Today is the 694th anniversary of the second day of the battle of Bannockburn, fought near Stirling Castle on 23 and 24 June 1314. I don't have a lot to say on the battle itself - my brain is incapable of understanding military tactics and battles, and besides, there are lots of books and websites about it - so here are some lesser-known facts about the event.
Edward mustered a great army at Berwick, of between 15,000 and 20,000 men. It wasn't entirely an English army - there were archers from Wales, Irish soldiers, and knights from all over Europe. Some of Robert Bruce's Scottish enemies fought for Edward II too, including the young John Comyn, whose father John the Red Comyn had been stabbed to death by Robert Bruce in 1306. Comyn was killed. It's not clear if the earl of Ulster fought at Bannockburn, but he was with Edward II a month before the battle when Edward was mustering his army. Ulster was in a dificult position, as the father-in-law of Bruce, but also of Edward's nephew the earl of Gloucester.
Only three of Edward's earls fought for him at Bannockburn - his brother-in-law Hereford, who had drawn close to the king since his presence at Piers Gaveston's death, his nephew Gloucester, and his cousin Pembroke. Gloucester was killed, as he forgot to put on the surcoat identifying him as an earl. If the Scottish soldiers had known who he was, they would have captured him for ransom. Robert Bruce treated Gloucester's body with the utmost respect, and personally kept an overnight vigil over it. Although the men had never met (as far as I know), they were second cousins - Bruce's grandmother was a de Clare - and were married to sisters, Elizabeth and Maud de Burgh. Bruce sent Gloucester's body back to England with full honours and without demanding payment, as he had every right to do.
Many English barons fought for Edward II, however: Roger Mortimer, twenty-seven, and his uncle Roger Mortimer of Chirk, in his late fifties and a veteran of Edward I's Welsh wars of the late 1270s and early 1280s. Thomas, Lord Berkeley, who was almost seventy (he was born in 1245), his son Maurice, grandsons Thomas and Maurice, and grandson-in-law John Maltravers - yes, the Thomas Berkeley and John Maltravers of 1327 - Edward's French cousin Henry Beaumont, Hugh Despenser the Elder and Younger, Robert Clifford (who had besieged Piers Gaveston at Scarborough Castle in 1312), and Edward's steward Edmund Mauley, were some of the others. Clifford and Mauley were killed, the earls of Hereford and Angus taken prisoner.
Edward marched into Scotland with a baggage train that stretched back twenty leagues, including jewellery, napery, costly plate, and ecclesiastical vestments for celebrating the victory. He also ordered ships to Edinburgh with more things, and the personal possessions of the earl of Hereford alone required an entire ship. Edward, and others, acted as though all they had to do was turn up and they would win. This, of course, was a horrible mistake. The Lanercost Chronicle says that Edward marched with great pomp and elaborate state, purveying goods from monasteries as he passed, and, oddly, that he "did and said things to the prejudice and injury of the saints."
For all Edward's incompetence as a general, his personal courage in the battle is beyond question, and the chronicler Trokelowe says that he fought like a lion. At one point, his horse was killed beneath him, and Scottish soldiers rushed forward to capture him. Edward’s knights surrounded him, beating them off, and Edward managed to mount another horse, from the many running around the battlefield. Again, Scottish soldiers pressed forward to try to capture him, grabbing hold of his horse’s trappings. Edward "struck out so vigorously behind him with his mace there was none whom he touched that he did not fell to the ground" according to the Scalacronica of Sir Thomas Gray, whose father was captured at the battle.
After some hours, the ground wet with blood, dead bodies of horses and men underfoot, the earl of Pembroke realised the battle was lost. He grabbed Edward's reins and dragged, him, protesting, from the field. 500 knights, including Henry Beaumont and the younger Despenser, surrounded him, their only thought: protect the king. Philip Mowbray, the constable of Stirling Castle (Scottish but on Edward's side) refused to let them enter, sensibly, as Edward would be trapped there, surrounded by the Scottish army. All they could do was gallop the fifty miles to Dunbar, which must have taken many hours. Bruce's friend Sir James Douglas followed them all the way, picking off stragglers, so close that it was said the men had no time even to stop and pass water.
Edward and his men reached Dunbar, where his ally Patrick, earl of Dunbar, opened up the castle drawbridge for them. Edward and his knights jumped off their horses, leaving them outside, and ran inside the castle. Earl Patrick found a fishing boat, and Edward made his way to Bamburgh with a handful of attendants. From there, he made his way to Berwick overland. His remaining knights were forced to ride to Berwick, with James Douglas and his men close behind them, shedding their armour to speed their way. Edward was incredibly lucky to escape capture by Douglas, and in gratitude, founded Oriel College at Oxford some years later, according to Geoffrey le Baker.
And so the king returned to Berwick not at the head of a victorious army, but in flight, forced to travel by fishing boat. Queen Isabella supported Edward with her usual loyalty, and lent him her seal so that government business could continue, Edward's having been lost on the battlefield (Bruce returned it). She tended to his wounds herself, and even cleaned his armour.
The Vita says this about the defeat of Bannockburn: "O day of vengeance and disaster, day of utter loss and shame, evil and accursed day, not to be reckoned in our calendar; that blemished the reputation of the English."
As utterly humiliating as Edward's flight from the battlefield was, it was infinitely preferable to the two alternatives, his capture or his death. Being captured would have meant a cripplingly huge ransom, and the commentators who castigate him for his lack of military ability and cowardice would instead castigate him for his lack of military ability and his reckless stupidity. In fact, accusations of cowardice are grossly unfair, as even men who had no reason to like Edward admitted his bravery during the battle.
Edward's death in battle would have brought his nineteen-month-old son to the throne, which meant a regency of many years standing. And as events were shortly to prove, the men who replaced Edward in power were not one whit more competent than he was. A regency would have meant struggles for power, jockeying for position, while Bruce took advantage of the chaos.
Still, for the king of England, galloping away in ignominious flight from a battle he fully expected to win, the realisation that he had at least spared his country a crippling ransom or the perils of a long regency was probably no consolation whatsoever.
24 June, 2008
19 June, 2008
The Death of Piers Gaveston
Today is the 696th anniversary of the death of Piers Gaveston, run through with a sword and beheaded at Blacklow Hill, Warwickshire, on 19 June 1312.
The story of Piers' death - abducted from the earl of Pembroke's custody by the earl of Warwick and killed in the presence of the earls of Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel - has been told so often I'm not going to bother repeating it here. Instead, I'll look at some lesser-known aspects of the whole sordid business.
According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, Piers is meant to have said before being killed:
"Oh! Where are the presents that bought me so many intimate friends, and with which I thought to have sufficient power? Where are my friends, in whom was my trust, the protection of my body, and my whole hope of safety; whose lusty youth, unbeaten valour, and courage was always aflame for hard tasks? They had promised to stand by me in war, to suffer imprisonment, and not to shun death. Indeed my pride, the arrogance that one single promise of theirs has nourished, the king’s favour and the king’s court, have brought me to this sorry plight. I have no help, every remedy is in vain, let the will of the earls be done."
To me, this sounds far more like something the author – who strongly disapproved of Piers – thinks he should have said, rather than anything the courageous and bitingly witty Gascon really would say. Except possibly the ‘lusty youth’ part.
On the day of Piers' death, Edward II was at Burstwick near Hull with Queen Isabella, who was about four months pregnant. The king and queen stayed at Burstwick until 21 June, and were in Beverley on the 22nd, Pocklington on the 23rd, and York on the 24th. It is not known when Edward heard the news of Piers' death, or which poor messenger had the unfortunate task of telling him. I'd imagine that the earl of Pembroke sent the message, rather than the earls present at Piers' death ("Dear Ned, we've killed your best friend. Hope you're well. Love, Tom, Guy, Humph and Edmund.")
Warwick to York/Beverley is around 150 miles, a journey a fast rider could have made in three, or maybe only two days (given that the hours of daylight are extremely long in June, when it's light by 4am and still light enough to ride at 10.30 or 11pm).
The fact that Isabella was with Edward when he received the news has been missed by almost every writer on the subject (but is certainly true, as a quick glance at The Itinerary of Edward II and The Household Book of Queen Isabella proves). The queen's reaction is not recorded, but whatever her private feelings might have been, it is unthinkable that she would have gloated to Edward about the death, and we can probably assume that she did her best to comfort him, and expressed her sympathy and support. If nothing else, she was clever enough to know that Edward would never forgive her if she openly demonstrated any pleasure at the killing of his beloved. It goes without saying that she had nothing whatsoever to do with Piers' death.
As for Edward, from his later actions it is clear that his primary reaction to Piers' murder was utter rage. His grief at the loss of his beloved must have been shattering. He had loved Piers for at least twelve years, and been emotionally reliant on him to an extraordinary degree. Losing him must have been like losing part of himself.
Not that you'd guess it from his first words on the subject, which, according to the ever-useful Vita, were:
"By God’s soul, he acted as a fool. If he had taken my advice he would never have fallen into the hands of the earls. This is what I always told him not to do. For I guessed that what has now happened would occur. What was he doing with the earl of Warwick, who was known never to have liked him? I knew for certain that if the earl caught him, Piers would never escape from his hands."
('By God's soul' was Edward's favourite oath.)
This is such an odd thing for Edward to say, it rings true. I can only imagine that shock and grief do not lend themselves to eloquence, or that he managed to control his emotions in public for once, however much he mourned and raged and howled in public.
The Vita goes on to say, with notable compassion for a man who wasn't a great fan of Edward II, "when this light utterance of the king was made public it moved many to derision. But I am certain the king grieved for Piers as a father grieves for his son. For the greater the love, the greater the sorrow." That Edward loved Piers as a son is stated again in the Vita: "they put to death a great earl whom the king had adopted as brother, whom the king cherished as a son, whom the king regarded as friend and ally." I think it's safe to say that whatever Edward II felt for Piers, it wasn't paternal, but then, the author of the Vita could hardly write 'whom the king loved as his lover...'
Edward swore revenge on the men responsible. At first, he mostly blamed the earl of Warwick, and the Vita says that Edward swore either to have Warwick's head, or to banish him from the kingdom. Later on, though, the earl of Lancaster became the main focus for Edward's rage and need for revenge. Oddly, Edward did not blame the earl of Arundel, who was certainly present when Piers was killed. In October 1313, Edward finally pardoned everyone involved in "all causes of anger, indignation, suits, accusations etc arisen in any manner on account of Piers Gaveston..." Over 350 men were pardoned (all the names are listed in the Patent Rolls and Foedera), but Arundel was not one of them. Maybe Arundel spoke up for Piers, or tried to save him - or at least, persuaded Edward that he did.
Edward left York on 28 June and travelled to London, via Lincolnshire. He left Queen Isabella behind, probably to keep his pregnant wife out of the way of danger - for a while, it seemed as though the country would slide into war. The day after Edward left York, Isabella sent him a letter, the contents of which are unknown, unfortunately. In late July, Edward sent Isabella an escort to bring her south, but she had to travel very slowly because of her pregnancy, and didn't reach London until 9 September. A few days later, she and Edward retired to Windsor Castle and spent most of the next eight months there together. Two chronicles, the Vita and Trokelowe, say that Edward's joy at the birth of his son on 13 November went some way to assuaging his terrible grief.
Many people in England rejoiced at the death of the flamboyant favourite. A contemporary song reads:
"Celebrate, my tongue, the death of Piers who disturbed England,
Whom the king in his love placed all over Cornwall
Hence in his pride he would be called earl and not Piers…
Now he no longer behaves himself as an earl, or a king;
The unworthy man, worthy of death, undergoes the death he merits…
Glory be to the Creator! Glory be to the earls
Who have made Piers die with his charms!
Henceforth may there be peace and rejoicing throughout England!"
And according to the Vita:
"When Piers had met his end, and the voice of the people had dinned his death into the ears of all, the country rejoiced, and all its inhabitants were glad. I may assert with confidence that the death of one man, unless he had been a burden upon the state, had never before been acceptable to so many. The land rejoices, its inhabitants rejoice that they have found peace in Piers' death..."
To say that 'all the inhabitants' rejoiced is an exaggeration. Many did, but others were horrified at the earls’ brutal act and the violent illegality of it, and a groundswell of sympathy for the king swept the country. Piers' death strengthened Edward’s position, especially as the earls of Surrey and Pembroke came back to his side, appalled by the murder. Edward did not blame Pembroke for his role in the death of his friend; several months later, he gave his cousin some of Piers' falcons. The reaction of Piers' widow Margaret de Clare is, inevitably, not recorded, but she and Edward paid for two clerks to watch over his embalmed body, which was dressed in cloth-of-gold.
