6
SUMMARY OF THE
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
So far we have been examining the medieval history of marriage in general, and of medieval English royal marriage in particular. We have not yet begun exploring contentious royal marriages, or seeking for new or detailed evidence of particular cases. Rather we have been trying to get an overview of the broad picture. What have we found out? Let us summarise the evidence.
First, medieval marriage had nothing whatever to do with the State, or with civil law. It was primarily a private matter between two consenting individuals. However, it was also a religious matter: a sacrament of the Church, in respect of which the ecclesiastical authorities had established certain rules and regulations. These were chiefly concerned with whom one was or was not allowed to marry. They were not, at this period, greatly concerned with how one should get married.
Thus, although provision existed for formal church wedding services, these were not compulsory, and the Church gave full recognition to private – and even secret – exchanges of marriage vows. The only essentials for a valid marriage at this time were mutual consent of two individuals who were free to marry each other, followed by sexual intercourse. Medieval marriage was, in some respects, a very simple matter!
Of course, if you were wise, you would probably arrange to have your marriage vows witnessed – just in case any subsequent dispute should arise. And in fact, the majority of people did opt for the Church’s public wedding service – something which the Church itself was increasingly eager to promote and encourage.
If you did get married by means of such a church service, then a priest would officiate, and you would probably wear your best clothes for the occasion, and invite your family and friends. For the groom, ‘best clothes’ would not, of course, resemble a modern suit, however. Nor did medieval brides wear white – though wearing something blue may already have been quite a popular notion at this period, because of the colour’s links with the Blessed Virgin Mary.
There would probably be music at the wedding ceremony – though this would more likely be supplied by the local waites, with their viols and shawms, than by a church organ. This was partly because the wedding ceremony would probably not be celebrated inside a church, but outside the building in the open air – usually near the west door.
During a public wedding ceremony the groom would probably give the bride a ring, placing this on the ring finger of her right hand. However he would not himself receive a ring from her in exchange. The ring he gave might be made of metal, although more ephemeral materials were also permissible since the ring was only required for the wedding ceremony. We have seen evidence suggesting that on at least one occasion a plain gold wedding ring was used at a medieval English royal wedding.
On the occasion of a publicly celebrated wedding, friends and family probably already gave presents to the happy couple, even at this early period.
As for royal marriages, these are traditionally imagined to have been with brides of equal (i.e. foreign royal) status. But in fact this was by no means always the case. Nevertheless, aristocratic status was normal for royal brides, since medieval English kings did not marry peasants.
There is also a traditional tendency to imagine that a virgin bride was an essential requirement, but again we have found that in fact this was not so. Some royal brides had been married previously, and already had children. As for royal bridegrooms, they were often sexually experienced – the experience having been gained with girls or women from lower social classes prior to their marriages. Kings and princes did sometimes acquire mistresses of aristocratic status, but if they did so this was usually later in their careers – when they had already been married and had produced the required heirs to the throne.
As for the bastards who were engendered as a result of royal extra-marital activities, these were variously treated by their fathers. The children of low-class mothers were quite often recognised, but they were not generally granted noble status. Yet sometimes careers were found for them in the Church, and such ecclesiastical careers were likely to bring the children preferment – for example as bishops or as abbesses. As for royal bastards who were born to higher-class mothers, these children might well be awarded noble titles in their own right, and one or two of them even grew up to make royal or princely marriages.
Two
Secret And Bigamous Medieval Royal Marriages
7
THE LOVE-MATCHES OF
EDWARD III’S CHILDREN
* * *
… my dearest and truest sweetheart and beloved companion.
The Black Prince to Joan of Kent, 1367
* * *
In this chapter we shall begin to look at secret marriage in the English royal family by exploring the marriage pattern of Edward III’s children. So far we have considered only the partnerships, marital and otherwise, of English sovereigns. Roughly half of the thirteen rulers from William I to Edward III married consorts of royal birth (children or grandchildren of other monarchs). However, the wider picture of marital and other relationships within the royal family as a whole has not yet been explored in any detail. We have merely noted in passing that in the case of at least one younger son (Henry I) no marriage was apparently arranged for him prior to his accession. Later, for Henry II’s sons, marriages with the daughters of foreign royalty and aristocracy seem generally to have been planned. These were what may be described as typical royal marriages for that period – even though in the event some of these arranged marriages never materialised.
Only in the case of Prince (later King) John – the youngest son of Henry II, who was initially perceived as being very remote from any prospect of succession to the throne – was no such foreign marriage planned. The result was that initially John married a cousin from within the English illegitimate royal and aristocratic circle. Later, of course, when he had succeeded to the throne, John opted instead for a different marriage; one with a foreign heiress, which perhaps more closely approximated to the normal English kingly pattern – though his bride was of lower status than those of his elder brothers, Henry and Richard. However, we shall see that in the long run John’s first marriage attempt, with Isabel of Gloucester, was probably more typical of the marriage pattern for younger royal sons.
