Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England

by Louise J. Wilkinson

  In the aftermath of Richard Marshal’s rebellion, Eleanor occasionally served as a peace-broker for Marshal supporters caught on the wrong – the losing – side of the conflict. It was expressly ‘at the instance of our beloved sister, Eleanor, Countess of Pembroke’ that the king pardoned Robert de Grendon, who had previously fought against the king alongside Richard Marshal in Ireland, from paying a forty-mark fine to return to royal favour.29 Eleanor’s involvement here is significant in two respects. In the first place, it is striking that an Irish landholder, albeit one associated with the Marshal family, decided to approach the king through Eleanor rather than anyone else; Eleanor’s reputation as someone with influence over the king, her brother, evidently extended to the Anglo-Norman lords in Ireland. In the second place, it raises intriguing questions about Eleanor’s relationship with the tenants and officials of William junior, her former husband, and Richard, her disgraced brother-in-law. In his biography of Peter des Roches, Nicholas Vincent noted the difficulties faced by Richard Marshal, who had spent a considerable amount of time in France, in assuming effective control of the English, Welsh and Irish Marshal lands.30 As William junior’s widow, Eleanor offered an alternative focus for the loyalties of those Marshal followers with lands on or near her English manors. When the Marshal tenants were faced with an alien earl of Pembroke in Richard, the prospect of service to Eleanor as William junior’s widow and the English king’s sister was sometimes a more appealing proposition. Bartholomew de Crek, Eleanor’s yeoman, had, for example, previously served William junior in Ireland in 1224 and yet apparently chose to remain in Eleanor’s employment rather than enter that of Richard Marshal.31

  A similar continuity in service can be traced in the cases of Ralph fitz Richard and William Bluet, both of whom witnessed the assignment of Eleanor’s English dower by Gilbert Marshal in 1235 and both of whom were described as Eleanor’s knights (‘knights of the countess’).32 Prior to this, ‘Lord Ralph fitz Richard’ had attended William junior when he confirmed his father’s gifts to Tintern Abbey in Wales.33 The Bluets (or Bloets) possessed long-standing ties with the Marshal honour of Striguil in England and Wales, where they were important tenants. Ralph Bluet held lands in Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire from the honour. William, who appears to have been his younger son, had served William Marshal junior, acting as his banner-bearer at the battle of Lincoln in 1217.34

  There was, naturally, a strong element of self-interest involved in such activities on Eleanor’s part: it was important for her as a lord to be seen as someone who was capable of protecting the men and women who were connected with her.35 Eleanor’s dealings with the crown, though, betray an overriding concern to assert her seigneurial rights and prevent any further diminution of her revenues or properties. When Adam fitz Hugh, one of her men from the manor of Newbury, committed an offence and abjured the realm, Eleanor, through her brother’s assistance, successfully recovered five and a half marks that the Exchequer had demanded from her as the value of the wrong-doer’s chattels.36 In a similar way, Eleanor’s position as a landholder brought her into contact, and sometimes into conflict, with neighbouring landlords. In September 1232, for example, Eleanor found herself in dispute with Richard, Prior of Dunstable, over the customs of her manor of Toddington.37 At Michaelmas 1233, Eleanor was the plaintiff in a property dispute centred upon her manor of Luton.38 During the same term, her attorney brought another lawsuit on her behalf against the men of Collingbourne Ducis and Everleigh in Wiltshire.39 On occasion, the activities of Eleanor and her officials landed the young dowager Countess of Pembroke in hot water. In June 1233, Henry instructed the sheriffs of Herefordshire and Worcestershire to restore forthwith to Hugh of Kinnersley lands that Eleanor had seized from him.40 Eleanor’s position as the king’s sister did not render Henry III indifferent to her transgressions against others.

