5

The First Years in England

Eleanor, now just under fourteen years old, arrived in England at Dover early in October 1255. She is reported as having come with a large retinue, probably composed of a good number of their English court from Gascony, but without either Edward or adequate smart clothing. This last lack immediately provides another insight into the how the compatible tastes of Eleanor and Edward had already manifested: while the Henrician court was a very dressy place, Edward as king eschewed royal purple or rich clothing, preferring more everyday clothes, and Eleanor also seems to have lacked a taste for expensive clothing. For her formal entry into the court, the plain attire she had brought with her was deemed completely unacceptable, and the costs of making good her wardrobe were met by her father-in-law, Henry III, who wanted her to make a good impression – not least perhaps because his own stock was currently rather low, with heated debates occurring at the October parliament over his demands for funding for his Sicilian project.

Henry therefore sent her 100 marks to purchase what she needed, and a choice of decent palfreys to ride upon. It seems likely that Henry had originally wanted to welcome Eleanor in time for the feast of St Edward on 13 October, but her late arrival and inadequate supplies made this impossible. Instead, Henry put her in the charge of the castellan of Dover Castle, Reginald de Cobham, asking him to look after her and escort her to London by way of Canterbury, where she was to spend St Edward’s Day instead in the company of, among others, Edward’s old tutor in arms, Nicholas de Molis. As well as his other gifts, he sent her a variety of offerings to be made at Canterbury ‘and other shrines along her road’: a silver alms dish, which he had ordered as long ago as July, two gold brooches for offering at the shrines of Edward the Confessor and Thomas Becket, and twelve silken cloths, six of arras and six of gold. A stop at Canterbury will have been congenial to Eleanor too, as affording an opportunity to visit the shrine of Becket, whose veneration had been introduced to the Castilian royal family by Eleanor of England.¹

Following this programme, Eleanor arrived in London on St Etheldreda’s Day, Sunday 17 October 1255. The London to which Eleanor came was a place which is difficult for us to picture, with the vision of the enormous modern city embedded firmly in our minds. Contributing to the difficulty is the absence of any contemporaneous description of the city as a whole – the nearest description is that given by William FitzStephen, Becket’s biographer, some century earlier. To bring it up to date, the best that can be done is to add details of buildings which are known to have been built in the intervening period, and vignettes which emerge from London’s administrative records.

Approaching the city as Eleanor will have done, from the south, the first thing to note is that there was effectively no London south of the river. With the exception of one or two sizeable buildings and gardens in the ownership of the Church or monastic orders, the countryside ran right up to the river – or at least to the commencement of the marshland which abutted on the river in many places. For London in the thirteenth century was a much lower-seated and more watery place than its modern incarnation, where the many streams which meandered down to the tidal Thames have been enclosed and the banks of the river built up to make flooding an almost unimaginable contingency.

The route over the river was by boat or by London Bridge – the route Eleanor will likely have used. However, the amazing view which this structure (a massive version of Florence’s Ponte Vecchio) ought to have afforded did not exist, since it was built up on either side with shops, whose rents, notionally at least, paid for the upkeep of the bridge.

On the north side of the river, the city fell effectively into three parts. The first, and only recognisably urban part, was the City of London itself, which was still substantially bounded by the Roman walls, in which six gates – Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate and St Paul’s Ludgate – provided the routes in from outside the walls (Moorgate had yet to be put in place). Outside the walls, some wharves and shipyards now extended east along the bank of the river, and some commercial development had also begun in the north-east segment, in the area known as Houndsditch. This was a rather marshy area, which attracted crowds for skating during the winter months. There were also some more elegant developments a little outside the city wall to the north, before the commencement of fields, pastures and watermills leading to the great forest of Hampstead, which contained deer, boar and even wild bulls. The Knights of St John, the Benedictines and the Carthusians had all set up substantial priories to the north-west towards Clerkenwell, and we know that at some point in the thirteenth century the bishops of Ely and the earls of Gloucester built their own palaces at Ely Place and Clerkenwell.

On the eastern boundary of the city stood the Tower of London, which was, in 1255, very much in the course of improvement by Henry III. His works included luxurious private quarters for king and queen, with a great hall between them, and an expansion of the boundaries of the Tower. The king’s quarters were sited on the first floor of Wakefield Tower (then known as the Blundeville Tower) and there was a private watergate east of that tower for royal use. The queen’s chambers apparently resembled a bower, with roses painted on a white background. Other features of the improvements included new curtain walls, crowned with a range of new towers, completion of an inland moat and a sparkling coat of white paint on the White Tower. In addition, the Tower featured a zoo or menagerie of some size. From early in the 1240s the Tower had housed the odd wild animal, such as the three leopards sent by Emperor Frederick II. But in 1251 the main royal menagerie, then sited at Woodstock, was moved to the Tower. Among its inmates were leopards, lynxes and a camel, but the pièces de résistance at the time of Eleanor’s arrival were the polar bear, presented by King Haakon of Norway in 1252, and the elephant, which had recently been sent as a present by Louis of France following the successful meeting between the two kings in December 1254. The polar bear was kept on a leash and allowed to fish in the Thames. The elephant was housed in a house (prudently designed so that it could be put to other uses if required) some forty feet long and twenty feet wide; it died in 1258. After this, its bones were used to make reliquaries for Henry III’s increasing collection at Westminster Abbey and its house was used as a place of imprisonment, inter alia for Jews accused of coin clipping.

In contrast to the Tower’s burgeoning importance, the castles which held the western end, Baynard’s Castle and Mountfitchet Castle, were in a state of considerable disrepair, their destruction having in fact been ordered by King John and at least partly carried out. In due course (and with Eleanor’s active support) these sites would be given to the Dominicans or Black Friars for their London establishment.