On 3 January 1315, Edward finally buried Piers. At the time of his death, Piers could not be buried, as he died excommunicate. This must have been lifted, which probably happened in September 1312, when Piers' elder brother Arnaud-Guillaume de Marsan visited Pope Clement V at Avignon. (Arnaud-Guillaume was Piers' full brother, but used the name of their mother, Claramonde de Marsan.)
However, Edward still waited more than two years to bury his friend, partly because (I assume) he couldn't bear to commit the body to the ground, but also because he had sworn "first to avenge Piers, and then consign his body to the grave", according to the Vita.
Revenge would have to wait a while longer. But Edward never forgot his promise. In September 1319, during the siege of Berwick, he said "When this wretched business is over, we will turn our hands to other matters. For I have not forgotten the wrong that was done to my brother Piers." Ominous words, and in March 1322, three months short of ten years after Piers' death, he finally had the earl of Lancaster beheaded.
Piers Gaveston was about twenty-nine or thirty when he died, father of a five-month-old daughter and, apparently, an illegitimate daughter, age unknown. So many centuries later, it's hard to see exactly what he did that merited death. But the murder of this flamboyant, charismatic, handsome and aggravating young man on 19 June 1312 was to have the most profound impact on political events for the rest of Edward II's reign.
The story of Piers' death - abducted from the earl of Pembroke's custody by the earl of Warwick and killed in the presence of the earls of Lancaster, Hereford and Arundel - has been told so often I'm not going to bother repeating it here. Instead, I'll look at some lesser-known aspects of the whole sordid business.
According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, Piers is meant to have said before being killed:
"Oh! Where are the presents that bought me so many intimate friends, and with which I thought to have sufficient power? Where are my friends, in whom was my trust, the protection of my body, and my whole hope of safety; whose lusty youth, unbeaten valour, and courage was always aflame for hard tasks? They had promised to stand by me in war, to suffer imprisonment, and not to shun death. Indeed my pride, the arrogance that one single promise of theirs has nourished, the king’s favour and the king’s court, have brought me to this sorry plight. I have no help, every remedy is in vain, let the will of the earls be done."
To me, this sounds far more like something the author – who strongly disapproved of Piers – thinks he should have said, rather than anything the courageous and bitingly witty Gascon really would say. Except possibly the ‘lusty youth’ part.
On the day of Piers' death, Edward II was at Burstwick near Hull with Queen Isabella, who was about four months pregnant. The king and queen stayed at Burstwick until 21 June, and were in Beverley on the 22nd, Pocklington on the 23rd, and York on the 24th. It is not known when Edward heard the news of Piers' death, or which poor messenger had the unfortunate task of telling him. I'd imagine that the earl of Pembroke sent the message, rather than the earls present at Piers' death ("Dear Ned, we've killed your best friend. Hope you're well. Love, Tom, Guy, Humph and Edmund.")
Warwick to York/Beverley is around 150 miles, a journey a fast rider could have made in three, or maybe only two days (given that the hours of daylight are extremely long in June, when it's light by 4am and still light enough to ride at 10.30 or 11pm).
The fact that Isabella was with Edward when he received the news has been missed by almost every writer on the subject (but is certainly true, as a quick glance at The Itinerary of Edward II and The Household Book of Queen Isabella proves). The queen's reaction is not recorded, but whatever her private feelings might have been, it is unthinkable that she would have gloated to Edward about the death, and we can probably assume that she did her best to comfort him, and expressed her sympathy and support. If nothing else, she was clever enough to know that Edward would never forgive her if she openly demonstrated any pleasure at the killing of his beloved. It goes without saying that she had nothing whatsoever to do with Piers' death.
As for Edward, from his later actions it is clear that his primary reaction to Piers' murder was utter rage. His grief at the loss of his beloved must have been shattering. He had loved Piers for at least twelve years, and been emotionally reliant on him to an extraordinary degree. Losing him must have been like losing part of himself.
Not that you'd guess it from his first words on the subject, which, according to the ever-useful Vita, were:
"By God’s soul, he acted as a fool. If he had taken my advice he would never have fallen into the hands of the earls. This is what I always told him not to do. For I guessed that what has now happened would occur. What was he doing with the earl of Warwick, who was known never to have liked him? I knew for certain that if the earl caught him, Piers would never escape from his hands."
('By God's soul' was Edward's favourite oath.)
This is such an odd thing for Edward to say, it rings true. I can only imagine that shock and grief do not lend themselves to eloquence, or that he managed to control his emotions in public for once, however much he mourned and raged and howled in public.
The Vita goes on to say, with notable compassion for a man who wasn't a great fan of Edward II, "when this light utterance of the king was made public it moved many to derision. But I am certain the king grieved for Piers as a father grieves for his son. For the greater the love, the greater the sorrow." That Edward loved Piers as a son is stated again in the Vita: "they put to death a great earl whom the king had adopted as brother, whom the king cherished as a son, whom the king regarded as friend and ally." I think it's safe to say that whatever Edward II felt for Piers, it wasn't paternal, but then, the author of the Vita could hardly write 'whom the king loved as his lover...'
Edward swore revenge on the men responsible. At first, he mostly blamed the earl of Warwick, and the Vita says that Edward swore either to have Warwick's head, or to banish him from the kingdom. Later on, though, the earl of Lancaster became the main focus for Edward's rage and need for revenge. Oddly, Edward did not blame the earl of Arundel, who was certainly present when Piers was killed. In October 1313, Edward finally pardoned everyone involved in "all causes of anger, indignation, suits, accusations etc arisen in any manner on account of Piers Gaveston..." Over 350 men were pardoned (all the names are listed in the Patent Rolls and Foedera), but Arundel was not one of them. Maybe Arundel spoke up for Piers, or tried to save him - or at least, persuaded Edward that he did.
Edward left York on 28 June and travelled to London, via Lincolnshire. He left Queen Isabella behind, probably to keep his pregnant wife out of the way of danger - for a while, it seemed as though the country would slide into war. The day after Edward left York, Isabella sent him a letter, the contents of which are unknown, unfortunately. In late July, Edward sent Isabella an escort to bring her south, but she had to travel very slowly because of her pregnancy, and didn't reach London until 9 September. A few days later, she and Edward retired to Windsor Castle and spent most of the next eight months there together. Two chronicles, the Vita and Trokelowe, say that Edward's joy at the birth of his son on 13 November went some way to assuaging his terrible grief.
Many people in England rejoiced at the death of the flamboyant favourite. A contemporary song reads:
"Celebrate, my tongue, the death of Piers who disturbed England,
Whom the king in his love placed all over Cornwall
Hence in his pride he would be called earl and not Piers…
Now he no longer behaves himself as an earl, or a king;
The unworthy man, worthy of death, undergoes the death he merits…
Glory be to the Creator! Glory be to the earls
Who have made Piers die with his charms!
Henceforth may there be peace and rejoicing throughout England!"
And according to the Vita:
"When Piers had met his end, and the voice of the people had dinned his death into the ears of all, the country rejoiced, and all its inhabitants were glad. I may assert with confidence that the death of one man, unless he had been a burden upon the state, had never before been acceptable to so many. The land rejoices, its inhabitants rejoice that they have found peace in Piers' death..."
To say that 'all the inhabitants' rejoiced is an exaggeration. Many did, but others were horrified at the earls’ brutal act and the violent illegality of it, and a groundswell of sympathy for the king swept the country. Piers' death strengthened Edward’s position, especially as the earls of Surrey and Pembroke came back to his side, appalled by the murder. Edward did not blame Pembroke for his role in the death of his friend; several months later, he gave his cousin some of Piers' falcons. The reaction of Piers' widow Margaret de Clare is, inevitably, not recorded, but she and Edward paid for two clerks to watch over his embalmed body, which was dressed in cloth-of-gold.
On 3 January 1315, Edward finally buried Piers. At the time of his death, Piers could not be buried, as he died excommunicate. This must have been lifted, which probably happened in September 1312, when Piers' elder brother Arnaud-Guillaume de Marsan visited Pope Clement V at Avignon. (Arnaud-Guillaume was Piers' full brother, but used the name of their mother, Claramonde de Marsan.)
However, Edward still waited more than two years to bury his friend, partly because (I assume) he couldn't bear to commit the body to the ground, but also because he had sworn "first to avenge Piers, and then consign his body to the grave", according to the Vita.
Revenge would have to wait a while longer. But Edward never forgot his promise. In September 1319, during the siege of Berwick, he said "When this wretched business is over, we will turn our hands to other matters. For I have not forgotten the wrong that was done to my brother Piers." Ominous words, and in March 1322, three months short of ten years after Piers' death, he finally had the earl of Lancaster beheaded.
Piers Gaveston was about twenty-nine or thirty when he died, father of a five-month-old daughter and, apparently, an illegitimate daughter, age unknown. So many centuries later, it's hard to see exactly what he did that merited death. But the murder of this flamboyant, charismatic, handsome and aggravating young man on 19 June 1312 was to have the most profound impact on political events for the rest of Edward II's reign.
14 June, 2008
Sisters of Edward II (5): Elizabeth
Elizabeth, the fourteenth or fifteenth child of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the fifth to survive childhood, was born at Rhuddlan in North Wales sometime in August 1282. She was three and half years younger than her closest sibling, Mary, and just twenty months older than Edward II. The name Elizabeth was unknown in the royal family before her birth, none of her relatives bore the name, and evidently Edward and Eleanor chose the name just because they liked it - very unusual!
Elizabeth was present at Caernarfon when her brother Edward was born in April 1284. The siblings spent much time together in childhood, sharing a household and attendants, and travelled everywhere together. In 1290, when Elizabeth and Edward were eight and six respectively, she gave him a silver cup (on what occasion, I don't know).
In April 1285, Elizabeth, aged two years and eight months, was betrothed to Jan, son and heir of Count Floris V of Holland. Jan was born sometime in 1284, so was a little younger than Elizabeth, and a baby at the time of his betrothal. Jan was sent to live in England at some point, in the late 1280s or beginning of the 1290s, and presumably was a companion of Edward of Caernarfon, who was the same age. His father was murdered in June 1296, and Jan, aged eleven or twelve, succeeded as Count Jan I of Holland. He returned to his homeland, leaving his fiancée behind in England.
Jan returned to England in early 1297 to marry Elizabeth, and their wedding took place in Ipawich on 18 January 1297. Elizabeth was fourteen and a half, Jan twelve. Her brother Edward, also twelve, gave them a gold cup as a wedding gift. Jan returned to Holland ten days after the wedding, but Elizabeth refused to leave England - taking a leaf out of her sister Margaret's book, as she had refused to depart for Brabant with her husband in 1294. Margaret sailed with her brother-in-law to finally join her husband Duke Jan II in Brussels, after more than two and a half years apart.
It was probably on this occasion that Edward I, sick of his daughters' wilfulness - two who refused to travel abroad with their husbands, and, soon after, another who married a squire without the king's consent - tore the jewelled coronet from Elizabeth's head and threw it on the fire. It was hurriedly retrieved, and Edward paid for the stones to be replaced. Elizabeth must have looked pretty spectacular at her wedding anyway - thirty-five tailors worked for four days and four nights to make her gown.
Elizabeth spent the next few months with her brother Edward, mostly at Windsor and Langley, and received a visit from her sister Mary in July. She finally departed for Holland on 23 August 1297, accompanying her father on one of his numerous military campaigns. Thirteen-year-old Edward remained behind as the (nominal) regent of England in their father's absence. Elizabeth was still in no rush to join her youthful husband, however, and stayed with her father until Christmas 1297.
Little is know about Elizabeth's life as countess of Holland and Zealand and lady of Friesland, except that she mostly lived in the Hague. Her husband was, of course, too young to rule in his own right, and died on 10 November 1299 at the age of fifteen. He was always a sickly boy, and given his ill health and his youth, it's quite probable that their marriage was never consummated.
Elizabeth was a widow at seventeen, and returned to England in 1300, visiting her sister Margaret in Brabant on the way. She travelled to Cawood in Yorkshire in August, to meet her stepmother Queen Marguerite, who had recently given birth to Elizabeth's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton. Marguerite had married Edward I the previous September, and the two women were around the same age. Elizabeth must also have seen her brother Edward, who sent her a sorrel horse for Christmas/New Year 1300/1301.
On 14 November 1302, at Westminster Abbey, twenty-year-old Elizabeth married Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, who was about twenty-six. This would prove to be a very fruitful union: Elizabeth bore ten children in thirteen and a half years.
Fortunately for posterity, Edward of Caernarfon's letters for 1304 and 1305 happen to survive - over 700 of them. He sent six to Elizabeth, and wrote another four concerning her affairs, addressing her as 'very dear sister' (treschere soer) which was merely conventional, and also as 'fair sister' (bele soer), which wasn't. In 1304, Edward sent Elizabeth two 'beautiful mares' from his stud, and their foals. Around this time, he also asked Elizabeth to send him her white greyhound bitch to mate with Edward's greyhound, as 'we greatly wish to have puppies from them'.
