Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen
Page 12
What would the young couple have made of each other at these first meetings? Edward’s appearance in later life is well attested by Nicholas Trivet, a chronicler who wrote for Edward and Eleanor’s daughter Mary and appears to have been given a good deal of inside information by her. He tells us what later archaeological investigations confirm, that Edward was indeed unusually tall, standing head and shoulders above most men, earning his nickname ‘Longshanks’. He also tells us that Edward was golden haired in his childhood but as he grew older his hair changed to dark brown, and that he shared his father’s characteristic droop in one eye. He also had a slight lisp, although Trivet assures us that this in no way hampered him in argument; one may perhaps here call to mind the slight lisp which has been no hindrance to Sean Connery’s acting career. Marginal sketches of Edward in later life show that he had a very decided, square jaw and suggest that the clean-shaven look which was then the accepted mode was not easy to maintain, with suggestions of five o’clock shadow in more than one representation.
The latter characteristic was probably not much in evidence at just fifteen; at this stage he was a mere sketch of the man he was to become. Probably dark haired (just), there seems every likelihood that he was tall, thin and not yet done growing – in the awkward, half-fledged stage of the teenage years. As for Eleanor, who also probably still had a couple of years of growing to do, it seems likely that she had little of adult beauty, except possibly her fine eyes. However, her training to interest herself in her husband’s affairs, and her genuine passion for horses and interest in music, probably made her as acceptable a female companion as Edward could reasonably have hoped for.
With introductions and preliminary celebrations out of the way, sometime in late October Edward and some of his companions were knighted by Alfonso, and on 1 November the marriage was performed at Las Huelgas. Edward was fifteen years old, and Eleanor was still a few weeks short of her thirteenth birthday. On the day of the wedding, Alfonso formally abandoned his claims to Gascony in favour of his new brother-in-law and thereafter there would have been some days of further festivities. But it was not long before the couple set out for Gascony.26
On 11 November, the newlyweds are recorded as being at Vittoria in Spain (about halfway between Burgos and Bayonne), but by 21 November the records show their presence in Bayonne, and one of Edward’s clerks described him in a charter as ‘now reigning in Gascony as prince and lord’. One might fondly imagine that all would be easy going at this point; however it is clear that problems will have been apparent to Eleanor from the very start. Edward was completely out of money: Trabut-Cussac describes how the newly married couple’s route back to Bordeaux can be traced by the IOUs left in their wake. This was not a significant problem at the time – there were plenty of takers, with the security of future tax and trading revenue, as well as those from confiscated goods and justice. But it demonstrates that Henry III had left the province in a parlous state financially and had abandoned Edward to sink or swim – without leaving him enough money even to pay the soldiers notionally left for his security. Furthermore, the bad feeling left by the recent disputes was far from dispelled – Edward and Eleanor’s retinue was reportedly abused by locals on their arrival from Spain. On the honeymoon, therefore, all emphatically did not smell of roses.27
It is almost certain that Eleanor met neither of her parents-in-law at this stage. Certainly neither of them attended the marriage, and records suggest that Henry left Bordeaux on 3 or 4 November en route to Cognac and Fontevrault and that he first received news of the marriage having taken place on 20 November, when he was at Marmoutier. Although Howell speculates that the two Eleanors would have met on the return to Gascony, this seems unlikely as it was in this period that Henry and Eleanor together made the first of their peacemaking visits to Paris. Henry had sought permission from Louis IX for himself and his queen to travel back from Gascony by way of France, and the records indicate that they set out together in late October. Further, it is unlikely that Eleanor would have been late to join a visit which she (as sister of the French queen, Marguerite) had probably played no small part in arranging.28