By considering the marriages of those royal children of Henry III, Edward I and Edward II who were not in the immediate line of succession we can form an overall idea of what had been considered normal in the wider royal family during the hundred years or so prior to the marriages of Edward III’s children. The picture that emerges is somewhat mixed, but in general younger sons married the daughters of either English or foreign aristocrats, while royal daughters either married foreign royalty or English aristocrats. However, for political reasons, during this period the eldest son – the heir to his father’s throne – always married the daughter of a foreign ruler – though the bride’s father might be of less than royal status.
By comparison the marriages of the children of Edward III (reigned 1327–77) present a curiously diverse and irregular picture. Thus, Edward III’s eldest son and heir, the Black Prince, did not marry a foreign princess. Instead his chosen consort was an English bride who was certainly not a virgin when he married her. Indeed, she was a lady with a somewhat questionable marital history. We shall look at the Black Prince’s marriage and its implications in more detail presently.
Most of the Black Prince’s younger brothers initially married into the English aristocracy. Only Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, found a foreign royal bride as his first marriage partner – though Edmund’s elder brother, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, also married a foreign princess as his second wife. In the end, however, it was to be Gaunt’s choice of a third wife which would prove utterly astonishing, causing contemporary consternation both at court and in the country at large. This marriage will also be discussed in detail shortly.
Of Edward III’s four daughters, two married at home, an
d two would have married abroad, had not one of them succumbed to the plague at Bayonne while on her way to marry Pedro of Castile. However, Isabel, the eldest daughter, married a man who was of lower rank than might normally have been expected. Like the marriage of her eldest brother, the Black Prince, and the third marriage of her fourth brother, John of Gaunt, Princess Isabel’s choice of a spouse may have raised some eyebrows.
In the next chapter we are going to trace how the surprising phenomenon of the secret marriage quietly but firmly established itself as a background feature of the English royal wedding scene during the course of the fifteenth century. But the first move in this direction actually occurred in the mid-fourteenth century, and this unexpected development arose out of the relationship between Edward Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) and his cousin, Joan, Countess of Kent.
Joan was a daughter of Edmund of Woodstock – one of the younger sons of Edward I, borne to him by his second wife, Margaret of France. Joan was thus of English royal blood in a cadet line. The male members of such junior branches of English royalty might marry daughters of the reigning monarch, but in the entire period since the Norman Conquest there was absolutely no precedent for the marriage of a bride from such a background with the heir apparent to the English throne. Normally the prospective bride of the heir apparent – or ‘Prince of Wales’, as he had been called since the reign of Edward I – was expected to be the daughter of a foreign ruler. The family backgrounds of Queen Philippa (the Black Prince’s mother) and of Isabelle of France and of Eleanor of Castile (his grandmother and great grandmother respectively) all fitted this pattern. On the other hand, the family origins of Joan of Kent did not at all conform to this norm. However, what made Joan completely extraordinary and exceptional as a consort for the heir to the throne – and the future king, as far as anyone then knew1– was her previous marital history.
For although she was sometimes (and perhaps sarcastically) known as ‘the Virgin of Kent’, in actual fact Joan was by no means a virgin. In 1340, at the very young age of 12, she had contracted a clandestine marriage with a nobody. Thomas Holland was the son of a gentry family from Lancashire. He was probably also some years older than his royal child bride. The marriage between Joan and Thomas was clandestine, and was contracted without either requesting or receiving royal consent. Very soon afterward Thomas Holland, who was a soldier, departed for the Crusades, leaving his child bride behind in England.
Joan did nothing to reveal her marriage at that stage. However, her family evidently had some suspicions that their daughter might be involved with a man of questionable suitability. They therefore compelled Joan to contract a second (and bigamous) marriage, with William Montacute, son of the Earl of Salisbury and the heir to his title (to which William succeeded in 1344). William Montacute was about the same age as his bride, and the couple cohabited for several years, but possibly without the marriage being consummated. At all events, Joan bore William no children.
Joan’s marriage with William Montacute was annulled by Pope Clement VI in 1349, on the petition of her true husband. Thomas Holland had returned from the Crusades a wealthy man, and had confessed to the king the truth about his marriage to Joan. Initially William Montacute contested the annulment of his marriage, and even imprisoned Joan for a time. Eventually, however, she was able to join her real husband, with whom she then lived until his death in 1360, bearing him four (or possibly five) children. In 1352, on the death of Joan’s brother, John, she and Thomas succeeded to the titles of Countess and Earl of Kent.
After Thomas Holland’s death, the Black Prince began to show an interest in his cousin, giving her presents, including a silver cup. However, Edward III and Queen Philippa viewed this new situation askance. The king and queen had many reservations about their son’s relationship with Joan. Perhaps not surprisingly the royal couple seems to have felt that the girl’s reputation left a good deal to be desired. Her lack of foreign ruling parents, coupled with her pre-existing bevy of children, meant that as a prospective daughter-in-law she was deficient in some respects and rather too well-endowed in others. The king and queen were also concerned about the fact that Joan and the prince were first cousins once removed, and therefore well within the prohibited degrees. Given their close blood relationship they would only be able to wed validly with a papal dispensation.
