Chapter 13

Eleanor, Countess of Pembroke and Leicester

There was one daughter of King John for whom Magna Carta and the struggle for political reform held particular significance. The life of Eleanor of England, and her husband Simon de Montfort, stands as the epilogue of the Magna Carta story. Although democratic government was still many centuries in the future, Magna Carta was the first step. The political movement led by Simon de Montfort was the second step …

Eleanor of England was the youngest child of John and Isabelle d’Angoulême; she is said to have inherited her mother’s beauty and feisty temperament.¹ She was most likely born at the height of her father’s troubles, in the midst of the Magna Carta crisis in 1215. Named for her grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, she was placed in the household of the bishop of Winchester, where her eldest brother, Henry, had been living since 1212.² In 1224 she was married to William (II) Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. The younger Marshal was the son of the first earl of Pembroke who had been regent in the early years of Henry III’s reign, and who had driven the French out of England following his victory at the Battle of Lincoln in May 1217. The first earl had a reputation for integrity and loyalty, having remained unwavering in his loyalty to King John during the Magna Carta crisis. The second earl, Eleanor’s husband, had been a hostage of the king between 1207 and 1213, as a guarantee of his father’s good behaviour. He later joined the baronial rebellion and was appointed marshal of the forces of the invader, Prince Louis. However, he returned to the Royalists when Louis refused him possession of Marlborough Castle, which had previously belonged to the younger Marshal’s grandfather.³ He fought alongside his father at the Battle of Lincoln.

On his father’s death in 1219, William (II) Marshal had succeeded him as earl of Pembroke and marshal of England; when his mother died in 1220, he succeeded to her lordships of Leinster and Netherwent. His younger brother, Richard Marshal, succeeded to the Clare lands in Ireland. In 1214 Marshal married Alice, the daughter of Baldwin de Béthune, Count of Aumâle, to whom he had been betrothed in 1203. The marriage was short-lived, however, as poor Alice died in 1216. On 23 April 1224, William (II) Marshal was married to Eleanor; born in the 1290s, he was some twenty-or-so years older than his bride, who was no more than 9 years old on her wedding day.⁴ The marriage was agreed at the behest of the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, and the papal legate, Pandulf, as a way of guaranteeing Marshal remained firmly in the justiciar’s camp, and to prevent the marshal making a foreign marriage. The match put an end to three years of indecision, as to whether Eleanor should marry a foreign prince or an English magnate. The king settled ten manors, confiscated from a French nobleman and already administered by Marshal, on his sister as her marriage portion.⁵

For the first five years of her marriage Eleanor continued to live at court, under the guardianship of Cecily of Sandford.⁶ In 1229, when she was 14, she went to live with her husband, travelling with him in England, France and Ireland. In May 1230, Marshal had taken twenty knights with him, on Henry III’s expedition to Poitou. He also took his wife, probably at the behest of the king. Eleanor became seasick during the voyage to France and Henry had his ship drop anchor at the nearest landfall to give her time to recover, ordering the fleet to continue without them.⁷ Henry was probably hoping that Eleanor’s presence would help to secure the support of his mother and her second husband, Hugh de Lusignan, to his expedition against the French. Mother and daughter had not seen each other since Eleanor was 2 or 3. Isabelle’s maternal affection for the children of her first husband, however, was practically non-existent, and Eleanor’s presence failed to persuade her mother and stepfather to remain loyal to Henry III. As we have seen, Isabelle d’Angoulême had a penchant for putting her own interests ahead of those of her English family.