The following year, Edward asked her to ask Queen Marguerite to intercede with their father to return Piers Gaveston and Gilbert de Clare to him; along with most of the rest of his household, they had been ordered away from him at the orders of his father, with whom he had quarrelled passionately.
Elizabeth, as is usually the case with women, especially married ones, mostly disappears from the records after the early 1300s. In February 1308, she was present at Dover to welcome her brother and new sister-in-law Isabella to England after their wedding, and presumably attended their coronation a few weeks later. In June 1312, her husband Hereford was present at Piers Gaveston's murder. How Elizabeth felt about her husband's role in the death of her brother's great love can only be surmised. What kind of relationship she had with her brother after his accession, what she thought about his infatuation with Piers and the terrible conflict it caused, can only be surmised. Considering she was the sister closest to him in age, and had been his companion for much of their childhood, it's a real shame that we don't know more about their relationship as adults.
Elizabeth, as dowager countess of Holland, was entitled to a large dower, which should have been paid by Jan I's successors - his father's cousin Jan II and Jan II's son Willem III (father of Philippa of Hainault, who married Edward III). They proved most reluctant to pay it, and Edward II spent years chasing it up. As late as July 1315, nearly sixteen years after Jan I's death, a frustrated Edward was still sending letters to Willem, asking for his sister's rights, invoking Willem's sister Alicia, widow of the earl of Norfolk. The letters say, in effect, "You wouldn't like it if I withheld your sister's dower, so why are you withholding my sister's?"
Elizabeth died on 5 May 1316, at the age of thirty-three, shortly after giving birth to her tenth and youngest child Isabel, who also died. Her Wikipedia page says, oddly, "During Christmas 1315 Elizabeth, who was pregnant with her 10th child, was visited by her sister-in-law Isabella of France. This was a great honour, but the stress of it may have caused unknown health problems that later contributed to Elizabeth's death in childbirth." I really doubt that. Giving birth in the Middle Ages was somewhat akin to playing Russian roulette, and there's no need to blame poor Isabella for Elizabeth's death!
Elizabeth's children:
- Margaret, born late September 1303, died before 1 February 1304.
- Eleanor, countess of Ormond, born 17 October 1304, died 7 October 1363. Married James Butler and Thomas Dagworth, two sons and two daughters (and a son who died young).
- Humphrey, born about 20 October 1305, died 28 October 1305.
- John, earl of Hereford, born 23 November 1306, died 20 January 1336, married the earl of Arundel's daughter Alice in 1325 and Margaret Basset in 1331, died childless.
- Humphrey, earl of Hereford, born 6 December 1309, died 15 October 1361, unmarried and childless.
- Margaret, countess of Devon, born 3 April 1311, died 16 December 1391, married Hugh Courtenay and had about 94 children. (OK, about seventeen.) Margaret was the last-surviving grandchild of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile.
- William, earl of Northampton, born 1312 or 1313, died 16 September 1360. Married Elizabeth Badlesmere, widow of Roger Mortimer's son Edmund, and had one son and one daughter. His son Humphrey (1342-1372) succeeded his uncle Humphrey as earl of Hereford and Essex and his father as earl of Northampton, and was the half-brother of Roger Mortimer, second earl of March (1328-1360).
- Edward, born 1312 or 1313 (twin of William), married Margaret Ros, drowned on campaign in Soctland in 1334 while trying to rescue a drowning man-at-arms, died childless.
- Aeneas, born 1314 or 1315, oddly named and oddly obscure, still alive at his father's death in 1322, died before 20 September 1331.
- Isabel, born 5 May 1316, and died that day or shortly after.
Elizabeth was present at Caernarfon when her brother Edward was born in April 1284. The siblings spent much time together in childhood, sharing a household and attendants, and travelled everywhere together. In 1290, when Elizabeth and Edward were eight and six respectively, she gave him a silver cup (on what occasion, I don't know).
In April 1285, Elizabeth, aged two years and eight months, was betrothed to Jan, son and heir of Count Floris V of Holland. Jan was born sometime in 1284, so was a little younger than Elizabeth, and a baby at the time of his betrothal. Jan was sent to live in England at some point, in the late 1280s or beginning of the 1290s, and presumably was a companion of Edward of Caernarfon, who was the same age. His father was murdered in June 1296, and Jan, aged eleven or twelve, succeeded as Count Jan I of Holland. He returned to his homeland, leaving his fiancée behind in England.
Jan returned to England in early 1297 to marry Elizabeth, and their wedding took place in Ipawich on 18 January 1297. Elizabeth was fourteen and a half, Jan twelve. Her brother Edward, also twelve, gave them a gold cup as a wedding gift. Jan returned to Holland ten days after the wedding, but Elizabeth refused to leave England - taking a leaf out of her sister Margaret's book, as she had refused to depart for Brabant with her husband in 1294. Margaret sailed with her brother-in-law to finally join her husband Duke Jan II in Brussels, after more than two and a half years apart.
It was probably on this occasion that Edward I, sick of his daughters' wilfulness - two who refused to travel abroad with their husbands, and, soon after, another who married a squire without the king's consent - tore the jewelled coronet from Elizabeth's head and threw it on the fire. It was hurriedly retrieved, and Edward paid for the stones to be replaced. Elizabeth must have looked pretty spectacular at her wedding anyway - thirty-five tailors worked for four days and four nights to make her gown.
Elizabeth spent the next few months with her brother Edward, mostly at Windsor and Langley, and received a visit from her sister Mary in July. She finally departed for Holland on 23 August 1297, accompanying her father on one of his numerous military campaigns. Thirteen-year-old Edward remained behind as the (nominal) regent of England in their father's absence. Elizabeth was still in no rush to join her youthful husband, however, and stayed with her father until Christmas 1297.
Little is know about Elizabeth's life as countess of Holland and Zealand and lady of Friesland, except that she mostly lived in the Hague. Her husband was, of course, too young to rule in his own right, and died on 10 November 1299 at the age of fifteen. He was always a sickly boy, and given his ill health and his youth, it's quite probable that their marriage was never consummated.
Elizabeth was a widow at seventeen, and returned to England in 1300, visiting her sister Margaret in Brabant on the way. She travelled to Cawood in Yorkshire in August, to meet her stepmother Queen Marguerite, who had recently given birth to Elizabeth's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton. Marguerite had married Edward I the previous September, and the two women were around the same age. Elizabeth must also have seen her brother Edward, who sent her a sorrel horse for Christmas/New Year 1300/1301.
On 14 November 1302, at Westminster Abbey, twenty-year-old Elizabeth married Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, who was about twenty-six. This would prove to be a very fruitful union: Elizabeth bore ten children in thirteen and a half years.
Fortunately for posterity, Edward of Caernarfon's letters for 1304 and 1305 happen to survive - over 700 of them. He sent six to Elizabeth, and wrote another four concerning her affairs, addressing her as 'very dear sister' (treschere soer) which was merely conventional, and also as 'fair sister' (bele soer), which wasn't. In 1304, Edward sent Elizabeth two 'beautiful mares' from his stud, and their foals. Around this time, he also asked Elizabeth to send him her white greyhound bitch to mate with Edward's greyhound, as 'we greatly wish to have puppies from them'.
The following year, Edward asked her to ask Queen Marguerite to intercede with their father to return Piers Gaveston and Gilbert de Clare to him; along with most of the rest of his household, they had been ordered away from him at the orders of his father, with whom he had quarrelled passionately.
Elizabeth, as is usually the case with women, especially married ones, mostly disappears from the records after the early 1300s. In February 1308, she was present at Dover to welcome her brother and new sister-in-law Isabella to England after their wedding, and presumably attended their coronation a few weeks later. In June 1312, her husband Hereford was present at Piers Gaveston's murder. How Elizabeth felt about her husband's role in the death of her brother's great love can only be surmised. What kind of relationship she had with her brother after his accession, what she thought about his infatuation with Piers and the terrible conflict it caused, can only be surmised. Considering she was the sister closest to him in age, and had been his companion for much of their childhood, it's a real shame that we don't know more about their relationship as adults.
Elizabeth, as dowager countess of Holland, was entitled to a large dower, which should have been paid by Jan I's successors - his father's cousin Jan II and Jan II's son Willem III (father of Philippa of Hainault, who married Edward III). They proved most reluctant to pay it, and Edward II spent years chasing it up. As late as July 1315, nearly sixteen years after Jan I's death, a frustrated Edward was still sending letters to Willem, asking for his sister's rights, invoking Willem's sister Alicia, widow of the earl of Norfolk. The letters say, in effect, "You wouldn't like it if I withheld your sister's dower, so why are you withholding my sister's?"
Elizabeth died on 5 May 1316, at the age of thirty-three, shortly after giving birth to her tenth and youngest child Isabel, who also died. Her Wikipedia page says, oddly, "During Christmas 1315 Elizabeth, who was pregnant with her 10th child, was visited by her sister-in-law Isabella of France. This was a great honour, but the stress of it may have caused unknown health problems that later contributed to Elizabeth's death in childbirth." I really doubt that. Giving birth in the Middle Ages was somewhat akin to playing Russian roulette, and there's no need to blame poor Isabella for Elizabeth's death!
Elizabeth's children:
- Margaret, born late September 1303, died before 1 February 1304.
- Eleanor, countess of Ormond, born 17 October 1304, died 7 October 1363. Married James Butler and Thomas Dagworth, two sons and two daughters (and a son who died young).
- Humphrey, born about 20 October 1305, died 28 October 1305.
- John, earl of Hereford, born 23 November 1306, died 20 January 1336, married the earl of Arundel's daughter Alice in 1325 and Margaret Basset in 1331, died childless.
- Humphrey, earl of Hereford, born 6 December 1309, died 15 October 1361, unmarried and childless.
- Margaret, countess of Devon, born 3 April 1311, died 16 December 1391, married Hugh Courtenay and had about 94 children. (OK, about seventeen.) Margaret was the last-surviving grandchild of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile.
- William, earl of Northampton, born 1312 or 1313, died 16 September 1360. Married Elizabeth Badlesmere, widow of Roger Mortimer's son Edmund, and had one son and one daughter. His son Humphrey (1342-1372) succeeded his uncle Humphrey as earl of Hereford and Essex and his father as earl of Northampton, and was the half-brother of Roger Mortimer, second earl of March (1328-1360).
- Edward, born 1312 or 1313 (twin of William), married Margaret Ros, drowned on campaign in Soctland in 1334 while trying to rescue a drowning man-at-arms, died childless.
- Aeneas, born 1314 or 1315, oddly named and oddly obscure, still alive at his father's death in 1322, died before 20 September 1331.
- Isabel, born 5 May 1316, and died that day or shortly after.
07 June, 2008
Sisters of Edward II (4): Mary
Mary was the twelfth or thirteenth child of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the fourth to survive childhood. She was born at Woodstock on 11 or 12 March 1279, fourteen months after her closest sibling, a girl whose name name is unknown, born in January 1278 and died soon after, and three years younger than Berengaria, born May 1276 and died June 1278 (Edward I and Eleanor lost two daughters in 1278). After Mary's birth, however, Eleanor of Castile had a well-deserved break from her almost yearly pregnancies, and there was a gap of three and a half years to the next child, Elizabeth. (There's a theory, which I don't believe, that Eleanor gave birth to a son in 1280 or 1281.) In the ten years between June 1269 and March 1279, Edward I and Queen Eleanor had eight children, of whom only one (Alfonso) was male.
Mary's grandmother Jeanne de Dammartin, countess of Ponthieu and dowager queen of Castile and Leon, died five days after her birth. In 1285, her other grandmother Eleanor of Provence, widow of Henry III, retired to the priory of Amesbury in Wiltshire, and decided to take two of her granddaughters with her for company. One was Mary; the other was Eleanor of Brittany, daughter of Edward I's sister Beatrice and Duke John II of Brittany, and sister of Arthur, duke of Brittany and John, earl of Richmond. Young Eleanor later became abbess of Fontevrault, the mother house of Amesbury. Unfortunately, Mary had no vocation whatsoever, and her mother Eleanor of Castile was most reluctant for her to become a nun. However, Eleanor of Provence prevailed.
Mary went to live at Amesbury in 1285, and was veiled as a nun in late 1291, aged twelve, in the presence of her father and siblings, including seven-year-old Edward of Caernarfon. For most of her life, Mary spent almost as much time away from Amesbury priory as she spent in it, visiting family, the courts of her father and brother, and going on pilgrimage. This was tolerated by the abbess, because of Mary's high birth - as daughter and sister of kings, she could wield a great deal of influence. Her father granted her an income of £100 a year, later raised to £200.
