Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England (23 page)

Eleanor’s central importance within the Montfort family, her continuing concern for the welfare of her sons, and her personal interest in their wider affairs was reflected elsewhere in her accounts. They firmly reinforce the impression that Eleanor enjoyed a particularly close bond of affection with Simon junior, a bond that undoubtedly holds the key to Simon’s subsequent actions later that summer. On 6 April, for example, a few days after the earl’s departure from Odiham, and again on 14 April, Eleanor dispatched letters to her second son, who had been engaged since the previous year in the siege of Pevensey Castle.
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Admittedly, in the absence of any payments to messengers received from him in the interim, we cannot help wondering whether, on this occasion, Simon junior had been perhaps a little tardy in replying to Eleanor’s missives. This son was back in touch by 30 April when his messenger received 12d. for conveying his master’s news to the countess.
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It was subsequently to Simon junior whom Eleanor turned for an escort in her flight across southern England in June 1265 after the Lord Edward’s escape, thereby temporarily diverting this son from moving directly to assist his father against the resurgent royalists in the Welsh Marches.
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ELEANOR’S WIDER CONTACTS

Eleanor’s household accounts are revealing not only of the personal support that she lent her husband and sons, but also of her role, more generally, in underpinning the Montfortian regime. They suggest that Eleanor was instrumental in upholding her family’s position by fostering a range of contacts, many of whom were Montfortian sympathizers. During the seven months covered by the extant roll, she received more than fifty visitors
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and sent numerous letters and messengers to a whole host of other people. She corresponded, for example, with Margaret de Lacy, the widowed Countess of Lincoln whose manor of Caversham was situated just fifteen miles from Odiham.
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Margaret had enjoyed close dealings with the Montforts in the recent past: the Countess of Lincoln was Eleanor’s sister-in-law through her second marriage to Walter Marshal and Earl Simon had helped to negotiate the marriage of Margaret’s grandson in 1256.
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Eleanor communicated with Margaret’s daughter, Matilda de Clare, the dowager Countess of Gloucester.
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On 12 and 13 March, another lady, Margery de Crek, the widow of a former servant of William Marshal junior, enjoyed the Countess of Leicester’s hospitality, accompanied by her retinue of twelve horses.
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Eleanor similarly entertained the Countess of Oxford and her somewhat larger retinue of twenty-one horses on 20 May, sending her away with a gift of wine when she departed on the following day.
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This countess’s husband, Robert de Vere, was a loyal adherent of Earl Simon and was among the Montfortians who were later captured at Kenilworth.
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There were other women who visited Eleanor or who were recipients of her favour: ladies such as Lady Catherine Lovel, the widow of John Lovel and sister of the royalist Philip Basset,
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and the lady of Mauley, who was possibly Joan, the widow of Peter de Maule and daughter of Peter de Brus, the sixth lord of Skelton in Yorkshire.
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At the beginning of August, Eleanor paid for the expenses incurred by her younger son, Amaury, in sending letters to the wife of Hugh Despenser, the baronial justiciar.
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Overall, it is hard not to be impressed by the number and social standing of Eleanor’s female acquaintances. Perhaps some of these women were petitioners who hoped, through Eleanor, to secure Earl Simon’s and his sons’ influence or allay possible concerns about the direction of their loyalties. It is certainly striking that on the same day (30 April) that the countess paid a messenger whom she had received from Lady Margery de Crek, another groom was dispatched by the countess from Odiham to Simon junior at Pevensey ‘for the business of the said lady’.
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Women religious visited Eleanor and sought her aid. Not only did the Prioress of Amesbury in Wiltshire, a house with strong royal connections, enjoy Eleanor’s hospitality at Odiham,
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but it is quite possible that she secured the countess’s intercession on her behalf with key figures in the Montfortian government. The record of a payment made by Eleanor to the prioress’s messenger on 13 April was immediately followed in Eleanor’s household roll by another note, detailing further expenses the countess had incurred in dispatching letters to the chancellor and Peter de Montfort, Earl Simon’s close political ally, on the prioress’s behalf.
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Such entries offer intriguing glimpses of Eleanor’s wider reputation for influence at the peak of her husband’s political career.

