15

Gascony

With Wales off the agenda, and Alfonso X now beyond help, the issue which cried out for attention was the Sicilian crisis. This was to occupy the bulk of the next five years, and was to prove a thoroughly frustrating business.

The first question was to decide what action should be taken in response to Philip III’s summons to Edward to assist him in his Crusade against Pedro of Aragon, which summons could not now be put off on the plea of business in Wales. The outcome of discussions over the holiday seems to have been a decision to cross to France for a face-to-face meeting with Philip; either to assist him, or more likely to try to stop the war. So the party performed a sweep through the south of England, arriving at Dover in late January. The plan seems to have been abandoned – perhaps because Philip was not easily accessible, or perhaps because of news of the death of the key protagonist, Charles of Anjou on 8 January 1285. The party waited at Canterbury and Leeds until mid-February, making offerings for peace and reconciliation at the altars of St Thomas and St Adrian of Canterbury. As news was still awaited, they moved on, spending the time until mid-April in Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

This stay, as usual, afforded access to Eleanor’s current and contemplated properties in the area. These included new properties in each county which had been acquired as part of the February 1284 review and further Cambridgeshire properties of Robert de Crevequer, which would be acquired later in 1285. It is therefore hardly surprising to see a two-week stay at Eleanor’s property at Burgh – or indeed a one-day stay at her new Foulmire property. The trip also permitted a visit to Walsingham and Bromholm, again in hopes of assisting the prospects of peace in Sicily and Aragon. But the international question was still further complicated by the death of another player in the Aragonese crisis: Pope Martin IV died in March, and was replaced by Honorius IV in April.¹

While nothing was plainly happening fast in Europe, the May parliament provided an opportunity to celebrate the Welsh victory with the people of London and a huge show was accordingly put on. On 4 May 1285 the king and queen, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury carrying the Cross of Neith, set off on foot from the Tower for Westminster Abbey, accompanied by the major magnates and fourteen bishops. At the abbey the cross was offered on the high altar. After the official celebration, it was the turn of Parliament, which dealt formally with the issue of the French summons to serve in the campaign against Aragon. It was concluded that service should be delayed until the French had made good on their treaty obligations and, so that there should be no further opportunity offered to them to fudge that issue, that a commission should be appointed to resolve outstanding issues.²

With this settled, plans began to be made for the crossing to France. But for some reason the departure was again delayed. It seems likely that news reached England that the French king had already set off on his Crusade, having plundered Elne in late May. The party was again left waiting in the South: the feast of St Thomas Becket in July was marked at Canterbury Cathedral by the presentation at the shrine of gold figures of St Edward the Confessor, St John, St George and his horse, and a week was taken at Leeds Castle. There was also time for a short excursion into Sussex to inspect new acquisitions in the county and in Chichester. During this stay, Eleanor bought a sizeable strip of land adjoining the grounds of the Dominican friary, which was then in the process of being established, and gave it to them. A further grant of land was made to them before departure to France the next year.

Her own property affairs also bear every sign of being readied for immediate departure if that became necessary, because there are two groups of acquisitions – one in June and one in July. In June, we see Eleanor acquiring Washlingstone and Littlefield in Kent for her life. In July, Robert le Crevequer seems to have surrendered a piece of his own property in Cambridgeshire and arranged for the sale of a neighbouring piece of land with it. At the same time, Eleanor acquired a manor in Rutland, near her north Northampton holdings, and was appointed to the custody of the counties of Dorset and Somerset.³

Then the family moved on into Wiltshire, visiting Henry III’s favourite palace of Clarendon and Amesbury Abbey. There young Mary – only just seven years old – was veiled as a nun on 15 August 1285, accompanied by thirteen other girls from aristocratic families. Among them was probably her cousin Eleanor of Brittany, who showed more aptitude than Mary for the religious life; she would later become Abbess of Fontevrault. The timing of this enclosure was perhaps partly brought about because Eleanor of Provence was apparently ill at Amesbury at this time; since she was now sixty-two years of age, it may have been felt that she was not long for the world. But equally it seems likely that Edward and Eleanor wanted to be present for this major event in their daughter’s life, before they departed for a lengthy stay in France.⁴

Autumn was spent predominantly in the Hampshire area. There were two special points of interest in this period. The first was the stay in Winchester for which the great Winchester Round Table was created. In fact, there were two Winchester stays this autumn, the one in September apparently providing the occasion for the tournament – the Worcester annalist records that on the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin (8 September) the king created forty-four knights at Winchester. While the event has acquired a romantic Arthurian patina, it had, like most of the other Arthurian events, a more hard-edged practical side. Edward had been seeking to boost the numbers of men taking up the status of knighthood, following a drastic fall in knights, from around 4,000 at the start of the century, to somewhere around 1,500 in the 1280s – of whom only a minority were actual fighting knights. To achieve this, he had adopted a mixture of carrot and stick tactics. Thus he made an order that all men with lands worth more than £100 per year and so eligible for knighthood should come before him to be knighted; but he sweetened the pill by making it an extremely high-status occasion.

So the beautiful new table – five and a half metres in diameter and three quarters of a ton in weight – was crafted and put into place. The royal family was put under a three-line whip: the king and queen, the older princesses, John of Brittany, John of Brabant and the new nun, Princess Mary, were all present. It is interesting, given Eleanor’s impending forty-fourth birthday, that the number of knights made echoed her age; perhaps another of the thoughtful gestures in which Edward improbably excelled. The Statute of Winchester was promulgated later, on 8 October 1285, in a second and separate stay. The intervening period was spent between Micheldever, Wootton and Woodmancott – close to some of the Walerand manors which Eleanor had in her eye for future acquisition, and which were duly acquired in her absence in Gascony.⁵

The second notable event of the period was the royal party’s first stay on the Isle of Wight. If one were perhaps to wonder what sent the royal party to the Isle of Wight at this time, the reader may by now guess the answer. In 1284, Eleanor had acquired a manor at Swainstone on the Isle of Wight. This manor was duly the royal base for the stay on the island.

