Eleanor of Castile (1241 – 28 November 1290) was
Queen of England as the first wife of
Edward I, whom she married as part of a political deal to affirm English sovereignty over
Gascony
Gascony (; french: Gascogne ; oc, Gasconha ; eu, Gaskoinia) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part o ...
.
The marriage was known to be particularly close, and Eleanor travelled extensively with her husband. She was with him on the
Ninth Crusade
Lord Edward's crusade, sometimes called the Ninth Crusade, was a military expedition to the Holy Land under the command of Edward, Duke of Gascony (future King Edward I of England) in 1271–1272. It was an extension of the Eighth Crusade and was ...
, when he was wounded at Acre, but the popular story of her saving his life by sucking out the poison has long been discredited. When she died, at
Harby near
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
, her grieving husband famously ordered a
stone cross
Stone crosses (german: Steinkreuze) in Central Europe are usually bulky Christian monuments, some high and wide, that were almost always hewn from a single block of stone, usually granite, sandstone, limestone or basalt. They are amongst the ...
to be erected at each stopping-place on the journey to London, ending at
Charing Cross
Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City; ...
.
Eleanor was better educated than most medieval queens and exerted a strong cultural influence on the nation. She was a keen patron of literature and encouraged the use of tapestries, carpets and tableware in the Spanish style, as well as innovative garden designs. She was also a successful businesswoman, endowed with her own fortune as
Countess of Ponthieu
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...
.
Life
Birth
Eleanor was born in
Burgos
Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos.
Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of t ...
, daughter of
Ferdinand III of Castile
Ferdinand III ( es, Fernando, link=no; 1199/120130 May 1252), called the Saint (''el Santo''), was King of Castile from 1217 and King of León from 1230 as well as King of Galicia from 1231. He was the son of Alfonso IX of León and Berenguela of ...
and
Joan, Countess of Ponthieu
Joan of Dammartin (french: Jeanne; 1220 – 16 March 1279) was Queen of Castile and León by marriage to Ferdinand III of Castile. She also ruled as Countess of Ponthieu (1251–1279) and Aumale (1237–1279). Her daughter, the English queen Ele ...
. Her
Castilian name, Leonor, became Alienor or Alianor in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, and Eleanor in
modern English. She was named after her paternal great-grandmother,
Eleanor of England, the daughter of
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor ( – 1 April 1204; french: Aliénor d'Aquitaine, ) was Queen of France from 1137 to 1152 as the wife of King Louis VII, Queen of England from 1154 to 1189 as the wife of King Henry II, and Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right from ...
and
Henry II of England
Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (french: link=no, Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress, or Henry Plantagenet, was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189, and as such, was the first Angevin king ...
.
Eleanor was the second of five children born to Ferdinand and Joan. Her elder brother Ferdinand was born in 1239/40, her younger brother Louis in 1242/43; two sons born after Louis died young. For the ceremonies in 1291 marking the first anniversary of Eleanor's death, 49 candlebearers were paid to walk in the public procession to commemorate each year of her life. As the tradition was to have one candle for each year of the deceased's life, 49 candles would date Eleanor's birth to 1240 or 1241.
As her parents were apart from each other for 13 months while King Ferdinand was on a military campaign in
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...
, from which he returned to the north of Spain only in February 1241, Eleanor was probably born towards the end of that year. The courts of her father and her half-brother
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, es, el Sabio; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germ ...
were known for their literary atmosphere. Both kings also encouraged extensive education of the royal children, and it is therefore likely that Eleanor was educated to a standard higher than the norm, a likelihood which is reinforced by her later literary activities as queen.
She was at her father's deathbed in
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
in 1252.
Prospective bride to Theobald II of Navarre
Eleanor's marriage in 1254 to the future
Edward I of England
Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassa ...
was not the only marriage her family planned for her.
The kings of Castile had long made a tenuous claim to be paramount lords of the
Kingdom of Navarre
The Kingdom of Navarre (; , , , ), originally the Kingdom of Pamplona (), was a Basque kingdom that occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, alongside the Atlantic Ocean between present-day Spain and France.
The medieval state took ...
due to sworn homage from
Garcia VI of Navarre in 1134. In 1253, Ferdinand III's heir, Eleanor's half-brother
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X (also known as the Wise, es, el Sabio; 23 November 1221 – 4 April 1284) was King of Castile, León and Galicia from 30 May 1252 until his death in 1284. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germ ...
, stalled negotiations with England in hopes that she would marry
Theobald II of Navarre
Theobald II or ''Thibaud'', es, Teobaldo (6/7 December 1239 – 4/5 December 1270) was King of Navarre and also, as Theobald V, Count of Champagne and Brie, from 1253 until his death. He was the son and successor of Theobald I and the second N ...
.
The marriage afforded several advantages. First, the
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...
kingdom also afforded passage from Castile to Gascony. Secondly, Theobald II was not yet of age, thus the opportunity existed to rule or potentially annex Navarre into Castile. To avoid Castilian control,
Margaret of Bourbon (mother and regent to Theobald II) in August 1253 allied with
James I of Aragon
James I the Conqueror ( es, Jaime el Conquistador, ca, Jaume el Conqueridor; 2 February 1208 – 27 July 1276) was King of Aragon and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276; King of Majorca from 1231 to 1276; and Valencia from 1238 to 1276 ...
instead, and as part of that treaty, solemnly promised that Theobald would never marry Eleanor.
Marriage
In 1252, Alfonso X resurrected another ancestral claim, this time to the
duchy of Gascony
The Duchy of Gascony or Duchy of Vasconia ( eu, Baskoniako dukerria; oc, ducat de Gasconha; french: duché de Gascogne, duché de Vasconie) was a duchy located in present-day southwestern France and northeastern Spain, an area encompassing the m ...
in the south of
Aquitaine
Aquitaine ( , , ; oc, Aquitània ; eu, Akitania; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne ( oc, Guiana), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region of the country. Since 1 January ...
(the last possession of the
Kings of England
This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself King of the Anglo-Sax ...
in France), which he claimed had formed part of the dowry of
Eleanor of England.