  Eleanor’s involvement in administration was motivated by a clear and practical purpose. By taking an interest in the day-to-day business of her estates, she might improve the profitability of her manors and thereby maximize her income from them. Eleanor attempted, for example, to invest, when possible, in her properties and ensure they were kept in good condition. Henry III’s gift to his sister of twenty oaks from Chute Forest (Hampshire and Wiltshire) so that she might repair her mill in Newbury has already been discussed in chapter 3.41 In April 1233, Eleanor received a further twenty oaks, this time from Tonbridge Forest, for rebuilding her houses at Kemsing, which had lately been damaged by fire.42 It was yet another telling indication of the countess’s or her officials’ talent for estate management that the measures implemented in Eleanor’s name looked beyond the immediate necessity of maintaining, provisioning and stocking her manors. With an eye to the commercial development of her manor of Seal, near Sevenoaks in Kent, the countess secured from the crown the right to hold a weekly market every Wednesday and an annual fair there.43 Eleanor also saw to it that the royal licence to hold a weekly market each Thursday on the Marshal manor of Toddington was extended beyond her dead husband’s lifetime to cover her life as well.44

  Elsewhere, building work provided the countess with improved accommodation and allowed her physically to stamp her authority on those properties and the surrounding countryside. After all, new and renovated structures, which might be decorated with the armorial devices of Eleanor’s blood and marital kin, served as visual reminders and markers on the landscape to tenants, neighbours, local communities and visitors of her position as their new lord.45 On 22 August 1235, the countess secured a gift of yet another twenty oaks from the manor of Chute and forty oaks from its neighbouring forest of Savernake for the construction of a new hall on her Wiltshire manor of Wexcombe.46 Such activities on Eleanor’s part perhaps reflected a heartfelt desire to establish comfortable and well-maintained residences that might support the luxurious lifestyle appropriate for a woman of her rank. It was possibly with this in mind that Eleanor’s estates from the Marshal marriage were enlarged by further grants of property from the king. When Eleanor turned twenty-one, for example, she was given a royal residence all of her own – the manor and castle of Odiham in Hampshire.47

  Odiham, which was situated midway between the royal centres of Winchester and Windsor, offered Eleanor a residence convenient for maintaining contacts with her brother’s court. Built near the River Whitewater, it was defended by a series of inner and outer moats. At the heart of its complex lay a great three-storey octagonal keep, which Eleanor’s father, King John, had begun building in 1207; the surrounding park had been a popular hunting venue with the late king who had visited Odiham on no fewer than twenty-four separate occasions. The castle keep was home to a hall, which rose to thirty feet in height, and above that to the king’s chamber.48 Since the beginning of Henry III’s reign the castle had undergone a series of repairs, at least some of which were for damage sustained during the civil war of 1215–17. The keep’s chimney, one of the earliest in England, was repaired in 1226, and further work was carried out over two years on the castle chapel.49 When Henry visited Odiham in the autumn of 1234, he had initiated a further series of renovations – the keep’s windows were repaired with iron and the chapel redecorated and refurbished. With the completion of these repairs, he passed the castle to Eleanor.50

  Eleanor’s close relationship with her brother, the king, brought with it other tangible rewards that helped the countess to support a lifestyle appropriate to her station in spite of her personal indebtedness. By 1238, the king had loaned the countess no less than £1,000 to meet her expenses.51 The dowager Countess of Pembroke divided her time between Odiham, her different Marshal manors and her brother’s royal residences.52 It is, of course, possible that by occasionally residing on her brother’s estates, Eleanor sought to defray some of the cost of provisioning her household. On 30 May 1235, Eleanor was Henry’s guest at Tewkesbury (although her brother was elsewhere), where the king’s houses were placed at her disposal for as long as she wished, and the count
ess was provided with fodder for her horses and wood for her fire.53 For most of the time, however, Eleanor’s household was, in all probability, supplied from the produce of her manors and by purchases from local markets and fairs, along the lines envisaged in Grosseteste’s Rules.54 Yet regular gifts from her brother helped to ensure that the finest quality meat – venison – continued to reach her high table in the mid 1230s. Eleanor’s taste for venison as well as, perhaps, her employment of huntsmen and her own enjoyment of hunting as a form of pastime suitable for a lady emerges clearly from the record evidence. As before, Henry III bestowed upon Eleanor the right to take deer from the royal forests at different times of the calendar year, presumably at locations that were most convenient for Eleanor or which reflected her current place of residence. Venison was a meat enjoyed particularly when it was fresh.55 Nevertheless, the number of deer that Eleanor received from her brother was truly remarkable. In 1233, the year of Richard Marshal’s rebellion, Eleanor was given thirty-eight bucks, including three roe-bucks, and two stags, from the forests of Savernake, Chute and Rockingham.56 These were followed by a further thirty deer and two stags from the forests of Feckenham (Warwickshire and Worcestershire), Savernake and Chute in 1234,57 twenty-six deer and a stag from the forests of Savernake, Dean, Rockingham and Chute in 1235,58 twenty-one deer and six stags from Wychwood (Oxfordshire), Whittlewood (Buckinghamshire), Bernwood, Dean, Braden (Wiltshire) and St Briavels (Gloucestershire) in 123659 and thirty-one deer from Savernake, Bernwood and Clarendon (Wiltshire) in 1237.60

