Residence at Conwy, where both builders’ and military bills will now have been pouring in, will only have brought home the financial difficulties which the war had caused. While some voluntary loans had been made by towns, further funds were needed urgently. Parliament voted for a tax in January, but money trickled in slowly. So in March, with the evidence of financial need before his eyes, Edward simply ordered the seizure of the crusading monies gathered years before and which had so long hung fire. While Pecham eventually persuaded him to return it, the forceful gesture did achieve what was probably intended – a sizeable grant from the clergy.12
Meanwhile, with war effectively over, Eleanor was once again taking up the reins of her property business to a limited extent. In late February, Edward conveyed to her Dafydd’s castle at Hope – a modern castle, building having commenced in 1277. Over the succeeding months, Eleanor and Adam de Cretyng, who was to be her bailiff in this area for a year or so, seem to have sought out a useful package of nearby properties over the summer: a manor in May, followed by the whole of the Maelor Saesneg or English-speaking border lands east of the Dee and associated hamlets, pasture and advowsons. The latter was acquired by an exchange with Robert de Crevequer for her Soham and Ditton holdings in Cambridgeshire, which were slightly detached from her main holdings geographically. Other than this local work, the only property business Eleanor conducted was to take a wardship near her Hampshire lands.13
But the war was not quite over. Although the last major castle, Llywelyn the Great’s castle of Castell y Bere, surrendered on 25 April after a ten-day siege, one task still remained: to find Dafydd.
While the searchers were out, a fantastic distraction appeared: in May, a Roman sarcophagus was found at the coastal town of Arfon, near the Roman fort of Segontium. Folk memory associated the site with Magnus Maximus, reputedly the father of the Emperor Constantine and the husband of Empress Helena, the discoverer of the True Cross. Folk tales and Geoffrey of Monmouth also posited Magnus Maximus as the first independent ruler of all Britain. Of course, both folk tales and Geoffrey of Monmouth were very wide of the mark. Magnus Maximus was the Roman leader in Britain in the late fourth century for a few years before leaving to pursue his imperial ambitions – unsuccessfully. What happened to his family after his execution is unclear, but there is no evidence to suggest a connection to Constantine’s father Constantius Chlorus, or to his mother. What may have occurred is a conflation of folk tales, which had Magnus Maximus finding his true love in a Welsh girl called Elen and being succeeded in Britain by a leader called Constantine, with the facts of later and unconnected history. Regardless, this romantic tale will have provided fuel for the misidentification of the owner of the sarcophagus as Magnus Maximus or Constantine. So in mid-May Edward and Eleanor headed to Dolwyddelan Castle, where they stayed until the beginning of June, and the reputed body of Magnus Maximus was reinterred in the local church on Edward’s orders. It will have been during this visit that plans were first hatched for the building of a new castle on the site, since by June work had already started at what was to be known as Caernarfon.14
This little-known vignette helps to make sense of much that has been regarded as puzzling about Caernarfon: why Edward, having started a massive project such as Conwy, would then change his mind about the main power base for Wales; why he choose this lesser site; and why, unlike Conwy, the structure is very much Roman in design terms, with strong echoes of the Roman Pharos tower at Dover. There is a parallel with the annexation of the supposed graves of Arthur and Guinevere: a supposed King of Britain was being claimed by Edward, and his resting place turned into the centre of English power over Wales. Past kings were gone; it was Plantagenet power which had to be respected. The message is repeated in the massive and highly fortified gatehouse which was erected in the latter phase of building, which features above the doorway a life-size statue of an enthroned king.
However, there are perhaps traces of Eleanor’s involvement in the design of the castle too. Dominating the outer ward of the castle stands the Eagle Tower, which was the first part of the castle to be built. This has two interesting features, both of which can be linked to Eleanor. Firstly, it features three tall projecting turrets emerging out of the main polygonal tower; this is an exact echo of the castle depicted on the arms of Castile, and, although they were not completed until well into Edward II’s reign, there seems a possibility that they were part of the original design inserted at Eleanor’s instance or as an ‘in joke’ for Eleanor’s benefit. The shape and structure of the tower, after all, had to be planned from the outset.