Marshal and Eleanor returned from France in the spring of 1231, with William handing over command of the English forces to Ranulf, Earl of Chester, for the wedding of his widowed sister, Isabel, to the king’s brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall. William (II) Marshal died suddenly in London a week later, on 6 April and was buried beside his father at the Temple Church on 15 April 1231. At the tender age of 15 or 16, Eleanor was a childless widow. The earldom of Pembroke passed to William’s younger brother, Richard, and Eleanor would spend many years fighting unsuccessfully to get the entirety of her dowry from the Marshal family, which amounted to one third of the Marshal estates, according to the guarantees established by Magna Carta. The Great Charter stipulated a widow should receive the allocation of a dower within forty days of her husband’s death. A year after William’s death Richard Marshal offered Eleanor £400 a year as her settlement. Henry III persuaded his sister to take it, wanting to be done with the business and probably well aware that it was as much as Eleanor was likely to get, despite the Marshal holdings amounting to an income of £3,000 a year.⁸ Henry stood as guarantor for the settlement but the payments would always be sporadic and unreliable, not helped by the fact that the earldom passed through four successive Marshal brothers between 1231 and 1245, each with differing priorities and more Marshal widows to assign their dowers.

In the midst of her grief, and influenced by her former governess, Eleanor took a vow of chastity in the presence of Edmund of Abingdon, archbishop of Canterbury in 1234. Although she did not become a nun, the archbishop put a ring on her finger, to signify that she was a bride of Christ; she was, therefore, expected to remain chaste and virtuous for the rest of her life. As a result, the king seized her estates and Richard Marshal, as her husband’s heir, took many of her valuable chattels. Knowing how teenagers see lost love as the end of the world, even today, one can understand Eleanor’s decision to take a vow of chastity, even if we cannot comprehend anyone giving such advice to a grieving 16-year-old. Eleanor may also have seen taking such a vow as a way of staving off her brother, the king, forcing her to remarry in the interests of the crown. It put Eleanor’s life in her own hands and also served to appease the Marshal family, who would have seen their own lands, which made up Eleanor’s dower, controlled by another magnate or foreign prince had she remarried.

The widowed Eleanor retired to the castle of Inkberrow in Worcestershire. Henry continued to watch over his sister throughout the 1230s; he sent her gifts of venison and timber for her manors. Throughout her life, Eleanor was known for her extravagant spending, which led to substantial debts; Henry lent her money and made sporadic payments to reduce the debts. In 1237 her brother granted her Odiham Castle in Hampshire, which would become her principal residence.⁹

In 1238, Eleanor met Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Simon was the third son of Simon de Montfort, Lord of Montfort l’Amaury and Alice, daughter of Bouchard de Montmorency. As a third son, Simon’s prospects would have appeared bleak during his younger years. An opportunity arose for him through his father’s claim to the earldom of Leicester, through the elder Simon’s mother, Amicia, coheiress of Robert de Breteuil, Earl of Leicester. The earldom had been divided between the elder Simon and his mother’s sister, Margaret, wife of Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester. The continuing hostilities between England and France in the early years of the thirteenth century meant that Simon de Montfort was never able to take possession of this inheritance. The senior Simon de Montfort had died in 1218 and was succeeded by his eldest son Amaury de Montfort. By 1230, Amaury had transferred all or some of his claims to the earldom of Leicester to his younger brother, Simon, who then departed for England to claim his inheritance.¹⁰

Simon de Montfort was able to gain control of his family’s portion of the Leicester lands, which had been in the custody of Ranulf, Earl of Chester, since 1215, rather quickly. Although he was not able to obtain the earldom that went with them. In 1231, he did homage to Henry III for his lands and he continued to rise through the ranks of the court throughout the 1230s. From 1234 he attended meetings of the great council, pursued diplomacy with Scotland and Wales and acted as steward – a post traditionally held by the earls of Leicester – at Henry III’s wedding to Eleanor of Provence in 1234, although the earldom had still not been conferred on him.¹¹ Simon did make enemies, however; his closeness to Henry and the fact he was a foreigner, did not endear Simon to his fellow nobles.