The latter part of the year took the royal travellers into the West Country, Eleanor having been appointed to custody of the counties of Dorset and Somerset in summer, and having both long-standing and more recent acquisitions in those counties, as well as dower properties to inspect. Another stay was made at Eleanor’s property of Camel as part of this trip. Edward will also have been interested to inspect progress on his new town (daringly called Newton) on the shores of Poole Harbour; orders for the detailed laying out of the town were given in January 1286, before the royal party left Exeter. The primary impetus for this latter visit seems to have been an appeal to the king for justice from the family of a murdered precentor of the cathedral at Exeter. The case, in which the Mayor of Exeter and the Dean of the Cathedral were among the accused, had mysteriously failed to progress, and the family sought justice from the top. The king, reflecting his coronation manifesto of law and order, came to hear the trial personally, taking off only Christmas Day itself. However, Edward did not neglect his domestic duties either: for Christmas, Eleanor received from him a cup of gold worth £24, and a gold pitcher decorated with jewels and enamels.⁶

But among this domestic business, international news came at last: Philip III of France died of dysentery in early October 1285 in the course of his disastrous ‘Crusade’. It was closely followed by the death on 11 November 1285 of Pedro of Aragon. Eleanora was now, in name at least, Queen of Aragon. What is more, in the course of 1285, all the principal players – Philip of France, Pedro of Aragon, Charles of Anjou and Pope Martin IV – had died. There was now, therefore, a natural point at which attempts could be made to settle the disputes between the parties. Edward, who had been appealed to earlier in the dispute by both sides to act as a mediator, was the ideal person to try to bring about an accommodation. Further, he was now at liberty to so; and with a number of very real incentives.

The first was that of saving his eldest daughter’s marriage and thus providing Gascony with a good neighbour. The second, effectively the correlate of the first, was keeping France out of Aragon. The Aragonese marriage had been recommended by the need to keep a potentially difficult neighbour sweet; however, even at their worst, the Aragonese would hardly be so undesirable as neighbours as a French fief. Were the Crusade to succeed, and France to take Aragon, Gascony would effectively be encircled by France – a position not to be contemplated if anything could be done to avoid it. The third incentive, of course, was to save his amiable cousin Charles of Salerno from captivity.

So the arrangements for diplomatic activity began to be reanimated at once, and before the end of 1285 Edward had made arrangements for the despatch of Otho de Grandison and Henry Cobham to Rome. This time, there was no evasion from France. On the contrary, an embassy came early in the year, urging Edward to come to France as soon as he could and attempt to bring about a peace. The long-delayed trip was therefore back on.⁷

For Eleanor, this naturally meant trying to tidy up her various landholdings and bring into ownership any purchases which could be finalised in good time. February seems to have been the prime period for this, although a few deals trickled on into the later months. In the January–February period, Eleanor acquired new properties in Buckingham, Essex, the Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire and Sussex.⁸

There was time for a trip in February to Langley to the younger children, and then a move to London (probably accompanied by the nursery party) for the parliament at the end of February. This parliament had eyes cast abroad in anticipation of the royal visit, for the status of Gascony formed part of the topic of debate. Also coming to the fore was the question of the proposed Scottish match for young Edward: Alexander III died on 19 March 1286, and once it was clear that his young widow, Yolande de Dreux, would not provide a posthumous heir, young Edward’s intended bride, Margaret of Norway, was confirmed as Queen of Scotland, opening the vista of a peaceful annexation of Scotland, to complete the conquest of Britain.

Within this period the royal family, despite the press of business, found time for what at first appear to be two boating trips for simple pleasure: one at the end of February to Brentford, for which two barges were handsomely fitted up, and a more substantial trip in April to Gravesend, in which the king and queen travelled by barge and the princesses by ship.

It may be, though, that the limited programme of this period and the boat trips are both markers of the beginnings of Eleanor’s move into the ill health which was henceforth to plague her. Until 1285, despite almost constant childbearing and a busy programme of national and international travel, she seems to have enjoyed robust good health. From this point on, however, her health seems to have become decidedly unsatisfactory. Certainly there are signs that she had an illness in the winter of 1285–6, as medicines were provided for her several times, including in February. The illness seems to have lingered: in March a mensura – a wax candle of the same height as the subject, which was burned before a favourite saint – was purchased. This could indicate continuing illness or recovery, but in April there is another record of medicines being sent for, which indicates the former is more probable.⁹

Despite ill health and all the preparations, there was the usual spring trip to Quenington and Down Ampney in the Cotswolds, emphasising the fondness which the king and queen had for this location, plus short stops in Chichester, Langley and Westminster. At the latter stop Edmund of Cornwall, Edward’s double cousin – Richard of Cornwall’s son by Eleanor of Provence’s sister – was placed in charge of the realm. Then, after stops at Leeds and Canterbury, the party reached Dover, where the queen mother and princesses assembled to see them off. The party finally departed for Wissant, still a favoured crossing point from England, on 13 May 1286 – about a year later than originally intended. The plan was probably to make a stay abroad of no more than a year; in fact they were not to return for over three years – and the group which returned would be sadly diminished.

The party was substantial and included key friends and advisers such as Robert Burnell and John de Vescy, as well as the Lancasters, and the earls of Lincoln, Gloucester and Pembroke. The transfer was conducted over a period of about four days, with some of the ships making three crossings in that time. The need for this becomes clearer when one appreciates that the core group was supported by a thousand horses and eight ships of kitchen equipment. On arrival, Edward collected the recent communications to him from Charles of Salerno’s sons and his people of Provence, as well as news of his designation as Alphonso’s agent for making a truce. Less welcome was the news that Pope Honorius had stated that the dispensation which had been granted for Eleanora’s marriage did not apply to a union with the family of the late King of Aragon. For Eleanor, there seem to have been family meetings: the wardrobe book reveals gifts to her French Fiennes relatives and to her distant cousin the lord de la Plaunche, whose children now joined Eleanor’s household.¹⁰

On arrival, the royal party proceeded to Amiens to meet the new eighteen-year-old French King, Philip IV ‘le Bel’ (the Fair) of France. This was in some ways quite a family occasion. Philip was the son of Edward’s cousin, and, as the son also of Isabelle of Aragon, the nephew of Eleanora’s fiancé. His thirteen-year-old wife, Jeanne of Navarre, was the daughter of Blanche of Lancaster by her first marriage. But there was a generation gap: Edward and Eleanor, now in their mid-forties, were old stagers by comparison. The conjoined royal party proceeded to Paris, where the English royals lodged at the monastery of St Germain-des-Prés, on the left bank of the Seine. June and July were then spent in Paris with much socialising, including a banquet on the Feast of the Trinity which cost £151, and also, it would seem, plenty of shopping – jewels were sent home to the princesses and a crown of sapphires, emeralds, rubies and pearls, given by the King of France, was sent on to Eleanora. Edward gave Eleanor some gold cloths and the crystal and jasper chess set which the Master of the Temple gave him.