Henry III of England
Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, Henry a ...
swiftly countered Alfonso's claims with both diplomatic and military moves. Early in 1253, the two kings began to negotiate; after haggling over the financial provision for Eleanor, Henry and Alfonso agreed she would marry Henry's son Edward (by now the titular duke), and Alfonso would transfer his Gascon claims to Edward. Henry was so anxious for the marriage to take place that he willingly abandoned elaborate preparations already made for Edward's knighting in England and agreed that Alfonso would knight Edward on or before the next Feast of Assumption.
The young couple were married at the monastery of
Las Huelgas,
Burgos
Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos.
Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of t ...
, on 1 November 1254. Edward and Eleanor were second cousins once removed, as Edward's grandfather
King John of England
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the t ...
and Eleanor's great-grandmother Eleanor of England were the son and daughter of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Following the marriage they spent nearly a year in Gascony, with Edward ruling as lord of Aquitaine. During this time Eleanor, aged thirteen and a half, almost certainly gave birth to her first child, a short-lived daughter. She journeyed to England alone in late summer of 1255. Edward followed her a few months later.
Henry III took pride in resolving the Gascon crisis so decisively, but his English subjects feared that the marriage would bring Eleanor's kinfolk and countrymen to live off Henry's ruinous generosity. A few of her relatives did come to England soon after her marriage. She was too young to stop them or prevent Henry III from supporting them, but she was blamed anyway and her marriage soon became unpopular.
The presence of more English, French and Norman soldiers of fortune and opportunists in the cities of
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
and
Cordoba, recently conquered from the Moorish
Almohads
The Almohad Caliphate (; ar, خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or or from ar, ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ, translit=al-Muwaḥḥidūn, lit=those who profess the unity of God) was a North African Berber Muslim empire fo ...
, would be increased, however, thanks to this alliance between royal houses, until the advent of the later
Hundred Years War
The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantagen ...
, when it would be symptomatic of extended hostilities between the French and the English for peninsular support.
Second Barons' War
There is little record of Eleanor's life in England until the 1260s, when the
Second Barons' War
The Second Barons' War (1264–1267) was a civil war in England between the forces of a number of barons led by Simon de Montfort against the royalist forces of King Henry III, led initially by the king himself and later by his son, the fu ...
, between Henry III and his barons, divided the kingdom. During this time, Eleanor actively supported Edward's interests, importing archers from her mother's county of
Ponthieu
Ponthieu (, ) was one of six feudal counties that eventually merged to become part of the Province of Picardy, in northern France.Dunbabin.France in the Making. Ch.4. The Principalities 888-987 Its chief town is Abbeville.
History
Ponthieu play ...
in France. It is untrue, however, that she was sent to France to escape danger during the war; she was in England throughout the struggle and held Windsor Castle and baronial prisoners for Edward. Rumours that she was seeking fresh troops from Castile led the baronial leader,
Simon de Montfort
Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester ( – 4 August 1265), later sometimes referred to as Simon V de Montfort to distinguish him from his namesake relatives, was a nobleman of French origin and a member of the English peerage, who led the ...
, to order her removal from
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history.
The original cast ...
in June 1264 after the royalist army had been defeated at the
Battle of Lewes
The Battle of Lewes was one of two main battles of the conflict known as the Second Barons' War. It took place at Lewes in Sussex, on 14 May 1264. It marked the high point of the career of Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, and made h ...
.
Edward was captured at Lewes and imprisoned, and Eleanor was honourably confined at
Westminster Palace
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...
. After Edward and Henry's army defeated the baronial army at the
Battle of Evesham in 1265, Edward took a major role in reforming the government and Eleanor rose to prominence at his side. Her position was greatly improved in July 1266 when, after she had borne three short-lived daughters, she gave birth to a son, John, to be followed by a second boy, Henry, in the spring of 1268, and in June 1269 by a healthy daughter, Eleanor.
Crusade
By 1270, the kingdom was pacified and Edward and Eleanor left to join his uncle
Louis IX of France
Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the ...
on the
Eighth Crusade
The Eighth Crusade was the second Crusade launched by Louis IX of France, this one against the Hafsid dynasty in Tunisia in 1270. It is also known as the Crusade of Louis IX against Tunis or the Second Crusade of Louis. The Crusade did not see ...
. Louis died at
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
before they arrived, however, and after they spent the winter in
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
, the couple went on to
Acre
The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imp ...
in the
Holy Land
The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy ...
, where they arrived in May 1271. Eleanor gave birth to a daughter, known as "Joan of Acre" for her birthplace.
The crusade was militarily unsuccessful, but
Baibars
Al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari ( ar, الملك الظاهر ركن الدين بيبرس البندقداري, ''al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars al-Bunduqdārī'') (1223/1228 – 1 July 1277), of Turkic Kipchak ...
of the
Bahri dynasty was worried enough by Edward's presence at Acre that an assassination attempt was made on the English heir in June 1272. He was wounded in the arm by a dagger that was thought to be poisoned. The wound soon became seriously inflamed, and a surgeon saved him by cutting away the diseased flesh, but only after Eleanor was led from his bed, "weeping and wailing". Later storytellers embellished this incident, claiming Eleanor sucked poison from the wound, thereby saving Edward's life, but this fanciful tale has no foundation.
They left Acre in September 1272, and in Sicily that December, they learned of Henry III's death (on 16 November 1272). Following a trip to Gascony, where their next child, Alphonso (named for Eleanor's half brother Alfonso X), was born, Edward and Eleanor returned to England and were crowned together on 19 August 1274.
Queen consort of England
Arranged royal marriages in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
were not always happy, but available evidence indicates that Eleanor and Edward were devoted to each other. Edward is among the few medieval English kings not known to have conducted extramarital affairs or fathered children out of wedlock. The couple were rarely apart; she accompanied him on military campaigns in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, famously giving birth to their son Edward on 25 April 1284 at
Caernarfon Castle, either in a temporary dwelling erected for her amid the construction works, or in the partially constructed Eagle Tower.
Their household records witness incidents that imply a comfortable, even humorous, relationship. Each year on
Easter Monday
Easter Monday refers to the day after Easter Sunday in either the Eastern or Western Christian traditions. It is a public holiday in some countries. It is the second day of Eastertide. In Western Christianity, it marks the second day of the Octa ...
