Eleanor of Aquitaine: The Mother Queen

by Seward, Desmond

  In 1168, when her son John was only one year old, she entrusted him to Fontevrault to be brought up by the nuns. It was probably at her instigation that Henry II endowed the abbey so generously. Fontevrault appears to have become one of his own favourite religious houses, and indeed he was to be buried there.

  From 1152 onwards Eleanor herself gave Fontevrault some new gift at almost every crisis or important event of her life. In that year, immediately after her marriage to Henry, she declared in a charter: ‘Divine inspiration made me wish to visit the holy convent of the nuns of Fontevrault, and by God’s grace I have been able to do so. God has brought me to Fontevrault. I have crossed the threshold of the sisters and there, with deep emotion, I have approved, conceded and confirmed everything that my father and my forebears have ever given to the church of Fontevrault.’ In 1170, when Richard was consecrated count of Poitiers, she endowed the abbey, and again in 1185 (perhaps to mark her partial reconciliation with Henry). She did so yet again in 1199, on the same day that her son was buried there, asking the nuns to pray for ‘the soul of her very dear lord, king Richard’.

  Furthermore, during that unhappy year of 1199, one of her own daughters became a nun at Fontevrault. This was Joanna of Toulouse, who was worn out by the infidelities of count Raymond and by the rebellions of his turbulent subjects. Attempts to dissuade the countess were in vain, although she was pregnant. She was so ill that she could scarcely take her vows, and she soon died. Her child was born posthumously, but it also died. The queen mother buried them in the abbey.

  Eleanor herself had entered Fontevrault in 1194, shortly after king Richard’s return from captivity, though not as a nun. Presumably it was able to offer her suitably regal accommodation; most great abbeys of the period were accustomed to entertaining royal guests. Moreover it was ‘an excellent listening post’, being near Chinon, which was the administrative centre of Touraine and Anjou and in the heart of the Angevin empire in France. From here she could easily keep an eye on the political situation and supervise her seneschals, castellans and stewards. Protected from the exhausting demands of public life, she could hold a quiet and intimate female court; by now she probably had little interest in men apart from Richard, who was often at Chinon and could come to see her frequently. The queen mother seems to have been on close terms with all the abbesses. Above all, it was an excellent place for an aged lady to prepare her soul for death. Occasionally she emerged, but she always returned to this last home.

  At the Revolution the abbey was sacked, and the bones of the Plantagenets were dug up and scattered, and the building was turned into a prison. In the 1960s, however, the prisoners were removed from Fontevrault so that a thorough restoration could be made. It is a rambling complex of buildings, part of which dates from the sixteenth century or later, and much of it is undistinguished. But even today Eleanor would recognize the church and the kitchen. The first is a glorious Romanesque temple, consecrated in 1119, with a high and truly regal nave flanked by magnificent columns and lit by four great cupolas. The kitchen is one of the strangest edifices to survive from the twelfth century. In shape it is a double octagon, crowned by a vast central chimney surrounded by twenty lesser chimneys. The size gives some idea of how enormous the abbey must have been in its prime: this kitchen provided food not only for the community but for guests and travellers as well, sometimes feeding nearly a thousand people.

  16 The Death of Richard

  ‘A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children because they were not.’

  The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah

  ‘With the life of a generous, but rash and romantic monarch, perished all the projects which his ambition and generosity had formed.’

  Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

  Philip II — sometimes called Augustus because he was born in August — was unquestionably one of France’s most energetic and successful rulers. Like so many of her great kings, he was unattractive. Crafty, avaricious, suspicious, timid to the point of cowardice, he was totally lacking in the chivalry of Richard, and indeed in any ideals at all. He was a poor soldier, and could not even ride a horse properly. He had no time for music or troubadours. He looked like a peasant instead of a king, being short and squat, with a red face and tangled hair, and was unkempt and dirty in his person. No man could have been more different from Richard. Yet King Philip was also a supreme realist, with a true Frenchman’s practicality, who knew just how to play the tortoise to the Plantagenet hare. His sole aim was to increase the Capetian domain, and he concentrated on this with fanatical determination. Even the most desperate reverse could not deter him. He was the most formidable enemy Eleanor ever knew, and in the end the son of the husband who had rejected her would win the battle.

