hard core of resisters had congregated. However, he had provided for suitable donatives (three gold cloths each) to be ready for his wife and Edward to offer at the churches of St Andrew, St Sever and Holy Cross.23
Edward did not set off for Castile at once. He went to join his father shortly after his arrival and it is likely that he spent much of the summer being brought up to speed on how things stood in Gascony and what he would have to do on his return after his marriage. We know that some letters were issued in his name at this time which indicate that, while he was giving some orders directly (for example ordering William Longespée to invest the chateau at Bourg-sur-Mer), otherwise an administration over which he had little control was being put in place. He did meet his mother and brother-in-law elect as they passed through on their way to Ponthieu in August, giving him a chance to learn a little about Eleanor before their meeting. He was then at La Réole after the surrender of the town later in August.24
Somehow, everything became delayed and somewhat less glorious than was suggested by the huge send-off in England. Although Edward’s knighting had been set for 13 October, he did not arrive at Burgos until after this date. The reasons for this are unclear; certainly Henry was by this point settled in Bordeaux, which would suggest that Edward’s presence was not vital. It seems possible that Edward’s commitment to being involved with the administrative issues arising out of the La Réole dispute were the cause, for we find him in September making arrangements for settling some points arising from this. A commission was constituted and approved by Edward on 15 September and by the king on 29 September, and a peace based on forgetting the past was declared by Henry in Bordeaux on 7 October, when he counselled the contending parties to make up their differences by marriages, as he had done with Alfonso.
Another possible reason for the delay emerges from the documentation of Edward’s stay in Bayonne around the start of October. The plan had been for Edward to be escorted by a distinguished retinue of English magnates, but in fact the companions he took were mostly Gascon, and had to buy clothes for the wedding in Bayonne. It may be, therefore, that the late
arrival of his retinue prompted a delay, and in the end Edward was finally forced to set off without them.25
Whatever the reason, Edward left Bayonne on 9 October and arrived in Burgos on 18 October. This, and the fact that Alfonso was making his first visit to Burgos since his own accession, doubtless provided an excuse for entertainments on a considerable scale. Certainly for the rest of the year Alfonso dated his documents by reference to the year in which the Lord Edward visited Castile, which indicates that in his eyes the visit had been a great event. With both Castilian and English royal families fond of hunting, it is inevitable that some time was spent in this diversion, and this will have provided an easy way for the young couple to get to know each other and enjoy the discovery of the first of their common interests.
Prior to the wedding there will certainly have been a visit to the venue at Las Huelgas, which resonated with the bridal couple’s shared family heritage. It also provided a suitable meeting point for the two because architecturally Las Huelgas was predominantly a French Gothic construction, which referenced the architecture and layout of the Plantagenet pantheon at Fontevrault. It will therefore have seemed familiar to Edward and set the context for Eleanor’s forthcoming change of countries. There will also have been an opportunity to pay their respects at the tombs of Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England, which probably did not at the time bear their current, heavily heraldic appearance, and that of Queen Berengaria, who had recently been reburied, at the instance of her granddaughter and namesake, in a magnificent decorated tomb chest featuring Gothic arcading and carvings of the Virgin Mary with Christ.
Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen Page 11