, Edward let Eleanor's ladies trap him in his bed and paid them a token ransom so he could go to her bedroom on the first day after
Lent
Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...
; so important was this custom to him that in 1291, on the first Easter Monday after Eleanor's death, he gave her ladies the money he would have given them had she been alive. Edward disliked ceremonies and in 1290 refused to attend the marriage of
Earl Marshal
Earl marshal (alternatively marschal or marischal) is a hereditary royal officeholder and chivalric title under the sovereign of the United Kingdom used in England (then, following the Act of Union 1800, in the United Kingdom). He is the eig ...
Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk
Roger Bigod (c. 1245 – bf. 6 December 1306) was 5th Earl of Norfolk.
Origins
He was the son of Hugh Bigod (Justiciar), Hugh Bigod (1211–1266), Justiciar, and succeeded his father's elder brother Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk (1209 ...
; Eleanor thoughtfully (or resignedly) paid
minstrel
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who ...
s to play for him while he sat alone during the wedding.
That Edward remained single until he wedded
Margaret of France in 1299 is often cited to prove he cherished Eleanor's memory. In fact, he considered a second marriage as early as 1293, but this does not mean he did not mourn Eleanor. Eloquent testimony is found in his letter to the
abbot of Cluny
The Abbot of Cluny was the head of the powerful monastery of the Abbey of Cluny in medieval France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, o ...
in France (January 1291), seeking prayers for the soul of the wife "whom living we dearly cherished, and whom dead we cannot cease to love". In her memory, Edward ordered the construction of twelve elaborate stone crosses (of which three survive, though none of them is intact) between 1291 and 1294, marking the route of her funeral procession between Lincoln and London. (See below.)
Only one of Eleanor's four sons survived childhood, however, and even before she died, Edward worried over the succession: if that son died, their daughters' husbands might cause a succession war. Despite personal grief, Edward faced his duty and married again. He delighted in the sons his new wife bore, but attended memorial services for Eleanor to the end of his life, Margaret at his side on at least one occasion.
Popularity
Eleanor is warmly remembered by history as the queen who inspired the
Eleanor crosses, but she was not so loved in her own time. Her reputation was primarily as a keen businesswoman.
Walter of Guisborough
Walter of GuisboroughWalter of Gisburn, Walterus Gisburnensis. Previously known to scholars as Walter of Hemingburgh (John Bale seems to have been the first to call him that).Sometimes known erroneously as Walter Hemingford, Latin chronicler of t ...
preserves a contemporary poem:
The annalist of Dunstable Priory echoed him in a contemporary notice of her death: "a Spaniard by birth, she acquired many fine manors".
Her acquisition of lands was an unusual degree of economic activity for any medieval noblewoman, let alone a queen – and the level of her activity was exceptional by any standard: between 1274 and 1290 she acquired estates worth above £2500 yearly. In fact, it was Edward himself who initiated this process and his ministers helped her. He wanted the queen to hold lands sufficient for her financial needs without drawing on funds needed for government. One of his methods to help Eleanor acquire land was to give her the debts Christian landlords owed Jewish moneylenders. In exchange for cancelling the debts, she received the lands pledged for the debts. The debtors were often glad to rid themselves of the debts, and profited from the favour Eleanor showed them afterwards; she granted many of them, for life, lands worth as much as the estates they had surrendered to her, and some of them became her household knights.
There is, however, very clear evidence that Eleanor's property dealings made her widely unpopular.
John Peckham
John Peckham (c. 1230 – 8 December 1292) was Archbishop of Canterbury in the years 1279–1292. He was a native of Sussex who was educated at Lewes Priory and became a Friar Minor about 1250. He studied at the University of Paris under B ...
,
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
warned Eleanor's servants about her activities in the land market and her association with the highly unpopular moneylenders: "A rumour is waxing strong throughout the kingdom and has generated much scandal. It is said that the illustrious lady queen, whom you serve, is occupying many manors, lands, and other possessions of nobles, and has made them her own property - lands which the Jews have extorted with usury from Christians under the protection of the royal court." Given the chroniclers' passages quoted above, the accusation is indeed borne out by contemporary writers. Peckham also warned her of complaints against her officials' demands upon her tenants. Eleanor must have been aware of the truth of such reports since, on her deathbed, she asked Edward to name justices to examine her officials' actions and make reparations. The surviving proceedings from this inquest reveal a pattern of ruthless exactions, often (but not always) without Eleanor's knowledge. Her executors' financial accounts record the payments of reparations to many of those who brought actions before the judicial proceedings in 1291. In her lifetime, Eleanor had righted such wrongs when she heard of them, and her deathbed request of Edward indicates that she knew, suspected, or feared, that her officials had perpetrated many more transgressions than were ever reported to her.
Two other letters from Peckham, moreover, show that some people thought she urged Edward to rule harshly and that she could be a severe woman who did not take it lightly if any one crossed her, which contravened contemporary expectations that queens should intercede with their husbands on behalf of the needy, the oppressed, or the condemned.
Thus, he warned a convent of nuns that "if they knew what was good for them", they would accede to the queen's wishes and accept into their house a woman the convent had refused, but whose vocation Eleanor had decided to sponsor. Record evidence from the king's administrations shows that
Hugh Despenser the Elder
Hugh le Despenser (1 March 126127 October 1326), sometimes referred to as "the Elder Despenser", was for a time the chief adviser to King Edward II of England. He was created a baron in 1295 and Earl of Winchester in 1322. One day after being ...
, who agreed to allow the queen to hold one of his manors for a term of years in order to clear his debt to her, thought it well to demand official assurances from the King's Exchequer that the manor would be restored to him as soon as the queen had recovered the exact amount of the debt.
Thus the evidence tends unavoidably to the conclusion that Eleanor was not greatly loved outside her own circle. It is only with a chronicle written at St Albans in 1307–08 that we find the first positive remarks, and it is hard to avoid the impression that the chronicler was writing to flatter her son, Edward II, who had succeeded his father in 1307. It is also likely that the impressive succession of "Eleanor Crosses" Edward constructed after her death (as discussed below) was intended to improve the late queen's image.
