9

The Triumphant Return

In 1273, Edward and Eleanor started their homeward journey as king and queen via Italy, Gascony and Paris. They had, in response to a letter from the regents in England urging their speedy return, promised to hurry back. But that was not how matters turned out.

In early January, the Pope wrote to Eleanor directly, asking her to induce the king to visit him. This direct contact and other direct letters from the Pope to Eleanor are interesting, demonstrating how Eleanor was regarded as a significant diplomatic contact by the papacy in her own right, and indicating, too, that she had built up a close personal relationship with the pontiff in his crusading and diplomatic days. In the light of Edward’s desire to see the Montforts brought to justice, and the failure of Charles of Anjou to provide action on this front, this offered a valuable opportunity to pursue an alternative route to vengeance.

There was also an opportunity to eclipse the French king. In 1271, the new king, Philip III, had headed home with the remains of his father, Louis IX, in what was part funeral, part royal tour of acclamation. The route he had taken had been via Orvieto, Florence, Bologna, the Mont Cenis pass to Lyons and then on to Paris. Adopting the same route for their return offered Edward and Eleanor the chance to point up the contrast between the failed and successful Crusaders. For them, as Tyerman points out, this rather mediocre Crusade had paid fine dividends on the PR front: Edward was considered distinguished, as the sole king in Western Europe to have campaigned in the Holy Land itself. The truce was given its full value – particularly among the Italian merchants who had such good markets in Acre. And, of course, the attempt on his life added a considerable touch of romantic glory, particularly when combined with the emerging invention of Eleanor’s role in saving her husband.¹

Accordingly, the royal couple left Charles of Anjou in mid-January, accompanied by young Charles of Salerno, who accompanied them to the frontiers of the Regno. From there they pressed on, arriving in Rome on 5 February and at the papal court in Orvieto (where political and military conflicts had forced the papacy to withdraw) on 14 February 1273. The welcome was at once warm and magnificent – that due to a friend and to an acknowledged Crusader, with all the cardinals in attendance. It seems possible that on this occasion the Pope presented Edward with the papal accolade of a golden rose, traditionally given to the foremost prince in Christendom. While at the papal court, Edward at once began to campaign for sanctions to be imposed on Guy de Montfort for the murder of Henry of Almain. But the matter was not straightforward – Guy’s father-in-law was very influential, and the younger Montfort brother, Amaury, was one of the pope’s own chaplains.²

Nonetheless, Guy was summoned to appear. He refused to do so, on the grounds that his life would not be safe while Edward was at Orvieto – a suspicion which was probably justified. His refusal left the Pope had no real choice but to act. Thus, before leaving in late May, Edward had secured the excommunication and outlawry of Guy. He was deprived of the right to hold property or make a will, and also of the law’s protections, making him a safe target for anyone. Moreover, the sanction was bolstered by a ruling that the lands of any men who aided him were also to be placed under interdict. The sanctions worked. Six months later, Guy submitted himself to the Pope and spent some years in prison. He was released, and taken back into service by Charles of Anjou in 1281, partly for his undoubted talents as a soldier and partly because of the family relationship between them. His story did not, however, end in prosperity: he was later captured by the Aragonese, and died in prison in 1291.³ Meanwhile Eleanor made her own intercession – gaining permission for one of her clerks to hold multiple benefices.

After leaving the papal court, the new king and queen’s journey north on the Via Emilia took on much of the appearance of a triumphal progress. Whatever the actual achievements of the Crusade, Edward was perceived as a great warrior and Crusader. There were acclamations and processions at every city. He was entertained at the episcopal palace at Reggio on 20 May. At Milan the citizens presented a number of selected chargers, richly caparisoned with scarlet trappings.