The party also probably took the opportunity to visit the Sainte-Chapelle where France’s kings and some of their privileged great were buried. Isabelle of Aragon had received a lovely tomb here – a sparkling white marble effigy evoking her youth and beauty. Alphonse of Brienne also lay here; as did his sister Marie. Most of the kings had received similar treatment to Isabelle – striking tomb effigies in marble or polished stone, arranged in orderly ranks. But the greatest of them, including Philip Augustus, Charles the Bald and Louis VIII, were given a special treatment: their tombs featured gilded bronze images.

As well as pleasure and sightseeing, there was plenty of business. Homage had to be performed to the new king for the lands held from him, including Eleanor’s territory of Ponthieu, and more carefully, in the light of the position under the Treaty of Paris, for Gascony. And, of course, there was the small detail of a truce between France and Aragon which had to be ironed out. However, with plenty of willingness on both sides to create a period for discussion of the issues, Edward received all the authorities he needed and a year’s truce was duly agreed in late July.¹¹

Immediately with the prospect of negotiations for peace, there also came discussions about the fulfilment of Eleanora’s marriage; Alphonso, looking to rivet English interests to his, wrote to Edward to seek his co-operation in bringing this about as soon as Edward arrived in Paris. Edward, in turn, promised that once the truce was in place he would seek a dispensation from the Pope, with a view to sending Eleanora to her husband, and a meeting then took place between Edward and his nominal son-in-law. But when Otho de Grandison reappeared from Rome, carrying a yet further reiteration of the papal veto against the Aragonese marriage, it was plain that the dispensation was unlikely to be forthcoming, at least until Alphonso made peace with the papacy. The focus therefore shifted to negotiating a treaty which could bring this about.

There were also, as always, issues in Gascony, which were brought to Paris for the purpose of getting a head start on the business of the Gascon part of the trip. But here there was not only business for the king. It would seem that Eleanor was actually conducting Gascon business for Edward on her own – the Gascon Rolls report Edward ratifying an agreement reached between the Crown and the Viscount of Fronsac through ‘our dearest consort Eleanor’ – the result of yet another of Eleanor’s forays as an arbitrator. It seems that a dispute between Edward and the viscount had resulted in a decision on liability, and the question of the assessment of the amount of the claim, which concerned property values, was remitted by consent to Eleanor. Away from her property interests, Eleanor was therefore making herself useful effectively as Edward’s deputy in business concerning Gascony, and obviously was considered sufficiently knowledgeable on property matters to reach an appropriate result.

This overt exercise of royal power came at a time when Eleanor will finally have felt her position as queen to be unchallenged; Eleanor of Provence, now aged sixty-two, had finally taken the veil at Amesbury on 7 July. From this point on, her correspondence (though still active and demonstrating a will to exert influence) is almost always commenced ‘Eleanor, humble nun of the order of Fontevrault of the order of Amesbury’; the claim to be Eleanor, Queen of England, is dropped at last. Yet not quite all was rosy; July also saw medicines being paid for on Eleanor’s behalf.¹²

The Paris visit also offers one of the most interesting vignettes of the royal couple. Apparently, one day Edward and Eleanor were sitting by a window and chatting together in a room with some of their attendants when a bolt of lightning passed through the window between them, and actually struck two attendants, who were killed instantly. Trivet, writing for Mary, regarded the incident as interesting mostly from the perspective of the royal couple’s escape as a sure sign of divine favour. However, more compelling is the intimate domestic portrait painted by the incident: the royal couple, together among a crowd and absorbed in each other’s company, present an irresistibly romantic picture which verifies the existence of a continually engaging and interesting marriage.

In August, having achieved the truce, Edward and Eleanor took their leave of the French court and began to make their way to Gascony, at no great pace. Part of the delay is attributable to a certain amount of sightseeing; the route took them via Pontigny, where Edmund of Abingdon, the Archbishop of Canterbury who baptised Edward, was buried and thence along the beauties of the Loire via Blois, Amboise and Langeais to the family burial centre at Fontevrault. The party reached Saintes around the middle of September and the remainder of that month and the first part of October were spent in inspecting the territories reclaimed under the finalised Treaty of Paris – principally in the area between Saintes and Saint Pierre d’Oleron.¹³

Yet part of the delay in reaching Gascony was apparently attributable to ill health generally among the travelling party: the wardrobe records evidence repeated purchases of medicines for its members and provision for care for those who had to be left behind, though the nature of the malaise is not clear. And Eleanor did not escape: in among the other medical expenses there are payments for medicines and syrups bought for Eleanor ‘at Saintes and elsewhere’, implying a fairly lengthy period of illness or repeated episodes of illness within a short period.¹⁴

Thus it was only in late October that the group reached Libourne, a bastide founded by the late Roger Leyburn in 1270, during his tenure as Seneschal in Gascony. From there the party continued touring the newly conceded lands: the itinerary which can be reconstructed for November shows stops in and around Bergerac, before heading further inland and south via Cadouin and Monpazier. The latter is a bastide which has, over time, proved one of the best advertisements for Edward’s scheme of ‘bastidisation’ – the seeding of new bastide towns throughout the region. It survives in charmingly picturesque fashion to this day, and visitors can even explore it from the Hotel Edouard Ier. At the time of Edward and Eleanor’s 1286 visit, however, it was simply one among a number of fledging bastide towns; Edward had founded it only the year before and it was presumably still in the course of construction – though sufficiently far advanced for an overnight stay. From there, the party went on to Agen via Villeneuve-sur-Lot, arriving late in the month, before exploring the eastern borders of the Agenais at Roquecor and Montsempron, returning to Agen in the middle of the month.