At some point after the mid-1230s, possibly at the wedding of Henry and Eleanor of Provence, Simon met the king’s youngest sister, Eleanor, and the couple fell in love.¹² With the king’s permission, they married in January 1238, in a secret ceremony in Henry’s private chapel; Matthew Paris called it a ‘matrimonium clandestinum’, a clandestine marriage.¹³ Simon was probably about 30 years old while Eleanor was 22 or 23. Due to Eleanor’s vow of chastity, and the fact Simon was a foreigner and a minor noble, and Eleanor was a princess, secrecy was essential. The secret got out, nevertheless, with Richard, Earl of Cornwall, Eleanor’s other brother, and several other councillors being greatly angered by the news. It probably did not help matters that Simon had quite a reputation for chasing after wealthy widows; he had previously been refused marriage by at least two of them.

Archbishop Edmund of Canterbury appealed to the pope on the grounds that Eleanor had broken her vows of chastity.¹⁴ In March 1238 Simon departed for Rome to obtain a dispensation for the marriage from the pope. The king gave him a glowing reference and an unknown amount of money. On the journey south, Simon also visited his new brother-in-law, Emperor Frederick II, who gave him additional letters of support. The dispensation was granted in May 1238 and Simon was back home in England in time for the birth of his first child. Eleanor entered her confinement at Kenilworth Castle in October and Henry, named after his uncle the king, was born on 26 November 1238, ten months after his parent’s wedding.¹⁵ The following spring, Simon was confirmed as earl of Leicester by the king, who ordered that Eleanor’s dowry should be paid to him.

In August 1239, however, at the churching of Eleanor of Provence, following the birth of Lord Edward, the king’s eldest son and heir, Henry turned on his brother-in-law. He accused Simon of seducing his sister and defiling her before their marriage, of bribing the pope and using the crown as surety for his debts without the king’s permission.¹⁶ Apparently, Simon had borrowed a large amount of money, for his trip to Rome, from the queen’s uncle, Thomas of Savoy, Count of Flanders, giving the king’s name as security. The king only discovered this when Thomas asked for his money. Matthew Paris recounted Henry’s charges against Simon:

You seduced my sister before marriage, and when I found it out, I gave her to you in marriage, although against my will, in order to avoid scandal; and, that her vow might not impede the marriage, you went to Rome, and by costly presents and great promises you bribed the Roman court to grant you permission to do what was unlawful. The Archbishop of Canterbury here present knows this, and intimated the truth of the matter to the pope, but truth was overcome by bribes; and on your failing to pay the money you promised, you were excommunicated; and to increase the mass of your wickedness, you, by false evidence named me as your security, without consulting me, and when I know nothing at all of the matter.¹⁷

The debt arose from the £200 Simon had borrowed in order to pay Earl Ranulf of Chester for the earldom of Leicester. The papal curia had arranged for the debt to be passed from Peter of Dreux, Duke of Brittany, to Thomas, Count of Flanders, accumulating interest as it went and probably with the cost of the papal dispensation added to it for good measure. It was now £1,400. Over twenty years later, Simon gave his own account of the incident to the French court, saying:

The King of England honoured me by giving me his sister; but shortly afterwards he was incensed by a debt which my lord Thomas, Count of Flanders, was claiming from me and for which he sued me at the court of Rome. The king wished me to pay; to which I replied that I was ready to do so, if I was legally the debtor; but I asked that justice should be done to me, as to the poorest man in the kingdom. He refused, with ugly and shameful words which it would be painful to recall.¹⁸

Henry was renowned for his mercurial moods and temper tantrums (much like his grandfather, Henry II). He forbade Simon and a pregnant Eleanor from attending the queen’s churching ceremony and the stunned couple had to flee London, taking ship to France; so hasty was their departure that they were forced to leave their son behind, with his wet nurse. As Simon related his story to the French court, he continued:

Then, the same day that he had invited us to the queen’s churching, he ordered the men of the commune of London to arrest me at the inn where I was lodging and to take me off to the Tower; but Richard, who was there, would not allow that to happen at that moment. Seeing his great wrath and that he would not listen to reason, I left the country.¹⁹