Mary lived the life of a great lady, not that of a nun. She had private rooms at Amesbury, with a magnificent bed hung with velvet and tapestry, and sheets of linen. On one occasion, her father sent her over two hundred ells of fine cloth via the bishop of Chester, and at another time, two thousand stock-fish. Mary travelled to court with damsels, attendants, and between twenty-four and thirty horses and grooms for them. Her father and brother often paid her gambling debts. She also owned hunting dogs.
Mary had a strong sense of family. In a period of just over three months in 1305, she visited her little half-brothers Thomas and Edmund (sons of Edward I and Marguerite of France, twenty-one and twenty-two years her junior) no fewer than eleven times, staying for up to five days each time. On at least one occasion, her brother Edward of Caernarfon accompanied her. Mary also had the chance to enjoy the company of many of her female relatives at Amesbury. Her niece Joan de Monthermer, Joan of Acre's daughter, and her cousin Isabel, daughter of Henry of Lancaster, were also veiled as nuns at Amesbury (Isabel of Lancaster later became the abbess). In addition, some royal girls not destined to become nuns grew up at Amesbury: Mary's little half-sister Eleanor, who died in 1311 at the age of five, her niece Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of her sister Elizabeth, and her great-niece Joan Gaveston, Joan of Acre's granddaughter. (It's also possible that other royal girls grew up at Amesbury, but evidence is lacking). Mary seems to have been especially close to her niece Elizabeth de Clare, another daughter of Joan of Acre. In late 1316 or early 1317, Elizabeth retired to Amesbury and gave birth to her daughter Isabella de Verdon there. A few weeks later, Mary, Elizabeth and Isabel of Lancaster went on pilgrimage to Canterbury together.
There is much evidence of great affection between Mary and her brother Edward II, five years her junior, and they visited each other often in childhood and adolescence. In 1304, Edward sent Mary a gift of a greyhound - evidently his favourite breed of dog - and in 1307, she sent him a falcon. A nice letter of Edward's survives from 1304, where he apologises to Mary for not sending gifts of several tuns of wine and an organ to her as promised, but the only wine his agents could find to buy was not of sufficiently high quality, and the organ had arrived broken and he was sending it for repair. In 1305, when Edward quarrelled with his father and had his income cut drastically, Mary invited him to stay with her - though unlike her feistier elder sister Joan of Acre, she made sure she got their father's permission first.
After Edward's accession in 1307, Mary continued to visit court often, with her numerous attendants. He often sent her gifts, too; in 1318, he bought expensive Lucca cloth for three people, himself, his current favourite Roger Damory, and Mary. For New Year 1317, he sent her a ring worth ten pounds (and also sent rings to his nieces Margaret and Elizabeth de Clare, his great-niece Joan Gaveston, and his sons Edward and John - rather oddly in the last case, as John was only a few months old).
Queen Isabella corresponded with Mary fairly often, and in 1316, they went on pilgrimage to Canterbury together, offering cloth of gold, saffron and other spices at the shrine. Edward II paid all the expenses of his wife and sister. Edward took a keen interest in Mary's welfare, and paid her expenses when she came to visit him. For example: in January 1313 he ordered the sheriff of Wiltshire to pay her twelve pounds, seven shillings and sixpence "which the king owes her for hay, oats, litter, farriery, and the wages of her grooms" when she stayed with him at Windsor the previous Christmas. He also granted her the manor of Ludgershall (not sure whether that's the Wiltshire one or the Buckinghamshire one) and sent her ten tuns of wine (9540 litres, or about 2510 US gallons) every year.
The only letter I've been able to find from Mary to Edward concerns the election of a new abbess of Amesbury, and begins "To the very high and noble prince, her dearest lord and brother, my lord Edward, by the grace of God king of England, his sister Mary wishes health, and all manner of honour and reverence." It ends "May Jesus Christ grant you a long life, my very dear brother."
Mary, the great lady forced to live as a nun, died at Amesbury on 29 May 1332 at the age of fifty-three, and was buried there. In 1344, John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, renewing his long-term efforts to divorce Jeanne de Bar, his wife of the last thirty-eight years, claimed to have had an affair with Mary before his marriage - his wife's aunt, thus making the marriage incestuous. The story is most unlikely to be true, not least because Mary was seven years older than Surrey. No doubt he chose her because she was so closely related to his wife, was dead, and had no children or surviving siblings to take offence at his claims. But it's pretty damn amusing anyway.
Mary's grandmother Jeanne de Dammartin, countess of Ponthieu and dowager queen of Castile and Leon, died five days after her birth. In 1285, her other grandmother Eleanor of Provence, widow of Henry III, retired to the priory of Amesbury in Wiltshire, and decided to take two of her granddaughters with her for company. One was Mary; the other was Eleanor of Brittany, daughter of Edward I's sister Beatrice and Duke John II of Brittany, and sister of Arthur, duke of Brittany and John, earl of Richmond. Young Eleanor later became abbess of Fontevrault, the mother house of Amesbury. Unfortunately, Mary had no vocation whatsoever, and her mother Eleanor of Castile was most reluctant for her to become a nun. However, Eleanor of Provence prevailed.
Mary went to live at Amesbury in 1285, and was veiled as a nun in late 1291, aged twelve, in the presence of her father and siblings, including seven-year-old Edward of Caernarfon. For most of her life, Mary spent almost as much time away from Amesbury priory as she spent in it, visiting family, the courts of her father and brother, and going on pilgrimage. This was tolerated by the abbess, because of Mary's high birth - as daughter and sister of kings, she could wield a great deal of influence. Her father granted her an income of £100 a year, later raised to £200.
Mary lived the life of a great lady, not that of a nun. She had private rooms at Amesbury, with a magnificent bed hung with velvet and tapestry, and sheets of linen. On one occasion, her father sent her over two hundred ells of fine cloth via the bishop of Chester, and at another time, two thousand stock-fish. Mary travelled to court with damsels, attendants, and between twenty-four and thirty horses and grooms for them. Her father and brother often paid her gambling debts. She also owned hunting dogs.
Mary had a strong sense of family. In a period of just over three months in 1305, she visited her little half-brothers Thomas and Edmund (sons of Edward I and Marguerite of France, twenty-one and twenty-two years her junior) no fewer than eleven times, staying for up to five days each time. On at least one occasion, her brother Edward of Caernarfon accompanied her. Mary also had the chance to enjoy the company of many of her female relatives at Amesbury. Her niece Joan de Monthermer, Joan of Acre's daughter, and her cousin Isabel, daughter of Henry of Lancaster, were also veiled as nuns at Amesbury (Isabel of Lancaster later became the abbess). In addition, some royal girls not destined to become nuns grew up at Amesbury: Mary's little half-sister Eleanor, who died in 1311 at the age of five, her niece Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of her sister Elizabeth, and her great-niece Joan Gaveston, Joan of Acre's granddaughter. (It's also possible that other royal girls grew up at Amesbury, but evidence is lacking). Mary seems to have been especially close to her niece Elizabeth de Clare, another daughter of Joan of Acre. In late 1316 or early 1317, Elizabeth retired to Amesbury and gave birth to her daughter Isabella de Verdon there. A few weeks later, Mary, Elizabeth and Isabel of Lancaster went on pilgrimage to Canterbury together.
There is much evidence of great affection between Mary and her brother Edward II, five years her junior, and they visited each other often in childhood and adolescence. In 1304, Edward sent Mary a gift of a greyhound - evidently his favourite breed of dog - and in 1307, she sent him a falcon. A nice letter of Edward's survives from 1304, where he apologises to Mary for not sending gifts of several tuns of wine and an organ to her as promised, but the only wine his agents could find to buy was not of sufficiently high quality, and the organ had arrived broken and he was sending it for repair. In 1305, when Edward quarrelled with his father and had his income cut drastically, Mary invited him to stay with her - though unlike her feistier elder sister Joan of Acre, she made sure she got their father's permission first.
After Edward's accession in 1307, Mary continued to visit court often, with her numerous attendants. He often sent her gifts, too; in 1318, he bought expensive Lucca cloth for three people, himself, his current favourite Roger Damory, and Mary. For New Year 1317, he sent her a ring worth ten pounds (and also sent rings to his nieces Margaret and Elizabeth de Clare, his great-niece Joan Gaveston, and his sons Edward and John - rather oddly in the last case, as John was only a few months old).
Queen Isabella corresponded with Mary fairly often, and in 1316, they went on pilgrimage to Canterbury together, offering cloth of gold, saffron and other spices at the shrine. Edward II paid all the expenses of his wife and sister. Edward took a keen interest in Mary's welfare, and paid her expenses when she came to visit him. For example: in January 1313 he ordered the sheriff of Wiltshire to pay her twelve pounds, seven shillings and sixpence "which the king owes her for hay, oats, litter, farriery, and the wages of her grooms" when she stayed with him at Windsor the previous Christmas. He also granted her the manor of Ludgershall (not sure whether that's the Wiltshire one or the Buckinghamshire one) and sent her ten tuns of wine (9540 litres, or about 2510 US gallons) every year.
The only letter I've been able to find from Mary to Edward concerns the election of a new abbess of Amesbury, and begins "To the very high and noble prince, her dearest lord and brother, my lord Edward, by the grace of God king of England, his sister Mary wishes health, and all manner of honour and reverence." It ends "May Jesus Christ grant you a long life, my very dear brother."
Mary, the great lady forced to live as a nun, died at Amesbury on 29 May 1332 at the age of fifty-three, and was buried there. In 1344, John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, renewing his long-term efforts to divorce Jeanne de Bar, his wife of the last thirty-eight years, claimed to have had an affair with Mary before his marriage - his wife's aunt, thus making the marriage incestuous. The story is most unlikely to be true, not least because Mary was seven years older than Surrey. No doubt he chose her because she was so closely related to his wife, was dead, and had no children or surviving siblings to take offence at his claims. But it's pretty damn amusing anyway.
02 June, 2008
Sisters of Edward II (3): Margaret
Margaret was the ninth or tenth child of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the third to survive into adulthood. She was born at Windsor Castle on 15 March 1275, sixteen months younger than her brother Alfonso and thirteen and a half months older than her sister Berengaria, and nine years older than Edward II. As part of the huge confusion over the children of Edward and Eleanor, she was often identified in the past as 'Isabella'. Edward and Eleanor had no daughter of this name; their youngest daughter Elizabeth was occasionally called 'Isabella' as well. Margaret is often said to have been born on 11 September 1275, which is impossible, as her sister Berengaria was born in May 1276.
Margaret was betrothed in early childhood to the son and heir of Duke Jan I of Brabant and Margareta of Flanders. Duke Jan's son, also called Jan, inevitably, was born on 27 September 1275, so was six months younger than Margaret. Their betrothal was arranged in 1278, when they were both toddlers. Both King Edward and Duke Jan were very keen for the marriage to go ahead: Edward promised Jan I that if Margaret was not able to wed young Jan, her next eldest sister would be substituted instead, and Jan promised Edward that if his son did not marry Margaret, he would pay him 40,000 livres tournois, or £10,000 sterling. (The medieval duchy of Brabant covered part of modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands: see this map).
Young Jan of Brabant arrived in England in 1284, the year his future brother-in-law Edward II was born, when he was eight or nine, and lived there for the next ten years. In about 1285, he wrote in a letter to Edward I "Dear sire, I pray you to take council that I may marry soon, as I greatly desire it. Command me at your will as your son." (He was still only nine or ten). He sometimes lived in the same household as his future brother-in-law Edward of Caernarfon (maybe he played the role of elder brother?), sometimes with the king, sometimes with Edward I's Lancaster nephews, and sometimes alone. Jan was described by a contemporary as "stout, handsome, gracious, and well-made." (No description of Margaret, or indeed any of her sisters, exists.)
On 8 July 1290, Margaret and Jan married at Westminster Abbey. She was fifteen and a few months, he still only fourteen. The wedding was a splendid, lavish affair. Jan's retinue consisted of eighty knights and sixty ladies, wearing costumes of Brabant. Margaret's six-year-old brother Lord Edward of Caernarfon was followed by a retinue of eighty knights, her brother-in-law the earl of Gloucester's retinue was 103 knights and sixty ladies, and the other earls also brought huge retinues of their own. 700 knights and 1000 citizens of London took part in the procession, and the guests were entertained by 400 minstrels and musicians. The royal family changed clothes three times during the course of the day, and the highlight was a banquet held in Westminster Hall, where Lord Edward's personal cook presented an edible replica of a castle.
