But outside affairs, in particular Eleanora’s marriage, continued to press. In May, Edward had announced to the Pope his intention of going on Crusade again, subject to two small riders: a deal on financing and the procuring of peace in Europe. In other words, Edward and Eleanor were keen to prevent Pope Martin from exacerbating the European position – and Eleanora’s prospects – by declaring a Crusade against Aragon. This seemed likely to be his next move unless distracted, since he had already offered Aragon to Charles of Valois, Philip III’s second son, and had invested him as king in May 1284. The ploy failed; Martin, a Frenchman, owing his elevation to the French king’s interest, nonetheless declared the Crusade against Aragon on 4 June. To add to the intractability of the Sicilian–Aragonese problem, the very next day, during a major naval engagement off Naples, an epochal event occurred: Charles of Anjou’s son Charles of Salerno was captured by the Aragonese. The capture of the heir to Sicily by the excommunicate Aragonese provided further escalation where none was needed, and was to prove a sticking point for peace for years to come. The wider Crusade – and Eleanora’s match – was consequently stalled for the foreseeable future.25
In July, another break was taken at Nefyn, where Edward and Eleanor held their first Round Table. Much has been made of the fact that this was a location resonant in Welsh mythology: the prophecies of Merlin were said to have been found here. However, despite the description of the tournament by the chroniclers and the Arthurian connection, there appear to have been no very striking Arthurian aspects in the staging; the event was simply a jousting tournament, with one team captained by the Earl of Lincoln and the other by the Earl of Ulster. It was, however, a major tournament into which much organisation will have been put, and involving many knights (apparently both domestic and foreign) in considerable travel, expense and inconvenience. It therefore plainly had a point. Part of that point will have been to again reinforce the position of Edward as King of England and Wales, and any location in Gwynedd could have made this point. But also, as with Conwy and Caernarfon, Edward chose in Nefyn the site of a Welsh princely residence. It was also, tellingly, the location from which Llywelyn and Eleanor de Montfort had written their last letters to Edward in early 1282. So while the Arthurian connection did also help to offer a parallel between Edward and King Arthur, the predominant point was a straightforward political one. The event itself seems to have been very hearty, and very heartily enjoyed. Aside from the jousting, there was also apparently dancing, which was entered into with such enthusiasm that the floor of the hall collapsed.26
Once the crowds of visitors had departed, the main royal party passed onwards along the coast to the end of the Llŷn peninsula, including taking a trip to Bardsey Island. Extra offerings were made for this trip both prior to departure and while on the island.27
However, the triumphant and light-hearted mood of the summer changed in an instant shortly after their return to Conwy in mid-August. Messengers reached the king and queen with the worst possible news: Alphonso was dead, having died on 19 August 1284 – the tenth anniversary of Edward and Eleanor’s coronation.
The cause of Alphonso’s death is not recorded, and the chroniclers hardly mention his death, perhaps out of tact; or more likely because he had, to date, been more or less invisible in the nursery. The extent of this tragedy for Eleanor and Edward is difficult to gauge at this distance in time. Dynastically, of course, it was close to their worst nightmare; the succession now hung on the life of young Edward, barely four months old and subject to all the illnesses of childhood. There was no guarantee that, with Eleanor now forty-two years of age, any more pregnancies would be viable or successful – or that they would result in boys who would live. The irony of the timing will have seemed particularly bitter, coming as it did both at the moment of their greatest triumph, when Edward had established himself as a conquering king in fact; and also almost exactly at the time when Alphonso, aged nearly eleven, would have been reckoned to have weathered the highest-risk period of childhood. Indeed, his presentation of the alleged crown of Arthur at the tomb of the Confessor shows that he had begun to carry out some public duties, as was only the case once a prince or princess was deemed to have emerged safely from childhood.
What doubtless made the loss even worse was that the very limited material available suggests that Alphonso had promised well; a poignant thought, given that young Edward turned out to be a real candidate for England’s worst king. That evidence is contained in a letter of condolence from Archbishop Pecham which described Alphonso as ‘the hope of us all’. While Salzman dismisses the tributes of the chroniclers (‘flower of youth’, ‘hope of knighthood’, ‘comfort to his father’) as the kind of flannel which would have been applied to any youthfully deceasing prince, the tribute from Pecham, with his high moral standards and unrelenting tendency to call a spade a spade, is worth noting. It suggests that that scrupulous academic himself thought well of Alphonso; else he would have confined himself to expressions of sympathy for Edward’s grief, or kept quiet, as he appears to have done in due course on the death of Eleanor.
Personally, too, it is likely to have been a huge blow. Alphonso was the child who had spent the greatest portion of his childhood with his parents, having been born en route from the Crusade and in the nursery during their most domestic years, when time with the younger children was feasible and obviously frequently achieved. There also seems every sign of his having developed tastes which gave him common ground with each parent. Thus a castle and a siege engine had been carefully made for him, while the psalter prepared for him indicates that he was taking pleasure in reading from an early age – very probably under Eleanor’s personal tutelage. As he grew older, his tastes in hunting reflected the preferences of both his parents – he had both hawks (like his father) and hounds (like his mother) – and the eager-looking hunting boy in the psalter may well be intended as a depiction of him. Altogether, it would be astounding if his loss were not a huge source of personal grief to Eleanor – almost certainly more than any of her other deceased children, all of whom died younger and had had much less contact with her. It is therefore no surprise to find her stipulating that his heart be reserved for burial with hers at the London house of the Dominicans.