Simon de Montfort had a strong friendship with Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, who agreed to intervene with the king on Simon’s behalf. Simon was able to return to England in April 1240, ostensibly to raise funds for his crusade. He also collected his young son, Henry, so that he could be reunited with his mother. While in France, Eleanor gave birth to a second son, Simon. She was pregnant again when she and their two sons accompanied Simon eastwards as he set out to join the crusade of his brother-in-law Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Taking an overland route, Simon and his family travelled through Italy as a guest of Emperor Frederick II. Eleanor set up her household at Brindisi, in a palace lent to them by the emperor, where she would await Simon’s return from the Holy Land. Although there is no record of it, it is entirely possible that Eleanor was reunited with her sister, Isabella, Emperor Frederick’s wife, who also spent time in Italy. There was only a year’s difference in the young women’s ages, which may mean that the sisters were close, although the chronicles of the time made very little mention of affection where women were concerned.

In 1242, following Simon’s return from crusade, the couple were restored to Henry’s favour. Eleanor accompanied Simon as he went on campaign to Poitou. The campaign was a financial disaster for Simon, exacerbating his already-dire financial situation. Simon’s earldom of Leicester brought in an income of £500 a year, while Eleanor had £400 a year, albeit sporadically, from her inadequate Marshal dower. King Henry now settled a further £500 on Simon as Eleanor’s dower for her second marriage, something which should have been done at the time of the marriage but was not. Simon’s financial position was, therefore, precarious and made worse by the knowledge that Eleanor’s Marshal dower would revert to the Marshals on her death, leaving Simon with less resources to provision his own growing family with lands and income.

After the births of Henry and Simon, two more sons, Amaury and Guy, followed in quick succession, born in 1242/3 and 1244 respectively. A fifth son, Richard, was born before 1252 and a daughter, Eleanor, probably born in 1258. In 1242, Henry formally granted Kenilworth Castle to his sister, and Eleanor made this her principal residence, the family home.²⁰ The older boys were educated in the household of Bishop Grosseteste and the Franciscan theologian, Adam Marsh, was Eleanor’s confessor. Marsh was a great confidant of Eleanor’s, and regularly wrote her with advice and encouragement. He was also not shy in calling attention to her weaknesses; in one letter, her confessor reprimanded Eleanor for her contentiousness and extravagance. In another he wrote of her devotion to God and motherhood:

To the illustrious lady A., countess of Leicester, Brother Adam [sends] greetings in the Lord. The blessed glory of the Lord which did not spurn your devotion and was mindful of your prayer from its place, granting you both freedom from very troubling dangers and the exultation of very pleasing progeny. What then? In so far as he would be worthy to be consulted, that we continually give back to heavenly clemency praise of the divine name and praiseworthy participation in a more perfect life, progressing with most eager heart from day to day. May your serenity be well. May the children be well. May your friends be well. May your ministers in Christ and the blessed Virgin always be well.²¹

Between 1248 and 1252 Simon was in Gascony, acting as Henry’s seneschal. In the four years that Simon was abroad, Eleanor visited him in 1249–50, 1251 and 1253. When Simon was in Gascony, Adam Marsh wrote to Eleanor to advise her husband on avoiding taking the wrong course of action in the region:

To the excellent lady A., countess of Leicester, Brother Adam [sends] greetings and the glory of rewards after the grace of merits. So the renowned count, your husband, for the honour of God and the salvation of the church, for the faith of the lord king and advantage of the peoples, entrusted with magnificent power from the Saviour, magnificently took on the desperate business of very great danger, to save the land of Gascony for the said king, your brother, and his heirs, about which I hope without doubt that he is led to praiseworthy success from careful counsel of discreet discussions of your serenity, with divine help, and with all those joined to said count with faithful love, should gloriously rise in happy praise of the Divinity. So that if by human thoughtlessness, even with praiseworthy intention, he entered into either pacts or treaties or contracts, less than should have been assured, with immoderate expending of money, yet as seemed impelled by necessity, it will be up to you to direct him through most pious diligence of benign circumspection, having completely removed the struggles of irritating quarrels, in the spirit of gentleness to negotiating cautiously about the rest through tranquillity of counsels. About what you ordered, on brother Gregory, I shall speak, the Lord willing, in brief, when opportunity is granted me. The blessed son of God, the lord of Lincoln is well. May your illustrious children be well progressing from good to better. The lady queen granted me that she would act with master Hugh of Mortuo Mari so that in time he would discharge master Ralph of Canterbury and lord William de la Hose in peace. I do not know what will come of that. May the most worthy integrity of your nobility be always well in Christ and the most blessed Virgin. Lord John de la Haye will be better able to reveal the state of the lord king, the lady queen, prelates and magnates, clergy and people in the kingdom of England, to your lordship. Again, be well forever.²²