The mobile nature of the trip provides an opportunity to mention an ongoing theme in the household accounts throughout the time in Gascony: horses and their equipment are key. Again and again, horses (white, bay, ‘morello’ or dark bay and more) are bought and sold, harness is repaired, or new harness bought. On one occasion Eleanor even sends all the way to England for some particularly favoured piece of harness; the keen horsewoman’s conviction that a particular mount will go best under the guidance of a key piece of kit speaks to us clearly. The impression conveyed, when glancing through the household records, is that the mobile court was akin to a travelling hunt, with the officers in charge of the horses very much the heart of day-to-day business, and discussion of all matters equine being a running theme.

The mobile nature of this phase of the trip also seems to indicate that the health of the party generally and Eleanor in particular had improved. But the respite was temporary; again at Agen there are records of medicines and syrups being purchased for the queen, revealing that her health was again giving trouble. The travelling and her ill health did not, however, stop Eleanor from keeping up with her work; her correspondence with her office in England proceeded alongside her despatches for harness, and in November there are records of her acquiring a wardship in Essex. It was probably also at around this time that Eleanor learnt that Hugh Despenser, the stepson of the Earl of Norfolk, had married Isabel Beauchamp without royal licence. As Eleanor had the wardship of the lands of Isabel’s first husband, this affected her business; and out of sight was emphatically not out of mind: she demanded recompense in the sum of 1,000 marks from Despenser – a debt which he acknowledged early in the new year, pledging lands as security.¹⁵

Christmas was spent in the familiar surroundings of the priory of Saint-Macaire near Bordeaux. The holiday was observed with the usual celebrations, with the priory hall serving as the king’s great hall and a large bill for candles being run up. The incorrigible Gaston de Béarn (now in his early sixties) gave a vastly suitable present of chargers for the king and queen, and Anthony Bek gave a hound – a present more likely to please Eleanor than Edward. So too was Edmund of Lancaster’s gift effectively a gift for Eleanor – a quantity of Brie cheese, doubtless sourced through his wife’s contacts. All of these tend to indicate that pleasing Eleanor was very much a priority for the court. It was perhaps on this occasion that the pleasing Limoges-made clasp featuring her arms was given to Eleanor. And more general jollification was plainly in order, too. Echoing the parties of the Welsh tour, there was much music; 125 minstrels were paid for performing over the holiday period. It would seem likely that the peaceful routine of the abbey was much disturbed by their distinguished guests. Among these was a new face – Marie of Brittany, daughter of Edward’s sister Beatrice, who seems to have joined the court (with her substantial household) following the death of her father and to have stayed mostly at court until Eleanor’s death.¹⁶

January 1287 was spent in and around Bordeaux, in particular at Blanquefort, slightly north-west of Bordeaux, where there appears to have been a congenial residence, at some point conveyed to Eleanor, to which the party were to return repeatedly. In February, there was a trip beginning along the left bank and progressing to the mouth of the great river at Soulac opposite Royan. As with the similar Llŷn peninsular trip in Wales, offerings were made at the great altar of the Virgin Mary. This trip, or part of it, apparently involved hunting rather unusual prey: wolves. Although Eleanor’s presence at the wolf hunt is not specifically mentioned, she was obviously part of the group involved in this tour, and, particularly given her own fondness for hunting, it is likely that she participated.

At around this time, there are reports in the English chronicles that Edward fell seriously ill but was restored by the good offices of his physicians; however, the absence of matching references in the household books and the existence of the February tour tend to contradict this story.

The first part of March was spent in Bordeaux, followed by another mini-tour, with a river trip from Barsac to Langon, before heading inland to Bazas (where the king and queen made donations at the great altar) and Uzeste, after which they returned to Bordeaux. April and May then appear to have been spent in or around Bordeaux, again with a good deal of time spent at Blanquefort. The king and queen are spotted in the wardrobe accounts passing a place called Lesparre on their return from an excursion, giving gifts to people of the village for losses which they had sustained through the passage of the court through their lands.¹⁷

In spring (reportedly on Easter Sunday, 6 April), there was another piece of high drama. Edward was standing with some others in a solar at the top of a tower when the floor beneath them suddenly gave way, and they fell a distance somewhat improbably described as being eighty feet. Three knights were killed and Edward was recovered, with a broken collarbone, from beneath a Gascon knight.

It seems likely that the three dramatic incidents so far described for this year (Paris lightning, Edward’s illness at Blanquefort and the collapsing building) are accounts of two incidents, not three, with the illness being a misreporting of some indisposition following the Easter fall. Indeed, it would actually be tempting to say that only one could be true and that either this fall or the earlier Paris lightning strike is accurate, but not both; two such dramatic incidents in under a year would seem like outrageous bad luck. However, the Trivet account should probably be believed, since Trivet wrote for Mary and he is likely to have had accounts of dramatic incidents at least in the direct family oral tradition.