If a letter from Gregory X to Eleanor is to be believed, some of the slowness of the progress after Orvieto was, however, attributable to Edward’s having fallen ill again. Finally, however, they reached the pass at Mont Cenis, where they were met by a party of English nobles who had set out expecting to meet the new king and queen in Paris. Also here to meet the royal party was Philip, Count of Savoy, and at his castle of St George near Vienne in late June Edward took his homage for various lands in Savoy which had come to the English Crown in Henry II’s reign. He also took that of the impudent William de Tournon, who judged it best to make peace after having raided the party on their outward voyage. In all probability, Otho de Grandison parted from the company in Savoy, to assist his family in issues in his homeland. The stay at St George will have afforded Edward and Eleanor a chance to admire the work recently done there by the count – or, more accurately, his builders. Among these was Master James, later to be known as James of St George, who was to become Edward’s architect in chief.⁴

At some point in June, Edward and Eleanor took the rare step of parting company. Quite when and how is unclear. Some accounts suggest that while he headed on to a tournament in Châlons and then Paris, she journeyed with a party to see her brother Alfonso in Seville. However, the letter cited for this proposition makes no mention of a visit and can be safely dismissed, not least because Alfonso’s own timeline rebuts it.⁵

At this point it needs to be understood that Alfonso’s position in Castile had deteriorated considerably since Eleanor’s marriage. Despite his excellent inheritance, Alfonso had failed to live up to the standards of his father. His entry into the race to become the next Holy Roman Emperor had been an expensive fiasco. This election had hung fire for years, and had resulted in Alfonso taking up arms against the papal forces. This, and the large sums required to keep his case in the right minds over a period of years had carried a heavy financial cost. To obtain money, he debased the coinage and then endeavoured to prevent a rise in prices by an arbitrary tariff, which had a negative knock-on effect on external trade. This, in turn, affected his popularity with the middle and lower classes.

As for his relationship with his nobles, in the absence of continued focus against the Almohads, the traditional problems re-emerged, particularly with the de Lara and de Haro families. This was probably exacerbated by Alfonso’s very obvious focus on the arts and sciences, rather than on the traditional warlike skills of a Castilian noble. Thus, while creating the reputation as a writer, musician and patron of the arts which was to earn him the title of Alfonso the Learned, he was constantly creating friction with those who should have been his most powerful supporters.

Finally, his attempts at legal reform and in particular his attempts to introduce a cohesive legal code which drew heavily on Roman law and gave minimal weight to the traditional Peninsular law, produced in 1271 a revolt on the part of the nobility – supported by his own brother Felipe. This was still not resolved in 1273, as Eleanor returned from the Holy Land. In fact, at the Cortes of Burgos in 1272, the nobles (including both de Haro and de Lara representatives) and Felipe withdrew their allegiance from Alfonso and went into exile under the protection of the Muslim Emir of Granada. Although a tentative accord was reached in March 1273 via the intercession of Queen Violante and Fernando de la Cerda, Alfonso’s heir apparent, the accord was still in the process of being fleshed out, not assisted by serious illness on Alfonso’s part in spring 1273. Thus when Eleanor suggested a late spring or summer meeting to Alfonso, Queen Violante told him to refuse because if he missed key negotiations on this account he would lose such limited ground with the nobles as he had made up. In late August, he was instead seeking help from Jaime of Aragon at Requena near Valencia. Following this meeting Alfonso was for some time seriously ill again with a tertian fever. He only returned to Burgos by December.⁶

So Eleanor simply cannot have met Alfonso until very late in the year. It seems most likely that Edward and Eleanor remained together until Lyons and Eleanor, who was expecting yet another baby in the late autumn, moved via Clermont Ferrand and Limoges into Aquitaine at an easy pace, rather than face travel later in her pregnancy, and risk confinement on the road.⁷

Meanwhile, Edward went on to a major tournament in Châlons. Such was the violence of this event that it was known as ‘the little war of Châlons’. It featured what Guisborough recounts as a thoroughly dastardly attack by the Count of Châlons on Edward personally – perhaps hoping to gain renown by capturing the famed Crusader. But the attack was foiled by Edward’s great personal strength, dragging the count bodily from his horse. Edward is then glimpsed in Paris from 26 July to 6 August, where he did homage to King Philip III for his French lands. There he received messengers from England, reporting that all was going on well there in his absence – a fact for which he expressed very great pleasure. But he also received the less good news that Gaston de Béarn was continuing to cause trouble in Gascony – reinforcing his decision to head to Gascony before leaving for England.⁸

It appears that on 26 July 1273, Eleanor had reached Limoges, which had been ceded to England by the 1259 Treaty of Paris. There she was received royally by the townspeople, who prepared a feast in her honour. They also asked her to intercede with Edward to protect them against the oppression of their viscountess’s administration. Eleanor wrote to Edward for assistance, which was duly sent, and while he remained in Paris until early August, these troops – possibly under Eleanor’s direction – gained a victory over the viscountess. Edward arrived shortly after this, and required the men of Limoges to swear fealty to William of Valence, who was to be left as his deputy in Gascony.