In 1252 Henry III called Simon to Westminster to answer charges of brutal high-handedness in Gascony. Henry was thwarted by the baronial support for Simon, who countered with arguments that Henry had contravened the terms of his commission and failed to support Simon financially.²³ Eleanor accompanied Simon on his visits to Paris, during the negotiations with Louis IX over Gascony. The arguments concerning Eleanor’s Marshal dower found their way into the discussions as the treaty included Henry’s sisters renouncing their claims to the former Plantagenet lands in France. Eleanor initially refused to do so until her dower was formally settled, and the French king and queen offered to act as mediators. In the end, a payment of 15,000 marks, due to Henry through the treaty, was set aside to act as a pledge for the future settlement of Eleanor’s dower.²⁴ The treaty had been delayed for two years by the time Henry agreed to give Eleanor an annual pension so that she would sign it.²⁵

As relations between the king and the barons caused tensions, Simon became involved in the baronial opposition to Henry III’s unpopular policies. Magna Carta had set out guidelines whereby the king should be guided by his barons, and the barons expected to be consulted on his policies and actions. Henry was increasingly acting on his own initiative, going against the various interests of the barons. In 1258 the Provisions of Oxford set up a new form of government, with a fifteen-man privy council established to advise the king and oversee the government’s administration. The Provisions were confirmed and extended in 1259, in the Provisions of Westminster, but were overthrown by Henry, with the help of a papal bull, in 1261. As attempts to control the king failed, Simon became the baronial leader as they rose up in revolt and the Second Barons’ War broke out.

Simon’s forces defeated and captured the king and his son and heir, Lord Edward, at the Battle of Lewes in 1264. Edward was held under guard, first residing with Eleanor and later with her son, Henry. With the king’s defeat, Simon de Montfort was now the effective ruler of England. He established a government based on the Provisions of Oxford and in 1265 called the Great Parliament, at which towns were asked to send their own representatives for the first time, in addition to the usual attendance of the barons and knights of the shires. This act earned for Simon recognition as the founder of the House of Commons.

Simon’s victory was short-lived. Within months Edward had escaped his captors and mounted a new Royalist opposition to his uncle. He faced Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265. Simon and his oldest son, Henry, were killed in the fighting. Eleanor had been staying at Odiham but had left for Dover as the tide turned against her family. It was at Dover Castle that Eleanor heard the news of her husband’s death and defeat. She withdrew into seclusion for ten days, to mourn her husband and son, but when she reappeared she was ready to take charge again. Rather than running for the Continent, she settled down to defend the castle. Her son, Simon, was holding Eleanor’s brother, Richard, at Kenilworth and only released him on condition that he would protect Eleanor’s interests; Henry, however, was in no mood to be compassionate towards his sister. He wanted to disinherit and banish Eleanor. The younger Simon then fled north, continuing the insurgence in the Isle of Axeholme in Lincolnshire, which had been a hotbed for rebellion during the First Barons’ War against King John. Edward took Dover in October 1265, allowing Eleanor a dignified retreat into exile, taking her daughter, Eleanor, with her.