  Yet by the middle of the 1190s Richard appeared to have everything on his side. His alliances, with the counts of Flanders, Boulogne, Hainault and Toulouse and even with the emperor, hemmed in Philip. Moreover Normandy and Aquitaine, now at peace, provided rich revenues to pay for war. The symbol of Richard’s military might was the impressive castle of Château-Gaillard, on a high cliff above the right bank of the river Seine — the ‘rock of Andelys’ — which he built during 1196, perhaps inspired by the mountain-top stronghold in which he had been incarcerated in Germany, or by the great castles of the Holy Land. Its name meant ‘saucy castle’ and its very existence was an affront, as well as an obstacle, to the French King and his ambitions. It blocked the approaches to Rouen, fairly and squarely. Philip was appalled when he first saw it, but joked bravely, ‘If its walls were made of iron, I would still storm them’. Richard’s reply, very much in character, was ‘By God’s throat, if its walls were built of butter, I would still hold them’. It became his administrative as well as his strategic centre, the emblem of the Angevin empire in France.

  War between the two kings began once more in 1197. Philip managed to take Aumâle, but Richard made substantial gains. He was employing mercenaries and paid professionals, who more or less constituted a standing army. They included such technical experts as Ivo the Crossbowman (Balestarius) — the crossbow was the new weapon of the moment — and men he had brought back from the Holy Land who knew how to use Greek Fire (naptha) in primitive flamethrowers. Nor were his other mercenary troops to be despised, even if they were recruited from outlaws, bandits and renegade monks. Many came from Flanders and Brabant, and the popular nickname for them was ‘Brabançons’. They had some excellent commanders, such as the ferocious Mercadier from Périgord.

  In May count John captured king Philip’s cousin, Philip of Dreux, the fighting bishop of Beauvais, and Richard advanced steadily in the Auvergne. In August Philip had to retreat ignominiously after trying to relieve Arras, which was beseiged by the count of Flanders. Indeed, far from coming to the French king’s help, the great French feudatories had either begun to ally with Richard or else stood aside. Philip hastily made peace. His domains had suffered fearfully from the ravages of Mercadier, whose terrible mercenaries had burnt, murdered and plundered far and wide, sparing neither churches nor priests.

  War broke out yet again in 1198, on the Norman frontier. Near Gisors Richard inflicted an all-but-decisive defeat on Philip, in the course of which he personally unhorsed three French knights with one lance. Philip fled panic-stricken over the river Epte on an aged horse called Morel, which he had chosen because it was easy to ride, but the bridge gave way and he, Morel and his knights were thrown into the water. Twenty of them were drowned and Philip himself escaped with difficulty. Richard boasted in a letter to the bishop of Durham how ‘the king of the French drank river water on that day’. One hundred French knights were captured — Philip’s heaviest loss so far — and the English king reconquered the entire Vexin.

  From her retirement at Fontevrault Eleanor made one of her rare interventions in these days. Philip of Dreux, the bishop of Beauvais, was still immured in a dungeon at Château-Gaillard. The papa
l legate, cardinal Peter of Capua, asked Richard to release him, arguing that it was contrary to Christian law to imprison a bishop. The king answered the cardinal with furious abuse, shouting that the pope had never done anything to help him when he was a prisoner, that the bishop was no better than a brigand, and that the cardinal was himself a traitor, a liar, a simoniac and a suborner. He ended by telling Peter to get out and never cross his path again. But the queen mother had obviously taken the measure of the new pope, Innocent III, who was to prove the most formidable pontiff of the Middle Ages. She arranged for the bishop of Beauvais to escape, even offering him a refuge. She was much too clever to let her son add pope Innocent to his enemies, and was quite prepared to brave the royal anger.