After spending the latter part of August at Saintes, the reunited party then moved on into Gascony, arriving at Bordeaux on 8 September 1273 with a view to dealing with the usual problems of disorder among the Gascon barons – as usual in particular Gaston de Béarn.⁹

Edward’s immediate starting point in Gascony was to announce an inquest into tenures in Gascony. Though in part a forerunner of the quo warranto inquiries in England, it was specifically relevant to the Gascon issues, where the duke’s authority was different as regards different vassals. An inquiry would enable him to have a good knowledge of his property and the rights and difficulties inherent in it. In particular, it would enable him to know, now that his authority was finally his own, who was prepared to recognise him and who was not. He could then judge how to deal with those who were not prepared to acknowledge his authority. A proclamation was therefore sent summoning vassals to do homage at various main locations and to declare the nature and extent of their obligations to the new ruler.

The party reached Louvigny on 18 September on their way to Saint-Sever, where the first of the grand courts had been convened. The chief absentee was, predictably, Gaston. Much of October was then spent trying to bring him to heel, resulting in a judicial assembly of the principal Gascon representatives, which granted Edward specific authority to proceed against him in arms. Edward immediately called his levies and marched in arms against Gaston.¹⁰

Thereafter, the focus moved temporarily to Eleanor and her imminent childbirth. The court moved to base itself at Bayonne, and on 24 November came the birth of Eleanor and Edward’s next child – another much-longed-for son, who was named Alphonso, after Eleanor’s brother, who stood godfather to him. The use of the name is highly unusual and signifies the close link between Eleanor and her brother – and also presumably Edward’s own affection for him. The decision on the name has, however, had unfortunate ramifications for young Alphonso over the years. He appears in the records variously as Alfurnus, Aunfurs, Amfulsus, Amphur, Amphunsus, Alfundus, Anfours, Alfontis and Aufons – even his own roll of arms has him as Aunfons. He even appears in numerous reports to have been transmuted into a mythical daughter, Alice.¹¹

As for the older Alfonso, the choice by Edward and Eleanor, the current stars of Europe, of him as a godfather will have been a much-needed piece of good news. It may even be interpreted as a deliberate gesture of support from Eleanor for the embattled Alfonso – a sprinkling of fairy dust from the current European golden couple. But certainly the meeting between Edward, Eleanor and Alfonso was thus one with a very different balance of power to the one which had occurred at the time of the marriage. However, Alfonso still was perceived as having some ‘clout’. Eleanor, doubtless remembering his doughty work on her original settlement, asked him to speak to Edward about the need for a revised dower settlement now she was queen – a necessary starting point for her work of property development in the next few years.

Alfonso was not the only representative of the Spanish peninsula who was granted close audience with Edward and Eleanor. In October there had been a meeting with Pedro of Aragon, the heir to the Aragonese throne, at Sordes. The result of this meeting was a marriage agreement, matching the eldest daughter of Edward and Eleanor (Eleanora) with Pedro’s eldest son, Alphonso. Another match was made in December between young Henry and his distant cousin Jeanne of Navarre, the daughter of Henry, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne and Brie, and his wife, Blanche of Artois. Henry of Navarre was a relative of both Edward and Eleanor, via Eleanor of Aquitaine; he was also the brother of the King of Navarre whose hand had once been considered for Eleanor.

These two matches show clearly the importance which was still assigned to maintaining a peaceful border into Gascony; as would the later time, attention and expenditure which was given to the maintaining of the Aragonese marriage. The reason for this can easily be seen. The difficulties which had to be dealt with in Gascony both in 1254 and at this time proved that the Gascons were vulnerable to mischief making. Castile might be counted out of the equation, thanks to Eleanor and its own internal difficulties. However, Aragon was an expansionist country with highly dynamic leadership, whose active influence on the far side of the Pyrenees had recently been shut off as regards Toulouse, Narbonne and surrounding areas under the Treaty of Corbeil of 1258. Absent a good, solid agreement, there was every chance that the Aragonese would at least make trouble in Gascony and at worst try to take control of lands there directly.¹²