Eleanor retired to the Dominican convent of Montargis, founded by her sister-in-law, Amicia de Montfort. In 1267 she was granted an annual payment of £500 from the English Exchequer, providing she remained in exile, thanks to the intervention of Louis IX, King of France. Edward I confirmed this soon after his accession; he had met his aunt on his way home from crusade in 1273 and loaning her £200, he wrote to his chancellor, saying that he had admitted her to his ‘grace and peace.’²⁶ Edward and Eleanor were eventually reconciled, with the help of Marguerite, Queen of France and sister of Edward’s mother, Eleanor of Provence, who wrote to the new English king:

To the very high and very noble prince, our very dear nephew, Edward, by the grace of God king of England, Marguerite, by the same grace queen of France, greetings and true love. Dear nephew, the countess of Leicester entreated us and asks that we entreat you to have pity on her and her will, and asked us also that we entreat for Amaury, her son the cleric, that you have pity on him and do right by him and render him your favour. And since we promised her that we would do it, we entreat for … things, and we entreat you also that you would act and command that the need that involves the will of said lady … and delivered as right, usage and custom of the country might give. And … as to the cleric, that there be honour and good, so much that God, and I, may be grateful to you, and that you cannot be blamed. And of these things … your will …, if it please you, the Monday before the feast of St Denis.²⁷

Eleanor had been a strong-willed, independent woman. Her seal depicted her as countess on one side and sister of the king on the other.²⁸ She was involved in the governance of her estates and in disputes with lords over customs and property. She held wardships in her English manors and issued charters in her own name. She was a benevolent mistress, procuring grants and pardons for the men and women in her service. She supported Simon in his rebellion and was entrusted with the custody of her nephews, Edward and Henry (the son of Richard of Cornwall) after the Battle of Lewes. After Simon de Montfort’s defeat and death at Evesham, Eleanor continued to support her surviving sons, providing money for them to pay their soldiers and sending two of them to France with 11,000 marks in their possession. She negotiated the surrender of Dover Castle to Lord Edward, her safe passage to France and the safety of her people left behind in England.²⁹

In her French exile, Eleanor had the company of her only daughter, Eleanor de Montfort, who was probably born in 1258, at Kenilworth Castle. Eleanor de Montfort was the only daughter and sixth child of Eleanor of England and Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. On her father’s death, Eleanor had fled into exile in France with her mother and brothers. Her brothers continued to Italy, where Guy and Simon went to seek knightly employment, while Amaury studied medicine and theology at the university in Padua. The two Eleanors remained settled at the abbey at Montargis, until the elder Eleanor’s death there before 3 June 1275, with her daughter Eleanor and her son Amaury by her side. Eleanor, Countess of Pembroke and Leicester and a princess of England, was buried at the abbey which had been her home for the last ten years of her life.³⁰

In 1265, in return for Welsh support, Simon de Montfort had agreed to the marriage of his daughter, Eleanor, to Llewelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales. Simon’s downfall had postponed the marriage but, in 1275, in a move guaranteed to rile Edward I, King of England, Llewelyn reprised his marriage plans and the couple were married by proxy while Eleanor was still in France.

Shortly afterwards, Eleanor set sail for Wales, accompanied by her brother, Amaury, a papal chaplain and canon of York. Believing the marriage would ‘scatter the seeds which had grown from the malice her father had sown’, Edward arranged for Eleanor to be captured at sea.³¹ When Eleanor’s ship was intercepted in the Bristol Channel, the de Montfort arms and banner were found beneath the ship’s boards. Eleanor was escorted to Windsor Castle, where she was held in comfortable confinement, while her brother Amaury was imprisoned at Corfe Castle for six years. In 1276, with his bride in Edward I’s custody, Llewelyn refused to pay homage to the English king, and was declared a rebel. Faced with Edward’s overwhelming forces, and support slipping away, within a year Llewelyn was forced to submit. The Treaty of Aberconwy reduced his lands to Gwynedd, but paved the way for his marriage to Eleanor, at last; it is possible that the marriage was one of the conditions of Llewelyn’s submission.³² The wedding of Eleanor de Montfort and Llewelyn ap Gruffudd was an extravagant affair, celebrated at Worcester Cathedral on the Feast of St Edward, 13 October 1278. The illustrious guests included both the English king, Edward I, and Alexander III, King of Scots. Edward and also, possibly his brother, Edmund of Lancaster, gave the bride away at the church door, and Edward paid for the lavish wedding feast.