Given the ages of the two protagonists – Eleanor not even in her teens – one is bound to wonder whether the marriage was consummated at this stage. As indicated above, the age of marriage for girls was generally fifteen or older owing to the risks of juvenile childbirth. Yet at the same time numerous child marriages took place, with the young bride being brought up as a member of the groom’s parents’ household. Examples of this approach include Marguerite of France, wife of Henry the Young King, and Alys, her sister, both of whom were brought up from a very young age at Henry II’s court. In such cases, the consummation of the marriage was generally delayed until the age of about fifteen.29
However, more difficult questions arise in cases like that of Edward and Eleanor, when the parties were above canon age but younger than usual. It is certainly the case that some young marriages were consummated. For example, Margaret Beaufort was only thirteen years of age when she bore the future Henry VII, and the marriage of Mary de Bohun (aged twelve) to the future Henry IV was consummated in order to guarantee her vast inheritance. However, it appears that it was more usual for conjugal relations to be delayed in such cases; for example, Isabella of Angoulême was married aged twelve in 1200, but did not have her first child until seven years later. The knowledge that she obviously had no fertility problems, since she was to bear John at least five children in a nine-year period and then go on to have at least another six by her second husband, indicates that consummation was delayed until her eighteenth year. Likewise, Eleanor of Provence, who had at least five children, did not bear her first child until over three years after her wedding, aged a little under thirteen. Again, Mary de Bohun, although required to consummate the marriage for political reasons at twelve, then lived apart from her husband for about four years, bearing her first live child more than five years after the marriage.30
So into which camp did Eleanor fall? Certainly the evidence of Eleanor’s later fecundity (estimates of the number of children she bore Edward range from nine to nineteen, but the best evidence suggests at least fifteen children) and the fact that the first verifiable child born to Edward and Eleanor was sometime between 1262 and 1264, would tend to suggest that they were not regularly cohabiting in the early years of their marriage. However, politically it would seem probable that from the English point of view the marriage required to be put beyond doubt so no legal quibble could be taken at a later date, especially in the light of the fact that Alfonso had already given evidence of being tricky. This approach would also be consistent, and is only really consistent, with leaving Edward and Eleanor together in Gascony for a year; if the marriage was not to be consummated, she would have been more likely to be put in charge of Edward’s parents, or have a separate establishment created for her.31
Confirming this is the slight, but significant, evidence of the child Parsons calls Anonyma. In a book of controllers’ accounts for the king’s wardrobe in 1286–7, there is a record showing that the queen provided a gold cloth on 29 May 1287 to the Dominican priory at Bordeaux to mark the anniversary of the death of her daughter, who was buried there. There is extensive material for the king’s and queen’s wardrobes in 1286 and none shows any sign of a child dying at this time, nor do any of the documented children at this date ‘go missing’. Accordingly, this was not the first anniversary, but an anniversary of a death longer ago. This leaves two possible years in which a child could have died in May when Edward and Eleanor were in Bordeaux: 1255, and on return from Crusade in 1274.