As for the collapse, the records of the household certainly lend credence to something dramatic happening, albeit a little earlier than Easter – they show Eleanor paying John de Montfort’s sick bill at Bordeaux in April, and making offerings for the funeral of Morris ap David of Wales at Bordeaux in March 1287. There is no record, however, of Edward’s illness at this time, and it seems permissible to infer a much smaller fall, with fairly minor cuts and bruises to Edward. All the same, this incident must have added to the sense of high drama, and perhaps misfortune, that was gathering about the party involved in this expedition.¹⁸

The next phase of the diplomatic circus began in early April, showing that throughout this hiatus period the diplomatic process had been moving on. Ambassadors arrived from Aragon in a delegation of over eighty men. Progress was made, and in May the embassy departed with John de Vescy to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Alphonso. At around the same time, news arrived that financial terms had been reached with Pope Honorius for Edward’s Crusade; and thus on 12 May, either at Bordeaux or Blanquefort, he and his companions made crusading vows to the Archbishop of Ravenna.¹⁹

At about this time, in accordance with papal views or with a view to assisting directly in the financing of the Crusade, Edward ordered the arrest of the Jews in England, who were later released on payment of a fine of 20,000 marks. Also at this time, and probably with similar motives, Edward ordered the expulsion of the Jews from Gascony and the seizure of their assets by the Crown. The crackdown on the Jews by Edward, of which this really marks the beginning, has attracted to him considerable odium. It should be noted, however, that neither the expulsion or the arrest was a unique occurrence; as well as the expulsion by Eleanor of Provence from her dower lands, Jews in France were coming under increasing pressure owing to papal influence, with expulsions from Poitou and Moissac in 1249 and 1271 and from Maine and Anjou within a short space of time. Even Alfonso X had arrested his Jewish population while under financial pressure in the political upheavals towards the end of his life. Given her own approach in business and the trend even in Castile, it seems likely that so long as the financial case pointed to the expediency of the new approach, Eleanor was untroubled by its implementation.²⁰

For a few weeks, the party was doubtless exalted by the favourable crusading prospect which had opened. But almost at once it transpired that Pope Honorius had died before the oath was taken, and an agreement would have to be made with the new Pope – once he was eventually chosen.

Alongside the diplomatic circus and the crusading preparations, Eleanor was still maintaining her business interests. In May, she plainly had an emissary from her office at home, as on 17 May she acquired a fairly extensive package of properties in Devon, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and Wiltshire. A few further properties in Buckinghamshire and Macclesfield were then added early in June, presumably before the return of the same emissary to England.

Yet still there was time for more personal issues. Poignantly, on 29 May 1287 we find Eleanor observing the anniversary of the death of her first daughter in the church of the Friars Preachers – and thereby providing the one record of that child’s existence. This event provides a suitable point for asking whether Eleanor had any further pregnancies during the Gascon trip. Her age certainly doesn’t make it impossible, and the fact that she had borne young Edward so recently might seem to suggest that more children might yet be expected. But the household records seem to negate such speculation. There are records of other childbeds being paid for by Eleanor; three members of her household gave birth during the final year of the trip. But no such records exist for Eleanor. It seems likely that Eleanor’s increasingly frail health either precluded conception or had tipped her into the menopause. It is unlikely that the end of her childbearing years, after the bearing of some sixteen children and the loss of ten of them, was any great grief to Eleanor; there is a strong sense that (save as to the conception) this was the least congenial of her roles as queen. However, both she and Edward will have been concerned that the result was to leave the throne dependent on the health of the worryingly young Edward junior.²¹

While the major preoccupation for the Gascon stay was the question of Aragon, genuine Gascon issues of moment also demanded attention. One major topic was the charge of misconduct which was brought against Jean de Grailly, Edward’s long-time trusted associate and co-campaigner in the Crusade of the 1270s, as seneschal of Gascony. A full commission, featuring the Bishop of Norwich, John de Vescy, Otho de Grandison and Robert Burnell, inquired minutely into the charges in late spring and early summer of 1287, and found them proved. De Grailly was ordered to make full restitution and to lose all his lands in Gascony.

Eleanor and Edward, though doubtless kept up to date by regular bulletins, were not present for this inquiry. They spent the early part of June at Blanquefort before moving towards Bayonne and then inland to Lucq de Béarn in the Pyrenees in early July.

During this period, Eleanor’s ill health reappeared – there are again records of medicines for her being purchased in June and July 1287 – and, unusually, it appears that Edward was also ill in June, since electuaries and syrups were said to be for both king and queen. While it is tempting to translate the mention of syrups into modern terms and hypothesise a summer cold or flu, this is not a safe assumption. Syrups were the means of delivering any number of unpalatable medicines, just as they are now for children. Eleanor’s illness appears to have been more serious and worrying, for in late June payments were made for two boys to hold vigil around mensura candles for the queen at the chapel of St Thomas in Bordeaux. It was therefore perhaps to tempt the elusive appetite of the invalid that one of her staff purchased a number of damson plums for her at this time.²²

Meanwhile, the negotiations for a French–Aragonese peace were progressing, the chief sticking point being the release of Charles of Salerno. Following the return of John de Vescy in early June, preparations began to be made for a meeting at Oloron-Sainte-Marie in Béarn in July. The records of the household contain endless small details of the planning which went into the meeting – the transporting of furniture, the guiding of the royal party, the provision of supplies and so forth. Amusingly, and consistent with practice elsewhere, this involved a degree of planning for Eleanor’s gardening interests; in readiness for her arrival, work was proceeding in June on a herbarium for her garden at Mauléon. This garden was presumably sited at the strong fortress which gives its name to the town, strategically placed on the road to Spain and dominating the valley of Soule, which Edward had bought from a reluctant Viscount of Soule back in 1261.

The meeting commenced in the middle of the month. Alphonso of Aragon and his party were given the local monastery for their lodging, while the English royal party roughed it in such other lodgings as the little town afforded. Ten days were spent in lavish hospitality – feasting, dancing and jousting all played a part, with gardens and vineyards being levelled for the games and melees. Edward even sourced a lion from somewhere (for what purpose history does not relate), and it escaped and killed a horse. Meanwhile, two of Alphonso’s Saracen followers ran away.