Some might suggest that the absence of Eleanor and Edward from his funeral indicates (as with the death of young Henry) a lack of concern for his fate. However, on this occasion attendance was absolutely not feasible; it was the height of summer and the king and queen were over a week’s journey from London. The exact date of the funeral is unknown, but it appears likely to have been on or around 27 August and presided over by Archbishop Pecham, who on this date wrote reassuring the Abbot of Westminster that whenever he officiated there at the request of the king, the queen consort or the queen mother, no infringement on the exemptions of Westminster was intended. The right thing to do was what they did, ensuring that his funeral was conducted appropriately and soldiering on with the work which they had in hand. Alphonso’s heart was duly buried according to Eleanor’s wishes at the house of the London Blackfriars. His body joined those of his lost siblings, Katherine, Joan, John and Henry, at Westminster Abbey.28
It is hard to imagine that either Eleanor or Edward took any joy in the remainder of the triumphant program for the rest of the year. It is a mark of their joint determination and sense of duty that the program went ahead without apparent alteration. So in early September the king and queen visited Vale Royal, where they presented the monks with a chalice of silver made from the seal matrices of Llywelyn, Dafydd and Eleanor de Montfort the younger. They even maintained their plans for a big celebration at Overton in late September, lasting for the best part of two weeks, at which a thousand Welsh minstrels were assembled to help celebrate the end of an independent Wales.
In another ironic touch, this celebration coincided with a further personal blow. Henry of Brittany, a younger child of Edward’s sister, who appears to have been part of young John and Henry’s establ
ishment and to have joined the court as he grew, died in September. He was buried at Bangor and lavish arrangements were made for masses in his memory, while his horses were despatched to Eleanor of Provence, who had minded the nursery when he was small. The arrangements for this foster son’s mourning rebut the accusations levelled at Eleanor and Edward as unfeeling parents – as also do the preparations which were made to ensure the visit of the surviving children. The nursery party was at Acton Burnell in September, and Robert Burnell was authorised to get plenty of venison in for them. Moving the children’s household this far was a major undertaking; it would only have been done if their parents had a strong wish to see them.
More sentiment can be seen towards the end of October. On 1 November, Edward and Eleanor would have been married for thirty years; it seems likely that it was in memory of their first meeting that one of them arranged for baby Edward to make special donations throughout the last week in October.
The final part of the 1284 tour was a massive procession around the coast of Wales – beating the bounds on a national scale. To commence, the new castles at Conwy and Caernarfon were inspected, plus the other northern Welsh castles. At Harlech, as with Conwy, the original hall of the Welsh princes was to be retained as a subsidiary part of the new imperial structure, pointing up for all eternity the superiority of the English style and resources. In November, the progress moved out of North Wales through Bere and Llanbedr and then followed the coast via Aberystwyth to Cardigan and south to Haverford. At Haverford, the party turned inland to Carmarthen, Kidwelly and Oystermouth in Glamorgan.29
All along the way, free boroughs were created around key castles, encouraging commercial development and prosperity around the new marks of power. Meanwhile, Edward and Eleanor’s closest associates were appointed to positions of power in the new Wales: Otho de Grandison became Justiciar of North Wales and Robert Tybetot occupied the equivalent position in West Wales.
Finally, in mid-December, the party reached Cardiff. There the official court reception began, with a festivity at Cardiff Castle hosted by the Earl of Gloucester. This was a particularly important and sensitive event – and not just because of Gilbert the Red’s notorious touchiness. For during the Welsh years there had first evolved a new idea for binding this most powerful and prickly of characters safely to the Crown: Joan, now without a foreign match, was to become Gloucester’s wife, and the annulment of his marriage was now pending before the papal court. So the celebrations at Cardiff marked not just the final round in the triumph of the campaigners, but also the formal welcome of Joan to her future home.
Following this grand event, further receptions were hosted by two further magnates with whom relations had been not entirely easy. The first was held at Caldicot by the Earl of Hereford, he whose dubious heritage was being atoned for by his marriage to Eleanor’s cousin Mathilde de Fiennes. The final reception was by Roger Bigod, the Earl of Norfolk. His family’s involvement in the Barons’ War had been partly prompted by a sense of being outside the royal magic circle, and nothing had changed in this respect; there was an uneasy state of truce between him and Edward, who would later pursue him for his debts to the Crown. As with the Herefords, Eleanor may well have provided a means to easier relations – she had shared Geoffrey de Aspale’s services with Bigod for some time. The party took place at Chepstow, where the refurbished castle of the Bigods perched on a clifftop above the River Wye, and considerable expenditure was undertaken by the host to please the king, with Bigod’s steward being sent as far as Sussex to provision the feast.