One can effectively eliminate the latter possibility. Since Edward and Eleanor took none of their children with them on Crusade, the only child who could have died in 1274 was one born on their travels. There were three of these: the unnamed child who is recorded as being born and dying in Acre in 1271, Joan ‘of Acre’ and Alphonso. Both of the latter two were alive and well in 1274, and
for some considerable time thereafter. Therefore, unless either the child born at Acre completed the long journey back to Gascony and survived nearly six months before dying (Edward and Eleanor were certainly in Gascony by November 1273) or they for some reason brought the body of their child back to bury, the child buried in Bordeaux was one born in 1255. As for these alternative possibilities, the former seems to be ruled out by the accounts for the children’s household, which indicate that only two children (Joan and Alphonso) were with their parents in Gascony in 1274. The latter is just possible, but seems highly improbable given the conditions in the East and the length of time taken by them on the journey back.32
Thus there is a compelling case to be made for the birth of a child as a result of the early consummation of the marriage in 1255. This is entirely consistent with the probabilities. Yet again there is a parallel with Mary de Bohun. She bore a dead child – the result of the premature consummation of the marriage – in 1382 and cohabitation ceased after this until she was of an age to enter on childbearing safely. The attentive reader will of course have deduced that Anonyma cannot have been a full-term child. A marriage consummated on 1 November would not generally produce issue until late July. Anonyma would therefore be a stillbirth some weeks short of the due date, possibly caused by an accident, an illness or some problem with the baby herself. This hypothesis also fits well with the known itinerary of Edward in mid-1255: the records show that he was based around Bordeaux much of the time, and was recorded there both in mid-May and at the beginning of June. In mid-May he went to conduct business in St Emilion, and was at work there on 27 May. Thereafter there is an abrupt gap in the records until 1 June, when Edward is found at Bordeaux. The administrative records therefore echo an anxious young husband awaiting the outcome of his even younger wife’s first labour, a sudden dash to its premature commencement and a sad outcome.33
One final piece of evidence in support of this conclusion as to consummation is the attitude of Edward and Eleanor to the marriages of their daughters. Despite heavy political pressure, Eleanor begged her husband not to send their daughter to Aragon at the age of thirteen and to instead wait at least eighteen months; she succeeded. While there may have been other political considerations which fed into this specific stance, it is also the case that not one of their daughters was sent away to be married before she was past fourteen; one married younger, but was kept at home until she was past fifteen – and her husband had to beg to get her even then.34
There is therefore good reason to suppose that the marriage was consummated at once and a premature child was born and died in late May 1255 – when Eleanor was only thirteen and a half years old. The premature daughter, who must have died at birth or very shortly afterwards, was probably given no name; usually commemorations recorded in the wardrobe accounts identify the person by name.
This unsuccessful pregnancy was obviously a traumatic event for a thirteen-year-old to endure and may well have had implications for Eleanor’s health for some time. It is possible that, as with Mary de Bohun, cohabitation did not then resume for a few years, but on balance this seems unlikely since the pair do not appear to have been kept apart at all on their return, but resided at court. More probably a degree of caution was exercised by them to avoid conception until Eleanor was somewhat older.
There are a number of other threads to note from the very limited material available in relation to this first year. The first is to understand something about Gascony, both because it played a significant part in the politics of the English court and because it was a place of importance to Eleanor and Edward.
Gascony was the most substantial remaining part of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s territories. Like all of those territories it was emphatically a southern French territory, having its own distinctive language and traditions. One important aspect of this which is easy to forget – both for modern readers and for the Angevins and other northern French, for whom feudalism was the natural way of things – is that it was not a feudal territory at all. Its towns and nobles had far more independence than their English counterparts, and many of the nobles held their lands freely, and were not subject to any feudal service. The result was that it was impossible to rule Gascony by routes which would seem intuitive to someone used to the English or even the northern French way of doing things. The truth, as indicated earlier, is that the Duke of Aquitaine did not by any means have the power of a ruler with full feudal authority. If he asked one of his nobles to jump, the answer was unlikely to be ‘How high?’ – it was more likely to be unprintable.
Adding to these difficulties was the fact that it was itself a disparate territory, covering not only the sophisticated and prosperous cities of Bordeaux and Bayonne, which were commercially dependent upon trade with England, but also large stretches of almost undeveloped countryside and the rugged mountainous regions of Soule, Béarn and Bigorre, each of which effectively controlled a route over the Pyrenees. There was no recognised body of law or custom which prevailed across the region; different counties had differing traditions and laws. Internally it had its own conflicts, borne of both the different interests represented by its various areas and the natural rivalries and factions which sprung up within each area. Notable among these was the almost non-stop strife which was carried on between certain individuals and families. Examples include the festering dispute over the county of Bigorre between Gaston de Béarn, probably the most powerful single noble in the territory, and his neighbour Esquivat de Chabanais. Then there were the disputes between Arnaud Odon and Gerald of Armagnac, between the Viscount of Soule and Arnaud of Tardets, and between Gaston de Béarn and Auger of Soule (the heir to the Viscount of Soule).