To the west of the city walls flowed the substantial River Fleet, powering mills where Turnmill Lane now stands, and descending into the huge valley of modern Farringdon Street before exiting into the Thames. Some sense of its scale can be obtained by standing on Holborn Viaduct, the site of the old Holborn Bridge (named after the stream of the Hole-burn, which joined the Fleet near this point), and envisaging the two small islands which stood in the stream between the banks at the base of Fleet Street, forty metres asunder, and which provided the base for the lower river crossing, which Eleanor would have followed. The river was navigable as far as the bridge – at least periodically – for the effluent from the Smithfield slaughterhouses and the nearby tanneries tended to silt it up. Through the City also ran the smaller, but still significant, River Walbrook, which entered the city by what would later be Moorgate, with banks at (appropriately) Bank and Mansion House, reaching the river slightly to the east of the modern Cousin Lane. This river was crossed by means of a substantial bridge in the vicinity of Poultry, which can have been no pleasant business, because it was reported at about this period to be no better than an open sewer, full of dung and refuse.

The glory of the city was St Paul’s Cathedral, sited much where the existing building lies but probably resembling a slightly larger version of Salisbury Cathedral. It had one of the tallest spires in Europe, a majestic nave and exquisite stained-glass windows. At the time of Eleanor’s arrival, it was undergoing an extension which would see it enclose the nearby church of St Faith’s, and replace its roof with new wood – a decision which was to doom the building four centuries later.²

The second coherent part of London lay round the dogleg curve of the Thames to the south-west. Here was a substantial enclave which was built up around the royal palace of Westminster and its neighbour Westminster Abbey. Around these major centres were dotted satellite dwellings and palaces. The kings of Scotland maintained a house, known as Scotland Yard, and some of the major courtiers also had houses in the near vicinity of the court – in later years, Otho de Grandison would have a house near Westminster of such size that a parliament was held there. Quite how large Westminster was at this stage is unclear. In the eleventh century there were fewer than a hundred dwellings here. By 1300 that number would have risen to around 3,000. At the time of Eleanor’s arrival it probably therefore presented the appearance of a small town in its own right. Dotted nearby were small villages and farms, such as the grouping right opposite the turn in the river known as Charing, in which some houses and gardens had been granted in the 1230s by the Marshal family to the Augustinian priory of St Mary at Roncevaux. In the intervening years these had been converted into the priory and Hospital of St Mary Rounceval.

Between the two London centres of the City and Westminster lay the Strand and Fleet Street, along which ribbon development was in the process of occurring. The first colonists appear to have been the Knights Templar, who in the late twelfth century abandoned their base in Holborn for a large compound between Fleet Street and the river, just west of the city walls. Their church housed the body of William Marshal and his sons, and had originally been destined to be Henry III’s own final resting place. Their compound was also used as a safe deposit for valuables by many. They were bordered by the Carmelites or White Friars, whose establishment was slightly nearer the City walls. Then followed more palatial developments. The greatest of these was the palace of the Savoy – owned, of course, by Peter of Savoy, on land gifted to him by Henry III. It was later to become the home of the earls and dukes of Lancaster. Another palace known to be in existence at the time was York House, the residence of the Bishop of Norwich, built sometime before 1237 and whose watergate can still be seen in the Embankment Gardens.³

Eleanor arrived to a considerable welcome, Henry having given orders that ‘she should be received with the greatest honour and reverence’. The king, his nobles, the lord mayor and a crowd of citizens went out to meet her, dressed in festive clothes and mounted on caparisoned horses, and she progressed through the city by Cheapside and the Strand to Westminster, along roads hung with coloured cloth in her honour. There also appear to have been illuminations, ringing of church bells, singing ‘and other displays of joy’ to accompany the procession, as well as processions of all the clergy of St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey.

Despite all this brave jollification, London is unlikely to have made a good impression on Eleanor. The dank of an English autumn will hardly have helped to add glamour to a city which boasted few of the beauties and civilisations of Cordoba or Seville – or even some fairly basic amenities such as running water. There was, of course, plenty of water flowing through the city or standing in its numerous marshy areas, but at this point in time it was generally dirty, insanitary water, fit only for industrial processes such as tanning. The wells which had recommended the city to eleventh-century chroniclers were now unfit to use and London possessed only two water conduits which were regarded as somewhat wondrous. Those who could not access these had to venture outside the city walls to find clean water. To the denizens of London, the idea of a city owning multiplicities of public baths would have seemed utterly incomprehensible. To Eleanor, the capital city of her new country must have seemed a stinking and uncivilised little town.

At Westminster Eleanor was conducted to her rooms, which Henry, advised by Eleanor’s brother Sancho, had decorated in the Castilian style, with tapestries on the walls – a mode of ornamentation then only familiar in churches. Moreover, as Matthew Paris reports in shock, ‘even the floors were decorated in this manner’ – this being the first reported instance in English history of the use of floor carpet instead of rushes. Following her reception, Eleanor made rich offerings at the shrine of St Edward, to whose cult Eleanor was introduced by the gift of a life of the saint. At the same time, Henry may well have offered a rich cope of samite at the Confessor’s shrine, seeking a favourable outcome to the Sicilian business.⁴

Despite the effort made, it is likely that Eleanor will have found the level of comfort available in even her renovated rooms in the palace of Westminster somewhat disappointing. The cool weather, hardly excluded by thick stone walls, will have been an unpleasant novelty; the decorations which Henry had done for Eleanor of Provence in her rooms there with the figure of winter ‘portrayed with such sad looks and miserable appearance that he may be truly likened to winter’ would seem all too apposite. What is more, while Eleanor was used to roughing it to an extent, she was also used to the luxury and beauty of the Spanish palaces. Even at their best, and with all Henry’s work, English palaces were in a different league. Again the most obvious difference to her would probably be the lack of running water. In Spanish palaces, running water was such a given that it was used to decorate gardens for fun. In England, it was more or less unheard of.

