Also interesting is the fact that Burgh was not finally acquired until after Edward and Eleanor had toured Norfolk in 1277. Again, as with the dower, it would appear Eleanor wanted, if possible, to view properties before any irrevocable steps were taken. This can be seen again when in 1281 (following another Norfolk trip) Eleanor added supplementary lands around Great Hautbois as the former owner’s affairs went from bad to worse, following another acquisition of his debts owed to the Jewry in May 1275. Later still, in 1288, Witchingham and Alderford, lying to the south of Cawston, were added to the group. Eleanor also acquired some strategically placed wardships nearby in 1284 and 1285. Thus a core holding was in place to begin, and at the time of the dower both dower properties and future acquisitions were effectively marked down, with steps being taken to be ready to make acquisitions later. After that, any unrelated but convenient individual properties could be added.12
This set of acquisitions hints that one approach adopted was to monitor estates that were being dissipated and put herself in a position to reunite them. Further support for this theory is given by the situation in Eleanor’s Kent holdings. Here the Crevequer family had held a barony based around Chatham, but it had been split into three parts – one being pledged by the heir, Robert, to the Jews, another part (including Leeds Castle) likewise pledged by William de Leyburn (son of Edward’s old associate Roger), and a third (including Chatham itself) being in the hands of one Roger Loveday. Robert Crevequer was a part of Eleanor’s household in 1290, being one of her household knights, and swapped other properties with Eleanor in 1283. It is at least possible that her knowledge of the details of the family’s affairs came direct from him; it may be that he, like John de Burgh, alienated his inheritance willingly in order to free himself from inherited debts. In any event, Eleanor acquired an interest in the Crevequer debts in early 1275, and one in the Leyburn debts a month after the dower assignment was completed. There then seems to have been work behind the scenes to procure the transfer of these properties, and the purchase of the Loveday share, which resulted in transfers of all three parts of the barony to Eleanor in mid- to late 1278. Thereafter it would appear that Eleanor visited with her project managers in October of that year, while the court was nearby in Gillingham and Teynham en route for Canterbury; and then the builders were sent in.
A similar approach can be seen in her Leicestershire properties discussed above, where an acquisition of a convenient estate at Welham, near the Market Harborough grouping, was made in 1276, but Eleanor had already been the holder of debts owed to the Jewry by its owner.13
Another way in which Eleanor and her team went about building up her portfolio can be illustrated by her estates in Gloucester and Wiltshire. Here, she had a fairly limited dower assignment – the castle and town of Bristol and farms of Bedwyn and Wexcombe and no previous holdings. Additions were made to these assigned properties in 1279–80 when Eleanor purchased the manors of Great Sherston, which was about equidistant between her two holdings, and Woodrow, which was just south of Sherston. So far the story provides nothing remarkable, but this grouping yields two letters which show Eleanor and her team considering acquisitions specifically by reference to their location relative to her existing holdings. Thus, shortly after the Sherston and Woodrow acquisitions, follow these letters about a potential acquisition at Didmarton – in Gloucestershire, but just a few miles from Sherston. The first came from her bailiff John le Botiller – addressed direct to Eleanor – advising that he has heard from a local woman of a piece of land which would be a convenient acquisition for Eleanor, being close to Sherston, and has acted on the information, entering on the property. But within a few days a certain Sir Robert Burdon had ejected Botiller, claiming it was his land. Botiller suggests the queen get the king to act to get the land back.
A short while later comes another letter direct to Eleanor about this transaction, this time from the man who had sold Sherston and Woodrow to her. He is keen to pass on the news that, fortuitously, Sir Robert Burdon has died, leaving even more land in the vicinity; and a manor at Devizes, too. Anticipating her keen interest, he has taken custody of the small boy whose land this was to be, so that the queen could get the wardship of him, and thus the lands – since, as he notes, the wardship and marriage will be of great profit to her.