The second interesting feature is the tower’s eyrie of birds, which originally comprised three eagles, one for each of the turrets. There is a very obvious Roman link in the inclusion of the eagles, symbol of Rome’s victorious legions, and they can therefore be seen simply as another imperial statement. But they can also (with a bit of manipulation) be linked to a story called ‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’ in the Welsh Mabinogion – a collection of quasi-historical folk tales which was emerging in written form at the time. In that story, Magnus Maximus (or Macsen Wledig as he is in the Welsh version) had a dream in which he travelled to a great city in Wales with a castle with coloured walls, and turrets and a throne decorated with golden eagles, where he found his true love, Elen. The parallel with Caernarfon is striking – was it intended? It seems very possible that it was, and by Eleanor.
Eleanor, after all, can be shown to have had an interest in local myths; this is seen both in her apparent recounting of the Northumbrian Escanor story to Girard of Amiens and in her commissioning of the Ponthevin Isembart romance. What is more, there is further evidence, to which we shall come, that someone in the royal party – again most likely to be Eleanor – had been making themselves familiar with the Welsh folk tales.
There is another resonance in the Eagle Tower which suggests Eleanor’s design input. The eagles also echo Edward’s love of birds and falconry –which also appears to have been possessed by young Alphonso, judging by the clever and repeated depictions of birds in the Alphonso Psalter. These, of course, were inserted at Eleanor’s instruction – as was the bird on the top of the Charing mews fountain. The eyrie therefore may well also have been intended as a joke for the benefit of Edward or Alphonso – or both.
All in all, it seems that the Caernarfon trip provided an entertaining and fruitful diversion while news of Dafydd was awaited.15
And in June, not long after work had commenced at Caernarfon, the long-awaited news arrived. Dafydd was taken at the foot of Mount Snowdon; triumphant messages were despatched at once to Edward’s supporters. In defeat, the Welsh princes’ treasure was also yielded up. In June, Edward was presented with the Cross of Neith, a fragment of the True Cross which thereafter accompanied him on all his travels, gaining in luxurious adornment as the years went by. It would also be at around this time, with the Welsh war apparently finally over, that the future Edward II was conceived.16
But there remained plenty to do – on more than one front. In proper military style, July and most of August then constituted mopping-up operations: the royal party returned to Conwy to take possession of Dafydd (destined for a horrible end) and numerous hostages to ensure Welsh good behaviour, and a further trip was undertaken to Caernarfon to see how the initial works were progressing. Meanwhile, though Eleanora’s match was on ice, others were not. Alphonso would turn ten years old in November 1283 – an event marked by Eleanor with special offerings of alms – and plans could be made seriously for his marriage. Accordingly, his bride’s dowry was agreed in August 1283 and work was proceeding on the beautiful illustrated psalter which Eleanor commissioned to mark the wedding.