The gardens themselves, even with Eleanor of Provence’s influence, were much simpler and more functional than the ‘paradises’ to which Eleanor was accustomed. The older queen’s tastes seem to have run more to herb gardens than paradises. She had a walled garden at Clarendon and herb gardens adjacent to her apartments at Winchester, Kempton and Windsor. At Woodstock her herb garden was beside the king’s fishpond. Perhaps the best gardens were those at Everswell, within the grounds of Woodstock, originally designed by Henry II for his Fair Rosamund. Here chambers were set out in the garden for the king and queen, among the pools and the gardens, and in one of them Henry planted a thousand pear trees, which will have looked lovely in blossom in spring time. There were probably no gardens at all at Dover and those at Westminster seem not to have received much attention.⁵

So on arrival Eleanor had to start to deal with a new home in a new and very different country – and one where political difficulties lurked, in particular for a foreigner. In some ways, life was less difficult than it might have been. She had apparently already established a good rapport with her husband and many of his close companions. She was already fluent in French, the working language of the court. The king was minded to be very welcoming to her, as is evidenced by the trouble he took over the decoration of her rooms and the pardoning in December 1255 of a Jew for murder at the instance of Eleanor’s ayo, Garcia Martinez (evidencing the greater sympathy with the Jewish community which was apparent in Castile). Finally, her mother-in-law, with whom she would be in close proximity, would be minded to be very kind to her: she was not only a woman who was devoted to her family and children generally, she was also – by a labyrinthine route which both women would have understood – actually kin to Eleanor.⁶

Yet, as will become apparent, it is likely that any such cossetting by Eleanor of Provence was either of short duration, or was rebuffed – or both. Despite the natural closeness into which they were thrown, the evidence suggests that the two Eleanors never became remotely close. A good amount of Eleanor of Provence’s correspondence has survived – but none of it is with her daughter-in-law. In later life she corresponded often with her son; but her correspondence with Eleanor appears to have been confined to short notes about domestic issues. Likewise, the correspondence of Eleanor of Castile which comes down to us is not with her mother-in-law. In part the lack of closeness is not unnatural: one of them was, after all, destined to succeed the other in the exercise of ultimate power.

But also the two women’s personal styles were sufficiently different that there was never likely to be great natural sympathy between them. Eleanor of Provence was elegant, beautiful, feminine and in tune with the traditional requirements of queenship. Though in many ways a forceful woman, she was nonetheless very traditional in her style. A medieval noblewoman was valued for her looks and her charm, for her ability to provide an heir for her husband and for maintaining links between her blood family and her family by marriage. In all of these roles Eleanor of Provence played her part to admiration. Her beauty and debonairité are repeatedly mentioned in the sources, and she plainly played along with her husband in his enjoyment of creating a pageant of kingship. In short, she looked and acted the part. She also made no bones about playing the formal role which was assigned to the queen, in interceding for petitioners with the ultimate source of power. So far as her role as mother of the heir was concerned, it is plain that this was the primary role by which Eleanor of Provence defined herself. As regards her role as a bridge builder between her family and her husband, the earlier chapters will have shown clearly that in this respect she succeeded perhaps as well as any queen in history; almost certainly rather too well.

‘Our’ Eleanor defines herself to us in the contrasts which she presents to her mother-in-law. Let us start with looks. It is highly unlikely that she was anything other than, at the least, a very handsome woman: her images on her tomb and the remaining Eleanor crosses show a woman of elegant features, as would be expected of the daughter of the handsome Ferdinand of Castile and the noted beauty Jeanne of Ponthieu. There is no suggestion that Edward, who could have commanded the most beautiful mistresses had he been so minded, was ever unfaithful to her in thirty-seven years of marriage; this too suggests that she was, and remained, a well-favoured woman (even the notably devoted Edward III strayed from Philippa of Hainault as she grew older and stouter). And yet she appears never in her lifetime to have been defined by her appearance. Apart from the half-hearted report before her marriage of her beauty, no one ever describes her looks. Even on her show-stopping entry into the city, not one single word in praise of her beauty finds its way into the chronicles. From this we can be tolerably sure of one thing – that she was not the sort of woman who traded on her looks. This, of course, is consistent with her upbringing under the watchful eye of Alfonso X. The conclusion is supported by her state on arrival in England, when the view was obviously taken by Henry that she did not have a wardrobe remotely fitted to her position. It is unimaginable that a woman who considered appearance a priority would enter upon a period of life when others would be called upon to judge her without a suitable armoury of dresses. In other respects, too, Eleanor was not a natural companion for her mother-in-law, being much more bookish and infinitely more fond of outdoor activities.

So while the two Eleanors undoubtedly formed an adequate modus vivendi, Eleanor will not have been a daughter-in-law Eleanor of Provence could take to her heart. But most significantly, Edward stood between them. Once Edward returned, the queen wished him to remain essentially under her wing; and at this point it will have become very apparent that Edward was no longer amenable to this, and was supported in his bid for independence by Eleanor. The spectre of this difficulty may well have appeared with Eleanor herself, and the news that Edward would follow her to London, rather than going to Ireland. Friction between the two women was therefore probably present from early on, and this will not have made Eleanor’s transition into English life any easier.