After this slightly minatory series of visits, the court crossed to Bristol to rejoin the children for the Christmas season. Wales was declared settled. The most difficult earls had shown their adherence. It was time to move on.30
15
Gascony
With Wales off the agenda, and Alfonso X now beyond help, the issue which cried out for attention was the Sicilian crisis. This was to occupy the bulk of the next five years, and was to prove a thoroughly frustrating business.
The first question was to decide what action should be taken in response to Philip III’s summons to Edward to assist him in his Crusade against Pedro of Aragon, which summons could not now be put off on the plea of business in Wales. The outcome of discussions over the holiday seems to have been a decision to cross to France for a face-to-face meeting with Philip; either to assist him, or more likely to try to stop the war. So the party performed a sweep through the south of England, arriving at Dover in late January. The plan seems to have been abandoned – perhaps because Philip was not easily accessible, or perhaps because of news of the death of the key protagonist, Charles of Anjou on 8 January 1285. The party waited at Canterbury and Leeds until mid-February, making offerings for peace and reconciliation at the altars of St Thomas and St Adrian of Canterbury. As news was still awaited, they moved on, spending the time until mid-April in Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.
This stay, as usual, afforded access to Eleanor’s current and contemplated properties in the area. These included new properties in each county which had been acquired as part of the February 1284 review and further Cambridgeshire properties of Robert de Crevequer, which would be acquired later in 1285. It is therefore hardly surprising to see a two-week stay at Eleanor’s property at Burgh – or indeed a one-day stay at her new Foulmire property. The trip also permitted a visit to Walsingham and Bromholm, again in hopes of assisting the prospects of peace in Sicily and Aragon. But the international question was still further complicated by the death of another player in the Aragonese crisis: Pope Martin IV died in March, and was replaced by Honorius IV in April.1
While nothing was plainly happening fast in Europe, the May parliament provided an opportunity to celebrate the Welsh victory with the people of London and a huge show was accordingly put on. On 4 May 1285 the king and queen, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury carrying the Cross of Neith, set off on foot from the Tower for Westminster Abbey, accompanied by the major magnates and fourteen bishops. At the abbey the cross was offered on the high altar. After the official celebration, it was the turn of Parliament, which dealt formally with the issue of the French summons to serve in the campaign against Aragon. It was concluded that service should be delayed until the French had made good on their treaty obligations and, so that there should be no further opportunity offered to them to fudge that issue, that a commission should be appointed to resolve outstanding issues.2
With this settled, plans began to be made for the crossing to France. But for some reason the departure was again delayed. It seems likely that news reached England that the French king had already set off on his Crusade, having plundered Elne in late May. The party was again left waiting in the South: the feast of St Thomas Becket in July was marked at Canterbury Cathedral by the presentation at the shrine of gold figures of St Edward the Confessor, St John, St George and his horse, and a week was taken at Leeds Castle. There was also time for a short excursion into Sussex to inspect new acquisitions in the county and in Chichester. During this stay, Eleanor bought a sizeable strip of land adjoining the grounds of the Dominican friary, which was then in the process of being established, and gave it to them. A further grant of land was made to them before departure to France the next year.
Her own property affairs also bear every sign of being readied for immediate departure if that became necessary, because there are two groups of acquisitions – one in June and one in July. In June, we see Eleanor acquiring Washlingstone and Littlefield in Kent for her life. In July, Robert le Crevequer seems to have surrendered a piece of his own property in Cambridgeshire and arranged for the sale of a neighbouring piece of land with it. At the same time, Eleanor acquired a manor in Rutland, near her north Northampton holdings, and was appointed to the custody of the counties of Dorset and Somerset.3
Then the family moved on into Wiltshire, visiting Henry III’s favourite palace of Clarendon and Amesbury Abbey. There young Mary – only just seven years old – w
as veiled as a nun on 15 August 1285, accompanied by thirteen other girls from aristocratic families. Among them was probably her cousin Eleanor of Brittany, who showed more aptitude than Mary for the religious life; she would later become Abbess of Fontevrault. The timing of this enclosure was perhaps partly brought about because Eleanor of Provence was apparently ill at Amesbury at this time; since she was now sixty-two years of age, it may have been felt that she was not long for the world. But equally it seems likely that Edward and Eleanor wanted to be present for this major event in their daughter’s life, before they departed for a lengthy stay in France.4
Autumn was spent predominantly in the Hampshire area. There were two special points of interest in this period. The first was the stay in Winchester for which the great Winchester Round Table was created. In fact, there were two Winchester stays this autumn, the one in September apparently providing the occasion for the tournament – the Worcester annalist records that on the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin (8 September) the king created forty-four knights at Winchester. While the event has acquired a romantic Arthurian patina, it had, like most of the other Arthurian events, a more hard-edged practical side. Edward had been seeking to boost the numbers of men taking up the status of knighthood, following a drastic fall in knights, from around 4,000 at the start of the century, to somewhere around 1,500 in the 1280s – of whom only a minority were actual fighting knights. To achieve this, he had adopted a mixture of carrot and stick tactics. Thus he made an order that all men with lands worth more than £100 per year and so eligible for knighthood should come before him to be knighted; but he sweetened the pill by making it an extremely high-status occasion.
Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen Page 45