While the marriage did not prevent further struggles between the Welsh and the English king, there was relative peace for a short time and Eleanor may have encouraged her husband to seek political solutions. She is known to have visited the English court as the Princess of Wales and was at Windsor on such a visit in January 1281. Eleanor herself wrote to Edward on 8 July, probably in 1279, to assure him of her ‘sincere affection’ and loyalty and warn him against listening to reports unfavourable to Wales from his advisers:

Although as we have heard, the contrary hereto hath been reported of us to your excellency by some; and we believe, notwithstanding, that you in no wise give credit to any who report unfavourably concerning our lord and ourself until you learn from ourselves if such speeches contain truth: because you showed, of your grace, so much honour and so much friendliness to our lord and yourself, when you were at the last time at Worcester.³³

As a testament to her diplomatic skills, Eleanor uses words of affection and flattery whilst clearly getting her point across, a technique her predecessor Joan, Lady of Wales, had used to good effect with Henry III. As it had been with Joan, Eleanor, too, was not beyond humbling herself to King Edward in order to achieve her objectives and wrote to him again in October 1280, this time regarding her brother, Amaury, who was still in the king’s custody. She wrote to the king,

with clasped hands, and with bended knees and tearful groanings, we supplicate your highness that, reverencing from your inmost soul the Divine mercy (which holds out the hand of pity to all, especially those who seek Him with their whole heart), you would deign mercifully to take again to your grace and favour our aforesaid brother and your kinsman, who humbly craves, as we understand, your kindness. For if your excellency, as we have often known, mercifully condescends to strangers, with much reason, as we think, ought you to hold out the hand of pity to one so near to you by the ties of nature.³⁴

Amaury was released shortly afterwards.

On 22 March 1282, Llewelyn’s younger brother, Dafydd, attacked the Clifford stronghold of Hawarden Castle and Llewelyn found himself in rebellion against Edward I yet again. At the same time, Eleanor was in the final few months of her pregnancy and Llewelyn held off taking the field until the birth of his much hoped for heir.³⁵ Eleanor and Llewelyn’s only child, a daughter, Gwenllian, was born on or around 19 June 1282; Eleanor died two days later. Eleanor de Montfort was the first woman known to have used the title Princess of Wales. She was buried alongside her aunt Joan, illegitimate daughter of King John and wife of Llywelyn the Great, at Llanfaes on the Isle of Anglesey.

Llewelyn himself was killed in an ambush on 11 December of the same year, at Builth, earning himself the name of Llewelyn the Last – the last native Prince of Wales. Gwenllian, a descendant of both Welsh and English royalty, was an orphan just six months after her birth. Her uncle Dafydd, Llywelyn’s younger brother, became the little princess’s legal guardian. After his brother’s death, Dafydd continued the fight for Welsh independence but was betrayed to the English in June 1283. Dafydd, his wife, children and little Gwenllian were captured at Bera Mountain in Snowdonia, where they had been in hiding.

At just 1 year old, Gwenllian was taken, by sea, probably to thwart any attempt at rescue, from the land of her birth, Wales to English captivity. She would never see her homeland again. The baby girl was placed behind the high walls of the Gilbertine priory of Sempringham, in Lincolnshire, just south of the great city of Lincoln. Her female cousins, the seven daughters of Dafydd, were also placed in various nunneries, so it is possible some of her cousins were with her. Dafydd’s legitimate daughter, Gwladus, who was a similar age to Gwenllian, was placed in Sixhills, another Gilbertine priory, in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Dafydd’s two sons, Llywelyn and Owain, were imprisoned in Bristol Castle; Llywelyn died there in 1287, just four years after his capture, Owain was still living in 1325, spending every night securely incarcerated in a specially constructed timber cage within Bristol Castle. Dafydd himself suffered the horrendous ‘traitor’s death’; he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Shrewsbury.