Indeed, it is probably fair to say that Eleanor got off to a very uneasy start in England and that her first couple of years there were difficult in the extreme. The reason for the marriage was the treaty with Alfonso. As it was, many English people did not see this treaty (which principally concerned Gascony) as being of much significance. To make matters worse, by the time she arrived in England in late 1255, the treaty which had brought about her marriage was already running into difficulties.

The co-operation envisaged by the treaty was not proving straightforward. Pardons of those involved in Alfonso’s incursion did not proceed speedily, the proposed African Crusade was making no progress and Henry was dragging his feet over the second marriage contemplated by the treaty. It was actually for this reason, and not as a comfort to Eleanor, that her brother Sancho was in England; Alfonso had already despatched a high-level mission including Garcia Martinez to press the various issues which had arisen, and they were still trying to make progress when Eleanor returned.⁷

In January 1256, Henry sent Peter d’Aigueblanche and John Maunsell to Castile to talk to Alfonso, but the terms which they carried were not accommodating. Henry refused to make restorations until Alfonso threw his full weight behind the ducal administration. He also refused to progress the marriage of his daughter to Alfonso’s brother Manuel until he had details of Manuel’s endowment and was assured that Manuel had tenure of the lands covered by that endowment. Henry went on to justify the request by his concern that Alfonso might later seize the endowment – as Henry had heard that he had done to others. This apparently offensive suggestion of course referred back to Jeanne of Ponthieu and Enrique of Castile’s disputes with Alfonso, and indicated that Henry was at the very least minded to give some credence to Eleanor’s mother’s complaints of Alfonso. He completely ignored Alfonso’s request for aid against Aragon and made a very half-hearted offer to seek commutation of his crusading vow in six years’ time, to allow him to get his second son established in Sicily.⁸

Unsurprisingly, in the light of this response, little progress was made. In due course, the distinguished ambassadors were replaced with men of less distinction – again conveying Henry’s reluctance to accommodate Alfonso. These unfortunate ambassadors were the ones to reap the whirlwind: in the summer of 1256, Alfonso actually threatened to invade Gascony. Matters were very tense for some months in the wake of this threat, but, as Henry and his advisers had anticipated, Alfonso ultimately felt he was unable to do so – because of his sister’s marriage. It may therefore be said that Eleanor exercised her function of last resort in averting war between the two countries, even if truly congenial relations had not yet resulted from the alliance. However, the position of brinkmanship was far from the comfortable relationship which had been anticipated on both sides, and would have been an appalling extra strain on a young girl already struggling to find her feet in a new country and environment.⁹

To make matters still worse, aside from the international strains which it evidenced, the Spanish embassy also played into the domestic issues, namely the question of ‘aliens’. In the context of the existing problems with interloping royal relations, the Castilian marriage was already viewed with some suspicion by many; Paris makes plain that it was perceived as providing occasion for yet another group of foreigners to come to England and live off its wealth. Although the embassy actually offered little danger of this, from the outside these suspicions appeared to be well founded: Eleanor’s half-brother Sancho was instrumental in recommending Henry to prepare the lavishly decorated rooms for her arrival and Henry offered land, money and benefices to Garcia Martinez and his son. Doubtless all of this made perfect sense in the context of attempting to have Henry’s non-compliance with treaty provisions presented to Alfonso as favourably as possible. However, the appearance to a domestic audience was unfortunate.

What is more, the personal style of the envoys had also provoked negative reaction. It seems likely that in matters such as dress the Castilian envoys were very noticeable, emphasising their strangeness. Certainly pictures from this era of Castilian origin show women wearing ‘horned’ hats, which look utterly ridiculous to modern eyes and probably did likewise to Londoners, differing markedly as they do from anything depicted in English or French sources. Likewise, studies of textiles from Las Huelgas and Villalcazar show that the Castilian mode of dress frequently involved ornate repeated patterns in the textiles used, doubtless inspired by Arabic art. Eleanor’s brother Felipe’s tomb yielded a tunic with a repeated trellis-type pattern producing the effect of eight-pointed stars. That of her nephew Fernando de la Cerda at Las Huelgas is again ornately patterned, but this time with repeated iterations of his own coat of arms. It appears to have been designed for use with a biretta, also lavishly patterned with his arms. The effect is, to say the least, striking and there seems to have been no precedent for such patterning in England before this date. One can easily see that this style would have pointed up the strangeness or alienness of the Castilians, and produced even a degree of derision.¹⁰

To add fuel to the fire of the problems both of Anglo-Castilian relations and tolerance of foreigners, almost no sooner than one half-brother had disappeared (as Sancho did in early 1256), another one appeared at court. This was the dangerous and needy Enrique, who had finally pursued his rebellion against his brother to the point of defeat at the Battle of Moron in October 1255 and was subsequently banished from Castile. He had initially fled to France, where Louis IX refused to have anything to do with him. Quite where he lurked between late 1255 and August of 1256, when he surfaced in England, is not certain, but it appears likely that he found refuge with Jeanne of Ponthieu, who might be seen as an intercessor with Henry and Edward on the subject of providing a refuge for Enrique. Certainly Henry’s raising of the issue of Manuel’s prospective lands in early 1256 sounds as if it were prompted by some recent gossip from a trusted source; Henry would be unlikely to make so offensive a comment in the context of sensitive diplomatic relations without being quite sure of his ground. However it came about, Enrique arrived in England, notionally in hopes that Henry III and Edward could, through their relationship with Alfonso, bring about a reconciliation.¹¹

However, as is perhaps not surprising, the fact of Henry III welcoming Enrique at more or less the very time that he was downgrading his mission to Alfonso, returning thoroughly unsatisfactory answers to Alfonso’s requests and refusing to go on Crusade, was not conducive either to reconciliation or the amelioration of Anglo-Castilian relations. For months thereafter, the possibility of a renewed Castilian invasion of Gascony continued to hang fire, while Henry blithely bestowed gifts on Enrique and even threatened to support Enrique if Alfonso did invade Gascony. It cannot be doubted that Eleanor’s position at this time would have been highly uncomfortable, both personally, given her fondness for both brothers, and politically.

