Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen

by Sara Cockerill

  On the other side of the balance sheet, the funds available to a Queen of England had become hopelessly inadequate. Since the change from the practice as to the holding of dower during the king’s life, queens had been substantially reliant on ‘queen’s gold’; that is effectively a tax of 10 per cent of any fine above 10 marks or on any tax of the Jewry. This source produced wildly varying sums depending on the number and level of fines levied in a year – between the fourteenth and sixteenth years of Edward’s reign they varied between just short of £500 and some £1,400 per annum – but at no time did they come close to the kinds of sums required.

  While, in addition to queen’s gold, a king would regularly grant his wife debts, reliefs or fines owed him, this source of income was erratic and unreliable – and highly unlikely to bridge the yawning financial gap. The same is true for simple cash gifts from the king or third parties. A combination of circumstances had meant that it was not until the thirteenth century that English queens were in a position to try to grapple with the problem, Eleanor of Aquitaine’s freedoms being somewhat contracted by Henry II after her rebellion and Berengaria of Navarre and Isabella of Angoulême being placed by their respective husbands in a position of even more complete financial dependence.

  Eleanor of Provence’s approach to the problem had met with very mixed success and garnered her very considerable unpopularity. She had probed the very limits of queen’s gold with her attempts to extend its ambit, leading to considerable complaint. She had also shown clearly that wardships and associated marriages were a politically dangerous source, and therefore they were an unsafe route for substantial revenue generation. Further, even with all their disadvantages, they still did not provide sufficient revenue.3

  Eleanor therefore had to look for other means to bridge this gap. How she did so was to assemble, more or less from a standing start, a property portfolio of considerable extent and value. By the time of her death, her properties were bringing in somewhere between £2,500 and £2,600 annually, i.e. the most significant portion of her income; and, it will be recalled, roughly two and a half times the large dower which Eleanor de Montfort had from one of the largest estates in England. This landholding was kept intact as a separate estate after her death; run as ‘Terre Regine’ until Edward’s second marriage to Margaret of France, the land then passed to her as dower and formed the backbone of English queens’ dower assignment for the next century. Eleanor therefore created a great estate.

  The extent of this achievement is underlined by how she was actually perceived. The clearest accounts which we have of Eleanor actually relate to her land-gathering activities, and are not flattering. The most straightforward is the simple ditty ascribed by Walter of Guisborough to the common people of the time: ‘The king would like to get our gold/The queen our manors fair to hold.’ Also pithy is the epitaph provided by the Dunstable annalist: ‘A Spaniard by birth, who obtained many fine manors.’ So, even among those who had no direct contact with it, Eleanor’s involvement in property acquisition was so extensive as to have become well known. When the annalists thought of Eleanor, they thought of business.4

  One important point to note is that the queen herself was associated directly in the endeavour even by the gossips – and that gossip was true. There are numerous surviving pieces of correspondence which show Eleanor taking an active part in decision making, dealing with a variety of administrative details: the enclosure of a tract of land, a confirmation of a conveyance – even an allocation of wine or a recently arrived shipment. There are also letters which show her staff reporting to her, and plainly expecting her to be au fait with quite minor details, or apologising for not reporting to her in person – again indicating that she is expected to be keenly interested. There are letters from her most frequent man of business, alluding in passing to the details of the business ‘which we spoke about’, and advising her to consider the position in relation to specific portions of her holdings. The evidence, then, is quite clear – Eleanor was personally involved in her own business empire, right down to the level of fine detail. This is in sharp contrast with Eleanor of Provence, who did have land dealings herself, albeit on a smaller and more random scale. Her land dealings were seen (accurately) as being run for her by professionals. So Matthew Paris pictured Eleanor of Provence’s estates steward William of Tarrant as a man who thirsted for money as a horse leech after blood, but he did not associate the queen with his misdeeds.5

  More lengthy, but equally to the point, in particular in associating Eleanor as an active participant in the property dealings of her office, are two letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Pecham: one in 1283 and one in 1286.6 In the first, the archbishop focuses on dealings with the Jews and usury, referring to her property dealings in a sideswipe:

  … for God’s sake, my lady, when you receive land or manor acquired by usury of the Jews, take heed that it is a mortal sin to those who take the usury and those who support it, and those who have a share in it, if they do not return it. And therefore I say to you, my very dear lady, before God and before the Court of Heaven, that you cannot retain things thus acquired, if you do not make amends to those that have lost them, in another way, as much as they are worth more than the principal debt. You must therefore return the things thus acquired to the Christians who have lost them, saving to yourself as much as the principal debt amounts to, for more the usurer cannot give you. My lady, know that I am telling you the lawful truth, and if anyone give you to understand anything else he is a heretic. I do not believe that you retain in any other manner things thus acquired, but I would wish to know it by your letter, so that I can make it known to those who think otherwise …

  In the second letter, from 1286 to Geoffrey de Aspale, the keeper of Eleanor’s wardrobe, we see that his mind has not been put at rest:

  A rumour is growing strong throughout the kingdom of England and much scandal is thereby generated, because it is said that the illustrious lady queen of England, in whose service you are, is occupying many manors of nobles and lands and other possessions, and has made them her own property – lands which the Jews extorted with usury under the protection of the royal court from Christians. It is said that day by day the said lady continues to acquire property and the possessions of others by this means with the assistance (though we ourselves do not believe it) of certain clerics who are followers of the devil and not of Christ. There is gossip and debate about this in every part of England. Wherefore, as a gain of this sort is illicit and damnable, we beg you, and firmly command and enjoin you as our clerk, that when you see an opportunity you will be pleased humbly to beseech the said lady on our behalf, that she bid her people to abstain entirely from the these practices, and to restore what has been thus seized, or at any rate make satisfaction to those Christians who have been wickedly robbed by usury.