The need for such precautions can only have been emphasised, as Gaston de Béarn provided occupation for the early part of 1274. He had been conducting guerrilla warfare against Edward’s forces but with limited success. On 27 November 1273, his daughter Constance, the widow of Henry of Almain, had submitted on his behalf at Mont de Marsan and promised to yield his fortresses and castles on demand. However, no actual handover was forthcoming and early in 1274 Gaston appealed to the King of France, accusing Edward of doing damage to Gaston’s property – and even seeking trial by combat. Although attempts were made to keep the dispute local, in the end Edward was forced to retire and to await the decision of their mutual overlord. This was likely to take some time, since a request came from the Pope to delay the hearing of Gaston’s complaints, pending a General Council which he had summoned to Lyons on 1 May.¹³

The council, however, was of considerable interest to Edward and Eleanor for one very good reason: money. Although Edward now had access to royal revenues, the Crusade had been a crippling undertaking: even with the massive French loan, and all the monies which had been received before their departure, receipts had fallen a long way short of covering outgoings and massive debts needed paying. The Pope, who had witnessed much of this expenditure, was sympathetic – he had authorised a supplementary subsidy from the English clergy of 22,000 marks, to be split with Edmund of Lancaster, and he had still further plans for the Council of Lyons. There, he obtained a worldwide grant of a tenth from the clergy in aid of future crusading efforts. Edward, probably with his financial woes in mind, seems to have indicated that he would lead this Crusade; from this point on, he regarded the money thus raised as peculiarly his own.¹⁴

Edward and Eleanor thus began to move back north. At Limoges, the viscountess’s administration was continuing, like Gaston, to create troubles; and matters were put on hold pending a reference to King Philip or her marriage into the friendly Brittany family.¹⁵

Towards the end of their Continental peregrinations, Eleanor and Edward found themselves in Ponthieu, her mother’s county, with correspondence dating from Montreuil-sur-Mer in June and July of 1274. It may well have been the first time that Eleanor and her mother had met since the wedding, fourteen years before, though she may well have become acquainted with her new stepfather, Jean de Nesle, at Tunis, where he had fought under Louis’ banner. A stay of reasonable length was made, perhaps because, since the death of her brother Ferdinand around 1264, Eleanor was now heiress to the county of Ponthieu, a place of which she would have had practically no knowledge. The stay with her mother will have offered an opportunity for Eleanor and Edward to familiarise themselves with her future inheritance and begin to plan how it would in due course be administered.

It also seems that, though Jeanne would have preferred Ponthieu to follow Ferdinand’s line, relations at this time were altogether sunny. Otherwise, the decision to which Eleanor and Edward came – to leave their two-year-old daughter, Joan of Acre, to be raised by Eleanor’s mother – seems peculiar indeed. Certainly, this future territorial acquisition cannot explain the decision to leave Joan behind – Joan as a younger child was never in line to inherit Ponthieu, which under local law went to the eldest surviving heir. It seems likely that there was a simple affinity between grandmother and namesake grandchild, and given the limited contact which the youngest would inevitably have with their parents, a long stay was not regarded as problematic by Edward and Eleanor. Perhaps too, it was hoped that fondness for Joan would smooth over any resentment at Ponthieu’s destiny.¹⁶

By 28 July 1274 the king and queen are recorded for the last time at Montreuil, and on Thursday 2 August 1274 the couple arrived back at Dover. The arrival was not unexpected – indeed, it is apparent from the close space between the arrival and the coronation that considerable forward planning had been going on between England and France for some months. Nor were they in any sense alone – during their peregrinations they had been acquiring quite a mobile court, most of which will have crossed with them. Accompanying them also were John of Brittany and his wife, Edward’s sister, who had left their son in the company of his cousins and would themselves attend the coronation.