In subsequent letters to Duke Jan I, Edward I usually referred to the couple as "John, your son and ours, and his wife Margaret, our daughter and yours" (Johan vostre fiz e le nostre, & Margarete sa femme nostre fille e la vostre). In 1290, young Jan and Margaret sent a letter to her father, stating that they were using Jan's seal and the seal of her mother Queen Eleanor, as her own "seal is not well known" (en la nom la avauntdite Margarete (poor ceo que son seal n’est mie conu) avoms prie estre mis le seal la noble dame Alianore, reigne d’Engleterre). Jan was always called 'the king's son' after 1290, and called himself "his [Edward I's] son and son of the duke of Brabant."
In 1292/93, Jan was sharing the household of Thomas and Henry of Lancaster, nephews of Edward I and cousins of Margaret. They spent a few days staying with Jan's brother-in-law, nine-year-old Edward of Caernarfon, on several occasions. Although Jan and Margaret were now seventeen/eighteen, evidently they were still not living together.
In March 1294, Margaret and her brother Edward were very ill with the 'tertian fever', but fortunately both recovered. A few weeks later, on 3 May, Jan's father Duke Jan I was killed at a jousting tournament at Bar-le-Duc, arranged by Count Henri III of Bar to celebrate his marriage to Margaret's sister Eleanor. Eighteen-year-old Jan succeeded as duke of Brabant, and in late June 1294, returned to his homeland in a merchant's ship, sailing from Harwich.
However, Margaret remained in England for several years, and wasn't reunited her husband until early 1297, when Count Jan I of Holland married her sister Elizabeth, and she sailed with him. Margaret was presented with jewels before her departure, which she haughtily rejected, saying that they "did not please her." She had spent much of the time between June 1294 and January 1297 living with her brother Edward, and Elizabeth. The long separation seems to suggest that Margaret and Jan's marriage was not a particularly successful one. Jan consoled himself in her absence, and fathered four illegitimate sons, who, brilliantly, were all called Jan, and a daughter called Johanna. It's also possible that Jan's illegitimate children, or some of them, were born after he was reunited with Margaret, of course. Mary Anne Everett Green says in her Lives of the Princesses of England (1857) that Margaret was "doomed to the mortification of being perpetually surrounded by the bastard sons of her husband."
Margaret and Jan's only child, the future Jan III of Brabant, was born sometime in late 1300, when Margaret was twenty-five. The news was greeted with joy in England: Edward I gave a gift of a hundred marks (sixty-six pounds) to the messenger who informed him, Margaret's stepmother Queen Marguerite fifty marks, Edward of Caernarfon forty, and their sister Elizabeth twenty. (So, well worth the messenger's trouble in crossing to England.)
Duke Jan and Duchess Margaret attended the wedding of Edward II and Isabella of France at Boulogne on 25 January 1308, and also attended their coronation at Westminster a month later. This is, as far as I know, the last time Margaret ever visited England. She and Edward remained in contact, and Edward's relations with Brabant were warm throughout his reign, though somehow I get the impression that Edward was not as close to Margaret as he was to his other sisters. In October 1311, however, he asked Margaret and Jan to receive Piers Gaveston during his third exile.
Duke Jan II died on 27 October 1312, supposedly of kidney stones, at the age of only thirty-seven, and Margaret's twelve-year-old son succeeded as Jan III. A contemporary Flemish chronicle says, inexplicably, that Margaret died in 1318, and this is still often repeated today. However, it's perfectly clear that Margaret lived far beyond 1318, as she was still in touch with her brother via letters in the 1320s, and also her nephew Edward III.
In 1330, Margaret was still alive when the enemies of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer gathered in Brabant, plotting an invasion of England. The Fieschi Letter claims that Brabant was one of the places that the former Edward II visited after his escape from Berkeley Castle, in about 1331.
The date of Margaret's death is unknown, but she was still alive in March 1333, when she sent a letter to Edward III. At this time, she was almost fifty-eight. She was the last survivor of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile's children (except the non-murdered-in-1327 Edward II!). Of all Edward I's children, only her half-brother Thomas of Brotherton outlived her, with the same proviso regarding Edward II. Margaret was buried in Brussels, next to her husband.
Her only son Duke Jan III married Marie d'Évreux, niece of Philippe IV of France (her sister Jeanne married their first cousin Charles IV, Queen Isabella's brother, in 1325), and died on 5 December 1355. His three sons had all pre-deceased him, so he was succeeded by Johanna, the eldest of his three daughters. He also fathered a whopping twenty illegitimate children, which probably means that numerous people in the Low Countries today are descendants of Duchess Margaret.
Margaret was betrothed in early childhood to the son and heir of Duke Jan I of Brabant and Margareta of Flanders. Duke Jan's son, also called Jan, inevitably, was born on 27 September 1275, so was six months younger than Margaret. Their betrothal was arranged in 1278, when they were both toddlers. Both King Edward and Duke Jan were very keen for the marriage to go ahead: Edward promised Jan I that if Margaret was not able to wed young Jan, her next eldest sister would be substituted instead, and Jan promised Edward that if his son did not marry Margaret, he would pay him 40,000 livres tournois, or £10,000 sterling. (The medieval duchy of Brabant covered part of modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands: see this map).
Young Jan of Brabant arrived in England in 1284, the year his future brother-in-law Edward II was born, when he was eight or nine, and lived there for the next ten years. In about 1285, he wrote in a letter to Edward I "Dear sire, I pray you to take council that I may marry soon, as I greatly desire it. Command me at your will as your son." (He was still only nine or ten). He sometimes lived in the same household as his future brother-in-law Edward of Caernarfon (maybe he played the role of elder brother?), sometimes with the king, sometimes with Edward I's Lancaster nephews, and sometimes alone. Jan was described by a contemporary as "stout, handsome, gracious, and well-made." (No description of Margaret, or indeed any of her sisters, exists.)
On 8 July 1290, Margaret and Jan married at Westminster Abbey. She was fifteen and a few months, he still only fourteen. The wedding was a splendid, lavish affair. Jan's retinue consisted of eighty knights and sixty ladies, wearing costumes of Brabant. Margaret's six-year-old brother Lord Edward of Caernarfon was followed by a retinue of eighty knights, her brother-in-law the earl of Gloucester's retinue was 103 knights and sixty ladies, and the other earls also brought huge retinues of their own. 700 knights and 1000 citizens of London took part in the procession, and the guests were entertained by 400 minstrels and musicians. The royal family changed clothes three times during the course of the day, and the highlight was a banquet held in Westminster Hall, where Lord Edward's personal cook presented an edible replica of a castle.
In subsequent letters to Duke Jan I, Edward I usually referred to the couple as "John, your son and ours, and his wife Margaret, our daughter and yours" (Johan vostre fiz e le nostre, & Margarete sa femme nostre fille e la vostre). In 1290, young Jan and Margaret sent a letter to her father, stating that they were using Jan's seal and the seal of her mother Queen Eleanor, as her own "seal is not well known" (en la nom la avauntdite Margarete (poor ceo que son seal n’est mie conu) avoms prie estre mis le seal la noble dame Alianore, reigne d’Engleterre). Jan was always called 'the king's son' after 1290, and called himself "his [Edward I's] son and son of the duke of Brabant."
In 1292/93, Jan was sharing the household of Thomas and Henry of Lancaster, nephews of Edward I and cousins of Margaret. They spent a few days staying with Jan's brother-in-law, nine-year-old Edward of Caernarfon, on several occasions. Although Jan and Margaret were now seventeen/eighteen, evidently they were still not living together.
In March 1294, Margaret and her brother Edward were very ill with the 'tertian fever', but fortunately both recovered. A few weeks later, on 3 May, Jan's father Duke Jan I was killed at a jousting tournament at Bar-le-Duc, arranged by Count Henri III of Bar to celebrate his marriage to Margaret's sister Eleanor. Eighteen-year-old Jan succeeded as duke of Brabant, and in late June 1294, returned to his homeland in a merchant's ship, sailing from Harwich.
However, Margaret remained in England for several years, and wasn't reunited her husband until early 1297, when Count Jan I of Holland married her sister Elizabeth, and she sailed with him. Margaret was presented with jewels before her departure, which she haughtily rejected, saying that they "did not please her." She had spent much of the time between June 1294 and January 1297 living with her brother Edward, and Elizabeth. The long separation seems to suggest that Margaret and Jan's marriage was not a particularly successful one. Jan consoled himself in her absence, and fathered four illegitimate sons, who, brilliantly, were all called Jan, and a daughter called Johanna. It's also possible that Jan's illegitimate children, or some of them, were born after he was reunited with Margaret, of course. Mary Anne Everett Green says in her Lives of the Princesses of England (1857) that Margaret was "doomed to the mortification of being perpetually surrounded by the bastard sons of her husband."
Margaret and Jan's only child, the future Jan III of Brabant, was born sometime in late 1300, when Margaret was twenty-five. The news was greeted with joy in England: Edward I gave a gift of a hundred marks (sixty-six pounds) to the messenger who informed him, Margaret's stepmother Queen Marguerite fifty marks, Edward of Caernarfon forty, and their sister Elizabeth twenty. (So, well worth the messenger's trouble in crossing to England.)
Duke Jan and Duchess Margaret attended the wedding of Edward II and Isabella of France at Boulogne on 25 January 1308, and also attended their coronation at Westminster a month later. This is, as far as I know, the last time Margaret ever visited England. She and Edward remained in contact, and Edward's relations with Brabant were warm throughout his reign, though somehow I get the impression that Edward was not as close to Margaret as he was to his other sisters. In October 1311, however, he asked Margaret and Jan to receive Piers Gaveston during his third exile.
Duke Jan II died on 27 October 1312, supposedly of kidney stones, at the age of only thirty-seven, and Margaret's twelve-year-old son succeeded as Jan III. A contemporary Flemish chronicle says, inexplicably, that Margaret died in 1318, and this is still often repeated today. However, it's perfectly clear that Margaret lived far beyond 1318, as she was still in touch with her brother via letters in the 1320s, and also her nephew Edward III.
In 1330, Margaret was still alive when the enemies of Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer gathered in Brabant, plotting an invasion of England. The Fieschi Letter claims that Brabant was one of the places that the former Edward II visited after his escape from Berkeley Castle, in about 1331.
The date of Margaret's death is unknown, but she was still alive in March 1333, when she sent a letter to Edward III. At this time, she was almost fifty-eight. She was the last survivor of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile's children (except the non-murdered-in-1327 Edward II!). Of all Edward I's children, only her half-brother Thomas of Brotherton outlived her, with the same proviso regarding Edward II. Margaret was buried in Brussels, next to her husband.
Her only son Duke Jan III married Marie d'Évreux, niece of Philippe IV of France (her sister Jeanne married their first cousin Charles IV, Queen Isabella's brother, in 1325), and died on 5 December 1355. His three sons had all pre-deceased him, so he was succeeded by Johanna, the eldest of his three daughters. He also fathered a whopping twenty illegitimate children, which probably means that numerous people in the Low Countries today are descendants of Duchess Margaret.
28 May, 2008
Sisters of Edward II (2): Joan of Acre
Totally off-topic here, but I loved this search string from yesterday: what made edward II a god king. *Giggles*
Anyway, onto the real subject of the day: the second of Edward II's five elder sisters.
Joan of Acre was the seventh or eighth child of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the second to survive childhood. She was born in Akko in Syria sometime in the spring of 1272, while her parents were on crusade, and was known as 'Joan of Acre' to distinguish her from another daughter of Edward and Eleanor named Joan, who was born and died in 1265. Another daughter, name unknown, was born about a year before Joan, also in the Holy Land, and died as a baby. A few weeks after Joan's birth, on 17 June 1272, a would-be assassin stabbed her father with a poisoned dagger; the story that Eleanor of Castile sucked the poison out of the wound is, sadly, only a legend.
In September 1272, Edward and Eleanor left the Holy Land, with Joan, and travelled via Sicily and Rome to France and then Gascony; Joan's brother Alfonso was born in Bayonne in November 1273. Her grandfather Henry III had died in November 1272, when she was a few months old, and her father succeeded as king of England. In August 1274, Edward and Eleanor finally returned to England, after an absence of four years, and their coronation took place that month. A few weeks later, Joan's six-year-old brother Henry, whom she never met, died suddenly at Guildford, and Alfonso became heir to the throne.
Joan did not travel to England with her parents, but remained in France with her maternal grandmother, Jeanne de Dammartin, countess of Ponthieu and dowager queen of Castile. After Jeanne's death in 1279, she set foot in England for the first time, at the age of seven. There, she finally met her siblings: Eleanor, ten, Alfonso, five and a half, Margaret, four, and the baby Mary. Two sisters had died the year before: two-year-old Berengaria and a baby girl, name unknown. (Edward I and Eleanor of Castile had a lot of daughters.)