Enrique remained more or less in situ for about three years, accepting numerous grants and favours. Henry did try to find things for him to do which could act as a useful olive-branch: in 1257 he sent him to act as an emissary to the papacy on the Sicilian business and in 1259 provided him with ships for an African venture, subject to an undertaking not to molest Alfonso’s interests. But Enrique’s presence seems in truth only to have exacerbated the situation. As for the hope that there would be a reconciliation, this was never to bear fruit.

However, it seems that, despite the political difficulties which Enrique’s presence undoubtedly created, he was a likeable character, very probably having a good measure of the troubadour charm. Eleanor corresponded with him throughout her life, though, owing to his spending most of that time in prison, they never met again after his departure from England in 1259; in 1303, Edward himself acknowledged his warm feelings for him.¹²

As if this was not enough to complicate Eleanor’s first year in England, yet another cause of friction with Alfonso and with key players at the English court soon made itself felt – the fight for the appointment as Holy Roman Emperor. No new Emperor had been appointed following the death of Frederick II in 1250, and by 1256 both candidates had died, leaving the way open to new candidatures. Soon after, Richard of Cornwall took his first steps towards seeking the job, paying a campaign agent and sending out an embassy to the Pope to try to gain his support. His candidacy was apparently quite well received, based upon his reputation as a diplomat, his wealth (essential to buy the votes of the electors) and his commercially important English connections. By 12 June 1256, his candidacy had been officially adopted as English foreign policy and he was sending out formal embassies. In addition, he was calling in loans to Henry and borrowing money to finance his candidacy.

By December, three out of the seven electors were bought. Two were established as hostile. All, therefore, turned on the decision of Ottokar of Bohemia, who could give Richard a majority. However, he refused to commit himself. Richard’s team did not allow this to stand in their way. In London, on 26 December, the crown was solemnly offered to Richard by the Archbishop of Cologne, who pretended that the electors were unanimous. Richard accepted, and on 13 January 1257 he was elected ‘King of the Romans’ (the title of the Emperor designate) by his supporters. On 31 January, all remaining difficulties appeared to be clearing when it was announced that Ottokar of Bohemia had decided to support Richard’s candidacy. Thereafter, Henry and Richard began to make plans for Richard’s journey to Germany for his coronation, accompanied his family and by an impressive retinue of knights. At the Easter parliament, a variety of German magnates came to do homage to Richard. He left the country on 29 April, accompanied by these lords and a retinue of thirty-two English magnates on fifty ships.¹³

However, even as Richard was sailing, a significant storm cloud had formed. Ottokar of Bohemia had changed his mind in late March, and he had nominated an alternative candidate. By the time of Richard’s arrival, this alternative candidate had the majority which Richard lacked. The candidate had other advantages, too. He could lay claim to direct descent from the Imperial line, and possessed a credible claim to extensive lands in Swabia. He had impressive outside support: that of the French king, the Duke of Brabant and the towns of Worms and Spier. That candidate? Alfonso X.

The net result was that, though Richard was crowned King of the Romans by his supporters in May 1257 and received the homage of large areas of Germany, and although Alfonso did not appear to take the field against him, Richard never did cement his position in Germany and his carefully conserved money was, to a great extent, wasted. The other result was that, by late 1257, having wasted large sums in political manoeuvrings against Richard, Alfonso was firing off a strong formal complaint to Henry that Richard’s election was a wrong to him and a breach of the Treaty of Toledo, and he therefore called upon Henry to support him against Richard. Henry’s reply of 14 December 1257 takes a pacific line, pointing out that he had known nothing of Alfonso’s candidature until well after Richard’s election, promising to send messengers to Germany to find out more and ending with a promise that when he does know more, he will proceed to do what is right by all parties.¹⁴

It can be imagined that this development hardly improved the already vexed Anglo-Castilian relations, particularly against the background of Enrique’s continued presence in England and Henry III’s continued foot-dragging over the Gascon issues: Henry had still not agreed to a commission to resolve outstanding suits, and in late 1257 he was pulling out of a planned meeting, citing Welsh and Scottish issues. All of these issues were still in play in 1258 when domestic issues flared up with the barons’ revolt. In addition, this highly unfortunate coincidence led to open derision of Eleanor’s marriage treaty by no less a person than Richard of Cornwall, who was regarded as a leader by much of the baronage: in 1256, he was openly blaming certain of Henry’s advisers for the treaty – a sure sign that he was speaking ill of it to a wider audience.¹⁵

All in all, therefore, Eleanor’s first years in England must have been frequently uncomfortable with the Anglo-Castilian alliance unravelling almost before she had arrived, and at breaking point thereafter. One can also be tolerably sure that the reactions of many at court would reflect this; a princess who encapsulates a popular, prosperous alliance will be respected and courted, whereas a princess whose alliance has fallen out of favour and whose relations are causing trouble for the powers that be would frequently be on the receiving end of slights and discourtesies. One cannot help but wonder if the fact that after the pomp of her arrival Eleanor makes only one appearance on the record in the period to late 1258 is a reflection of this; and indeed whether that appearance – a pilgrimage with Eleanor of Provence to St Albans in October 1257, following a serious illness of the queen – reflects a perceived need to bolster her position by open association with the queen.