Nor were the cities free of trouble; a constant feature of Bordeaux politics was the internecine strife which prevailed between the factions of Colomb and Soler. These were generally old-fashioned, visceral disputes about dominance, not sophisticated political disagreements which were likely to be amenable to mediation. Moreover, they radiated outwards owing to the complicated interrelationships within the duchy.
Another complicating factor is that at no time until Edward’s accession was Gascony actually managed by someone with ultimate authority; until then, including when Edward resided there in 1254–5, the authority held was subordinate to that of Henry III, who was well understood by the Gascons to be out of touch with the minutiae of the region. Accordingly, any decision to which exception was taken could be, and was, simply appealed to England, thereby ensuring delay. The result was that it was practically impossible to carry out any wide-ranging reforms. This tension was more or less exactly what hamstrung Simon de Montfort – and resulted in his trial by Henry III.35
The net result was that there were only two practical routes open for governing in Gascony – to proceed by consensus, guiding rather than commanding; or to take sides, recruiting the forces of one party to keep the other down. Henry naturally favoured the first – but, as can be imagined, in these circumstances governing by consensus resembled herding cats and offered little room for pushing forward reforms. Equally naturally, Simon de Montfort in his incumbency as seneschal favoured the latter, siding with the Colomb faction in Bordeaux against the Soler family and with his nephew de Chabanais against Gaston de Béarn in the dispute over the succession to the central county of Bigorre.36
The second strand to pick up is to briefly evaluate the work which Edward was doing. In truth, although Edward did involve himself closely with the governing of Gascony, he was not entirely left to sink or swim: a number of his mother’s Savoyard advisers, including John FitzGeoffrey and Stephen de Salines, are among the advisers who were with him in this year. Eleanor’s relative Michael de Fiennes (brother of William), who was also one of the party and became Edward’s first chancellor, also had some Savoyard connections.37
But even allowing for this advice, Trabut-Cussac has traced the work which Edward was doing throughout the year in the local rolls and gives him a very good ‘end-of-term’
report. He concludes that, with a seriousness surprising for his age, he worked hard to forge a definitive peace and to recreate a normal administration in the face of constant financial problems. He also records that Edward managed to procure many submissions from men who had a year before been in rebellion and that while he still left Gascony poor, it was enjoying a lasting peace and a reasonable administration. This conclusion is borne out by a study of the local records which show that from the time when the young couple arrived back in Gascony in late November Edward was apparently busy issuing orders, pardons, restoring goods, and sitting in justice, considering matters both great and small which were brought by locals to his court. This approach is very interesting in that it resonates with the interests Edward would come to show later as a king.38
In terms of approach, consensus together with limited administrative reform was the order of the day. Looking at the various acts issued, a good deal of what was being done was effectively unpicking the most controversial steps taken by Montfort. He encouraged the mediation of other disputes, successfully disposing of some (for the present at least). Building blocks were also put in place for a more sensible and cohesive administrative system: a constable of Bordeaux was appointed, and he gradually became the chief financial officer of the city, thereby reducing the status of both the Colombs and the Solers (whose prominence had stemmed from their direct financial dealings with the Crown) and taking much of the political sting out of their intractable differences.39
In addition, Edward commenced his military experience during this period, as money problems caused unrest. Gascon seneschals traditionally struggled financially on two fronts. First, they had to get the necessary co-operation of the local lords in persuading their tenants to pay the tax on agricultural holdings, which was estimated according to the number of cattle maintained. Secondly, revenues always fell short of English expectation; there was an entrenched mindset in England that Gascony made a considerable net financial contribution to revenues – which may well have underpinned some of Henry III’s disputes with de Montfort. This had almost certainly been true back in Henry II’s day. However, we now know that in fact at this point Gascony was a net drain on English resources. Edward’s position was worse than that of the usual seneschal, in that the consequence of the past upheavals was that normal revenues were considerably down even on historic levels.40