The party was received with great state by the Earl of Gloucester – who, despite the troubles of past years, had been the first to declare his fealty to Edward on Henry III’s decease – and John de Warenne, a prime candidate for being put in overall charge of organising their reception and coronation. They then proceeded, via stops at each of Warenne’s and Gloucester’s castles of Tonbridge and Reigate, towards London and the coronation. A prior stop, however, was Canterbury, where they were received by Eleanor of Provence. Eleanor’s mother-in-law was now queen dowager, but it was perhaps symptomatic of her less than easy relationship with Eleanor that she tended to continue to call herself Queen of England (and Duchess of Aquitaine and Lady of Ireland) until her enclosure as a nun, some decade in the future. With the queen dowager were the surviving children: Henry, aged six; Eleanor, aged four; and the Brittanys’ own John and Henry. Young Alphonso may well have awaited them in this company, too.¹⁷

By the time of their arrival, all was nearly in place; in February 1274, orders had been sent to various counties to supply some of the massive amount of food required for the epic feast that was to round off the coronation and to individuals who could supply some of the luxury items – swans, peacocks, lampreys, pikes and the rest. Westminster Palace was refurbished, temporary accommodation and catering facilities were built, and covered walkways erected. The coronation was to be particularly show-stopping for a variety of reasons. In the first place, there had been no coronation at all for many years – Eleanor of Provence was crowned in 1236, and Henry III’s coronation even longer ago had been a hole-and-corner affair, which took place in a rush in Gloucester, amid the disorder of rebellious barons and invading Frenchmen. Secondly, it was to be a dual coronation – king and queen together. This had last occurred on the coronation of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1154. Thirdly, it offered an opportunity to celebrate Edward’s new worldwide renown, and also to put the Barons’ War firmly behind the country. Fourthly, it was the first coronation to take place in the revamped Westminster Abbey. And last but not least, that great showman Henry III had planned the whole thing himself.¹⁸

That is not, however, to say that the preparations went without a hitch – as at any major event, there were disputes as to people’s roles – and, as with Eleanor of Provence’s coronation, a court had to be established to consider these disputes. The role of Edmund of Lancaster was controversial; he claimed the right to carry the ceremonial sword Curtana. His right to do so was rejected, and it seems likely that he boycotted the ceremony in a fit of pique – which may have been heightened by a row which had developed between him and Edward over the division of Gregory X’s crusading subsidy. It is likely that the ever-touchy Gloucester, who had to be rewarded for his good behaviour in Edward’s absence, won the Curtana fight. Then there were fights between the archbishops of York and Canterbury about York’s role in the ceremony – resolved with York either being excluded or playing no active role in the ceremony. Meanwhile, the great and good of the kingdom – and many from elsewhere – made their way to London to participate in the coronation. While Edward and Eleanor brought his sister Beatrice and her husband John in their train, his sister Margaret and her husband Alexander travelled down from Scotland to be part of the great occasion.¹⁹

Coronation day was 19 August 1274. The day before this, Edward and Eleanor made a triumphal entry into London, which had pulled out all the stops to bedeck itself for the occasion. The accounts which are left to us are not as helpful as they might be – simply telling us that everything was grand or impressive beyond description – but the fragments which do make their way into the accounts, and the fuller accounts which the Tudors left us of similar occasions, give some idea of the kind of event which might have been expected.

We know that on coronation day the conduit at Cheapside ran with red and white wine for all to drink, and it takes no genius to infer from this that the crowd would have been loud and boisterous. This feature became a commonplace in later coronations, and was then accompanied by formal receptions of the royal party, with speeches and tableaux of welcome and congratulation. There were, apparently, ‘multifarious inventions’. While the more extreme forms of these (Holbein’s designs for a tableau of Apollo and the Muses on Mount Parnassus for Anne Boleyn’s coronation springs to mind) are probably later accretions, they give some idea of the kinds of thing which greeted the couple. There will likely have been formal receptions by the mayor or guilds of London, with polite speeches in both directions, and possibly gifts to the new monarchs. For example, at the coronations of Mary Tudor and Anne Boleyn, the Recorder of London read out a speech professing the loyalty of the people of London and he gave a gold thread purse that contained a thousand gold coins.

The route would take in Cheapside, then St Paul’s, Temple Bar and the Strand before heading to Westminster. All along the route, the streets were hung with rich cloths – and in places with cloth of gold – and so as not to let the spectacle down, the streets had actually been cleaned – a mammoth undertaking.

It would appear that the royal couple’s necessary entrance to London, as they had been away for the entire lead-up to the event, was the very first such coronation procession, and set the precedent for the future. It became de rigueur for the king or queen to head, usually from Westminster, to the Tower along the river in order to be in the right starting position for the traditional procession from the City. However, while they were setting a precedent for coronations, they were keeping firmly to the Henry III book of extravaganzas – earlier such events, like Eleanor’s own arrival in London, and the reception for the Scottish royals, have been described earlier and all featured some form of parade through the City. So too would Eleanor’s own funeral procession.