Limited political influence
It has traditionally been argued that Eleanor had no impact on the political history of Edward's reign, and that even in diplomatic matters her role was minor, though Edward did heed her advice on the age at which their daughters could marry foreign rulers. Otherwise, it has been said, she merely gave gifts, usually provided by Edward, to visiting princes or envoys. Edward always honoured his obligations to Alfonso X, but even when Alfonso's need was desperate in the early 1280s, Edward did not send English knights to Castile; he sent only knights from
Gascony
Gascony (; french: Gascogne ; oc, Gasconha ; eu, Gaskoinia) was a province of the southwestern Kingdom of France that succeeded the Duchy of Gascony (602–1453). From the 17th century until the French Revolution (1789–1799), it was part o ...
, which was closer to Castile.
However more recent research has indicated that Eleanor may have played some role in Edward's counsels, though she did not exercise power overtly except on occasions where she was appointed to mediate disputes of a between nobles in England and Gascony. Some of Edward's legislation, for example the
Statute of Jewry
The Statute of Jewry was a statute issued by Henry III of England in 1253. In response to England's anti-Jewish hatred, Henry attempted to segregate and debase England's Jews with oppressive laws which included imposing the wearing of a yellow ...
and his approach to
Welsh resettlement show some similarities to Castilian approaches. His military strategies, too, appear to have been influenced by the work of
Vegetius
Publius (or Flavius) Vegetius Renatus, known as Vegetius (), was a writer of the Later Roman Empire (late 4th century). Nothing is known of his life or station beyond what is contained in his two surviving works: ''Epitoma rei militaris'' (also r ...
, to which Eleanor directed his attention. Edward was, however, clearly prepared to resist her demands, or to stop her, if he felt she was going too far in any of her activities, and that he expected his ministers to restrain her if her actions threatened to inconvenience important people in his realm, as happened on one occasion when
Robert Burnell
Robert Burnell (sometimes spelled Robert Burnel;Harding ''England in the Thirteenth Century'' p. 159 c. 1239 – 25 October 1292) was an English bishop who served as Lord Chancellor of England from 1274 to 1292. A native of Shropshire, h ...
, the Lord Chancellor, assured the Bishop of Winchester, from whom the queen was demanding a sum of money the bishop owed her, that he would speak with the queen and that the business would end happily for the bishop.
Cultural influence
If she was allowed no overt political role, Eleanor was a highly intelligent and cultured woman and found other satisfying outlets for her energies. She was an active patroness of literature, maintaining the only royal scriptorium known to have existed at the time in Northern Europe, with scribes and at least one illuminator to copy books for her. Some of the works produced were apparently vernacular romances and saints' lives, but Eleanor's tastes ranged far more widely than that and were not limited to the products of her own writing office. The number and variety of new works written for her show that her interests were broad and sophisticated. In the 1260s she commissioned the production of the Douce Apocalypse. She has also been credibly linked to the Trinity Apocalypse, although the question of whether she commissioned it, or simply owned an apocalypse which influenced its production, remains a matter of debate. On Crusade in 1272, she had ''
De Re Militari'' by
Vegetius
Publius (or Flavius) Vegetius Renatus, known as Vegetius (), was a writer of the Later Roman Empire (late 4th century). Nothing is known of his life or station beyond what is contained in his two surviving works: ''Epitoma rei militaris'' (also r ...
translated for Edward. After she succeeded her mother as countess of Ponthieu in 1279, a romance was written for her about the life of a supposed 9th century count of Ponthieu. She commissioned an Arthurian romance with a Northumbrian theme, possibly for the marriage of the Northumbrian lord John de Vescy, who married a close friend and relation of hers. In the 1280s, Archbishop Peckham wrote a theological work for her to explain what
angel
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God.
Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...
s were and what they did. She almost certainly commissioned the Alphonso Psalter, now in the British Library, and is also suspected to be the commissioner of the Bird Psalter which also bears the arms of Alphonso and his prospective wife. In January 1286 she thanked the abbot of Cerne for lending her a book—possibly a treatise on chess known to have been written at Cerne in the late thirteenth century—and her accounts reveal her in 1290 corresponding with an Oxford master about one of her books. There is also evidence suggesting that she exchanged books with her brother Alfonso X.
Relevant evidence suggests that Eleanor was not fluent in English, but was accustomed to read, and so presumably to think and speak, in French, her mother's tongue, with which she would have been familiar from childhood despite spending her early years in Spain. In this she was luckier than many medieval European queens, who often arrived in their husband's realms to face the need to learn a new language; but the English court was still functionally bilingual, in large measure through the long succession of its queens, who were mostly from French-speaking lands. In 1275, on a visit to St Albans abbey in Hertfordshire, the people of the town begged her help in withstanding the abbot's exactions from them, but one of her courtiers had to act as translator before she could respond to the plea for assistance. All the literary works noted above are in French, as are the bulk of her surviving letters, and since Peckham wrote his letters and his angelic treatise for her in French, she was presumably well known to prefer that language.
In the
domestic sphere she popularised the use of tapestries and carpets – the use of hangings and especially floor coverings was noted as a Spanish extravagance on her arrival in London, but by the time of her death was plainly much in vogue amongst richer magnates, with certain of her hangings having to be reclaimed from Anthony Bek, the bishop of Durham. She also promoted the use of fine tableware, elegantly decorated knives, and even forks (though it remains uncertain whether the latter were used as personal eating utensils or as serving pieces from the common bowls or platters). She also had considerable influence on the development of garden design in the royal estates. Extensive spending on gardens is evidenced at her properties and in most places she stayed, including the use of water features – a common Castilian garden design feature, which was owed to Islamic and Roman influences in Spain. The picturesque Gloriette at
Leeds Castle
Leeds Castle is a castle in Kent, England, southeast of Maidstone. It is built on islands in a lake formed by the River Len to the east of the village of Leeds.
A castle has existed on the site since 857. In the 13th century, it came into th ...
was developed during her ownership of the castle.