Following the initial misfire, Eleanor acted on the second tip-off and obtained the wardship of young Burdon and thus possession of the lands at Oldbury, practically next door to Didmarton and at Poulshot, similarly close to Woodrow. Young Nicholas Burdon was taken into Eleanor’s children’s household. However, it appears that Eleanor did take over Didmarton again following the death of Sir Robert and held it against her own ward until the inquest on her lands following her death, when it was proved that the original information from John le Botiller was false; the woman to whom he spoke held the land from Burdon and had no right to grant it to Eleanor. This story shows very clearly that those who dealt with Eleanor, either regularly or in relation to one-off transactions, knew she personally was actively looking for properties conveniently sited near her existing holdings and acted on that knowledge. It also shows that when such properties did become available, she acted with expedition to take them under her wing.
This Gloucester–Wiltshire holding was still further supplemented as the years went on. In 1284, a further acquisition of lands in wardship at Acton Turville added to the Sherston holding. Then in 1287 she gained Uley to add to the northern Sherston group and Erlestoke, Rowde and a manor at Yatesbury near to Poulshot in the southern group. Finally, in 1288, via a wardship in the Walerand family (considered further below), three further holdings were added to the southern group – another manor at Yatesbury, one at Market Lavington and one at Keevil. If one maps these acquisitions on a before-and-after basis, one can see clearly the impact of what has been achieved.
As for oversight by Eleanor herself, these two groups split neatly to be within range of places which she would visit regularly anyway: the northern Sherston group of properties was within reach of a favoured spring retreat at Quenington and Down Ampney, while the southern group was close to Marlborough and Upavon, where fairly lengthy regular stays were also made. So, for example, in 1279 Edward and Eleanor were at Quenington in March and December and in 1280 they were in Upavon and Marlborough at the end of February, and at Quenington and Down Ampney in March.14
One can therefore see a variety of different techniques being used by Eleanor and her team to put together a current landholding which was administratively streamlined, and which would sit well with her dower assignment. Crown grants formed a part of this, albeit a relatively small one. Otherwise Eleanor either acquired directly, or through debts owed to the Jewry, properties from individuals who wished or needed to sell portions of their lands.
The idea of acquiring lands via the debts of the person entitled to the land appears at first unattractive, and has been in part responsible for the rather poor press that Eleanor’s land-gathering business has acquired over the years. At first blush, what it appears to suggest is the acquisition of debts and then rather ruthless foreclosure. However, closer examination shows that this hypothesis seems to be wide of the mark. In fact, the disposal of lands (and the redemption of their debt to the Jewry, on which compound interest was doubtless being charged) was often seen as a desirable step by those in question. For example, John de Burgh in Norfolk was keen to clear himself of inherited debt and had already voluntarily surrendered some of his properties to Edward, who included them in the dower assignment; and Robert de Crevequer remained on sufficiently good terms with Eleanor to be a knight of her household and be offered preferments in Wales as the years went by.
Indeed, this is something of a theme – while acquiring an endowment for herself, Eleanor’s activities were capable of being positively helpful to those whose lands she acquired; Crevequer, for example, was given life tenure in other lands, which was presumably of more use to him than the rump of a fractured barony and a
load of debt. So too with John de Camoys, who conveyed his lands at Torpel and Upton to Eleanor – he was granted life tenure in other lands. Gilbert Pecche, whose debts enabled her to acquire properties in Kent, Essex, Suffolk and Cambridge, was given rents worth as much as the lands he conveyed. Most emphatically proving that the transactions should not be seen as hostile takeovers is the transaction of Leeds Castle concerning William Leyburn. His father, Roger, was a key ally in the Barons’ War, and had been involved in helping with Eleanor’s early property transactions; exploitation of the son would therefore be most unlikely. But the mutually beneficial nature of the transaction is actually demonstrated by Eleanor obtaining pardons of William and Roger’s debts to the Jewry and to the Exchequer.