In 1277/78, Edward I arranged his daughter's betrothal to Hartmann von Hapsburg, the seventh child and second son of King Rudolf of Germany and Gertrud von Hohenberg. Hartmann was born in 1263, so was nine years older than Joan, and had previously been betrothed to Kunigunde of Bohemia. According to the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy site, their wedding was to take place on 8 September 1278 at Westminster Abbey, but was postponed - because Joan was still in Ponthieu, or because she was still only six years old! Unfortunately for the plans of King Edward and King Rudolf, Hartmann drowned in the Rhine, after his ship sank, on 21 December 1281, supposedly on his way to England to marry Joan. He was only eighteen.
Little is known about Joan's life in the 1280s. Her youngest (full) siblings Elizabeth and Edward of Caernarfon were born in 1282 and 1284, and Alfonso - the sibling closest to Joan in age - died in August 1284. In May 1286, when she was fourteen, her parents left for Gascony and didn't return for over three years. Joan is known to have quarrelled with a wardrobe clerk during this time, and refused to accept money from him to pay her expenses. On his return from Gascony, Edward set about organising his children's marriages - and paying Joan's debts.
On 30 April 1290, around the time of her eighteenth birthday, Joan married the rich, powerful and turbulent Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, who was nearly three decades older than she was, born in September 1243. Isabel, the elder of his daughters by his first wife Alice de Lusignan, was ten years Joan's senior. For her wedding, Joan wore a girdle and head-dress of gold, decorated with rubies and emeralds, bought for her in Paris at a cost of fifty pounds. She and Gilbert left court soon after the wedding to honeymoon at Tonbridge Castle in Kent, without her father's permission - to the king's great annoyance. Very expensive girdles and head-dresses notwithstanding, the ceremony was a quiet, family affair, unlike the wedding of her younger sister Margaret a few weeks later (see next post).
There's no way of knowing what kind of relationship Joan and Gilbert had, though they produced four children in five and a half years of marriage. Their eldest, Gilbert, was born a little over a year after the wedding, at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire. He was Edward I's eldest grandchild (Edward I was fifty-one at the time). Eleanor of Castile had died a few months previously, so never saw her grandson, though perhaps she knew before she died that Joan was pregnant.
Gilbert de Clare died in December 1295, aged fifty-two, a few weeks after the birth of their youngest child Elizabeth, leaving Joan a widow at the age of twenty-three. Edward I set plans in motion for Joan to marry Count Amadeus V of Savoy, who was also decades her senior, born in about 1249. However, she calmly informed him that she was already married, to Ralph de Monthermer, a squire of her late husband. Edward I was furious, seized Joan's lands, and imprisoned Ralph. However, there was little he could do. He could not unmarry the couple - only the Pope could do that - and released Ralph.
The date of Joan and Ralph's marriage is not known, but probably took place in about January 1297, and their first child, Mary, was born in October that year. Ralph de Monthermer's parentage is obscure, though apparently he was illegitimate - in 1304, the Annals of London called him 'the bastard Ralph de Monthermer'. He was born in about 1262, so was about ten years older than Joan. (His Inquisition Post Mortem of 1325 gives his age as sixty-three, which surprises me - I'd always pictured him as about Joan's age, or a little younger).
It took a very long time for Edward I's anger towards Ralph to cool, and for him to accept the marriage, but by 1304, Ralph had become earl of Gloucester by right of his wife. (He lost the title on her death.) A letter sent by Edward of Caernarfon to Ralph on 30 May 1304 says "it pleases us very much, and gives us great joy, that our dear sister has the consent of our dear lord the king, our father and yours." Finally! After more than seven years and four children! Edward called Ralph, in the eleven letters he sent him in 1304 and 1305, "our very dear brother", and it seems that he considered Ralph to be a member of his inner circle, and a trustworthy and reliable confidant.
Edward was also close to Joan of Acre, twelve years his senior. In 1305, during the period he had quarrelled violently with their father and had his income cut drastically, Joan lent him her seal, so that he could buy goods. As her secret marriage to Ralph amply demonstrates, Joan was not afraid of her harsh father, or the fact that he would likely be furious at her helping Edward (their sister Mary made sure she had the permission of the king before writing to Edward, whereas Joan didn't bother).
Joan bore Ralph four children, two daughters and two sons. All of her children were older than her youngest (half-) sibling Eleanor, born in May 1306, when Joan was thirty-four. Edward I's eldest grandchild was fifteen years older than his youngest child.
Joan of Acre, countess of Gloucester and Hertford, died on 23 April 1307, around the time of her thirty-fifth birthday, and was buried at the Augustinian friary at Clare, in Suffolk. Her death may have been pregnancy or childbirth-related, though it's not certain. A few weeks later, her father died, and her brother succeeded as Edward II.
Ralph de Monthermer remained a widower for eleven years, then married Isabel Hastings, one of the sisters of Hugh Despenser the younger - also without the king's permission. As I've said before, Ralph must really have had something, to persuade two ladies to marry him without royal consent.
Children of Joan of Acre:
Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, 1291-1314, married Maud de Burgh, no surviving children (Gilbert had a son John, born April 1312, who died young).
Eleanor de Clare, 1292-1337, married Hugh Despenser the younger and William la Zouche, about eleven children.
Margaret de Clare, 1294-1342, married Piers Gaveston and Hugh Audley the younger, two daughters.
Elizabeth de Clare, 1295-1360, married John de Burgh, Theobald de Verdon and Roger Damory, a son and two daughters.
Mary de Monthermer, 1297-after 1371, married Duncan MacDuff, earl of Fife, one daughter.
Joan de Monthermer, 1299-?, nun at Amesbury.
Thomas de Monthermer, 1301-1340, married Margaret, widow of Henry Tyes, one daughter. (Thomas's grandson John Montacute, earl of Salisbury, was beheaded in 1400 after taking part in the unsuccessful plot to restore Richard II to the throne.)
Edward de Monthermer, 1304-1340, never married.
Anyway, onto the real subject of the day: the second of Edward II's five elder sisters.
Joan of Acre was the seventh or eighth child of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the second to survive childhood. She was born in Akko in Syria sometime in the spring of 1272, while her parents were on crusade, and was known as 'Joan of Acre' to distinguish her from another daughter of Edward and Eleanor named Joan, who was born and died in 1265. Another daughter, name unknown, was born about a year before Joan, also in the Holy Land, and died as a baby. A few weeks after Joan's birth, on 17 June 1272, a would-be assassin stabbed her father with a poisoned dagger; the story that Eleanor of Castile sucked the poison out of the wound is, sadly, only a legend.
In September 1272, Edward and Eleanor left the Holy Land, with Joan, and travelled via Sicily and Rome to France and then Gascony; Joan's brother Alfonso was born in Bayonne in November 1273. Her grandfather Henry III had died in November 1272, when she was a few months old, and her father succeeded as king of England. In August 1274, Edward and Eleanor finally returned to England, after an absence of four years, and their coronation took place that month. A few weeks later, Joan's six-year-old brother Henry, whom she never met, died suddenly at Guildford, and Alfonso became heir to the throne.
Joan did not travel to England with her parents, but remained in France with her maternal grandmother, Jeanne de Dammartin, countess of Ponthieu and dowager queen of Castile. After Jeanne's death in 1279, she set foot in England for the first time, at the age of seven. There, she finally met her siblings: Eleanor, ten, Alfonso, five and a half, Margaret, four, and the baby Mary. Two sisters had died the year before: two-year-old Berengaria and a baby girl, name unknown. (Edward I and Eleanor of Castile had a lot of daughters.)
In 1277/78, Edward I arranged his daughter's betrothal to Hartmann von Hapsburg, the seventh child and second son of King Rudolf of Germany and Gertrud von Hohenberg. Hartmann was born in 1263, so was nine years older than Joan, and had previously been betrothed to Kunigunde of Bohemia. According to the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy site, their wedding was to take place on 8 September 1278 at Westminster Abbey, but was postponed - because Joan was still in Ponthieu, or because she was still only six years old! Unfortunately for the plans of King Edward and King Rudolf, Hartmann drowned in the Rhine, after his ship sank, on 21 December 1281, supposedly on his way to England to marry Joan. He was only eighteen.
Little is known about Joan's life in the 1280s. Her youngest (full) siblings Elizabeth and Edward of Caernarfon were born in 1282 and 1284, and Alfonso - the sibling closest to Joan in age - died in August 1284. In May 1286, when she was fourteen, her parents left for Gascony and didn't return for over three years. Joan is known to have quarrelled with a wardrobe clerk during this time, and refused to accept money from him to pay her expenses. On his return from Gascony, Edward set about organising his children's marriages - and paying Joan's debts.
On 30 April 1290, around the time of her eighteenth birthday, Joan married the rich, powerful and turbulent Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, who was nearly three decades older than she was, born in September 1243. Isabel, the elder of his daughters by his first wife Alice de Lusignan, was ten years Joan's senior. For her wedding, Joan wore a girdle and head-dress of gold, decorated with rubies and emeralds, bought for her in Paris at a cost of fifty pounds. She and Gilbert left court soon after the wedding to honeymoon at Tonbridge Castle in Kent, without her father's permission - to the king's great annoyance. Very expensive girdles and head-dresses notwithstanding, the ceremony was a quiet, family affair, unlike the wedding of her younger sister Margaret a few weeks later (see next post).
There's no way of knowing what kind of relationship Joan and Gilbert had, though they produced four children in five and a half years of marriage. Their eldest, Gilbert, was born a little over a year after the wedding, at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire. He was Edward I's eldest grandchild (Edward I was fifty-one at the time). Eleanor of Castile had died a few months previously, so never saw her grandson, though perhaps she knew before she died that Joan was pregnant.
Gilbert de Clare died in December 1295, aged fifty-two, a few weeks after the birth of their youngest child Elizabeth, leaving Joan a widow at the age of twenty-three. Edward I set plans in motion for Joan to marry Count Amadeus V of Savoy, who was also decades her senior, born in about 1249. However, she calmly informed him that she was already married, to Ralph de Monthermer, a squire of her late husband. Edward I was furious, seized Joan's lands, and imprisoned Ralph. However, there was little he could do. He could not unmarry the couple - only the Pope could do that - and released Ralph.
The date of Joan and Ralph's marriage is not known, but probably took place in about January 1297, and their first child, Mary, was born in October that year. Ralph de Monthermer's parentage is obscure, though apparently he was illegitimate - in 1304, the Annals of London called him 'the bastard Ralph de Monthermer'. He was born in about 1262, so was about ten years older than Joan. (His Inquisition Post Mortem of 1325 gives his age as sixty-three, which surprises me - I'd always pictured him as about Joan's age, or a little younger).
It took a very long time for Edward I's anger towards Ralph to cool, and for him to accept the marriage, but by 1304, Ralph had become earl of Gloucester by right of his wife. (He lost the title on her death.) A letter sent by Edward of Caernarfon to Ralph on 30 May 1304 says "it pleases us very much, and gives us great joy, that our dear sister has the consent of our dear lord the king, our father and yours." Finally! After more than seven years and four children! Edward called Ralph, in the eleven letters he sent him in 1304 and 1305, "our very dear brother", and it seems that he considered Ralph to be a member of his inner circle, and a trustworthy and reliable confidant.
Edward was also close to Joan of Acre, twelve years his senior. In 1305, during the period he had quarrelled violently with their father and had his income cut drastically, Joan lent him her seal, so that he could buy goods. As her secret marriage to Ralph amply demonstrates, Joan was not afraid of her harsh father, or the fact that he would likely be furious at her helping Edward (their sister Mary made sure she had the permission of the king before writing to Edward, whereas Joan didn't bother).
Joan bore Ralph four children, two daughters and two sons. All of her children were older than her youngest (half-) sibling Eleanor, born in May 1306, when Joan was thirty-four. Edward I's eldest grandchild was fifteen years older than his youngest child.
Joan of Acre, countess of Gloucester and Hertford, died on 23 April 1307, around the time of her thirty-fifth birthday, and was buried at the Augustinian friary at Clare, in Suffolk. Her death may have been pregnancy or childbirth-related, though it's not certain. A few weeks later, her father died, and her brother succeeded as Edward II.
Ralph de Monthermer remained a widower for eleven years, then married Isabel Hastings, one of the sisters of Hugh Despenser the younger - also without the king's permission. As I've said before, Ralph must really have had something, to persuade two ladies to marry him without royal consent.
Children of Joan of Acre:
Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, 1291-1314, married Maud de Burgh, no surviving children (Gilbert had a son John, born April 1312, who died young).
Eleanor de Clare, 1292-1337, married Hugh Despenser the younger and William la Zouche, about eleven children.