To some extent, all this sweetening of the Aragonese paid off: on 25 July a treaty was signed which gave a three-year truce and provided for the release of Charles and his procuring of the recognition of Alphonso as King of Aragon by the King of France and the Pope. Despite the marriage link, and all Edward and Eleanor’s work, there was little romance in Alphonso’s approach. It can be seen from the terms of the treaty that he was playing rough about the return of Charles; the terms demanded the surrender, before his release, of two of Charles’ sons (Louis, the future saint and Bishop of Toulouse, and Robert, the future King of Naples), the additional surrender of his eldest son, Charles Martel, within ten months, with the fifth son, Raymond Berengar, standing hostage for his brother in the interim. Provence was pledged against the securing of the necessary recognitions. Nor was this all. There were to be hostages in the form of sixty firstborn sons of the nobility of Provence. Charles was also to deposit securities to the value of 50,000 marks, of which 30,000 was to be in cash and the remainder provided by Edward. The marriage did creep into the terms: Edward was also to seek the consent of the next Pope to Eleonora’s marriage to Alphonso, and the terms of the marriage contract were finally drawn up.²³

The strength of Edward’s desire to see the marriage brought about can be gauged by his agreement to these terms, in particular the hard-cash element, when he was himself as pressed for money as ever; mere fondness for Charles of Salerno is unlikely to have prompted Edward to such generosity. Quite why the treaty did not bear fruit is unclear; a number of reasons seem to have been in play, including Charles’ difficulties in finding the requisite cash, Philip of France’s vehement opposition to the pledge of Provence, and the eventual papal opposition once the new Pope Nicholas was installed in February of the next year. But as a result, in late 1287 or early 1288, the English mediators were back somewhere very close to square one.

Of course, this was all in the future when, in the wake of the treaty, the royal party left Oloron on 5 August. They then stayed at Mauléon (complete with herbarium) until 19 August. Local records suggest that this was a visit of considerable size and moment, marking the agreement of Eleanora’s dowry, with carpenters and masons preceding the party by some weeks and making considerable improvements, before the royal suite, and finally the royal party themselves, arrived. During the stay there were a number of festivities – jousts, tourneys and banquets, plus a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Engrace. Gifts were given by Alphonso, including two superb Arab stallions for Edward; one may perhaps doubt whether Eleanor, that keen connoisseur of horseflesh, was overjoyed with her present – a mule.²⁴

After the festivities were over, the party moved on to Sauveterre-de-Béarn and Dax in September, before visiting the Abbey of Saint-Sever for October. From here Eleanor despatched her knight Richard de Bures on her behalf to visit the shrine of Santiago de Compostela. It may well be supposed that he was charged to ask for the saint’s intercession both in the matter of Eleanor’s health and the continuing political crisis. Meanwhile, they king and queen continued to conduct the business of Gascony, receiving petitioners and issuing charters from the abbey.

A meeting of this sort, which probably was of little moment to Eleanor or Edward at the time, but which casts an interesting shadow over the future, also took place on 27 October; they received one Arnald de Gaveston, who had served Edward in the Welsh wars and was now seeking to establish his claims to his late wife’s lands. The records do not say whether Arnald brought his son Piers, a boy of about the same age as young Edward of Caernarfon, to be presented to the king and queen. However, the close contact which Edward and Eleanor had with Arnald will have paved the way for this ill-fated addition to their son’s household in due course.

In late 1287 Eleanor’s health seems to have been more robust, since in November a further tour was made in the direction of Pau before returning to Uzeste and then to Blanquefort in December. It was in December, however, that signs re-appear of Eleanor’s illness; she is then described as suffering from a ‘double quartan fever’. This is a fever pattern where two days of fever symptoms are followed by one day of remission, in contrast to a traditional quartan fever, which would give a single day of fever with two days of remission, the fever recurring on the fourth day. Parsons suggests that this was probably malaria, which was not uncommon in France in the period, but in the light of the time of year and previous illnesses, this is by no means certain.²⁵

Despite her distance from home and her ill health over winter, Eleanor was again reviewing her properties in England. In January she acquired a package of farmland in Norfolk. Sometime later in the year this was supplemented with the substantial acquisition of the Walerand lands, useful holdings over five counties for which she had already acquired complementary properties. And she had also, in November of the previous year, effectively enforced her claim against Hugh Despenser, taking his property at Bollington near Macclesfield.²⁶

In spring 1288, with little to do while negotiations still dragged on, one can find what may be one of the most sentimental gestures which remain in the records of Edward and Eleanor’s time together: according to most scholars, during this period Edward built Eleanor a bastide. The evidence for this is that in the early part of the year messages cease to be directed from Bordeaux and start to be directed ‘Burgum Reginae’ (in French Bourg La Reine); and there are certain entries in the household accounts which refer to the queen’s bastide of Burgus Reginae. The problem is that no one knows where this is. Various suggestions have been dismissed. Trabut-Cussac’s suggestion is that it probably denotes the hamlet known as La Bastide, in the commune of Labarde on the west bank, directly opposite the junction of the Garonne and the Dordogne. Yet there is no real material in its favour: nothing remains on this site to show whether a town ever lay here, and analysis of aerial photos and historical maps has proved completely undemonstrative. Generally, scholars have adopted his suggestion in default of a better one, since there is no lack of ‘disappeared’ bastides – Robert Burnell’s ‘Baa’, for example.

It is, however, possible that there was no new bastide at all, and that this was a joke. There are three factors which suggest this as a possibility. The first is that there is no practically record of work on Burgus Reginae before the court is apparently settled there and doing business. The first mention of the town in despatches comes in March 1288; the first records of expenditure on building are only in January of the same year. It is hard to believe that even Edward and Eleanor, with a tolerance for building sites unusual in royalty, could have set their court down, practically in a field, and operated from there for months at a time, with the first building works going on around them. This is still more so in that Eleanor’s health was, as we have seen, not as robust as it once had been, and there were plenty of more comfortable places within easy travelling distance of the speculative site of the town where the court could have based itself.

The second is the relative paucity of builders’ bills for the town. If Edward was building a town from scratch, one would expect many references to expenditure within the household records – or even an assigned roll, as there was for some of the work in Wales. However, there are relatively few references to works at Burgus Reginae – and there is relatively little money heading in that direction. Indeed – and this is significant – there are about four or five times as many records of work at Bonnegarde en Chalosse, a town founded remotely by Edward in 1283 and on which further work was commenced in the period of the royal stay of 1286–9.