  The king’s kindnesses to Eleanor did not stop at gifts of venison. On 8 November 1236, Henry gave Eleanor a black palfrey, apparently anticipating the pleasure that such a beast might bring her.61 Another guest at the English royal court at this time was Eleanor’s older sister, Joan, Queen of Scots, who had been enjoying an extended stay in her brother’s realm since the Anglo-Scottish conference at York in September that year. Joan’s presence provided an opportunity for a family reunion between the sisters.62

  The largesse shown by Henry III to Eleanor and the countess’s presence at court in 1237 raise the question of how often she visited him. In all likelihood, Eleanor was probably in attendance on her brother at major religious festivals and state occasions, such as celebrations to mark anniversaries significant for her natal kin. One wonders whether Eleanor attended her brother’s Christmas court at Winchester in 1231–2, where her former guardian, Peter des Roches, entertained the king and his followers.63 When the body of King John was moved to a new tomb in Worcester Cathedral on 21 October 1232, the Tewkesbury annalist recorded Eleanor’s presence at this ceremony, alongside that of the king, Hubert de Burgh, Ralph de Neville, the royal chancellor, the Prior of Worcester and Robert, Abbot-Elect of Tewkesbury.64 Admittedly, a grant of venison to Eleanor for Christmas in 1232–3 suggests that the countess spent this festive season away from court.65 Eleanor was also perhaps absent from the Christmas court at Gloucester in 1233–4, which was marred by Richard Marshal’s rebellion.66 Even so, she might well have participated in Henry’s subsequent Christmas celebrations at Westminster in 1234–567 and at Winchester in 1235–6 and 1236–7.68

  As Matthew Paris observed, the atmosphere at the Christmas court of 1235–6 was heavy with anticipation at the imminent arrival of Henry III’s prospective bride, Eleanor, the daughter of Count Raymond-Berengar V of Provence by Beatrice of Savoy.69 The couple’s marriage at Canterbury on 14 January 1236 was followed by the new queen’s coronation as Henry’s consort at Westminster Abbey on 20 January.70 Paris described in elaborate detail the pomp and ceremony that surrounded the latter occasion. Among the nobles who fulfilled their traditional roles at such events was Countess Eleanor’s brother-in-law, Gilbert Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who as ‘grand marshal of England’ carried a wand before the king and cleared the way before him in the church and banquet hall.71 Paris praised the lavish dress of those who enjoyed these nuptial festivities and the abundance of meats and fish at the table, offering a valuable insight into the opulence and conspicuous consumption that surrounded such gatherings. Countess Eleanor, as the king’s youngest sister and the only sister then resident in England, presumably witnessed this event and partook of the festivities.72 Eleanor also probably witnessed the preparations for her older sister Isabella’s departure from the realm in April and May 1235 on Isabella’s marriage to Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen.73

  THE RHYTHMS OF DAILY LIFE

  It remains, though, frustratingly difficult in the absence of letters, diaries or household accounts for these years to determine the precise rhythms and activities of Eleanor’s daily life. Eleanor’s education, examined in earlier chapters, indicates that she might have found comfort and enjoyment in reading religious and other works.74 She very probably followed Henry III’s example and the practice of other noble households by overseeing the regular distribution of alms to the poor.75 This was certainly the case later in her life, in 1265, a year for which particularly detailed records survive, when she regularly provided bread for paupers.76 In 1265, she also modified her diet on specific days of the week, like her cousin Eleanor of Brittany had done when in residence at Bristol Castle in the mid 1220s, so that she might adhere to the Christian regime of abstinence, whereby fish, rather than flesh, was typically consumed on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.77 Important religious feasts, including Christmas, Easter and the Marian feasts, were usually marked in great households by fasts on their eves, as a prelude to the consumption of meats.78