Further supporting the view that Eleanor’s acquisitions were, if anything, more ‘white knight’ moves than the converse, Parsons notes that in the inquiry into Eleanor’s property affairs which took place after her death only one of the fourteen individuals whose debts Eleanor obtained from the Jewry raised any complaint; and that one, as discussed below, may well have been a ‘try on’. This apparently tendentious section of her business was therefore much less controversial than it at first appears.15
A consideration of Eleanor’s property transactions quickly conveys to the reader a sense that she and her team were a very businesslike outfit. Confirming this, it has been noted by one commentator that Eleanor’s achievement in carrying forward a surplus in her accounts to 1286 is a feat almost unprecedented in medieval financial administration. Glimpses of the detailed planning involved in putting together the estate peek though the record repeatedly. One example, the letter at the outset of Eleanor’s property dealings in 1265, has already been cited. Another is seen in the acquisition of debts to the Jewry secured on properties which marched with properties to be included in the dower assignment. Nor were they isolated incidents; between December 1274 and mid-1275, Eleanor was granted the Jewish debts of four other debtors. All of these debts shortly after resulted in property acquisitions in convenient places for Eleanor’s portfolio.
But perhaps the best example of forward planning is the wardship of the Walerand family, where planning can be traced for over a decade before the properties materialised. In 1273, Robert Walerand, a notable supporter of Henry III, died, leaving a wife and no children. His heirs were the infant sons of his brother, both of whom were apparently mentally handicapped and unable ever to run their own affairs. The wardship of the heirs – an unusually long-term prospect – was in Edward’s hand, and at least one of the boys was sent to reside with Eleanor’s children. But meanwhile, Eleanor kept her eye on the dower manors enjoyed by Robert’s widow, Maud, which would normally pass into the wardship on her death. Instead, all of these were granted to Eleanor on Maud’s death in 1288; and meanwhile Eleanor had already acted. Maud Walerand’s death brought Eleanor properties in five different shires. In each Eleanor had already acquired properties in the immediate vicinity of those manors, so that the new acquisitions slotted in without trouble to an existing structure. One example has been described in the Wiltshire area above. If this had occurred in one county it might be dismissed as coincidence, but five counties with key acquisitions in each is beyond the realm of happenstance.16
One complementary point, which emphasises the professionalism of the endeavour in which Eleanor was engaged, is the fact that she did not take up properties which did not march conveniently with her acquisitions and which were therefore uneconomic for her to run; or if obliged to take them as part of a package deal, she took the first opportunity to rid herself of them. So, when acquiring Robert Burdon’s properties near Sherston, she did not seek the wardship of the Devonshire estates, even though she had the heir in her household. In another transaction in 1280, lands in Dorset and Somerset were taken into wardship, but inconvenient lands at Aust on the Severn were disposed of to Bishop Giffard of Worcester. Similarly, an isolated wardship holding of Weeting in Norfolk was granted to the mother-in-law of the king’s household steward, some outlying lands in Somerset were leased out and the less convenient part of the Crevequer barony was first leased to a dependent, and later swapped for a better prospect – the custom and rent of the port of Sandwich.17
How was all this business done? In terms of the administration of her property empire, Parsons has uncovered a good deal of illuminating material. For example, Eleanor’s household included at least eight messengers, of whom about half were given the formal title nuncius while the remainder were only entitled cursor. These messengers were kept very busy indeed. In 1290 alone they carried messages to her bailiff at Macclesfield, her steward Hugh de Cressingham, her seneschal in the New Forest, her manors at Lyndhurst, Leeds and Haverford and to the treasurer of the Bishop of Ely, the sheriffs of Northumberland and Worcester, and messages to London, Sandwich and Oxford. What is more, her couriers were astonishingly speedy – perhaps the best example is that one managed three visits to France in six weeks. We actually have what appears to be a joking eyewitness depiction of one of them on some documents relating to Eleanora’s wedding: the courier, carrying Eleanor’s arms, is shown proceeding at such speed that his hair streams behind him in the wind.