The Gilbertines were the only wholly-English monastic community. Their founder, St Gilbert, had some form of physical deformity, which prevented him from pursuing a career as a knight. He trained as a clerk in France, studying under Master Anselm at Laon. He eventually entered the household of the bishop of Lincoln and, in 1129, was appointed vicar of Sempringham and West Torrington. He established the first priory there in 1131, with seven local women vowing to live a life of chastity, poverty and obedience. Sempringham Priory was a double-house, housing both men and women in segregated quarters. At its height, the priory housed 200 nuns and 40 canons. The order followed strict rules, based on those of the Augustinian and Premonstratensian monasteries. By the time of Gilbert’s death in 1189 there were thirteen priories in England; this number had risen to twenty-five at the time of the Reformation.³⁶

Gwenllian was a prisoner at the Gilbertine Priory of St Mary, at Sempringham, for the rest of her life. A prisoner of three English kings, Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, she could be a rallying figure for the subjugated Welsh and was therefore too valuable to ever be freed. Edward I wrote to the prior and prioress of Sempringham of his decision to place Gwenllian in their custody, on 11 November 1283: ‘Having the Lord before our eyes, pitying also her sex and her age, that the innocent may not seem to atone for the iniquity and ill-doing of the wicked and contemplating especially the life in your Order.’³⁷ Although Edward wanted Gwenllian to be forgotten, he could not afford to forget her, and four years after she was placed in the convent, Edward ordered Thomas Normanvill to ‘go to the places where the daughters of Llewellyn and of David his brother, who have taken the veil in the Order of Sempringham, are dwelling, and to report upon their state and custody by next Parliament.’³⁸ Gwenllian is said not to have spoken a word of Welsh and may not have even known how to spell her name; she is referred to as ‘Wencillian’, in a document sent to Edward III at the time of her death.

Gwenllian was probably well-cared for, Edward III endowed her with a pension of £20 a year, which was paid to the priory for her food and clothing. Whether Gwenllian was treated according to her rank at the priory is unknown; however, it is highly likely that she was aware of some of her history and her family connections, she does in fact call herself Princess of Wales, daughter of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in a petition inside the volume of petitions from Wales edited by William Rees. She is said to have received gifts from her cousin the king, and may have spent time in Edward III’s company, when he visited the priory at Easter-time in 1328; the young king issued a charter from Sempringham on 2 April of that year.³⁹

Gwenllian only found release in death, hers occurred on 7 June 1337, the same month as her fifty-fifth birthday. She was buried at the priory where she had spent all but eighteen months of her life. Her grave was lost at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, in the sixteenth century. A memorial plaque was placed near St Andrew’s church in Sempringham in 1993: ‘In memory of Gwenllian, daughter of the last Prince of Wales. Born at Abergwyngregyn 12.06.1282. Died at Sempringham 7.6.1337. Having been held prisoner for 54 years.’⁴⁰

The death of Gwenllian, in a convent in her English exile, was a sad mirror of that of her grandmother, Eleanor of England. Eleanor and her family had continued the struggle that had started with the First Baron’s War and the Magna Carta crisis. Eleanor had proved the most capable and strongest of King John’s children, and the one most willing to embrace the ideals of Magna Carta and its promises for the future government of the realm. She also serves to highlight the limitations of Magna Carta, however, in that the barons appear to have seen them as restrictions on the king but only guidelines for themselves, and easy to set aside if they did not work in their favour, as evidenced by Eleanor’s on-going battle with the Marshal family to have a fair and reasonable dower paid to her on a regular basis.

Nevertheless, Eleanor’s life and experiences, her challenges and struggles, stand out as the legacy of Magna Carta. She is evidence that women saw their own rights enshrined in Magna Carta, just as her male counterparts did. Eleanor also stands out as demonstrating that the 1215 Magna Carta was the beginning of a struggle that would go on for many years, centuries, even.