What else was Eleanor doing in this period? We cannot be sure. But Edward’s story gives us some clues. Edward returned to England on about 29 November 1255, and was welcomed back in a similarly lavish way to that in which Eleanor had been greeted. However, cracks in his relationship with his father appear to have opened up almost immediately. In part this may be put down to the fact that, as Morris points out, the physical appearance of the person who returned from Gascony was probably very different to that of the boy who had gone. Edward had last seen his father in October 1254, when he was aged just fourteen. He was now approaching sixteen and had apparently reached, or very nearly reached, the height which was to mark him out all his life. He had also spent part of the last year in active campaigning and all of it shouldering the burdens of government. Doubtless his confidence had been increased by his successful tenure in Gascony. He had become a very imposing presence; he now looked like a threat.

His increased confidence translated into a willingness to stand up for his rights in relation to his territories against his father. Matthew Paris provides a very lively account of a row not long after Edward’s return. Edward, embracing his duties as Lord of Gascony, took up with his father complaints which had been raised with him by Gascon wine merchants about forced seizure of goods by the king’s agents. These Gascons had told Edward that they would rather trade with Saracens than with England because of the way in which they were treated. Henry (typically) felt the complaint to be an infringement of his sovereignty and produced an unreasoned tirade comparing himself to Henry II, rebelled against by his dearest son. The particular row was defused, but the seeds of division between father and son had been sown, and Henry was not a man to ignore a grudge. The atmosphere was not improved by Edward’s subsequent decision to increase the size of his retinue considerably. The message of his return was clear – here was a new power at court.

Edward’s next appearance is also in opposition to his father’s wishes – and his inclinations. Paris recounts how, at about Whitsuntide 1256, a tournament was held for Edward at Blythe in Nottinghamshire. It was obviously quite an event, with many nobles who attended ‘to gain renown’ being crushed and unseated, and with William Longespée suffering injuries from which he never recovered. The obvious point which emerges is that Edward had acquired a taste for knightly pastimes in the real fighting in Gascony and wished to keep his hand in. Since neither actual warfare or tournaments were at all to Henry III’s taste, this can only have been another source of friction. However, the more serious point lies in the many nobles who, despite Henry’s well-known views, participated in order to gain renown; there is a real flavour of men trying to ‘get in’ with Edward in his new role as a force in his own right.¹⁶

Was Eleanor with Edward? It would be surprising if she were not present for such an event in Edward’s life. Further consideration of what he was doing at the time and where he went indicates strongly that she was indeed with him. Eleanor had dower lands assigned to her on her marriage in the neighbourhood; the journey would put Eleanor in the way of looking at her dower property at Tickhill in Yorkshire and the towns of Stamford and Grantham, which even then formed part of the main road to the North.

Thereafter, there was a short visit to Scotland which suggests (as Morris has noted) a social call by Edward and Eleanor together on Edward’s sister Margaret and her husband Alexander of Scotland. The two couples were of a similar age: Margaret was just over a year older than Eleanor and her husband some nine months younger than her. Alexander was also a connection of Eleanor’s through his mother, Marie de Coucy, who had married Eleanor’s cousin Jean de Brienne and whose brother had married Eleanor’s aunt Philippa. The scope for common ground between the two couples was therefore considerable. The young couples apparently paid a visit to Whithorn in Galloway on the coast of Scotland, the site of the first Christian community north of the border.¹⁷

Shortly after this, Edward is heard of on a short visit to Wales, which would fit with a tour by the couple of their English properties: Edward had been invested with Chester and various Welsh properties as part of his appanage on the marriage. This again forms a very interesting contrast with Henry III, whose visits north of the medieval equivalent of the Watford Gap were few and far between. It is also another example of the way in which Edward and Eleanor were establishing a pattern which was to be theirs for life; one of the characteristics of Edward’s reign became his constant travelling around his realm, accompanied by Eleanor, seeing to their respective businesses. The trip will have been pleasant. There was no sign of trouble; indeed, Edward’s lieutenant in Wales, the Savoyard appointee Geoffrey de Langley, boasted that he held the Welsh in the palm of his hand.¹⁸

Following another stop in Chester, another rendezvous with Margaret and Alexander, now themselves en route for a visit to the English court, seems likely. The party of young royals will have travelled down to Woodstock together to meet with the main court party – who had commandeered every house nearby and still run out of room. Thereafter, the party progressed to Oxford and from there by different routes to London, where another of Henry’s special shows was put on: the city was ‘decorated with banners, chaplets and manifold ornaments’.

However the progress was managed, Edward, and in all probability Eleanor, had reached London in advance of the main party and came out to welcome them on the road on 28 August. Eleanor was therefore at court to welcome Enrique on his arrival, which Matthew Paris places as happening during the Scottish royal visit.

The Welsh rebellion which, in defiance of Langley’s prediction, blew up just after this in late 1256, therefore took Edward away from Eleanor just at a particularly difficult point. It also marks a very significant point in Edward’s political history – it is the point when he first openly breaks ranks with the Savoyards with whom his mother had surrounded him and forms his own political affiliations. It was also what is termed ‘a valuable learning experience’ – in other words, an absolute disaster. The starting point is that the rebellion was brought about only in part by the emergence in Wales of a viable political leader, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, grandson of Llywelyn the Great, after a period of Welsh infighting. In part it was the product of insensitive handling of the locals by Langley – and in particular the taking of steps designed to bring the area known as the Four Cantreds within the same administration as the English lordship of Chester.