![Arms of Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England (Attributed)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Arms_of_Eleanor_of_Castile%2C_Queen_of_England_%28Attributed%29.svg)
The queen was a devoted patron of the
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...
friars, founding several priories in England and supporting their work at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. Not surprisingly, then, Eleanor's piety was of an intellectual stamp; apart from her religious foundations she was not given to direct good works, and she left it to her chaplains to distribute alms for her. Her level of charitable giving was, however, considerable.
She patronised many relatives, though given foreigners' unpopularity in England and the criticism of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence's generosity to them, she was cautious as queen to choose which cousins to support. Rather than marry her male cousins to English heiresses, which would put English wealth in foreign hands, she arranged marriages for her female cousins to English barons. Edward strongly supported her in these endeavours, which provided him and his family (and Eleanor herself, in her potential widowhood) with an expanded network of potential supporters. In a few cases, her marriage projects for her lady cousins provided Edward, as well as her father-in-law Henry III, with opportunities to sustain healthy relations with other realms. The marriage of her kinswoman Marguerite de Guines to the earl of Ulster, one of the more influential English noblemen in Ireland, not only gave Edward a new family connection in that island but also with Scotland, since Marguerite's cousin
Marie de Coucy was the mother of Edward's brother-in-law Alexander III. The earliest of Eleanor's recorded marriage projects linked one of her
Châtellerault
Châtellerault (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Châteulrô/Chateleràud''; oc, Chastelairaud) is a commune in the Vienne department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in France. It is located in the northeast of the former province Poitou, and the re ...
cousins with a member of the
Lusignan
The House of Lusignan ( ; ) was a royal house of French origin, which at various times ruled several principalities in Europe and the Levant, including the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia, from the 12th through the 15th centuries du ...
family, Henry III's highly favoured maternal relatives, not only strengthening the king's ties with that family but also creating a new tie between the English king and a powerful family in Poitou, on Gascony's northern flank.
Death
Eleanor was presumably a healthy woman for most of her life; that she survived at least sixteen pregnancies suggests that she was not frail. Shortly after the birth of her last child, however, financial accounts from Edward's household and her own begin to record frequent payments for medicines to the queen's use. The nature of the medicines is not specified, so it is impossible to know what ailments were troubling her until, later in 1287 while she was in Gascony with Edward, a letter to England from a member of the royal entourage states that the queen had a double
quartan fever
Quartan fever is one of the four types of malaria which can be contracted by humans.
It is specifically caused by the ''Plasmodium malariae'' species, one of the six species of the protozoan genus ''Plasmodium''. Quartan fever is a form of malaria ...
. This fever pattern suggests that she was suffering from a strain of malaria. The disease is not fatal of itself, but leaves its victims weak and vulnerable to opportunistic infections. Among other complications, the liver and spleen become enlarged, brittle, and highly susceptible to injury which may cause death from internal bleeding. There is also a possibility that she had inherited the Castilian royal family's theorised tendency to cardiac problems.
From the time of the return from Gascony there are signs that Eleanor was aware that her death was not far off. Arrangements were made for the marriage of two of her daughters, Margaret and Joan, and negotiations for the marriage of young Edward of Caernarfon to
Margaret, the Maid of Norway, heiress of Scotland, were hurried on. In summer 1290, a tour north through Eleanor's properties was commenced, but proceeded at a much slower pace than usual, and the autumn Parliament was convened in Clipstone, rather than in London. Eleanor's children were summoned to visit her in Clipstone, despite warnings that travel might endanger their health. Following the conclusion of the parliament Eleanor and Edward set out the short distance from Clipstone to Lincoln. By this stage Eleanor was travelling fewer than eight miles a day.
Her final stop was at the village of
Harby, Nottinghamshire
Harby is the easternmost village in the English county of Nottinghamshire. The nearest city is Lincoln, over the border in Lincolnshire. According to the 2011 census, it had a population of 336, up from 289 at the 2001 census.
Heritage Eleanor o ...
, less than from
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
. The journey was abandoned, and the queen was lodged in the house of Richard de Weston, the foundations of which can still be seen near Harby's parish church. After piously receiving the Church's last rites, she died there on the evening of 28 November 1290, aged 49 and after 36 years of marriage. Edward was at her bedside to hear her final requests. For three days afterward, the machinery of government came to a halt and no writs were sealed.
Procession, burial and monuments
Eleanor's embalmed body was borne in great state from Lincoln to
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
, through the heartland of Eleanor's properties and accompanied for most of the way by Edward, and a substantial cortege of mourners. Edward gave orders that memorial crosses be erected at the site of each overnight stop between Lincoln and Westminster. Based on crosses in France marking Louis IX's funeral procession, these artistically significant monuments enhanced the image of Edward's kingship as well as witnessing his grief. The "
Eleanor crosses" stood at
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
,
Grantham
Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln and ...
,
Stamford,
Geddington
Geddington is a village and civil parish on the A4300, previously A43, in North Northamptonshire between Kettering and Corby. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 1,503, virtually unchanged from 1,504 at the 2001 census.
...
,
Hardingstone
Hardingstone is a village in Northamptonshire, England. It is on the southern edge of Northampton, and now forms a suburb of the town. It is about from the town centre. The Newport Pagnell road (the B526, formerly part of the A50) separates ...
near
Northampton
Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...
,
Stony Stratford,
Woburn,
Dunstable
Dunstable ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, east of the Chiltern Hills, north of London. There are several steep chalk escarpments, most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the ...
,
St Albans
St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...
,
Waltham,
Westcheap, and
Charing
Charing is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, in south-east England. It includes the settlements of Charing Heath and Westwell Leacon. It is located at the foot of the North Downs and reaches up to the escarpment.
T ...
– only three survive, none in its entirety. The best preserved is that at Geddington. All three have lost the crosses "of immense height" that originally surmounted them; only the lower stages remain. The top (cross) part of the Hardingstone monument is believed to reside in the Northampton Guildhall Museum. The Waltham cross has been heavily restored and to prevent further deterioration, its original statues of the queen are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The monument now known as "
Charing Cross
Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City; ...
" in London, in front of the
railway station of that name, was built in 1865 to publicise the railway hotel at Charing station. The original Charing cross was at the top of
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It is the main ...