  Eleanor’s interference appears all the more shrewd in the light of Philip II’s marital situation. A widower, he decided to remarry and his choice was the king of Denmark’s sister, the fifteen-year-old princess Ingeborg. However, although she was a girl of great beauty, during the marriage service Philip was suddenly seized by a physical aversion to her that he found impossible to overcome. Almost at once he began to look openly for a fresh consort. Poor Ingeborg remained in France and appealed to Rome, which promptly excommunicated the king of the French. Nevertheless, in 1199 Philip defiantly married a Tyrolese lady, Agnes of Meran, who presented him with several children while Ingeborg continued to languish in a convent at Soissons. Innocent III was hardly the person to tolerate such flagrant sinfulness in an anointed king.

  Philip already had enough trouble with secular matters. In 1197 the emperor Henry VI had died before his time, although he had managed to conquer Sicily. Henry’s heir was his son, the infant king of Sicily who — as the emperor Frederick II and the ‘Wonder of the World’, Stupor mundi — would one day astonish and alarm all Christendom. But Frederick was still a baby and the German princes had grown weary of the terrible house of Hohenstaufen. In 1198 Richard personally attended the imperial election of Cologne and made sure that the new emperor was his nephew, Otto of Brunswick; all those friendships with German magnates during the final months of the king’s captivity were turned to good account. Yet another of Eleanor’s grandchildren had found a crown, although he had to relinquish Aquitaine and could no longer inherit the Angevin empire. Furthermore, Otto IV was married to the daughter of the duke of Lorraine and therefore constituted a potential threat to king Philip’s northern borders.

  By 1199, despite Philip II’s undoubted ability, the Capetian monarchy’s hopes of expansion were beginning to appear very bleak. England and the Angevin empire were under the iron grip of Richard, who was a far abler soldier than his father had ever been; Château-Gaillard was as much a symbol of aggression as of defence. Although the English king’s vassals were as turbulent and rebellious as always, they had an increasing respect for his military talent, and the great feudatories of France were becoming more ready to join the Plantagenet against a liege lord who had been outlawed by the Church. Although Richard was in his forty-second year (advanced middle age for a mediaeval man), he was none the less plainly in the best of health, having thrown off all those ailments that had afflicted him at the beginning of his reign and during the crusade. It must have seemed that at any moment he would inflict some disastrous reverse on the French king.

  Early in 1199 a Limousin peasant ploughing his field at Châlus, not far from Limoges, turned up a rich Gallo-Roman treasure horde. It included a marvellous gold model of a king or emperor seated at a table with his family. The peasant took it to his lord, Achard of Châlus, from whom it was claimed by his overlord, the viscount of Limoges. Rumours about so fabulous a treasure soon spread all over France. Aymar of Limoges was Richard’s vassal, and the king, as was his right in feudal law, duly demanded that it be handed over to him at once. The viscount offered to surrender half of it, but no more. Meanwhile the wonderful treasure stayed at Châlus.

  Richard needed money desperately. His mercenaries were mutinous from lack of pay, and in consequence were as much a scourge of the Angevin lands as of those of king Philip. Normandy, once so loyal, had been driven to the brink of rebellion by excessive taxation. Indeed at about this time the king wrote a frivolous song, addressed to the dauphin of Auvergne, about his penury:

  Savies qu’a Chinon non a argent ni denier

  (There’s neither silver nor one penny at Chinon)

  Understandably Richard was determined to obtain such a valuable treasure as that found at Châlus, and the viscount’s proposed compromise infuriated him, hardening his resolve. He marched on Châlus, regardless of the fact that it was Lent — traditionally a season of peace — and laid siege to the castle.

  Châlus was garrisoned by only fifty men, mainly peasants led by a handful of knights. Foolishly they decided to resist the king, sending word to the viscount of Limoges to come and relieve them. Richard anticipated scant difficulty in reducing this rustic stronghold and his skilled engineers began to undermine its walls, with considerable effect. During the late evening of 25 March, after they had had supper, the king and Mercadier went on horseback to see how the work was progressing. Archers shot at them from the ramparts, but Richard relied on his shield to protect him. Suddenly a bolt from a crossbow hit him in the shoulder, just below the neck. He rode calmly back to his lodgings, for he was no stranger to wounds. When the surgeons pulled the bolt out, however, the shaft broke; the head seems to have become hooked onto the king’s spine. Eventually, after an agonizing operation, they succeeded in digging it out, but a piece of iron remained. Gangrene set in. Richard realized that he was going to die and sent for his mother.