Through winter Edward (who, it will be recalled, had spent every penny he had and more in Gascony) was casting about desperately to find money to pay for forces to defend his lands. One might have thought that Henry’s first instinct would be to provide lavishly for the support of his eldest son in defending lands which were held from him. However, the position was quite the reverse. Taunting Edward that they were his lands, and therefore his problem, he claimed to have problems of his own and offered a measly 500 marks. Edward next turned to Richard of Cornwall, who, owing to his own need for money in his imperial campaign, could only offer 4,000 marks and his services as a mediator (which were rebuffed by Llywelyn). Perhaps the final straw for Edward was that Eleanor of Provence was neither able nor willing to help at this time; her response was that she had no money. This was quite true, as she had just spent an absolute fortune in ransoming her brother and securing papal support for the Sicilian plan. All Edward got from his mother was an exchange – she and Peter of Savoy purchased the wardship of the Ferrers family from him for 6,000 marks and Boniface of Savoy lent him £1,000 on mortgage. Whether the Savoyard faction was genuinely out of cash, or whether this was a tactic designed to bring Edward back to heel after disturbing signs of independence, the effect was not at all one which they would have desired.¹⁹

Cut loose by his family, he turned to the enemies of the Savoyards and his natural allies in interest in the Marches – both of whom were more interested in war than politics and were therefore good allies for a campaign in Wales. The change of emphasis can be seen in a variety of ways. In mid-1257, Edward replaced the Savoyard constable of Montgomery with the Marcher Hamo Lestrange, and he was now fighting alongside not just Marchers like Roger Clifford but also Lusignan allies such as Eleanor’s distant cousin John de Warenne (who had married a Lusignan) and Roger Leyburn (formerly of William of Valence’s household). Interestingly, the only truly negative stories about Edward’s behaviour date from this era and appear more to reflect the Lusignan ‘robber baron’ approach to provisioning for a campaign than any particular misbehaviour on his part. Paris tells of the carrying off of horses, carts and provisions, the seizing from a priory (while Edward was elsewhere) of food, fuel and fodder, and ‘freebooting’ in the form of seizing more horses and carts.²⁰

Finally, and most clearly, by 1258 at the latest (and possibly by 1257, when his need for money was at its most acute) Edward had mortgaged Stamford and Grantham to William de Valence (both a Lusignan and a Marcher in his lordship of Pembroke) and the manor of Tickhill to Aymer de Valence. He had also incurred a large debt to their brother Geoffrey.²¹

Eleanor’s link to this move in loyalties cannot be positively proved, but a variety of factors suggest that she was heavily involved. In the first place (and rather strikingly), it will be noticed that the properties mortgaged were precisely those which formed Eleanor’s dower assignment; it is therefore overwhelmingly likely that she was at least consulted and consented to the mortgages. The pledging only of her dower does suggest an active role on her part in this realignment.

Once that step is taken, there are other points that suggest her involvement. The first is a general one – as we have seen, her upbringing had included a knowledge of the requirements of defence of disputed territories and the making of strategic alliances. This sort of thinking is demonstrated by the fact that the allies chosen were the Lusignans and the Marchers. The latter were the natural tactical allies of a non-Welsh lord in Wales and also experienced fighters in difficult territory. The Lusignans were not only valuable, experienced fighters of a less than scrupulous sort (and hence the right kinds of allies for war against the Welsh); they were also, perhaps crucially, strategic allies in another area. Edward and Eleanor would both have been well aware after their year in Gascony that in that region a Lusignan alliance was very valuable; indeed, Lusignan presence during their tenure is evidenced. Strategically, bringing them over to Edward’s side in other areas might well pay dividends in Gascony.

Finally, the Lusignans were not simply Henry and Edward’s relatives; they were also connections by marriage of Eleanor. Eleanor’s family was twice linked by marriage to the Eu branch of the Lusignans, and Geoffrey de Lusignan would also shortly marry one of Eleanor’s first cousins.²²

However, Eleanor was almost certainly left behind when Edward went to attempt to deal with matters in Wales in mid-1257, with a complete absence of success. The counteroffensive funded by Edward in late May was a rout. When Henry finally assembled a royal army in August, the knee-jerk nature of the reaction showed. Although the army met with initial success in taking control of the easily accessible Four Cantreds, they quickly ran out of supplies. The campaign was over, with no real results, by October.

The best that can be said of the campaign is that it provided an opportunity for Edward to learn on the ground the difficulties of a Welsh campaign and that history reveals that, unlike his father, he did learn this lesson. In particular, the issues which had historically proved difficult for an English king to comprehend were the opportunities which the landscape provided for harrying raids by the Welsh and the phenomenal difficulties of victualling in a hard land when the inhabitants disappeared into the hills with all their cattle and provisions. Henry II struggled with this lesson, Henry III never began to grasp it, but Edward never again made the mistake of carrying a campaign into Wales without adequately planning for the conditions.

Given that his initial reported reaction, in the disappointment of the moment, was that Wales should be left to the Welsh, it is interesting to speculate how Edward ultimately came to turn his lesson to such good account. Certainly one can dismiss the idea that his father may take the credit. Possibly Simon de Montfort, with whom Edward soon afterwards came into close contact, is the person who induced Edward to evaluate what he could take from this major disappointment. But perhaps most likely is that Eleanor, bred at a court where campaigning was part of everyday life and whose father was well known for thinking through each campaign before it began, was able to plant the seed that no experience is ever truly wasted if it is learnt from.²³

Regardless, one result was that, throughout the period when Anglo-Castilian relations reached their nadir and Richard of Cornwall was at odds with Alfonso, Eleanor was alone at an increasingly hostile court. It must have brought home to her the fickleness of court popularity and the importance of establishing a core group of people whose loyalty could be relied upon.