Margaret de Clare, 1294-1342, married Piers Gaveston and Hugh Audley the younger, two daughters.
Elizabeth de Clare, 1295-1360, married John de Burgh, Theobald de Verdon and Roger Damory, a son and two daughters.
Mary de Monthermer, 1297-after 1371, married Duncan MacDuff, earl of Fife, one daughter.
Joan de Monthermer, 1299-?, nun at Amesbury.
Thomas de Monthermer, 1301-1340, married Margaret, widow of Henry Tyes, one daughter. (Thomas's grandson John Montacute, earl of Salisbury, was beheaded in 1400 after taking part in the unsuccessful plot to restore Richard II to the throne.)
Edward de Monthermer, 1304-1340, never married.
21 May, 2008
Sisters of Edward II (1): Eleanor
A series of posts on the five of Edward II's eleven or twelve sisters who survived into adulthood, beginning with Eleanor, countess of Bar.
Eleanor was the fifth or sixth child of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the eldest to survive childhood. (Her elder siblings were Katherine, Joan, John and Henry, and possibly a baby girl born very prematurely in 1255.) She was born shortly before 18 June 1269, when her grandfather Henry III granted John de Beaumes, yeoman of Eleanor of Castile, ten pounds worth of lands for bringing him news of the birth. Eleanor of Castile's daughter mentioned in the Patent Rolls in June 1264 was Katherine, not Eleanor, as often assumed. The confusion arises because, in 1302, Eleanor was called Edward I's primogenita. This literally means 'first born daughter', so it has often been assumed that the daughter of Eleanor of Castile and Edward I mentioned in 1264 - the first reference to a daughter of theirs - must be Eleanor. However, in practice primogenita meant 'eldest surviving daughter', and in 1302 Eleanor was meant, not Katherine. Other examples: Eleanor's brother Alfonso (1273-1284) was called Edward I's primogenitus after the deaths of his two elder brothers, and Edward II's queen Isabella was described as Philippe IV's primogenita in the early 1300s, although she had had two elder sisters who died young. Eleanor's date of birth in 1269 is not in doubt.
Eleanor barely saw her parents in early childhood. Edward I and Eleanor of Castile left England to go on crusade in August 1270, when she was a year old, and didn't return until August 1274. For the first fifteen years of Eleanor's life, Eleanor of Castile's almost yearly pregnancies meant that there were frequent additions to the royal nursery, most of whom did not survive (only six of Eleanor of Castile's sixteen children outlived her).
In childhood, Eleanor shared a household with her brother Henry, born in May 1268 and only thirteen months her senior, and their cousin John of Brittany, future earl of Richmond, born in 1266. John was the son of Edward I's sister Beatrice and the duke of Brittany, and was known by the nickname Brito. The fortunate survival of some of their household records gives us some nice information: on one occasion, partridges were bought for Eleanor and Henry, at a cost of four and a half pence each. Eleanor wa given almond and violet oil, "for her own special use" (wonder what she did with it). Young Henry died in October 1274 at the age of six, and their eleven-month-old brother Alfonso became heir to the throne.
Eleanor's next surviving sister, Joan of Acre, who was a little less than three years her junior, didn't arrive in England until 1279, having spent a few years living with their grandmother Jeanne de Dammartin, dowager queen of Castile, in Ponthieu. Eleanor's other surviving siblings were six, ten, thirteen and fifteen years younger than she was - respectively, Margaret, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward II.
Eleanor was a young child when her father Edward I betrothed her to Alfonso, grandson of King Jaime I of Aragon and eldest son of Pedro III, in 1273. Alfonso was a little older, born in November 1265. Although Eleanor must have grown used to thinking of herself as future queen of Aragon, sadly for her, this marriage was destined never to take place.
In June 1282, around the time of Eleanor's thirteenth birthday, Pedro III pressed Edward I to send his daughter to Aragon for the marriage to his son to go ahead. Edward refused, for a very interesting reason: he claimed that his mother Eleanor of Provence and his wife Eleanor of Castile had begged him not to send Eleanor (there are too many Eleanors!) as they thought she was too young. Both Queen Eleanors had been the same age, if not a little younger, when they themselves married - which implies that they thought they had been too young. Having said that, Alfonso was only sixteen himself, and as terribly young as thirteen is, it was a normal age for royal girls/women to marry, and at least Alfonso wasn't forty or fifty.
The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy site says that Eleanor and Alfonso III married by proxy at Westminster Abbey on 15 August 1290, but I'm not sure if this is correct, as I've never seen it anywhere else, and I don't know of any evidence that calls Eleanor queen of Aragon. This was, however, the summer when several of her siblings married - Joan and Margaret, and Edward of Caernarfon was betrothed to Margaret, the Maid of Norway - so it may be correct.
In April that year, Edward I, with three of his four sons dead, faced up to the possibility that his eldest daughter Eleanor might succeed him. This never happened, as Edward II survived and Edward I fathered two more sons many years later, but it's a fascinating 'what if'.
Alfonso III succeeded his father as king of Aragon in November 1285, and was promptly caught up in the endless struggles with the papacy, and with his own nobles. It wasn't until the summer of 1291 that he was in a position to start making plans for his wedding, which he duly did. It was to take place in Barcelona. Sadly, Alfonso died suddenly in June 1291, at the age of only twenty-five, and was succeeded by his brother Jaime II. Eleanor, at twenty-two, had to face the fact that she would never be queen of Aragon.
Edward I arranged another alliance for his eldest daughter, and Eleanor finally married, at the very late age of twenty-four, on 20 September 1293. The wedding took place at Bristol, and the groom was Count Henri III of Bar. Her little brother, nine-year-old Edward of Caernarfon, attended, and Eleanor and Henri subsequently stayed with him for a month at Mortlake, Surrey. Bar lay in northeastern France and was part of the duchy of Upper Lorraine, with Bar-le-Duc as its capital. In May 1294, Count Henri arranged a jousting tournament in honour of his royal bride.
Eleanor bore two children: Édouard, count of Bar, born circa 1294/95, who married Marie of Burgundy. Marie's eldest sister Marguerite was the wife of Louis X and one of the women involved in the notorious adultery scandal of 1314, and another sister, Jeanne la Boiteuse (the Lame) married Philippe VI of France. Count Édouard drowned off the coast of Cyprus in 1336.
Eleanor's other child was Jeanne, circa 1295/96 to 1361, who was unsuccessfully married to John de Warenne, earl of Surrey.
Eleanor's Wiki page gives her a third child, yet another Eleanor, who married Llywelyn ap Owain, lord of Iscoed. I'm very dubious about that. (At least it gets the year of her birth correct. That's pretty unusual.)
At Christmas 1297, Eleanor sent her father a portable dressing-box with a comb, a silver-gilt enamelled mirror, and a silver bodkin, wrapped in a leather case. This was to be her last Christmas, and she died the following August, at the age of only twenty-nine. Her brother Edward of Caernarfon was fourteen. In the spring of 1306, Edward I brought his granddaughter Jeanne de Bar, aged nine or ten, to England and arranged her marriage to the earl of Surrey - which turned out to be a disaster. Count Édouard married in 1310, and had three children.
Eleanor was the fifth or sixth child of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, and the eldest to survive childhood. (Her elder siblings were Katherine, Joan, John and Henry, and possibly a baby girl born very prematurely in 1255.) She was born shortly before 18 June 1269, when her grandfather Henry III granted John de Beaumes, yeoman of Eleanor of Castile, ten pounds worth of lands for bringing him news of the birth. Eleanor of Castile's daughter mentioned in the Patent Rolls in June 1264 was Katherine, not Eleanor, as often assumed. The confusion arises because, in 1302, Eleanor was called Edward I's primogenita. This literally means 'first born daughter', so it has often been assumed that the daughter of Eleanor of Castile and Edward I mentioned in 1264 - the first reference to a daughter of theirs - must be Eleanor. However, in practice primogenita meant 'eldest surviving daughter', and in 1302 Eleanor was meant, not Katherine. Other examples: Eleanor's brother Alfonso (1273-1284) was called Edward I's primogenitus after the deaths of his two elder brothers, and Edward II's queen Isabella was described as Philippe IV's primogenita in the early 1300s, although she had had two elder sisters who died young. Eleanor's date of birth in 1269 is not in doubt.
Eleanor barely saw her parents in early childhood. Edward I and Eleanor of Castile left England to go on crusade in August 1270, when she was a year old, and didn't return until August 1274. For the first fifteen years of Eleanor's life, Eleanor of Castile's almost yearly pregnancies meant that there were frequent additions to the royal nursery, most of whom did not survive (only six of Eleanor of Castile's sixteen children outlived her).
In childhood, Eleanor shared a household with her brother Henry, born in May 1268 and only thirteen months her senior, and their cousin John of Brittany, future earl of Richmond, born in 1266. John was the son of Edward I's sister Beatrice and the duke of Brittany, and was known by the nickname Brito. The fortunate survival of some of their household records gives us some nice information: on one occasion, partridges were bought for Eleanor and Henry, at a cost of four and a half pence each. Eleanor wa given almond and violet oil, "for her own special use" (wonder what she did with it). Young Henry died in October 1274 at the age of six, and their eleven-month-old brother Alfonso became heir to the throne.
Eleanor's next surviving sister, Joan of Acre, who was a little less than three years her junior, didn't arrive in England until 1279, having spent a few years living with their grandmother Jeanne de Dammartin, dowager queen of Castile, in Ponthieu. Eleanor's other surviving siblings were six, ten, thirteen and fifteen years younger than she was - respectively, Margaret, Mary, Elizabeth and Edward II.
Eleanor was a young child when her father Edward I betrothed her to Alfonso, grandson of King Jaime I of Aragon and eldest son of Pedro III, in 1273. Alfonso was a little older, born in November 1265. Although Eleanor must have grown used to thinking of herself as future queen of Aragon, sadly for her, this marriage was destined never to take place.
In June 1282, around the time of Eleanor's thirteenth birthday, Pedro III pressed Edward I to send his daughter to Aragon for the marriage to his son to go ahead. Edward refused, for a very interesting reason: he claimed that his mother Eleanor of Provence and his wife Eleanor of Castile had begged him not to send Eleanor (there are too many Eleanors!) as they thought she was too young. Both Queen Eleanors had been the same age, if not a little younger, when they themselves married - which implies that they thought they had been too young. Having said that, Alfonso was only sixteen himself, and as terribly young as thirteen is, it was a normal age for royal girls/women to marry, and at least Alfonso wasn't forty or fifty.
The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy site says that Eleanor and Alfonso III married by proxy at Westminster Abbey on 15 August 1290, but I'm not sure if this is correct, as I've never seen it anywhere else, and I don't know of any evidence that calls Eleanor queen of Aragon. This was, however, the summer when several of her siblings married - Joan and Margaret, and Edward of Caernarfon was betrothed to Margaret, the Maid of Norway - so it may be correct.
In April that year, Edward I, with three of his four sons dead, faced up to the possibility that his eldest daughter Eleanor might succeed him. This never happened, as Edward II survived and Edward I fathered two more sons many years later, but it's a fascinating 'what if'.
Alfonso III succeeded his father as king of Aragon in November 1285, and was promptly caught up in the endless struggles with the papacy, and with his own nobles. It wasn't until the summer of 1291 that he was in a position to start making plans for his wedding, which he duly did. It was to take place in Barcelona. Sadly, Alfonso died suddenly in June 1291, at the age of only twenty-five, and was succeeded by his brother Jaime II. Eleanor, at twenty-two, had to face the fact that she would never be queen of Aragon.
Edward I arranged another alliance for his eldest daughter, and Eleanor finally married, at the very late age of twenty-four, on 20 September 1293. The wedding took place at Bristol, and the groom was Count Henri III of Bar. Her little brother, nine-year-old Edward of Caernarfon, attended, and Eleanor and Henri subsequently stayed with him for a month at Mortlake, Surrey. Bar lay in northeastern France and was part of the duchy of Upper Lorraine, with Bar-le-Duc as its capital. In May 1294, Count Henri arranged a jousting tournament in honour of his royal bride.
Eleanor bore two children: Édouard, count of Bar, born circa 1294/95, who married Marie of Burgundy. Marie's eldest sister Marguerite was the wife of Louis X and one of the women involved in the notorious adultery scandal of 1314, and another sister, Jeanne la Boiteuse (the Lame) married Philippe VI of France. Count Édouard drowned off the coast of Cyprus in 1336.
Eleanor's other child was Jeanne, circa 1295/96 to 1361, who was unsuccessfully married to John de Warenne, earl of Surrey.
Eleanor's Wiki page gives her a third child, yet another Eleanor, who married Llywelyn ap Owain, lord of Iscoed. I'm very dubious about that. (At least it gets the year of her birth correct. That's pretty unusual.)