  Eleanor, who had been keeping Lent at Fontevrault, came at once, accompanied by the abbot of Turpenay. She also sent abbess Matilda of Fontevrault to fetch count John and to inform queen Berengaria. The king prepared for death in an edifying manner, making a public confession in which he repented of betraying his father, of making war in Lent and of refusing to take communion because of his hatred for Philip II. He also announced that he was prepared to wait in purgatory until the Last Judgment to atone for his sins. He then received holy communion, which he had not done since he was on crusade. When the castle fell, the young crossbowman who had shot the fatal bolt was brought before him. ‘You killed my father and my brother’, said the boy defiantly, ‘and you can do what you want to me. I am not sorry.’ But Richard pardoned him, saying, ‘Leave in peace. I forgive you for my death and will take no revenge. Enjoy the daylight, as my gift.’ The queen mother arrived ‘as though borne by the wind’, and Richard died in her arms on the evening of 6 April 1199 — ‘as the day ended, so ended his life’. The king had asked for his heart to be interred at his ‘faithful city’ of Rouen, near his brother Henry; his body itself was buried at Fontevrault at the foot of his father, as a sign of repentance for having rebelled against him.

  Richard I was the magnificent one of Eleanor’s offspring. She had called him ‘the great one’ without exaggeration. Troubadours and chroniclers paid him many tributes. Gaucelm Faidit, one of the king’s protégés, laments in a planh that ‘never again will there be a man so generous, so courtly, so hardy, so bountiful’ as Richartz, reys dels Engles, and compares him to Arthur and Charlemagne and even to Alexander the Great. Although Richard had been cruel, perverse and extravagant, he had also been a mighty warrior and a figure of genuine splendour. He has had much criticism from modern English historians from Stubbs onwards, because they were offended by his lack of interest in England and the English, whom he regarded as little more than a source of money and troops. All the same, contemporary Englishmen were devoted to him, and when he was actually in their country his government was firm and efficient. In Palestine and France he was indisputably a success as a soldier and as a statesman.

  It was Richard’s fortune and misfortune to be Eleanor’s son. Although not so intelligent as his mother, in more than a few ways he was a male Eleanor. Both were true Latins, people of the south, who had nothing in common with the northern French (in thes
e days Poitevins were hardly thought of as northerners), let alone the English. Both were realists and both were masterful, greedy for power, ruthless yet subtle politicians and diplomatists, although, to a certain extent, Richard lacked his mother’s self-control and delicate touch. He also was a patron of troubadours and a troubadour himself, which must have delighted Eleanor’s heart. He was like her too in showing both magnanimity and harshness in personal relationships, and in being frivolous and ironical, with a cynical, sarcastic streak, but at the same time a devout Christian. Above all, although there is of course no proper evidence, one must suspect that Richard’s feelings for his mother were excessive, and that he had to pay for them. His respect and admiration for her precluded interest in any other women. This is surely in part at least the explanation for his homosexuality and for his exaggerated and peculiarly personal cult of chivalry.

  For Eleanor the shock of Richard’s death must have been the most terrible event in her life, the loss of ‘the staff of my age, the light of my eyes’. It has been pointed out that whereas in documents referring to John she uses the normal dilectus (beloved), in those that refer to Richard she employs the word carissimus (most dear), and this was obviously not by accident. She personally superintended his interment at Fontevrault, with St Hugh of Lincoln to sing the requiem. To ensure the nuns’ prayers she gave a magnificent bequest that provided an annual sum to pay for every nun’s habit. In addition she made a multitude of donations to other abbeys to pray for his soul, and gave many rich gifts to members of his household; several years later she is found giving a present to a certain Roger who had been one of the king’s cooks. Even so, despite her bereavement, the queen mother was not a woman to waste time mourning. Her need to rule was nearly as great as her love for her favourite son.