Interestingly, it is at this point that the records first disclose the foremost of those whom Edward and Eleanor recruited over the years from outside their immediate families to form part of their cadre – Robert Burnell. Burnell, who went on to be not just Edward’s closest professional adviser but a close friend to Eleanor, was a priest and commenced royal service in the king’s offices. He first appears in one of Edward’s witness lists in April 1257. It has been plausibly suggested that he may have been recruited as a useful contact at about the time of the 1256 visit to Wales, since his home estate of Acton Burnell was in Shropshire, near the Welsh border.

Both his status and his interests – he was by no means of the warrior caste – make him an unlikely intimate for Edward, though perhaps more so for Eleanor. She and Burnell were also to share an interest in property acquisition – on his part probably fuelled by the need to provide for the family with which his mistress about now began to provide him. From this point in time he became settled in their establishment, from which he was to emerge as a major player in due course. Aside from the versatility and outstanding intelligence which his later years were to reveal, it was probably no small part of his success that he seems to have been a man of unusually happy manners, with an ability to endear himself to people in all stations of life – as not just one but two of the contemporary annalists remarked on his death.²⁴

If Eleanor had indeed begun to be aware of the need to find people who would be properly loyal to her and Edward’s joint interests, this was a lesson which would only be reinforced by the upheavals which were shortly to come, as a miscellaneous group of court powers coalesced into opposition to the king. The new alliance was based on a very diverse group of self-interests and grudges.

The first part of it was the Savoyard faction, always previously more or less in tune with the king because the queen’s power came to her through him. Edward’s move to the Lusignans had given rise to a determination in the Savoyard faction that something must be done, given that their main power at court came from controlling Edward as heir to the throne – particularly once news of the fact that Edward had mortgaged properties to the Lusignans came out in early 1258. The concern became more urgent once a fatal attack was made by Aymer de Valence’s men on one of the queen’s advisers and the king, when confronted about the matter, refused to act against his brother.²⁵

The second element was that the Lusignans had roused Simon de Montfort to the point of action. Montfort had long cherished a particular grudge against the Lusignans. The most significant (but not the sole) element in Montfort’s dislike was money. Throughout Montfort’s career, however high flown the expressed ideals, his actions can usually be reconciled with his financial interest; perhaps understandably, given his need to provide for four sons and his shortage of transmissible land. In the case of the Lusignans, they trod on his toes in the very significant matter of his wife’s dower assignment.

Eleanor Montfort had been entitled to a third of the value of the Marshal estates on the death of her first husband, William Marshal II. However, those lands were now in the hands of William de Valence (now styling himself ‘Lord of Pembroke’) in his role as husband to the remaining Marshal heiress, and he had defeated Montfort’s attempts to get actual dower lands settled on Eleanor. As a result, Montfort had to wait for Pembroke to pay the equivalent fee, which he did not, so persistently that ultimately Henry assumed the obligation to pay the fee instead. He, too, consistently failed to keep up to date with payments, often using grudges against Montfort as a reason to refuse payment. Then, to add insult to injury, while remaining in arrears to Montfort, Henry could find money to pay yet more fees by way of presents to his Lusignan brothers. This was a very powerful grudge indeed – so powerful that it was later to lead to international complications. To add to this, Pembroke had ‘taken out’ one of the most valuable heiresses to come on the market in a generation, who (given the likely age of the respective parties) might have enriched one of Montfort’s sons.

The bad blood between Montfort and Pembroke was notorious and extreme. In May 1257, the two quarrelled violently at court in front of the king. Pembroke accused Montfort of treachery, an accusation which reaped a predictably furious response given the work which Montfort had done for Henry in the past in Gascony and the ingratitude with which he had been repaid. A fist fight was only avoided by royal intervention. A similarly violent quarrel broke out a year later in April 1258 when Pembroke accused Montfort and Gloucester of giving aid and comfort to the Welsh. As a result, Montfort, adding up his grudges against the Lusignans and his almost equally strong sense of grievance over his treatment in relation to his efforts in Gascony, was ready to consider confrontation with the king.²⁶

Yet the grievances of a party of foreigners brought to power by the king and another outsider, whose roots in England were very slight, would probably not have been enough. What carried these grievances over into crisis was their joinder to the less specific, but nonetheless strongly felt, discontentment of the powerful English nobles who joined with them. Two of these issues, the question of aliens and the Sicilian folly, have been outlined above. But to this were joined other, more fundamental questions – deriving from the way that Henry had driven the country into the ground by policies adopted and pursued without consultation with even his most powerful subjects. Added to this there were complaints more generally about heavy financial demands and a neglect of the local administration which gave rein to oppressive local officials and magnates.²⁷

The confederation which came into place on 12 April 1258 therefore contained not just the foreigners Montfort and Peter of Savoy but also John FitzGeoffrey and Peter de Montfort, English lords who had allied themselves with the Savoyard faction, along with the earls of Gloucester and Norfolk and Norfolk’s brother Hugh Bigod, representing the English high nobility. When the parliament convened in April was treated by Henry with his usual high-handedness, and no sign of amelioration in his approach to his siblings appeared, the decision was made to confront the king.

On the morning of 30 April 1258, Henry was confronted by a mass of knights and barons, swordless but attired as for battle, led by the confederation of magnates. Henry’s first reaction was to ask if he was a prisoner. Instead, the barons outlined their terms – the expulsion of the Lusignans and a promise of consultation with the magnates in the form of a committee of twenty-four on future policies. The barons’ revolt had begun; civil war would follow in its train.²⁸