One need only walk the journey now to see what a massive undertaking the parade was, how tiring it must have been for the ceremonially dressed participants, and how great an opportunity it afforded the much smaller population of medieval London of seeing their monarch. The route covers well over three miles, and effectively took the royal party in person through the heart of the thirteenth-century city.

The day will have ended with a great feast, and then Edward, at least, was expected to hold a vigil in his father’s old room, appropriately decorated with a coronation scene, to prepare himself for the next day. Eleanor will meanwhile have taken over the luxurious rooms of the queen – formerly those of Eleanor of Provence – where the sad portrayal of winter was very out of keeping both with the festive mood and the time of year.²⁰

On the day itself, there was a procession from the palace to the abbey for the first coronation to take place in the new church. Magnates and clergy all had places in the procession and – after doubtless countless disputes over precedence – very firmly fixed places. Edward and Eleanor were dressed in simple, flowing unbelted robes to evoke the continuity of kingship; these will coincidentally have hidden any signs of Eleanor’s latest pregnancy. They processed over either the same carpet or a replica of the carpet used at Eleanor of Provence’s coronation – a blue ray cloth, preceded by three earls bearing the swords of state, followed by the treasurer in a dalmatic carrying the paten (gold or silver plate) to be used in the coronation Mass, and the chancellor wearing full pontificals carrying the special stone chalice with the king’s regalia. It is not clear to whom fell the job of carrying the queen’s regalia. Two knights followed carrying sceptres – one for each of the king and the queen. Edward and Eleanor each walked under a silk canopy secured on silver lances, with a silver gilt bell at each corner, each lance being carried by a baron of the Cinque Ports. Unusually, Eleanor would have worn her hair loose, with just a circlet of gold to keep it in order.

At the door of the abbey came the first prayer. Although the heart of the coronation service was traditional, and had changed little since William the Conqueror, Henry III and his advisers, in planning for this event, had added new twists to improve the ceremony as theatre and bring it in tune with the new church. So, while Edward made the traditional promises to protect the Church, to do good justice and to suppress evil laws and customs, and the more recent innovation of protecting the rights of the Crown, new features appeared. For example, in order to increase visibility, much of the coronation spectacle took place at the crossing of the church where a huge stage was built – large enough for the magnates to ride under, for those whose roles required that they entered the church on horseback. Offerings were made at the altar of figures of St John the Evangelist and St Edward the Confessor.

In terms of order, the making of vows probably came first in time, followed by the anointing. For this, there was a further procession to the high altar, where the couple made their offerings and prostrated themselves on the beautiful new pavement, while a further prayer was said. The gold circlets were removed from their heads and then the king and queen were anointed with holy oil, or unction, which was deemed to exalt them to a new status and confer spiritual gifts. Edward was partially disrobed for this part of the event, so he could be anointed on the breast, shoulders and elbows, prior to being anointed with chrism on his head; Eleanor will only have received anointing on her head. This reflects the different roles which were evoked in the coronation. For Edward, his hereditary right to rule was evoked by analogies to biblical kings and patriarchs. Eleanor’s role, however, was anchored in citations of Esther, the Blessed Virgin and the more fecund patriarchal wives. Nor was she blessed as a partner in royal power, as had been done in the eleventh century; the modern idiom was for exhortations and prayers to guide and limit her influence with the king.

It is then likely that the (re-dressed) king and the queen proceeded back to the stage for the coronation proper – the assumption of the coronation rings, the placing of a crown – golden lilies for Eleanor, the alleged crown of Edward the Confessor for Edward, and the bestowal of the sceptre and virge. Here, too, there was a difference in Eleanor’s investiture – the purely ceremonial nature of the power she was supposed to wield was signified by the handing to her of the sceptre in silence and the requirement that she then bow to the king to honour his royal majesty. Her place, too, was at his left, not the traditional site of power on the right. The ‘Laudes Regiae’, an acclamation of Christ triumphant, was sung once those formalities had been completed, followed by acclamations of the established powers as vicars of God.²¹

