She Wolves (17 page)
The crisis in Gascony had arisen when Alfonso X, King of Castile, claimed the territory by virtue of his descent from Eleanor of Aquitaine, through her daughter, Eleanor.
23
Castile’s claim to the province had been intermittently raised for half a century by the 1250s but, in late 1252, Alfonso renewed his claim, invading the province. Henry III was not a warlike king and, although he travelled to Gascony to conduct a campaign, on 15 May 1253, he instructed his ambassadors to try to arrange a marriage with Castile in order to avoid hostilities.
24
After long negotiations, it was decided that Henry’s eldest son, Edward, would marry Alfonso’s twelve-year-old half-sister, Eleanor. Eleanor of Castile must have waited with apprehension for the arrival of Edward and his mother but, unlike many other medieval princesses, she was apparently lucky in the husband chosen for her and the couple quickly became close, marrying at Burgos in Castile on 1 November 1254.
25
Soon after the wedding, Eleanor of Castile and Edward returned to Gascony where they spent a year getting to know each other and adapting to married life.
26
It is possible that Eleanor of Castile perceived her mother-in-law’s poor reputation and she may have deliberately limited the number of Castilians who accompanied her to England in October 1255. Nevertheless her arrival did stir up another wave of xenophobia in England. Henry III, eager for his young daughter-in-law to be comfortable, had taken advice from Eleanor’s half-brother, Sancho of Castile, to furnish her apartments in Castilian fashion.
27
Eleanor was probably grateful for the carpeted rooms she received from Henry III but even this gesture stirred up trouble with fear that Eleanor’s arrival would be accompanied by an influx of foreigners as her mother-in-law’s had done. In reality her foreign birth was damning and it seems likely that any action carried out by Eleanor would have been wrong in the eyes of the English.
Eleanor of Castile appears rarely in sources between 1250 and 1260 and she may have spent much of this time growing up, learning the customs of her adopted country. She may have had some influence over Edward, and it is possible that she approved when, in 1258, he finally broke away from his mother’s Savoyard faction and began allying himself with the Lusignans.
28
This was a deliberate act of rebellion against his controlling parents and Eleanor of Provence must have been deeply worried by her son’s actions. Her distress would have increased when, in October 1259, Edward announced that he was now allying himself with his uncle, Simon de Montford, the leader of the barons who entered into rebellion against Henry III’s rule in 1258.
Henry, like his father, King John, had had trouble with the barons for much of his reign. This hostility erupted dramatically in 1258, perhaps catching both Henry III and Eleanor of Provence by surprise. In two parliaments of that year, Henry was forced to agree to the demands of the barons, as his father had done, and to exile his half-brothers, the Lusignans.
29
Eleanor of Provence must have been relieved to see the back of the hated Lusignans but that would have been a small consolation. Eleanor herself was also seen as an enemy by the barons and her lands and castles were seized.
30
Eleanor and Henry deeply resented the dominance of the barons but there was little they could do. In 1260, Simon de Montford was in a strong enough position to have Peter of Savoy removed from the royal council, something which must have been deeply worrying for Eleanor. One consolation must have been Edward’s return to his parents’ cause but, even with his support, Henry and Eleanor were forced to employ foreign mercenaries and, in June 1263, they withdrew to the Tower of London.
31
Locked in the Tower of London together, the future must have seemed bleak for Eleanor and Henry and they appear to have quarrelled about the best way to approach the situation. The couple were in a hopeless situation and matters can only have been made worse by the fact that they had no money with them and nobody in London would agree to give them credit.
32
Eleanor, who was always active herself, may well have felt frustrated at Henry’s lack of activity and, when word reached her that Edward had taken matters into his own hands and stolen money from the New Temple in London, she apparently decided to abandon her husband and throw in her lot with her son.
33
According to the
Annals of Dunstable
:
The queen left the Tower by the Thames on her way to Windsor by boat and came to London Bridge; when the Londoners assailed her and her men shamefully with foul and base words and even casting stones; so that freed with difficulty by the mayor of London and driven by necessity she went back to the Tower.