The third is a potential alternative location for Edward and Eleanor’s stay: the town of Bourg-sur-Gironde or Bourg-sur-Mer, a strategic and ancient town fifteen miles north-east of Bordeaux, near the point of land formed by the junction with the River Garonne, possessed of a tidal harbour and the recent recipient of works on its fortifications which involved a bastide-like closing of the walls. This town’s name would readily lend itself to the joke of Burgus Reginae (literally translated ‘the town of the queen’), a reflection of the court’s favourite spring venue in England of Quenington – now being missed for the second year in a row.

Bourg, which was visited by Edward and Eleanor on their first visit to Gascony in July 1255, is now partially subsumed in the sprawl of Bordeaux, but still exists, with some beautiful medieval stonework. Three factors other than its name suggest it as the place mentioned. First, there is one reference in the records during the ‘Burgus Reginae’ period to documents being issued at Bourg-sur-Gironde. Secondly, later materials establish that Burgus Reginae had a port, at least by 1301. Thirdly, there are references to Burgus Reginae sending wine to England, and Bourg-sur-Gironde has had a thriving wine trade almost since time immemorial. The evidence from the Gascon Rolls is ambivalent. There is a reference to sending wines to ‘nove bastide Burgum Reginae’, but at the same time the message refers to Pierre de la Roquetaillade – who was castellan of Bourg-sur-Gironde. Moreover, the absence of any other reference to Burgus Reginae in the Gascon Rolls, when there was plainly a considerable stay, is suggestive.²⁷

The remainder of spring 1288 was spent in the vicinity of Bordeaux, with a few small visits nearby; but again the court returned to the city in time for the anniversary of the death of Anonyma, before moving off southwards in June via Dax and Bayonne back to Oloron, where most of July was spent.²⁸

Eleanor continued to correspond regarding her properties throughout this period, and in June she acquired further lands: manors at Lockerly and Avon in Hampshire. However, the indications are that, despite this and despite the healthy location high in the Pyrenees (which now abounds in spa towns), Eleanor’s health was deteriorating further. From early August we find her based in Asasp-Arros on the road to Urdos near the border, where she was again unwell – syrups and other medicines bought in Bayonne were brought to her by her doctor, Peter of Portugal. Significantly, while Edward went on to Urdos, arriving on 28 August, and thence to Jacca in Aragon, Eleanor is recorded from 30 August to late September in a place variously described as Montyor, Montoyar, Montyor, Mountinor. This location is mysterious. It could be, as Trabut-Cussac suggests, Montaner, just north of Tarbes, but in context such a significant move seems unlikely, particularly when we next find Eleanor with Edward at Oloron at the end of September. More likely, particularly given one reference in the household records is to ‘Montan de Aspe’, is that it is a small place on or near the road somewhere between Asasp-Arros and Oloron which has since ceased to exist.²⁹

On 28 October 1288, the waiting finally came to an end; a replacement for the Treaty of Oloron-Sainte-Marie was signed at Canfranc in Aragon, just on the far side of the Gascon border. Edward certainly attended. Whether Eleanor accompanied him is unclear, but in the absence of any references to her elsewhere, and in the light of the fact that this was a major event, it is probably safe to infer that she did. Under this treaty, the Sicilian question was ignored and the bulk of the liabilities of Charles as to hostages and financial securities were to be discharged initially by Edward. Charles was put under an obligation to procure peace for Aragon with the Pope and the King of France within three years. Seventy-six hostages, including three of Charles’s sons, numerous important Gascons (among them Gaston de Béarn and Arnald de Gaveston) and some leading lights of the English court (including Otho de Grandison and John de Vescy) were to be sent to Aragon as hostages. Edward was to provide 23,000 marks of silver at once and Gaston de Béarn was required to pledge most of his lands as security for the payment of the remaining 7,000 marks.

At Oloron in mid-October a grand cavalcade was formed up and marched down to the road towards and past Urdos and over the border to Canfranc, where they were received by Alphonso – doubtless with his own extensive retinue. In the days which followed, there was a series of meetings, at which the completed web of agreements, guarantees, counter-guarantees and payments were put into place. The money (in a variety of currencies, which cannot have helped matters) had to be counted and receipted. The locations and conditions of the hostages’ custody were finalised and they bade farewell to any members of their families who had accompanied them.

Finally, however, the treaty and its subsidiary documents were completed – and this was sufficient to win the liberty of Charles of Salerno. He then returned with Edward and Eleanor and their much-diminished party to Oloron, where he executed subsidiary agreements (themselves guaranteed by an array of French and Italian nobles) to perform his obligations to the English Crown. Charles then left to return to Provence and make arrangements for the provision of the rest of his hostages, taking with him John de Vescy, who had been released early by Alphonso – very probably as a recognition of his personal work in bringing about the treaty.³⁰

The next few months, awaiting the return of the hostages, were spent predominantly at the recently improved town of Bonnegarde on the border of Béarn. The hostages were much in Eleanor’s mind – during this period she sent gifts of Brie and fruit to the families of the local lords who had stood hostage. In early February, a trip was taken to Lucq de Béarn near Oloron, where the court made offerings on the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the king and queen pressed on to Abos near the border, perhaps to meet with Aragonese representatives.

It was during this period, on 10 February 1289, that John de Vescy died at Montpelier. He was still only forty-four years old. The distressing news apparently reached the royal party – and his wife, who was in attendance on Eleanor – on 13 February, and immediate arrangements were made to send members of the household to bring back his bones to the royal party at Oloron to enable them to be taken home for burial in Alnwick Abbey. Arrangements were also made to send a priest to pray for him at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin of Rocamadour and to the monks at Oloron to say Masses for his soul. The urgency with which these steps were taken conveys something of the shock and distress which the loss of this closest of close friends must have had on Edward, Eleanor and the entire party. It was also, probably, that key point at which the first of their close contemporaries died, a point which inevitably brings intimations of mortality to those left behind. Edward, of course, was some years older than John de Vescy – approaching his fiftieth birthday. Eleanor, too, was older than de Vescy by a few years, and not in the best of health.³¹

To add bad to worse, Edward and Eleanor had to part very shortly after this, for a rare period apart. He was to press on to the border to meet the hostages. It seems to have been a mark of her own ill health that, on this occasion, Eleanor did not accompany Edward; presumably the journey through the high mountain passes in winter was considered inadvisable for her. The separation seems to have been a difficult time for the pair – one of their longest separations, coming on top of the news of John de Vescy’s death and Eleanor’s own protracted illness. Touchingly, the records show Edward sending Eleanor not just letters but also ‘gingembras’ while he was away. It is tempting to equate the latter with gingerbread, which was apparently first baked in France in the thirteenth century. However, gingembras is more likely a reference to preserved ginger, which was used as one of the more palatable medicines in the physicians’ repertoire of the time. Whichever it was, however, it bespeaks a thoughtful concern for his absent wife.