  While the full extent of Pecham’s assertions may be open to doubt – the evidence of the annalists tends to cast doubt on his suggestion of gossip and debate in every part of England – the picture is fairly clear. Eleanor acquired a very serious landholding – one sufficiently large to be the subject of talk which troubled the archbishop – and she did so via practices which some might regard as rather sharp or even morally reprehensible.

  We can be sure that Eleanor did not do this on her own initiative. Her abilities and training may have enabled her to take a very active part in the business, and even made the role a fulfilling one for her, but the truth is that the plan to acquire a substantial and certain landholding to provide revenue and a source of patronage for a Queen of England was one which was authorised by Edward and which dovetailed very neatly with his coronation oath to regain as much of the land dispersed by his predecessors as was possible.

  The plan may be one which was initiated well before Henry III’s death – as evidenced by Eleanor’s early dealings in property, and her close involvement in those dealings. But it is clear that, on return from the Crusade and after the coronation, the plan w
as picked up and put into action as swiftly as possible and with considerable business focus. Again the distinction between the two Eleanors, Castile and Provence, is clear in the evidence and was specifically noted by Eleanor of Provence’s biographer.7

  Having set the scene for what Eleanor was to achieve, one can now turn to look in more detail at how she went about this process. A good way in to this story is to consider the court’s movements in the year which followed the coronation. This illustrates how Eleanor reacquainted herself with her existing properties and set about familiarising herself with potential acquisitions. The most straightforward aspect of it is neatly illustrated with one of the first bits of business of 1275: a visit to the New Forest.

  The New Forest location reflects a part of the small property portfolio which Eleanor was nurturing before her departure on Crusade; between 1266 and 1270 she had acquired the manor of Ringwood and the issues and profits of the New Forest. So we see that one of her first interests, once the coronation and Edward’s necessary business was seen to, was to get back in touch with her existing estates – in person if possible.

  But there was far more going on than this simple story shows. As we know, Eleanor had turned her attention to getting a revised dower assignment. There were two reasons for this. The first was simply the need to keep pace with her mother-in-law – Eleanor of Provence had induced Henry III to increase her dower assignment to £4,000 in 1262. Eleanor would have been very unusual if she was not vexed to think that she had a quarter of the dower assignment which her mother-in-law had, and very imprudent if she had not looked ahead to the possibility of coping on such a sum if she were ever widowed (as she had so nearly been on Crusade).

  Secondly, if a revision of the dower assignment was necessary, and if she was to commence work building up a property portfolio, practicality dictated that now was the time to revise the dower assignment; that way, the new dower assignment could form the nucleus of her future business dealings, so that her existing properties and those which she was to hold in dower would run well together administratively. So throughout this period, Eleanor and her team will have been liaising with Edward’s team to audit which of the properties he had in his gift or which could be brought into play, could best be transferred to her to form part of her new dower and fit with her plans for future expansion.

  This planning process for the revised dower can be seen from an even earlier trip – in fact the very first trip taken following the royal couple’s return to England and coronation in December 1274. This excursion took them to Northampton, then on to Fotheringhay, King’s Cliffe near Peterborough, and the hunting lodge of Geddington near Corby (later the site of one of the Eleanor crosses raised by Edward), looping back inland via Overstone. There at first appears no very good reason for this itinerary.

  However, before the Crusade, Eleanor had built up a decent holding at Great Bowden and Market Harborough, which lie just a little north of Geddington; and she had also acquired Kingsthorpe, which lies just outside Northampton and practically next door to Overstone. These original holdings were supplemented in the 1275 dower with properties nearby, but just over the Northamptonshire border: Apethorpe and the castle and forest of Rockingham. Fascinatingly, these two properties were cheek by jowl with King’s Cliffe and Fotheringhay, where the court stayed. It therefore very much looks as if, on this trip, Eleanor and her team were not simply looking at existing properties, but actively scoping out suitable extra properties to be added to her dower. Also consistent with this is an early stop at Luton on the way north, which fits nicely with the later grant to Eleanor of the town of Bedford as part of her dower assignment.