The main point of novelty, however, was not one carefully planned by Henry III but one introduced by Edward. According to the chroniclers (who, of course, were unlikely to have been there in person), as soon as the crown was placed on Edward’s head, he removed it, saying that ‘he would never take it up again until he had recovered the lands given away by his father to the earls, barons and knights of England and to aliens’. While it seems implausible that this is exactly when Edward said – the idea of actually recovering all such lands was too provocative – it is a very interesting starting point for the reign. It seems likely that the reported speech amalgamates a broad statement of intent regarding lands – for certainly Edward had plans on this front – and a more specific statement regarding rights alienated by his father. This latter would tie in with his coronation oath to defend the Crown’s rights, and also tie in with some of the legislation which Edward was later to introduce – in particular the inquiries into magnates’ rights known as the quo warranto inquiries.

But the reference to regaining lands, if indeed it was made, does also chime with Edward and Eleanor’s quieter agenda of reinvigorating the Crown’s stock of lands. Some of this Edward did on his own account – and not always with the utmost scrupulousness – but much of it was left in Eleanor’s hands; as we shall see, to great effect.

Meanwhile, after the coronation London’s populace partied in the streets, and a major celebration was held at Westminster. The feast was of epic proportions, as the preparations suggested. However, at least according to a later tale of the event, it also had the jolly feel of a party headed up by the younger generation – Edward, Eleanor and their friends were all in their early thirties – right in the prime of life. According to this story, Alexander of Scotland (perhaps inspired by the riding of horses into the abbey?) arranged for one hundred mounted knights to ride into the hall, and then release their horses, to be taken by anyone who could catch them. This prompted a number of English earls, including Gilbert de Clare, to do likewise, in a classic piece of keeping up with the Joneses. While the veracity of the story must be open to serious doubt – at least in its scale – it does convey the impression of a vibrant celebration among a group of young friends.²²

Another fact which testifies to the scale of upheaval and jollification is that, immediately after the hangovers settled, on 21 August, Edward and Eleanor and probably a good party of their friends decamped to Kempton near the river south-west of London – probably around the site of the modern racecourse, where there was a lavish royal residence, much updated and improved by Henry III and Eleanor of Provence; and appropriately featuring a statue of a crowned king on the roof. After a few days there, they moved on to Windsor where they remained, probably with the children, for some weeks, apart from a short visit to Eleanor of Provence.

In early October, they moved back to London where Edward had much to do in seeing to the commencement of the Hundred Rolls survey, by which commissioners went everywhere in England inquiring into ‘the deeds and behaviour of all our sheriffs and bailiffs’. The idea was to inquire into the rectitude of all royal servants, but also to get a picture of the broader governance of the country, since people were asked to report issues with their lords or their lord’s stewards and bailiffs. This was a masterstroke for the commencement of the reign, welcomed by the chroniclers as a sign that the king would come down on all those who were corrupt and that law and order generally would improve under the new king.²³

But at the same time a terrible blow fell. Within months of the return, and the greeting of young Henry and Eleanora at Canterbury, Henry – the heir to the throne – was gravely ill. The nature of his illness does not appear in the sources, but it seems that he had been unwell for some time, with payments made for candles to be burnt for his recovery and for widows to pray for him through the night. He died, aged six and a half, in October 1274 at Guildford with his grandmother. It is generally accepted that neither Edward nor Eleanor visited him, although there is a real possibility (based on the dating of a letter from one of the queens Eleanor to Robert Burnell, reproduced in Appendix 1) that Eleanor at least saw him in the final days before his death. The absence (if there was one) is a fact which is often invoked as evidence of the couple as uncaring parents, but it must be remembered that they had hardly seen the boy since his birth, owing to their absence on Crusade, and one of the reasons for separating younger children from their parents was to prevent suffering when, as was too often the case, those in their early years died.

It is possible, too, that Edward and Eleanor knew that he was dying and had said their farewells already; it is likely that he was with them for at least some of the month they spent at Windsor. For Eleanor, who was in the early months of another pregnancy, there may have been advice to avoid the sickroom. Certainly she should not be accused of indifference: she sent repeatedly to ask after Henry’s health in the final months of his life, and, poignantly, in his last weeks sent him a white palfrey, which he was never to ride. Henry’s body was brought to London and buried in Westminster Abbey along with all but the first of Eleanor and Edward’s lost children – Katherine, Joan the first and John. England had a new king and queen, but was without an heir.²⁴