At Christmas 1297, Eleanor sent her father a portable dressing-box with a comb, a silver-gilt enamelled mirror, and a silver bodkin, wrapped in a leather case. This was to be her last Christmas, and she died the following August, at the age of only twenty-nine. Her brother Edward of Caernarfon was fourteen. In the spring of 1306, Edward I brought his granddaughter Jeanne de Bar, aged nine or ten, to England and arranged her marriage to the earl of Surrey - which turned out to be a disaster. Count Édouard married in 1310, and had three children.
15 May, 2008
Catalogue Card
Courtesy of the Catalogue Card Generator...
Blog searches from the last couple of days:
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10 May, 2008
Eleanor of Castile
Here's a post on the mother Edward II barely knew. Much of the information comes from John Carmi Parsons, who knows more about Eleanor than anyone else on the planet - see especially his biography of her, Eleanor of Castile, and his posts in the archives of soc.genealogy.medieval.
Eleanor was born as doña Leonor de Castilla, twelfth of the fifteen children of King Fernando III of Castile and León, by his second wife Jeanne de Dammartin, countess of Ponthieu. Her date of birth is often given as 1244, following Agnes Strickland, in her Lives of the Queens of England (volume 2, 1841), who states that Eleanor was "about ten" at the time of her marriage in the autumn of 1254. But Strickland cites no primary source for this statement, and in fact, Eleanor was older than that.
In his work De Rebus Hispaniae Libri IX, finished on 31 March 1243, don Juan Ximenez de Rada, Fernando III's chancellor and archbishop of Toledo, gives the names of Fernando and Jeanne's three children: Fernando, Eleanor (Leonor) and Luis, in that order of birth. If Eleanor had a younger brother born before 31 March 1243, she can't have been born any later than early 1242, and in fact, the likeliest date of her birth is late 1241. Fernando III and Jeanne were apart from the beginning of 1240 to February 1241 (Fernando was on military campaign).
Eleanor died on 28 November 1290. Edward I paid for forty-nine candle-bearers during her funeral. Why forty-nine, and not fifty? This implies that she was forty-nine at the time of her death, or close to it, and thirteen or almost when she married the future Edward I on or around 1 November 1254 - certainly not ten.
Eleanor's elder brother Fernando (1238/39 to circa 1264) and younger brother Luis (1242/43 to circa 1276) lived to marry and have children. Her youngest brothers Ximen and Juan, born about 1244 and 1246, died in infancy. Eleanor was the only one of Jeanne de Dammartin's five children to outlive her, and duly inherited the county of Ponthieu on her mother's death in 1279. In 1290, it passed to her six-year-old son, the future Edward II.
Eleanor bore at least fourteen, and perhaps sixteen, children. Historians and genealogists have made a right mess of them, adding children who never existed - Alice, confused with Alfonso, a name contemporary English scribes struggled with and often spelt in very odd ways; Juliana, never mentioned before about 1600; Blanche and Beatrice, supposedly the younger siblings of Edward II, who never existed (Edward was certainly Eleanor's youngest child); and getting the dates of birth and death of some of the others wrong. For example, Eleanor's eldest surviving daughter Eleanor, countess of Bar, was born in 1269, not 1264 as often stated, as this entry in the Patent Rolls proves. Eleanor's third surviving daughter Margaret, duchess of Brabant, is often said to have died in 1318, but she was certainly still alive in 1333, when she sent a letter to her nephew Edward III.
Later historians portrayed Eleanor as a noble, virtuous, and just queen beloved of her subjects. For example, Thomas Costain in his The Three Edwards 1272-1377 says: "Edward's queen was greatly loved in the country...[there was] a warmth and sweetness about her which won all hearts...She was generous and thoughtful in the extreme..." However, the mother of all idealised depictions of Eleanor is to be found in Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England: "What heart, however, does not warm at the name of Eleanora of Castile?...Foreigner as she was, Eleanora of Castile entirely won the love and goodwill of her subjects..."
Strickland's work is a masterpiece of Victorian moralising, which divides the queens of England into the 'good ones', such as Eleanor of Castile and Philippa of Hainault, and the 'bad ones', such as Eleanor of Provence and Isabella of France. Poor Isabella is condemned thusly: "Since the days of the fair and false Elfrida, of Saxon celebrity, no Queen of England has left so dark a stain on the annals of female royalty, as the consort of Edward II, Isabella of France...Now [1326] the evil nature of Isabella of France blazed out in full view." Isabella was many things, but she sure as heck wasn't evil!
Unfortunately, this rosy picture of Eleanor of Castile is very wide of the mark. In fact, she was widely disliked in her own lifetime, viewed as greedy and grasping and willing to use quasi-legal methods to get hold of any lands she fancied. As this contemporary rhyme put it, Le Roy cuvayte nos deneres/Et la Rayne nos beaus maners ('the king covets our money/and the queen our lovely manors'). John Carmi Parsons' biography of Eleanor has a great chapter on opinions and depictions of her from her own lifetime until today, if anyone's interested in reading more on the subject.
Edward I and Eleanor left England for Gascony in May 1286 and didn't return until August 1289, that is, from when Edward of Caernarfon was two years and one month old to when he was five and four months. Fifteen months later, Eleanor was dead, and in the meantime, little Edward had barely seen her anyway. Devoted to each other Edward I and Eleanor undoubtedly were, but they were no great shakes as parents; on learning that their eldest son John, and his father Henry III, were dead, Edward is said to have lamented that he could have more sons, but he'd never have another father. (You could argue that this remark came back to bite him on the behind when three of his four sons died in childhood, and the only survivor, Edward II, proved to be manifestly unsuited to his position.) When their second son Henry was dying in the autumn of 1274, Edward and Eleanor didn't bother to ride thirty miles to see him - although Eleanor's Wikipedia page - scroll down to near the end - tries to justify this and their all-round performance as parents. (Unconvincingly, in my opinion, though you may disagree.)
Losing his mother very young was something Edward II had in common with Piers Gaveston, whose mother Claramonde de Marsan died in 1286 or 1287, when Piers was about four or five. Incidentally, there's no truth to the often-repeated story that Claramonde was burned alive as a witch; it was invented in the sixteenth century.
It's doubtful that Edward had many, if any, happy memories of his mother. I sometimes wonder what he thought of her, how much he knew of his Spanish origins, if he could speak any Castilian, if he took pride in his Spanish ancestry...
Eleanor was born as doña Leonor de Castilla, twelfth of the fifteen children of King Fernando III of Castile and León, by his second wife Jeanne de Dammartin, countess of Ponthieu. Her date of birth is often given as 1244, following Agnes Strickland, in her Lives of the Queens of England (volume 2, 1841), who states that Eleanor was "about ten" at the time of her marriage in the autumn of 1254. But Strickland cites no primary source for this statement, and in fact, Eleanor was older than that.
In his work De Rebus Hispaniae Libri IX, finished on 31 March 1243, don Juan Ximenez de Rada, Fernando III's chancellor and archbishop of Toledo, gives the names of Fernando and Jeanne's three children: Fernando, Eleanor (Leonor) and Luis, in that order of birth. If Eleanor had a younger brother born before 31 March 1243, she can't have been born any later than early 1242, and in fact, the likeliest date of her birth is late 1241. Fernando III and Jeanne were apart from the beginning of 1240 to February 1241 (Fernando was on military campaign).
Eleanor died on 28 November 1290. Edward I paid for forty-nine candle-bearers during her funeral. Why forty-nine, and not fifty? This implies that she was forty-nine at the time of her death, or close to it, and thirteen or almost when she married the future Edward I on or around 1 November 1254 - certainly not ten.
Eleanor's elder brother Fernando (1238/39 to circa 1264) and younger brother Luis (1242/43 to circa 1276) lived to marry and have children. Her youngest brothers Ximen and Juan, born about 1244 and 1246, died in infancy. Eleanor was the only one of Jeanne de Dammartin's five children to outlive her, and duly inherited the county of Ponthieu on her mother's death in 1279. In 1290, it passed to her six-year-old son, the future Edward II.
Eleanor bore at least fourteen, and perhaps sixteen, children. Historians and genealogists have made a right mess of them, adding children who never existed - Alice, confused with Alfonso, a name contemporary English scribes struggled with and often spelt in very odd ways; Juliana, never mentioned before about 1600; Blanche and Beatrice, supposedly the younger siblings of Edward II, who never existed (Edward was certainly Eleanor's youngest child); and getting the dates of birth and death of some of the others wrong. For example, Eleanor's eldest surviving daughter Eleanor, countess of Bar, was born in 1269, not 1264 as often stated, as this entry in the Patent Rolls proves. Eleanor's third surviving daughter Margaret, duchess of Brabant, is often said to have died in 1318, but she was certainly still alive in 1333, when she sent a letter to her nephew Edward III.
Later historians portrayed Eleanor as a noble, virtuous, and just queen beloved of her subjects. For example, Thomas Costain in his The Three Edwards 1272-1377 says: "Edward's queen was greatly loved in the country...[there was] a warmth and sweetness about her which won all hearts...She was generous and thoughtful in the extreme..." However, the mother of all idealised depictions of Eleanor is to be found in Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England: "What heart, however, does not warm at the name of Eleanora of Castile?...Foreigner as she was, Eleanora of Castile entirely won the love and goodwill of her subjects..."
Strickland's work is a masterpiece of Victorian moralising, which divides the queens of England into the 'good ones', such as Eleanor of Castile and Philippa of Hainault, and the 'bad ones', such as Eleanor of Provence and Isabella of France. Poor Isabella is condemned thusly: "Since the days of the fair and false Elfrida, of Saxon celebrity, no Queen of England has left so dark a stain on the annals of female royalty, as the consort of Edward II, Isabella of France...Now [1326] the evil nature of Isabella of France blazed out in full view." Isabella was many things, but she sure as heck wasn't evil!
Unfortunately, this rosy picture of Eleanor of Castile is very wide of the mark. In fact, she was widely disliked in her own lifetime, viewed as greedy and grasping and willing to use quasi-legal methods to get hold of any lands she fancied. As this contemporary rhyme put it, Le Roy cuvayte nos deneres/Et la Rayne nos beaus maners ('the king covets our money/and the queen our lovely manors'). John Carmi Parsons' biography of Eleanor has a great chapter on opinions and depictions of her from her own lifetime until today, if anyone's interested in reading more on the subject.
Edward I and Eleanor left England for Gascony in May 1286 and didn't return until August 1289, that is, from when Edward of Caernarfon was two years and one month old to when he was five and four months. Fifteen months later, Eleanor was dead, and in the meantime, little Edward had barely seen her anyway. Devoted to each other Edward I and Eleanor undoubtedly were, but they were no great shakes as parents; on learning that their eldest son John, and his father Henry III, were dead, Edward is said to have lamented that he could have more sons, but he'd never have another father. (You could argue that this remark came back to bite him on the behind when three of his four sons died in childhood, and the only survivor, Edward II, proved to be manifestly unsuited to his position.) When their second son Henry was dying in the autumn of 1274, Edward and Eleanor didn't bother to ride thirty miles to see him - although Eleanor's Wikipedia page - scroll down to near the end - tries to justify this and their all-round performance as parents. (Unconvincingly, in my opinion, though you may disagree.)
Losing his mother very young was something Edward II had in common with Piers Gaveston, whose mother Claramonde de Marsan died in 1286 or 1287, when Piers was about four or five. Incidentally, there's no truth to the often-repeated story that Claramonde was burned alive as a witch; it was invented in the sixteenth century.
It's doubtful that Edward had many, if any, happy memories of his mother. I sometimes wonder what he thought of her, how much he knew of his Spanish origins, if he could speak any Castilian, if he took pride in his Spanish ancestry...
07 May, 2008
Return
Just come back from a very relaxing holiday, and, amazingly, the weather was much better than expected. After an Edward II-free few days - a very odd state of affairs, because believe me, it's extremely seldom that Edward is not taking up lots of space rent-free in my head - I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind to be writing a proper post, and one will follow at the weekend, I hope. In the meantime, some more search strings that have hit the blog in the last few hours....
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Normal blog service to be resumed asap!
king edward ii of europe and edward 2 europe king
the reign of william the secondfor child
game+rank+forbidden+Edwardii+not war like
edward the second love quotes
King Edward I fan sight Love that misspelling.
why was king edwards nickname edward confession
Emasculation as torture and medieval torture and emasculation
SANDWICH SALVAGE
what kind of society would noblewomen live in Umm, noble society?
Pictures A Noble Women
what did a noblewoman do on a normal day
vindictive women of the fourteenth century
edward III isabellas point of view
thomas waite regicide what happened to his children
Normal blog service to be resumed asap!
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