  In addition to observing restrictions on her diet, it is highly likely that Eleanor followed convention by observing a strict regime of liturgical celebrations that punctuated each day, beginning with the celebration of Matins by her household chaplain and concluding, perhaps, with Evensong and Compline.79 She might also have engaged in other acts of piety, such as pilgrimages to holy shrines, like that which her eldest sister, Joan, Queen of Scots, and her sister-in-law, Queen Eleanor, made to Canterbury early in 1238.80 If the main motivation for the visit by the two queens to Canterbury was to seek heavenly aid so that they might conceive children and strengthen their husbands’ dynasties,81 Eleanor’s status as a widow carried with it strong commemorative responsibilities towards her dead husband so that she might help through, for example, religious patronage, to speed his soul in its passage through purgatory.82 As Malcolm Vale has aptly observed, ‘The giving of alms formed a major part of the devotional life of any layman or laywoman of any substance.’83 This was particularly the case with widows. Perhaps Eleanor marked the anniversary of William junior’s death with masses for his soul and the distribution of alms to the poor, like those that Henry III subsequently arranged after the deaths of Joan and Isabella the Empress.84

  When Countess Eleanor was not occupied by religious observances or estate and household affairs, she might have found time for recreational pursuits popular with other noblewomen. Eleanor probably passed at least some of her time engaged in embroidery and other forms of needlework, producing fine items of clothing, including vestments, as gifts for members of her family or churchmen.85 In her Life, Countess Eleanor’s contemporary, Isabella of France, is described sewing a cap ‘with her own hands’, which her brother, King Louis IX, requested from her and which Isabella, true to her saintly character, secretly bestowed upon a poor woman in his stead.86 Henry III’s youngest sister might also have played games for her amusement. Chess was popular in royal circles throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. At Easter 1235, Henry III bestowed a chess table and set on his sister Isabella, which she carried into the Empire on her marriage.87 The wardrobe books of Henry III’s son, King Edward I and his second wife, Margaret of France, reveal that they both possessed a chess set of jasper and crystal.88 Beyond the confines of her household, falconry, like hunting deer, was another pursuit popular with royal and noble women, some of whom were depicted on their seals holding birds of prey.89

  As part of her daily life, Eleanor enjoyed the company of others, most notab
ly the damsels of her household who served as her female attendants. Of lesser noble status than their mistress, it was these young women who provided companionship and who saw to Eleanor’s personal needs. In the thirteenth century and later, it was fairly common for noble daughters to be placed in service in other households so that they might acquire an education appropriate to their gender and rank.90 Service within the household of a queen or a countess offered a number of advantages beyond the acquisition of feminine manners and womanly skills. A damsel who pleased her mistress might benefit from personal gifts. Furthermore, a young woman might expand her social connections and friendship networks, thereby allowing her to advance her own interests and, through her, those of her family. Such service might help her to reap the benefits of patronage by securing an annuity or a materially advantageous marriage, arranged with her mistress’s blessing. On 12 January 1238, for example, Countess Eleanor persuaded Henry III to grant Mabel de Druval, one of her damsels, an annuity of ten marks until the king was able to find Mabel a husband or provide for her maintenance in another way.91 When Henry was unable to find Mabel a suitable husband, this initial grant was followed by a further grant of £10 worth of land for the remainder of her life.92 Just as Countess Eleanor benefitted from the king’s generosity, so too did those who served her by virtue of Eleanor’s proximity to, and privileged contact with, the Henrician court.93

  5

  The Montfort Marriage

  ‘the clandestine marriage’1

  On 7 January 1238, ‘in the very small chapel of the king, which is in the corner of the [king’s] chamber’ in the palace of Westminster, Eleanor Marshal, Countess of Pembroke, married as her second husband Simon de Montfort, one of the king’s leading counsellors. The ceremony took place in Henry III’s presence and was presided over by Walter, a royal chaplain.2 If the clandestine marriage of a widowed vowess was not shocking enough in its own right, Eleanor’s new choice of bridegroom was highly controversial. Simon de Montfort might well have been a prominent figure at her brother’s court, but he was also an alien and, at the time of their union, an alien of inferior status to that of his new royal wife. Simon’s natal kin were of comital rank and subjects of the kings of France; his birth family took their name from the lordship of Montfort l’Amaury, situated to the west of Paris. If this was not potentially embarrassing enough in itself, Eleanor’s new husband was also a younger son, the third son, in fact, of the Albigensian crusader Simon de Montfort senior and his wife, Alice de Montmorency.3 What had prompted Simon to set his sights on Eleanor, the English king’s sister, and what had prompted Eleanor to renege on her earlier decision to live out her days in perpetual widowhood?