The Black Prince, unconcerned apparently at these ecclesiastical niceties, is reputed to have contracted a secret marriage with Joan in 1360. This was Joan’s second secret marriage! However, the lack of any Papal dispensation at this stage rendered this secret royal marriage of questionable validity. Nevertheless the couple persisted in their intention, and on 10 October 1461 they were properly and officially married at Windsor Castle by the Archbishop of Canterbury, duly armed with the necessary permission from Rome, and with the king and queen in attendance.
Joan bore her royal husband two sons, the younger of whom ultimately succeeded to the throne as King Richard II. But after all the initial anxieties which had greeted her relationship with the Prince of Wales, in the end Joan – like a more recent Princess of Wales who similarly gave the establishment some cause for concern – never became Queen of England. In 1376 the Black Prince predeceased his father. Mercifully, perhaps, the much-married Joan showed no signs of seeking another husband. As Princess Dowager of Wales she seems generally to have been a popular figure during the reign of her son, and when she died in 1385 she left instructions that she should be buried not at Canterbury Cathedral with the Black Prince, but with her first husband, Thomas Holland, at the more modest venue of the Franciscan Priory (Greyfriars) at Stamford in Lincolnshire.
In the end, and on the whole, Joan’s royal marriage should probably be regarded as a success. However, it had certainly shattered the traditional mould. Moreover, Joan’s marital history did allow scope for a degree of undesirable gossip about her. Thus Adam of Usk, in his Chronicle, referred to rumours that Richard II was illegitimate, commenting in explanation that his mother had been ‘given to slippery ways’.2
Generally, the subsequent two marriages of Joan’s son, Richard II, and the marriages of his successors, the three Lancastrian kings, would seek to return to the usual pattern. Nevertheless, a curious and important precedent had now been established in the royal family, which allowed the king or his heir apparent to marry an English noblewoman with English royal ancestry. This precedent also permitted the King or Prince of Wales to contract a clandestine marriage with such a bride, while at the same time linking the secret marriage with hints of bigamy. This very strange new precedent would find echoes in the royal marital history of the fifteenth century and beyond, as we shall see.
Incidentally, we should note, perhaps, that despite the Black Prince’s very unconventional marriage, in other respects Edward III’s eldest son conformed to the usual royal sexual pattern of his day. Thus he fathered three illegitimate sons, all of whom were born prior to his marriage to Joan of Kent.3
A younger brother of the Black Prince, and the third surviving son of Edward III, was John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (1340–99). John of Gaunt’s marital history – like that of his elder brother – was to create something of a stir in the fourteenth century. However, John’s story began in a fairly conventional way. Like his elder brother, before he was first married he had a mistress, by whom he fathered an illegitimate child called Blanche. Blanche was born in 1359 and later served as a lady-in-waiting to John’s mother, Queen Philippa.4
Curiously, this illegitimate daughter was apparently named after John of Gaunt’s first wife, his cousin, Blanche of Lancaster (1345–68), whom he married in the same year as the little girl was born. Blanche of Lancaster was the daughter, and ultimately the heiress of the first Duke of Lancaster – who was a direct descendant in an all-male line of Edmund Crouchback, a younger brother of Edward I.5 Thus John of Gaunt’s first marriage to an English royal descendant in a cadet line (rather like his fathering of a pre-marital bastard child) conformed to what see
ms by this period to have been regarded as the usual pattern for a younger son of the English monarch.
John’s first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, died in September 1368, having given her husband several legitimate children. John then married Constance of Castile (1354–94), the elder daughter – and according to some points of view, the heiress – of King Pedro the Cruel.6 In addition, Constance’s younger sister, Isabel, married John’s younger brother, Edmund of Langley (Duke of York). Through Constance (iure uxoris) John subsequently claimed the Castilian Crown – unsuccessfully, as things turned out.
From the point of view of English royal matrimonial history, John of Gaunt’s second marriage to a foreign princess also fell within normal parameters. However, the marriage to Constance seems to have been a purely diplomatic arrangement, without any great degree of personal feeling behind it. Nevertheless, Constance gave her husband one more legitimate child – a daughter. This daughter, Catherine of Lancaster subsequently married the rival claimant to the Castilian throne, thus uniting the two Castilian royal lines.7
However, during the years in which John of Gaunt was married to Constance of Castile, the real focus of his love was centred elsewhere – on Catherine de Roët.8 Catherine was the third daughter of a knight from the Low Countries who was possibly a connection of John of Gaunt’s mother, Philippa of Hainaut (the consort of Edward III). If so, then Catherine de Roët may have been some kind of distant cousin of her lover and later husband.
Catherine entered the service of John of Gaunt’s first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, and in about 1363–65 she married Sir Hugh Swynford, one of John of Gaunt’s tenants.9 Subsequently she became governess to John’s children by Blanche of Lancaster,10 and by 1371 she was also her employer’s mistress. By that time Catherine’s first husband and John of Gaunt’s first wife were both dead.11
Royal Marriage Secrets Page 7