34
Eleanor must have been horrified by the Londoners’ reaction to her and perhaps this was the first moment in which she truly realised how unpopular she was. No English queen either before or after her was actually attacked by a mob and Eleanor must have emerged dishevelled and bruised from her ordeal. The indignities of the day were not over for Eleanor, however, and, when she arrived back at the Tower she found the gates barred against her on Henry’s orders.
35
It must have been a furious and distraught Eleanor who was finally taken to lodge at the Bishop’s palace, although she and Henry appear to have been reconciled soon afterwards.
As in other perilous times, Eleanor immediately turned to her family for help and, in September 1263, her brother-in-law, Louis IX, summoned Henry, Eleanor and their sons, along with Simon de Montford, to present their cases before him in France.
36
The barons forced Henry and Eleanor to swear oaths that they would return to England, but Eleanor clearly had no intention of keeping her oath. Henry and Eleanor laid a number of complaints about de Montford before Louis, but there was little he could do. Soon after the meeting, Henry and Edward returned to England but Eleanor and Edmund, in violation of their oaths, refused to return.
Henry and Edward were not idle on their return to England and both set about raising an army in an attempt to defeat the barons.
37
On 14 May 1264 a royal army, four times the size of the force commanded by de Montford, met the barons in Battle at Lewes. Both Eleanor of Provence and Eleanor of Castile would have waited anxiously for news of this battle, hoping for word of a royal victory. It was not to be, however, and the Battle of Lewes proved to be a great disaster for Henry III. By the end of the day Henry III, his brother, Richard of Cornwall, and Edward were all prisoners and it was left to Eleanor of Provence alone to continue the struggle against the barons.
38
The royal women were clearly considered a potential danger by the barons and this is likely to be due to Eleanor of Provence’s reputation as a formidable woman. They took no chances and Eleanor of Castile was ordered to join Henry III in his imprisonment so that the barons could keep an eye on her.
39
The barons were right to be worried about Eleanor of Provence’s activities and, soon after news of the Battle of Lewes reached her, she began collecting troops in order to invade England.
40
News of this deeply troubled the barons and the
Annals of Dunstable
describes how ‘the king on their advice had his letters sent to all the shires of England commanding all the adjacent sea coasts of England to be guarded by an ample force of armed men against adversaries coming from foreign parts’.
41
News of this probably only spurred Eleanor on and she also persuaded the King and Queen of France to approach the Pope to annul the baron’s actions and to excommunicate them.
42
In spite of the difficulties of her position, Eleanor pressed on with gathering her forces and, by autumn 1264, she was based on the Flemish coast with a large army.
43
Eleanor was probably confident of victory against the barons and must have imagined that she would land in England in triumph. However, once again, bad luck dogged her and storms kept her trapped on the coast for several months. Eleanor must have watched anxiously as she quickly ran out of money and, with the last of her funds, her army drifted away, leaving her unable to do anything for Henry and Edward except watch, impotently, from France. For a woman as active and resourceful as Eleanor of Provence, this must have been difficult to bear and it would have been with relief, in May 1265, that she finally heard that Edward had escaped his captors and was raising his own force in England.
44
On 4 August 1265 Edward and the barons met in battle at Evesham and, during the day, Simon de Montford was killed, crushing the baron’s resistance and restoring Henry III to power.
45
Eleanor of Provence landed at Dover on 1 November 1265 to be reunited with her husband and son and to be restored to her position as queen.
46
Although glad to return, Eleanor of Provence was never to regain the same influence that she had had before the baron’s revolt. She may, perhaps, have been content with this and to allow her daughter-in-law, Eleanor of Castile, more influence. Certainly, after the birth of her first son, John, in July 1266 and a second son, Henry, in May 1268, Eleanor of Castile’s position in England was secured.
47
The births of these sons, as well as a number of daughters, also seems to have united the two Eleanors and both Henry III and Eleanor of Provence were doting grandparents, taking custody of their grandchildren when Edward and Eleanor of Castile decided to go on crusade in 1270.