On Eleanor’s side, there is ample evidence of her missing her husband – letters to him are recorded as being sent repeatedly. But alongside this, she was plainly avid for news of the hostages – messengers were sent again and again for any rumours about the hostages, and both Edward and Robert Burnell sent her messengers back with the latest rumours they could find. Clearly Eleanor and the court around her were concerned lest more bad tidings were heading their way. And, as always, even with illness and concerns for the hostages, Eleanor continued to work: the wardrobe records contain evidence of her correspondence with her staff in England, and on 7 February 1289 she acquired a wardship of lands near Huntingdon.

Yet all was well. On 9 March, the English and Gascon hostages were released, being met at the Spanish border by Edward. And while Eleanor had held them firmly in her thoughts, it would appear that one of them, at least, Otho de Grandison, had likewise thought of her amusement while separated from her – he gave her the slightly troublesome present of a lion and a lynx, for which carriage, goat meat and a keeper had to be provided. They and their keeper, Jakemyn, were later to find their way to the Tower of London.³²

The party could now begin to make plans for a return. Unsurprisingly, after three years and the various illnesses and losses that they had brought, there seems to have been no desire to stay. William of Hotham, who appears to have been attached to the royal party for a considerable portion of the stay and who had actually turned down the honour of a second regency at the University of Paris in favour of supporting Edward and Eleanor, reported to his friend Henry Eastry, Prior of Canterbury, that the king’s stay ‘in these parts has seemed too long to both him and his’. Given William’s affiliation with the Dominicans, Eleanor’s devoted support to their order, and his previous intimacy with the pair in Wales, it seems probable that he was reporting Eleanor’s own feelings, related direct to him. It would hardly be surprising if she were keen to return home from this trip. While Edward had gained stature as a mediator, it had been at a near-ruinous financial cost; despite Charles of Salerno’s best intentions, there is no record of his ever repaying the 30,000 marks paid on his behalf by Edward.³³

The party spent April in Condom, where Eleanor, still in correspondence with her office, acquired another wardship in Kent. But judging by the wardrobe reports, which show payments to a Doctor Leopard ‘when the queen was ill in this region’, Eleanor was still not recovered. From Condom, the party began to break up, with Otho de Grandison and William of Hotham departing to negotiate with the Pope, Charles of Salerno and the leader of the Pope’s forces. The main royal party moved back into the Dordogne, staying in St Emilion and Libourne before passing on to Saintes. At Libourne there are plenty of records of loose ends being tied up – the Gascon Rolls show tens of decisions by Edward being published in mid-June.

Among them is another evidence of Eleanor’s own conduct of local business during the stay; Edward ratifies a peace which Eleanor (again ‘our most beloved consort’) had ‘made and decreed’ between two warring families, that of Amanieu de Fosse and William Raymond de Pinibus. The clear picture is that Eleanor herself was the person deputed to deal with the details of this, and authorised to effectively state terms agreeable to the Crown, with Edward ratifying the decision at a later date. Taken together with the earlier settlement negotiated by Eleanor and the absence of any remark as to these dealings, this suggests that during their Gascon stay there was a fairly active role for Eleanor in mid-level diplomatic issues, which was accepted by those around the royal couple and by petitioners. Again, as with the property transactions, Eleanor assumed an executive role in Edward’s administration without fuss and without outcry; she acted independently, but was always perceived as acting for the king.³⁴

The starting point for the return journey was to pay a short visit to Eleanor’s cousin Viscountess Jeanne at Châtellherault, after which Eleanor sent her cousin a charming guest gift of scarlet cloth and some furs. After this, in July 1289, the party set off for home, on the way taking in a number of famous shrines and relics: the relics of St Leonard at Brou near Noyant, the tear of Christ at Vendome, Sancta Camisa (or tunic of the Blessed Virgin Mary) at Chartres, unnamed relics at the Abbey of Coulombs, the Crown of Thorns and a nail from the feet of Christ at St Denis, and the head of John the Baptist at Amiens. At many of these stops, offerings were made on behalf of the royal couple’s children, proving that the family was much in their mind.³⁵

While making this pious tour, however, the patience of Edward and Eleanor with the institution of the papacy must have been sorely tried; news came just at this point that the Pope had abrogated the Treaty of Canfranc, absolved Charles of Salerno of his vows under it, crowned Charles King of Sicily and renewed the excommunication of Alphonso. To add insult to injury, he had also granted to Charles, in aid of his Crusade against Aragon, the papal tenth which had been previously collected in aid of Edward’s own proposed Crusade. All the efforts (and expense) of the past three years had apparently been for nothing. It is hardly surprising that Otho de Grandison, Edward’s ambassador to the Pope, upbraided him in round terms, stating that his king was amazed that the Pope should have encouraged the dispute rather than making some effort to bring about peace. The diatribe had some results: the Pope agreed to send an envoy to try to bring about peace. But, for the present, Canfranc remained a dead letter and Eleanora’s marriage no nearer.

The end of the month finally brought the party into Eleanor’s own county of Ponthieu, where a stay of a couple of weeks was made between the capital city of Abbeville and the Cistercian abbey of Le Gard at Picquigny (between Abbeville and Amiens). Here, the affairs of her county were reviewed, a new seneschal appointed – and Eleanor acquired a new attendant in the form of her cousin Marie de Pécquigny, before moving to Boulogne. However, even with such a pleasant family addition, it can have been with little sense of satisfaction that the party finally left France from Wissant on 12 August.³⁶