By way of aside, the evidence of the messengers also shows the additional range of work undertaken by Eleanor as queen – in 1289–90 alone there is correspondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Ely, Durham, Lincoln and Salisbury, and the earls of Lincoln, Ulster, Gloucester and Cornwall; as well as the incumbent and dowager countesses of Lincoln. All of these (except possibly the Lincoln correspondence, which may well have been either property related, since Lincoln was part of Eleanor’s dower, or based in friendship, as the earl and countess were close friends) suggests a considerable role in broader public affairs. So too does the frequent despatch of messengers to France.18
As for the administration of her properties specifically, it will readily be appreciated that this required a department of its own. This was headed by the steward and later stewards of the queen’s lands. Walter de Kancia was the first, later (from 1276) holding the position together with Geoffrey de Piccheford. He was later succeeded by William de St Claro and then Hugh de Cressingham. There was a separate steward for the New Forest, but he ranked lower, with the queen’s local bailiffs. These bailiffs were effectively the next step down, being the ‘officer in charge’ of lands within their geographical remit. They were in charge of trading as necessary with the produce of the estate and producing accounts, which would then be passed on to the queen’s auditor, John de Lovetot.
Effectively, Eleanor’s lands were divided up geographically and placed in the hands of a bailiff responsible for each area; thus a group of properties in the same locale would all be administered by the same man. The bailiffs were a mixed bunch. Some appear to have gained their places through contacts in Eleanor’s household. So Robert de Bures may well have been related to Eleanor’s ‘garderobius’, and John de Ponte was tied to Walter de Kancia. John de Cretingham came from a village near the homes of both Geoffrey de Aspale and the queen’s knight Adam de Cretyng. Others, sensibly enough, were locals. The most obvious example is Thomas de Macclesfield, but Robert de Petra, the bailiff at Cawston, was from Aylsham, John de la Woderowe at Didmarton probably hailed from Eleanor’s manor of Woodrow in Washlingstone and Brenchly, Walter de Chidecroft had been in the employ of the Crevequer family, and in Lincolnshire Roger de Walcote came from a family near Eleanor’s holdings at Nocton. The local origins of John le Botiller at Woodrow in Wiltshire are suggested by the information conveyed to her by him.
Overall, there were effectively seven departments or bailiwicks in which Eleanor’s lands were arranged under chief bailiffs. John de Horstede covered Somerset, Dorset, Gloucester and Wiltshire from a base at Somerton, one of Eleanor’s first holdings; John FitzThomas covered Hampshire and the New Forest; Richard de Hoo controlled the properties in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex from Langley; Moses de Wautham dealt w
ith Warwick; Hugh de Lyminstr covered Snowdon and Anglesey; and Thomas de Macclesfield covered Macclesfield and the Peak, together with the other Derbyshire properties and those in Chester and Stafford. Roger de Walcote had the substantial group of Northampton, Lincoln, Rutland and Leicester and was based at Market Harborough, again one of Eleanor’s earliest acquisitions. There was then a Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridge bailiwick. It is not clear how the holdings in Kent, York, Sussex or Surrey were managed, though certainly in the latter period the centre for the Kent holdings was at Leeds Castle.19
Consideration of the property portfolio and its management conveys a clear impression of a department working under considerable pressure to maximise revenue. The records show that wherever property was acquired, steps were taken quickly to assert rights and collect dues. The classic example of this is the abortive Barwick transaction of 1265, where Eleanor was only in possession for three weeks, but her bailiffs seized the full quarter’s rent plus the relief due from the tenant. Examples can be found of administrative steps being taken within twenty-four hours of a grant being made to Eleanor. Another example is Sandwich in 1290, where Eleanor granted fairs, corresponded about the priory’s rights and intervened with the town council on behalf of a Breton merchant, all within less than a month of the grant of the custom of the port being made to her. The queen’s administration did not sleep.
Efficiency can also be seen in the records of management of the estates, with close attention paid to agricultural yield. As a major landlord, Eleanor was in a position to acquire substantial amounts of produce and sell them in the open market. To maximise profits in this respect, her staff tried to avoid agreements that involved payment in kind, such as a rent of grain owed to the Abbot of St Benet Hulme from the farm of Scottow, and the amount of grain to be enjoyed free by the Abbot of Muchelney; cash payments were negotiated in substitution. It is also reputed that Eleanor was the introducer of the more productive merino sheep to England; and while the tradition cannot be precisely verified, there is certainly a record of her importing some sheep. Her interest in efficient farming may also explain the possession by the royal family of a copy of Rutilius’ Re Rustica, the Roman manual on agriculture.20
Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen Page 29