, on the south side of
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemo ...
, but was destroyed in 1647 and later replaced by a statue of
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
.
In the thirteenth century, embalming involving evisceration and separate burial of heart and body was not unusual. Eleanor however was afforded the more unusual "triple" burial – separate burial of viscera, heart and body. Eleanor's
viscera
In biology, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to act together in a ...
were buried in Lincoln Cathedral, where Edward placed a duplicate of the Westminster tomb. The Lincoln tomb's original stone chest survives; its effigy was destroyed in the 17th century and has been replaced with a 19th-century copy. On the outside of
Lincoln Cathedral
Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Constructio ...
are two statues often identified as Edward and Eleanor, but these images were heavily restored and given new heads in the 19th century; probably they were not originally intended to depict the couple.
The queen's heart was buried in the Dominican priory at
Blackfriars Blackfriars, derived from Black Friars, a common name for the Dominican Order of friars, may refer to:
England
* Blackfriars, Bristol, a former priory in Bristol
* Blackfriars, Canterbury, a former monastery in Kent
* Blackfriars, Gloucester, a f ...
in London, along with that of her son Alphonso. The accounts of her executors show that the monument constructed there to commemorate her heart burial was richly elaborate, including wall paintings as well as an angelic statue in metal that apparently stood under a carved stone canopy. It was destroyed in the 16th century during the
Dissolution of the Monasteries.
![EleanorCast](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/EleanorCast.jpg)
Eleanor's funeral took place in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
on 17 December 1290. Her body was placed in a grave near the high altar that had originally contained the coffin of
Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066.
Edward was the son of Æth ...
and, more recently, that of King Henry III until his remains were removed to his new tomb in 1290. Eleanor's body remained in this grave until the completion of her own tomb. She had probably ordered that tomb before her death. It consists of a marble chest with carved mouldings and shields (originally painted) of the arms of England, Castile, and Ponthieu. The chest is surmounted by
William Torel's superb gilt-bronze effigy, showing Eleanor in the same pose as the image on her great seal.
When Edward remarried a decade after her death, he and his second wife
Margaret of France, named their only daughter Eleanor in honour of her.
Legacy
Eleanor of Castile's queenship is significant in English history for the evolution of a stable financial system for the king's wife, and for the honing this process gave the queen-consort's prerogatives. The estates Eleanor assembled became the nucleus for dower assignments made to later queens of England into the 15th century, and her involvement in this process solidly established a queen-consort's freedom to engage in such transactions. Few later queens exerted themselves in economic activity to the extent Eleanor did, but their ability to do so rested on the precedents settled in her lifetime.
Historical reputation
![Pictures_of_English_History_Plate_XXVI_-_Prince_Edward_and_His_Wife](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Pictures_of_English_History_Plate_XXVI_-_Prince_Edward_and_His_Wife.jpg)
Despite her ambiguous reputation in her own day, the St Albans Chronicle and the Eleanor Crosses assured Eleanor a positive, if slightly obscure standing over the next two centuries. As late as 1586, the antiquarian
William Camden
William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623) was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and herald, best known as author of ''Britannia'', the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the ''Annal ...
first published in England the tale that Eleanor saved Edward's life at Acre by sucking his wound. Camden then went on to ascribe construction of the Eleanor crosses to Edward's grief at the loss of an heroic wife who had selflessly risked her own life to save his. A year later in 1587, Raphael Holinshed's ''Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland'' described Eleanor as "the jewel
dward Imost esteemed ... a godly and modest princess, full of pity, and one that showed much favour to the English nation, ready to relieve every man's grief that sustained wrong and to make them friends that were at discord, so far as in her lay."
But a counter-narrative, driven by rising anti-Spanish feeling in England from the Reformation onwards, may already have begun to emerge. ''The Lamentable Fall of Queene Elenor'', a popular ballad sung to the popular tune "Gentle and Courteous", is thought to date from as early as the 1550s, and to be an indirect attack on the half-Spanish queen
Mary Tudor and her husband the Spanish
Philip II of Spain
Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...
.
[Cockerill, Sara, ''Eleanor of Castile: The Shadow Queen''] It depicts Eleanor as vain and violent: she demands of the king "that ev'ry man / That ware long lockes of hair, / Might then be cut and polled all"; she orders "That ev'ry womankind should have/Their right breast cut away"; she imprisons and tortures the Lady Mayoress of London, eventually murdering the Mayoress with poisonous snakes; she blasphemes against God on the common ground at Charing, causing the ground to swallow her up; and finally, miraculously spat up by the ground at Queen's Hithe, and now on her death-bed, she confesses not only to murder of the Mayoress but also to committing infidelity with a friar, by whom she has borne a child.
This was followed in the 1590s by George Peele's ''
The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First''. The first version of this, written in the early 1590s, is thought to have presented a positive depiction of the relationship between Eleanor and Edward. If so, it sank with little trace. The surviving revised version, as printed in 1593, depicts a haughty Eleanor as "a villainess capable of unspeakable treachery, cruelty, and depravity"; intransigent and hubristic, "concerned primarily with enhancing the reputation of her native nation, and evidently accustomed to a tyrannous and quite un-English exercise of royal prerogative"; delaying her coronation for twenty weeks so she can have Spanish dresses made, and proclaiming she shall keep the English under a "Spanish yoke". The misdeeds attributed to her in ''The Lamentable Fall of Queene Elenor'' are repeated and expanded upon: Eleanor is now also shown to box her husband's ears; and she now confesses to adultery with her own brother-in-law
Edmund Crouchback
Edmund, Earl of Lancaster and Earl of Leicester (16 January 12455 June 1296) nicknamed Edmund Crouchback was a member of the House of Plantagenet. He was the second surviving son of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence. In his chi ...
and to conceiving all her children, bar Edward I's heir Edward II, in adultery – which revelation prompts her unfortunate daughter Joan of Acre, fathered by a French friar, to drop dead of shame. This is a portrait of Eleanor that owes little to historicity, and much to the then-current war with Spain, and English fears of a repeat attempt at invasion, and is one of a number of anti-Spanish polemic of the period.