And naturally Eleanor wanted to view her new properties. So on the way to Chester in late August there was a two-day stop at Hope Castle, formerly property of Dafydd. Since Eleanor had selected her properties carefully, a stop here would have her well placed to survey the other five of the six properties she had acqui
red, all grouped tidily, as was her wont, on the road between Flint and Whitchurch (the modern A541). However, the stop was hardly the uneventful one planned. On the second night of the stay, 27 August, the castle caught fire; and it was no small blaze. Eleanor, Edward and their party barely escaped with their lives. The castle was reduced to rubble and never rebuilt.17
From Chester it was back into the more usual routine of the royal court for a short time. A stay of a few weeks in and around Macclesfield enabled Eleanor to review her dower property there, as well as some new acquisitions just on the English side of her new Welsh properties and her easterly Derbyshire properties, before the court headed back in a south-westerly direction to Shrewsbury, where Parliament had been summoned. The first act of the Parliament on convening on 30 September 1283 was the trial of Dafydd for treason. On 2 October, he was hanged, drawn and quartered, meaning he was dragged by horses to the scaffold, hanged alive (part strangled by a small drop insufficient to break the neck), his bowels were removed and burned before his eyes, and he was finally cut into four pieces. This sentence is probably well known to the reader, since in later years it became fairly formulaic. But at this point in time it actually reflected four separate sentences, for Dafydd’s four crimes against the English king: treason, homicide, committing crimes at the holy season of Easter and plotting the king’s death. It reflected the genuine outrage felt by Edward at what he perceived to be Dafydd’s ingratitude and the horror felt by many at a revolt timed to coincide with the holy season of Easter. As with the receipt of Llywelyn’s head, it is likely that the pregnant Eleanor observed this novel horror; certainly non-participation in the event seems to have been viewed with disapproval, judging by the fine which the people of Lincoln incurred for refusing to take one of the quarters of the late prince. Dafydd’s head, mockingly crowned with ivy, was sent to join that of his brother at the Tower.18
Following this, the rest of the year was spent in touring the Welsh Marches and giving thanks for the victory. Along the way, remembrance of Roger Mortimer was not forgotten: special alms offerings were made for the anniversary of his death and a stay – perhaps coinciding with the wedding of Edmund Mortimer to Eleanor’s cousin Margaret de Fiennes – was made at his castle of Wigmore, before they headed back to Rhuddlan for Christmas. Here, 500 extra paupers were fed on Christmas Day on the advice of William of Hotham. As usual, there was little in the way of a holiday; by 28 December the party were off again – this time through the winter cold to York. The purpose of the trip was to be present at the consecration in York Minster on Sunday 9 January of Anthony Bek as Bishop of Durham and to play a personal part in the translation of the body of St William of York to a more elevated burial place behind the high altar. Edward was one of the bearers of the saint’s remains. As usual, it would appear that Eleanor’s mind was not far from work; she was to acquire a manor north of York later that year.
Care was taken to mark respectfully the death of the heir to Alexander III of Scotland, an event which left Alexander’s baby granddaughter, daughter of Erik II of Norway and Margaret of Scotland, heir presumptive to the throne of Scotland. Eleanor herself marked separately the death of one of Dafydd’s daughters, taken captive after his defeat, who would otherwise have been destined with her sisters to a life in an English abbey.19
The party then passed south to Eleanor’s properties in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and what would appear to have been a general review of her business to see what acquisitions could be made in the near future. It would seem that each of her local agents will have met her, and produced their reports and suggestions. By 11 February at Lincoln, Eleanor (now well into the third trimester of her latest pregnancy) had conducted enough of a review to carry out a very busy day’s business acquiring convenient wardships, advowsons and knights’ fees in Cambridgeshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Suffolk, Sussex and Wiltshire. Business complete, in March the party then returned to Wales via Chester. Here, Eleanor was obviously impressed with the recluse of St Martin’s church, later giving money to the recluse and paying for work at the church.20
The year 1284 was marked out for consolidation and publicity in Wales. Having won the war, the territory needed to be settled – another echo of Eleanor’s childhood. So the 1284 Welsh tour commenced in mid-March at Rhuddlan. Here, consolidation was on show – building was plainly going on in the town around the castle – and Eleanor was seen to encourage it, giving wood, nails and hinges to assist in the construction of the church of St John, as well as a donation for Rhuddlan’s own recluse. Donations also flowed from her to the Rhuddlan Dominicans and those of Bangor, while the friars and clergy who visited court were liberally looked after.21
It was also at Rhuddlan that the main administrative tool of settlement, the Statute of Wales, was passed on 19 March 1284. The purpose of this statute was to set out clearly how Wales would be governed, defining the hierarchy of royal officials who would govern and where Welsh law would continue to be permissible (in a number of circumstances as regarded civil claims). Interestingly, and again suggesting Eleanor’s influence in Wales, it was in a sense a parallel to Ferdinand III’s fueros for conquered territories in the Spanish peninsula, and followed the same format, trying to harmonise the laws and procedures of the new territory with those of the conquering nation. It also avoided the problems which Alfonso X had encountered in trying to impose an overarching legal code without regard to local customs. Therefore, while the wording of the statute and the balance drawn between Welsh and English law was almost certainly predominantly the work of Robert Burnell, with assistance from the members of the commission which had been appointed to report on Welsh law, it seems quite likely that Eleanor was involved with the discussions which led up to the statute and the overarching question of the balance to be struck between harmonisation and maintaining facets of law and practice familiar to the local inhabitants.