  Similarly, a stay which was made at the start of 1275 in Wiltshire offered an opportunity to review a grant to Eleanor in November 1274 of lands at Compton Chamberlayne and the grant to her in the 1275 dower assignment of the nearby farms of Bedwyn and Wexcombe. These were later to become the heart of one of her key property groups.8

  Yet another example comes in immediately after the birth of the next baby, Margaret, in March of 1275, where we find in the itinerary a trip to Aylesbury, which later becomes part of the revised dower allocation. Also part of the revised dower allocation were the manor and forest of Brill and the farm of Wycombe – and these were probably viewed on this occasion from Risborough, where the court stayed briefly before reaching Aylesbury. The Aylesbury stop was followed by a stop in Balsham (more or less the location of the modern-day Gatcombe Park), Bury St Edmunds and Lavenham. These stops were suitable for pilgrimage, as was appropriate after a return from Crusade (and indeed replicate a round of pilgrimages previously pursued by Henry III); but they were also very convenient to enable Eleanor to inspect existing properties, in particular her holding at Dullingham in Cambridgeshire, some recent acquisitions at Badmondisfield, as well as Soham, which was to form part of the revised dower assignment. Piety and practicality could therefore be combined.

  Once the requisite stay at Westminster for Parliament had been completed, the theme comes to the fore again. In August 1275, the royal progress went north. While a part of the trip constituted a stop within Edward’s lordship of Chester, the journeys to and from Chester were so made as to enable the party to take in, along the way, Eleanor’s future dower properties in Warwickshire, the very significant acquisitions via dower of Derby and Macclesfield and a second view of the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire properties.9

  It is also possible to trace a certain amount of tying in of properties further afield. So, reverting to Eleanor’s earlier holdings in Somerset, prior to Crusade, Eleanor had lands in the neighbourhood of Dundon and Somerton. To these, she immediately added on her return a further wardship at Barwick. A stay at Eleanor of Provence’s manor in Gillingham in Dorset (a place which that lady abominated for ‘the greasy smoky vapours which rise in the evenings’) in December 1275 would have had Eleanor and her team well placed to visit those properties and that of nearby Camel and Kingsbury, which were added as part of the dower assignment in October 1275. In the dower assignment was also added a further block of properties further north in Somerset: the farms of Cheddar, Axbridge and Congresbury.10

  It is therefore possible to see quite clearly, from the amount of time and effort taken, the work of the queen in putting together a property empire appearing as a priority for both king and queen in the immediate aftermath of the coronation; and it is also apparent that Eleanor must have been very hands-on in the management of this business. Property management could perfectly well have been deputed to staff. But instead we see the entire court traipsing around the country in her wake, as she inspected existing lands and assessed suitable future lands to add to her portfolio. Edward’s approval of this paradigm is apparent in his bringing himself and the court along; it was of course open to him to let her go with her staff alone, or to insist that she relied on third-party assessments. The royal partnership might divide responsibilities, but it was a manifest partnership.

  One can therefore see that Parsons is wrong when he says that there was little movement toward increasing Eleanor’s estates between her return in August 1274 and the granting of the revised dower assignment in October 1275. There was in fact extensive work in the sense of planning – backed up by very active interest from both Eleanor and Edward.

  The upshot of Eleanor’s work was a revised dower assignment which was approved in October 1275. It amounted to £4,500 in English and Gascon lands, spread over twenty-two shires. So far as the English property was concerned, some of the more disparate elements of the 1254 dower were abandoned. To add to the blocks already outlined above, in Suffolk the castle and town of Orford and a number of farms (including Ipswich) were given. There was a huge grant of places in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (Ashbourne, Bolsover, Derby, Horston, Wirkworth, Clipston and Mansfield), which were added to complement her holdings around the Peak. There was also a significant block in Essex, the castles and towns of Bristol and Odiham and the city of Lincoln, accompanied by the to
wn of Grimsby and the Soke of Caistor. Eleanor also received a considerable dower in Gascony: £2,000 per annum comprising Millan and Harbefaure and the castles, towns and forests there, with customs revenue from Bordeaux making up the shortfall.11

  But Eleanor’s work was far from done when the revised dower assignment was over. What followed thereafter was a careful acquisition of properties which complemented her existing portfolio and her dower. An example of how this seems to have been done can be traced through from a couple of examples pieced together by Parsons. The first example is her holding in Norfolk. It will be recalled that Eleanor had acquired the manor of Aylsham first at pleasure, and then in fee for life, together with some lands at Scottow, a little east of Aylsham. In late 1275 she acquired a manor at Scottow, with the advowson and member at Great Hautbois (then part of the hundred of South Erpingham). This was obtained via one of her Jewish connections. Having acquired these properties, Eleanor then arranged for her 1275 dower to include Cawston with the hundred of South Erpingham. This property was adjacent to Scottow and Aylsham and had been surrendered voluntarily to Edward by John de Burgh, the grandson of Henry III’s regent Hubert de Burgh, to rid himself of an inherited debt to the Crown. In later years Eleanor would then build on this solid base, to add in 1278 Burgh ‘next Aylsham’. Significantly, this was a move which was probably contemplated even at the time of the dower assignment, since Eleanor moved to acquire all John de Burgh’s debts owed to the Jewry in November 1275 – just a month after the dower assignment.