[Fuchs, Barbara; Weissbourd, Emily: ''Representing Imperial Rivalry in the Early Modern Mediterranean''][Griffin, Eric, ''English Renaissance Drama and the Specter of Spain: Ethnopoetics and Empire'', p.53–57 .]
It would appear likely Peele's play, and the ballad associated with it, had a significant effect on the survival of the Eleanor Crosses in the 17th century. Performances of the play and reprints of ''The Lamentable Fall'' (it was reprinted in 1628, 1629, 1658, and 1664, testifying to its continuing popularity) meant that by the time of the Civil War this entirely hostile portrait of Eleanor was probably more widely known than the positive depictions by Camden and Hollingshed. The loss of most of the crosses can be documented or inferred to have been lost in the years 1643–1646: for example Parliament's Committee for the Demolition of Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry ordered the Charing Cross torn down in 1643. Eleanor's reputation however began to change for the positive once again at this time, following the 1643 publication of Sir Richard Baker's ''A History of the Kings of England'', which retold the myth of Eleanor saving her husband at Acre. Thereafter, Eleanor's reputation was largely positive and derived ultimately from Camden, who was uncritically repeated wholesale by historians. In the 19th century the self-styled historian
Agnes Strickland used Camden to paint the rosiest of all pictures of Eleanor. None of these writers, however, used contemporary chronicles or records to provide accurate information about Eleanor's life.
Such documents began to become widely available in the late 19th century, but even when historians began to cite them to suggest Eleanor was not the perfect queen Strickland praised, many rejected the correction, often expressing indignant disbelief that anything negative was said about Eleanor. Only in recent decades have historians studied queenship in its own right and regarded medieval queens as worthy of attention. These decades produced a sizeable body of historical work that allows Eleanor's life to be scrutinised in the terms of her own day, not those of the 17th or 19th century.
The evolution of her reputation is a case study in the maxim that each age creates its own history. If Eleanor of Castile can no longer be seen as Peele's transgressive monstrosity, nor as Strickland's paradigm of queenly virtues, her career can now be examined as the achievement of an intelligent and determined woman who was able to meet the challenges of an exceptionally demanding life.
Issue
#Stillborn girl (July 1255)
#Katherine (c. 1264 – 5 September 1264), buried in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
.
#Joanna (January 1265 – before 7 September 1265), buried in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
.
#John (13 July 1266 – 3 August 1271), died at
Wallingford, in the custody of his granduncle,
Richard, Earl of Cornwall
Richard (5 January 1209 – 2 April 1272) was an English prince who was King of the Romans from 1257 until his death in 1272. He was the second son of John, King of England, and Isabella, Countess of Angoulême. Richard was nominal Count of ...
. Buried in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
.
#
Henry
Henry may refer to:
People
*Henry (given name)
* Henry (surname)
* Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry
Royalty
* Portuguese royalty
** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal
** Henry, Count of Portugal, ...
(before 6 May 1268 – 16 October 1274), buried in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
.
#
Eleanor
Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It is the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages.
The name was introd ...
(18 June 1269 – 29 August 1298). She was long betrothed to
Alfonso III of Aragon
Alfonso III (4 November 1265, in Valencia – 18 June 1291), called the Liberal (''el Liberal'') or the Free (also "the Frank," from ''el Franc''), was the king of Aragon and Valencia, count of Roussillon, Cerdanya and Barcelona (as ) from 12 ...
, who died in 1291 before the marriage could take place, and in 1293 she married Count
Henry III of Bar
Henry III of Bar (french: links=no, Henri III de Bar; german: Heinrich III von Bar 1259 – Naples, September 1302) was Count of Bar from 1291 to 1302. He was the son of Theobald II, Count of Bar and Jeanne de Toucy.
Henry's introduction to mili ...
, by whom she had one son and two daughters.
#Daughter (1271
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
). Some sources call her Juliana, but there is no contemporary evidence for her name.
#
Joan Joan may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Joan (given name), including a list of women, men and fictional characters
*:Joan of Arc, a French military heroine
* Joan (surname)
Weather events
*Tropical Storm Joan (disambiguation), multip ...
(April 1272 – 7 April 1307). She married (1) in 1290
Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford
Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, 7th Earl of Gloucester (2 September 1243 – 7 December 1295) was a powerful English noble. He was also known as "Red" Gilbert de Clare or "The Red Earl", probably because of his hair colour or fiery temp ...
, who died in 1295, and (2) in 1297
Ralph de Monthermer, 1st Baron Monthermer
Ralph de Monthermer, 1st Baron Monthermer, Earl of Gloucester, Hertford, and Atholl (c. 1270 – 5 April 1325) was an English nobleman, who was the son-in-law of King Edward I. His clandestine marriage to the King's widowed daughter Joan great ...
. She had four children by each marriage.
#
Alphonso (24 November 1273 – 19 August 1284), Earl of Chester.
#
Margaret (15 March 1275 – after 1333). In 1290 she married
John II of Brabant
John II (27 September 1275 – 27 October 1312), also called John the Peaceful, was Duke of Brabant, Lothier and Limburg (1294–1312). He was the son of John I of Brabant and Margaret of Flanders.
John II succeeded his father in 1294 ...
, who died in 1318. They had one son.
#Berengaria (1 May 1276 – before 27 June 1278), buried in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
.
#Daughter (December 1277/January 1278 – January 1278), buried in
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...
. There is no contemporary evidence for her name.
#
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
(11 March 1279 – 29 May 1332), a
Benedictine
, image = Medalla San Benito.PNG
, caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal
, abbreviation = OSB
, formation =
, motto = (English: 'Pray and Work')
, foun ...
nun
A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...
in
Amesbury
Amesbury () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is known for the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge which is within the parish. The town is claimed to be the oldest occupied settlement in Great Britain, having been first settle ...
.
#Son, born in 1280 or 1281 who died very shortly after birth. There is no contemporary evidence for his name.
#
Elizabeth
Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to:
People
* Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name)
* Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist
Ships
* HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships
* ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
(7 August 1282 – 5 May 1316). She married (1) in 1297
John I, Count of Holland
John I (1284 – 10 November 1299) was Count of Holland and son of Count Floris V. John inherited the county in 1296 after the murder of his father.