From Rhuddlan, the royal party moved at the end of the month to the two building sites, first to Conwy and then to Caernarfon. Conwy, of course, had already been civilised for Eleanor. Now Caernarfon, too, was made as congenial to her tastes as a building site could be, with a ready-made lawned garden in which she could pass any fine days as she waited for the arrival of the next baby.22
It was at the latter location that Eleanor received the news of the death, on 4 April 1284, of her brother Alfonso. His health utterly broken, anathematised by his son as a mad leper, the terrible effects of his illnesses meant that he spent the last months of his life almost alone in Seville. From his deathbed he laid a curse on the undutiful Sancho and sent bitter reproaches to Edward for his failure to provide any assistance. One of the few items of value which he still had to leave in his will was some fine brocade, sent to him in better times by Eleanor. As Eleanor arranged with Edward for their son Alphonso to present the reputed crown of King Arthur at the shrine of St Edward at Westminster, it will not have been lost on her that his godfather and namesake had been so desperate and without help that he was forced to sell their father’s crown to the Emir of Morocco. Yet for all this, to the very end, Alfonso earned his title of the Learned King: he was still finalising the General Estoria, the Cantigas de Santa Maria and his handbook on chess in his final days, and writing of the solace which the pleasures of the mind give against life’s miseries.23
Still mourning Alfonso, Eleanor prepared for the birth of her next child. It was at Caernarfon, either in temporary apartments or in the partially constructed Eagle Tower (which had been built to three storeys and given a temporary roof), that Eleanor gave birth on 25 April 1284 to the son who was to become Edward II but until his accession was known as Edward of Caernarfon. It seems fairly clear that the birth of the next child at this historically resonant site was fully intended as a further symbolic annexation of the Welsh mythology: young Edward annexed the role of Constantine. Although the famous story of Edward presenting the Welsh with an heir who knew no word of English is plainly untrue (not least because Edward was only
a second son), the birth of Edward at Caernarfon marked Wales as the territory of the English Crown even more powerfully than that of Elizabeth at Rhuddlan. It also seems very likely that the decision to bear Edward in this location was Eleanor’s own. Other options – such as Conwy and Rhuddlan – were obviously available, and the location must therefore have been deliberate. Edward seems unlikely to have exerted pressure; but Eleanor, with her understanding of mythmaking, would be likely to appreciate the value of the gesture.
Almost at once, a destiny seemed to await this new baby. Alexander III of Scotland had a female heir presumptive: Margaret of Norway, known to history as the Maid of Norway. Her age (one year old) was perfect for Edward of Caernarfon, and would enable him, although only the second son of the English king, to rule Scotland and Norway. At present, the project remained provisional, but the idea that through young Margaret ‘much good may yet come to pass’, to quote the practically minded Alexander in his correspondence with Edward, remained in the air.
Despite its likely shortcomings as a residence, the king and queen stayed at Caernarfon until June, when, over Edward’s birthday, a two-week break was taken at the remote manor of Baladeulyn. This had two attractions which harmonised with recent themes: first, it was on the site of a Roman palace; and secondly, it was close to the supposed burial place of Mabon ab Madron, a hero who features in the Mabinogion, and also to the site where another hero of those tales, Lleu, was supposed to have transformed into an eagle. During this period, the court seems to have properly got away from the cares of the world, with the manor surrounded by royal tents and pavilions supplied from Chester and Edward getting lost in the woods at night (the payment to the local lad who set him right remains in the records). Amusingly enough, local tradition has it that during this visit the local lord Tudor ap Einion was dispossessed of all his lands by the greed of King Edward’s wife ‘Matilda’ before being restored to them by the king. Needless to say, there is no evidence which supports this story.24
Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen Page 44