As the story of Eleanor of Castile’s own ancestress, Eleanor of Aquitaine shows, it was not unheard of for women to accompany their husbands on crusade and Eleanor of Castile was adamant about accompanying Edward. According to legend, when attempts were made to dissuade Eleanor from going, she replied that no one ought to separate husband and wife and that, in any event, Syria was as near to Heaven as England and Spain.
48
Whether or not these were Eleanor’s exact words, she probably said something to that effect and Edward and Eleanor of Castile were devoted to each other throughout their marriage. Eleanor certainly suffered emotional and physical hardships whilst in the Holy Land, giving birth to two daughters during the campaign.
49
The crusade is notable for a legend that has grown up around Eleanor of Castile. Whilst they were in the Holy Land, Edward was stabbed twice by an assassin with a poisoned dagger before he was able to overpower his assailant and kill him.
50
Edward was grievously injured in this attack and, according to some reports, it was Eleanor herself who saved him. Camden wrote:
When her husband was treacherously wounded by a moor with a poyson’d sword, and rather grew worse than receiv’d any ease by what the Physicians apply’d to it, she found out a remedy, as new and unheard of, as full of love and endearment for by reason of the malignity of the poison, her husband’s wounds could not possibly be clos’d: but she lick’d them dayly with her own tongue, and suck’d out the venomous humour, thinking it a most delicious liquor. By the power whereof, or rather by the virtue of a wife’s tenderness, she so drew out the poisonous matter, that he was entirely cur’d of his wound, and she escap’d without catching any harm. What then can be more rare than this woman’s expression of love? Or what can be more admirable? The tongue of a wife, anointed (if I may so say) with duty and love to her husband, draws from her beloved those poisons which could not be drawn by the most approv’d Physician, and what many and most exquisite medicines could not do, is effected purely by the love of a wife.
51
The story of Eleanor sucking out the poison from Edward’s wounds is one of the most enduring that surrounds her. However, no version of this story is contemporary with Eleanor. In fact, those contemporary sources which mention the assassination attempt on Edward present a very different picture of a hysterical Eleanor having to be carried from Edward’s tent so that his surgeons could operate. The story of Eleanor sucking the poison from Edward’s wounds fits well with the almost saintly posthumous reputation that has grown up around her. However, the image of a hysterical Eleanor fits more accurately with the reality of her character. It is also entirely understandable and Eleanor, who was completely dependent on Edward and appears to have loved him, must have been terrified.
The assassination attempt in June 1272 marked the end of Edward’s interest in crusading and, as soon as he was well enough, the couple set out to return to England.
52
Eleanor was probably relieved. The couple moved in leisurely stages towards England and it was whilst they were staying in Sicily they received the news that their eldest son, John, and Edward’s father, Henry III, had died. Edward apparently took the death of his father much harder than the death of his son although Eleanor’s feelings are not recorded. By 1272, she had already lost several daughters and the death of an infant son that she had not seen for two years may have had little effect on her. Certainly, both Edward and Eleanor seem to have reasoned that they still had one surviving son and that they were also still young. In any event, during the journey back to England, Eleanor bore a third son, Alphonso. Edward and Eleanor finally arrived back in England on 2 August 1274 and were crowned together in Westminster Abbey.
53
Eleanor of Provence took the deaths of her grandchildren harder than their parents did. She retained custody of her grandson, Henry, after his parents returned to England and she was with him when he died on 14 October 1274.
54
This was in stark contrast to his parents who, although staying in London at the time of their eldest surviving son’s death, did not bother to make the short trip to visit him at Guildford.
55
They also did not commission any memorial masses for their next eldest son, Alphonso, when he died in 1284, a very unusual omission for that time.
56
Eleanor of Castile spent the majority of her marriage in childbearing and bore around fifteen or sixteen children.
57
To modern eyes, at least, neither she nor Edward appear to have been fond parents and they had little involvement in their children’s upbringing, for example, sending their daughter, Joan of Acre, to be raised in Ponthieu by Eleanor’s mother.
58
It is true that Edward and Eleanor’s court was extremely mobile, constantly moving around the country. However, Henry III’s court had also been mobile and he and Eleanor of Provence had always shown an interest in their children in a way that Edward I and Eleanor of Castile did not.