Shortly after his birth, after negotiations between Floris and King Edward I of England in Apr ...
, (2) in 1302
Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford
Humphrey (VII) de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford (1276 – 16 March 1322) was a member of a powerful Anglo-Norman family of the Welsh Marches and was one of the Ordainers who opposed Edward II's excesses.
Family background
Humphrey de Bohun's b ...
and 3rd
Earl of Essex
Earl of Essex is a title in the Peerage of England which was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title has been recreated eight times from its original inception, beginning with a new first Earl upon each new cre ...
. The first marriage was childless; by Bohun, Elizabeth had ten children.
#
Edward II of England
Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to ...
, also known as ''Edward of
Caernarvon'' (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327). In 1308 he married
Isabella of France
Isabella of France ( – 22 August 1358), sometimes described as the She-Wolf of France (), was Queen of England as the wife of King Edward II, and regent of England from 1327 until 1330. She was the youngest surviving child and only surviving ...
. They had two sons and two daughters.
Eleanor as a mother
It has been suggested that Eleanor and Edward were more devoted to each other than to their children. As king and queen, however, it was impossible for them to spend much time in one place, and when the children were very young, they could not tolerate the rigors of constant travel with their parents. The children had a household staffed with attendants carefully chosen for competence and loyalty, with whom the parents corresponded regularly. The children lived in this comfortable establishment until they were about seven years old; then they began to accompany their parents, if at first only on important occasions. By their teens they were with the king and queen much of the time. In 1290, Eleanor sent one of her scribes to join her children's household, presumably to help with their education. She also sent gifts to the children regularly, and arranged for the entire establishment to be moved near to her when she was in Wales. In 1306 Edward sharply scolded Margerie de Haustede, Eleanor's former lady in waiting who was then in charge of his children by his second wife, because Margerie had not kept him well informed of their health. Edward also issued regular and detailed instructions for the care and guidance of these children.
Two incidents cited to imply Eleanor's lack of interest in her children are easily explained in the contexts of medieval royal childrearing in general, and of particular events surrounding Edward and Eleanor's family. When their six-year-old son Henry lay dying at Guildford in 1274, neither parent made the short journey from London to see him; but Henry was tended by Edward's mother
Eleanor of Provence
Eleanor of Provence (c. 1223 – 24/25 June 1291) was a French noblewoman who became Queen of England as the wife of King Henry III from 1236 until his death in 1272. She served as regent of England during the absence of her spouse in 1253.
...
. The boy had lived with his grandmother while his parents were absent on crusade, and since he was barely two years old when they left England in 1270, he could not have had many substantial memories of them at the time they returned to England in August 1274, only weeks before his last illness and death. In other words, the dowager queen was a more familiar and comforting presence to her grandson than his parents would have been at that time, and it was in all respects better that she tended him then. Furthermore, Eleanor was pregnant at the time of his final illness and death; even given the limited thirteenth-century understanding of contagion, exposure to a sickroom might have been discouraged. Similarly, Edward and Eleanor allowed her mother,
Joan, Countess of Ponthieu
Joan of Dammartin (french: Jeanne; 1220 – 16 March 1279) was Queen of Castile and León by marriage to Ferdinand III of Castile. She also ruled as Countess of Ponthieu (1251–1279) and Aumale (1237–1279). Her daughter, the English queen Ele ...
, to raise their daughter
Joan of Acre
Joan of Acre (April 1272 – 23 April 1307) was an English princess, a daughter of Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile. The name "Acre" derives from her birthplace in the Holy Land while her parents were on a crusade.
She was married twi ...
in Ponthieu (1274–1278). This implies no parental lack of interest in the girl; the practice of fostering noble children in other households of sufficient dignity was not unknown and Eleanor's mother was, of course, dowager queen of Castile. Her household was safe and dignified, but it does appear that Edward and Eleanor had cause to regret their generosity in letting Joan of Ponthieu foster young Joan. When the girl reached England in 1278, aged six, it turned out that she was badly spoiled. She was spirited and at times defiant in childhood, and in adulthood remained a handful for Edward, defying his plans for a prestigious second marriage for her by secretly marrying one of her late first husband's squires. When the marriage was revealed in 1297 because Joan was pregnant, Edward was enraged that his dignity had been insulted by her marriage to a commoner of no importance. Joan, at twenty-five, reportedly defended her conduct to her father by saying that nobody saw anything wrong if a great earl married a poor woman, so there could be nothing wrong with a countess marrying a promising young man. Whether or not her retort ultimately changed his mind, Edward restored to Joan all the lands he had confiscated when he learned of her marriage, and accepted her new husband as a son-in-law in good standing. Joan marked her restoration to favour by having masses celebrated for the soul of her mother Eleanor.
See also
* ''
Infante
''Infante'' (, ; f. ''infanta''), also anglicised as Infant or translated as Prince, is the title and rank given in the Iberian kingdoms of Spain (including the predecessor kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and León) and Portugal to t ...
''
References
Bibliography
*
*Parsons, John Carmi. ''Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth Century England'', 1995.
*Parsons, John Carmi, "The Year of Eleanor of Castile's Birth and Her Children by Edward I," ''Mediaeval Studies'' 46 (1984): 245–265, esp. 246 n. 3.
*Parsons, John Carmi, 'Que nos lactauit in infancia': The Impact of Childhood Care-givers on Plantagenet Family Relationships in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries," in ''Women, Marriage, and Family in Medieval Christendom: Essays in Memory of Michael M. Sheehan, C.S.B,'' ed. Constance M. Rousseau and Joel T. Rosenthal (Kalamazoo, 1998), pp. 289–324.
*
*
*Dilba, Carsten. ''Memoria Reginae: Das Memorialprogramm für Eleonore von Kastilien'', Hildesheim 2009.
External links
Encyclopedia.com2009/10 restoration of Victorian replica
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Eleanor Of Castile
1241 births
1290 deaths
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Duchesses of Aquitaine
Ponthieu, Countess of, Eleanor of Castile
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