Amesbury was not the only female religious community that came within Eleanor’s orbit during the spring of 1265. Eleanor’s accounts record a one-off payment of 6s. 8d. to Avicia de Fauconberg, a nun at the Benedictine abbey of Wherwell in Hampshire, who was possibly a member of the Fauconberg family, the lords of Rise in Holderness (Yorkshire), and a relation of Eleanor’s knight, Walter de Fauconberg.
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The prioress and nuns of Wintney in Hampshire, a Cistercian house situated approximately five miles from Odiham, often dined with the countess; Eleanor made their prioress regular gifts of wine and at Easter commissioned from them a cope for a priest.
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Although Eleanor’s generosity to these nuns might have accorded well with her spiritual interests and responsibilities as a local religious benefactor, the ties fostered through such relationships proved invaluable to her when she needed to call upon them as the events of the summer of 1265 unfolded. The prioress of Wintney later repaid Eleanor’s generosity by lending her cart to aid the countess’s flight to Portchester Castle when news of the Lord Edward’s escape reached Eleanor.
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Eleanor’s hospitality and the carefully measured demonstrations of generosity recorded in her accounts offer excellent examples of female networking through the domestic and gendered setting of the great household. Yet it is important to stress that men also occupied a central place within the countess’s circle of influence. She communicated regularly with leading male political associates of her husband. Eleanor sent messengers, for example, to Simon’s close ally Richard Gravesend, Grosseteste’s successor as Bishop of Lincoln,
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as well as entertaining Ralph, Abbot of Waverley (Surrey), the Cistercian monastery situated near Odiham long associated with Eleanor and the Montforts.
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She apparently enjoyed cordial relations with the baronial chancellor, Thomas de Cantilupe, who had been appointed to office with her husband’s backing; Eleanor sent him a gift of wine on 1 March.
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During the summer, she corresponded with his uncle, Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, one of Simon’s mentors and closest allies,
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and another mutual acquaintance of the late Adam Marsh (d. 1259).
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Eleanor also entertained her husband’s tenants like Hereward de Marisco and Anketin de Martival, both of whom visited her at Odiham.
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The manors of Hereward and his wife Rametta at Shapwick in Dorset and Chalton in Hampshire had been acquired by exchange with Earl Simon in 1255–6 in return for the barony of Embleton in Northumberland.
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Anketin, who held the Leicestershire manor of Noseley from Earl Simon, had served as a baronial sheriff and as Earl Simon’s steward in 1261.
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As had also been the case in 1264, some responsibility for the day-to-day care of the prisoners in Earl Simon’s custody, including royal captives, fell to Eleanor. On 8 March 1265, two weeks after Eleanor’s household had taken up residence at Odiham, following a sojourn at Wallingford, the royalist baron, Sir Robert de Brus of Annandale, who had been captured by her husbands’ forces at Lewes, joined the countess’s establishment. He was escorted there by Sir Thomas of Astley, a Warwickshire knight and Montfortian supporter who was later slain at Evesham.
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Various expenses were incurred by the countess throughout the spring and summer of 1265 in helping to maintain her kinsmen imprisoned in Montfortian strongholds. Her officials paid the Lord Edward’s barber, both before and after the relaxation of the Lord Edward’s custody as part of the settlement agreed in March 1265.
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Eleanor sent both her brothers gifts of food and spices. During March, the countess dispatched a barrel of sturgeon and some whale meat to the king at Wallingford Castle.
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A further 20lbs of almonds, 5lbs of rice, 2lbs of pepper, 2lbs of cinnamon, ½lb of galingale, 1lb of ginger, 2lbs of sugar and 20 pieces of whale were dispatched to her other brother, Richard of Cornwall, who was then confined at Kenilworth.
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This was followed on 30 March 1265 by another gift of spices to Richard and, during the week of Pentecost, by yet another that comprised almonds, pepper, ginger, galingale and cloves.
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In May, the countess’s agents purchased twelve ells of high-quality ruby scarlet cloth in London for Richard’s robes, together with other fine cloths, including rayed – or striped – cloth from Paris for new robes for Edmund his son.
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Eleanor’s generosity on this occasion extended to Henry III and the Lord Edward, for whom her representatives purchased hoods of the finest linen from an Italian merchant.
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These gifts were strongly reminiscent of Henry III’s earlier gifts to her of fine clothing and food,
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and are strongly suggestive not only of Eleanor’s generosity to her kin in captivity, but also of her personal concern that the captives might still enjoy some of the luxuries and clothing appropriate to their rank and dignity. There was, after all, the practical concern that Eleanor’s brother and nephews would not disgrace themselves or shame the Montforts as their ‘hosts’ with shabby or soiled attire.
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The care and attention to detail suggested by Eleanor’s accounts not only stand as testimony to the countess’s competence as the lady of a great household, but might also have helped to make the captives’ confinement a little less irksome. Such consideration possibly paid off, in political terms, when the tables were subsequently turned on Eleanor after Evesham. On 6 September 1265, Eleanor’s son, Simon junior, persuaded Richard of Cornwall, prior to his release from Kenilworth, to promise that he would be a loyal friend to Eleanor, her children and their households.
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Although Richard as Simon’s hostage probably had little choice in the matter, one wonders whether his undertaking was influenced by the arrival of Wilecok, the countess’s messenger, who had been sent directly by Eleanor to him four days earlier.
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Similarly, Eleanor’s earlier courtesy towards the Lord Edward might well have smoothed the path of her later negotiations with him. On 17 April 1265, her accounts refer to letters sent by her infant daughter, another Eleanor, to the Lord Edward, hinting at a rather touching and, perhaps deceptive, picture of familial harmony in view of the political climate.
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It was, of course, with Edward that Eleanor ultimately negotiated the surrender of Dover Castle and her safe passage overseas in the autumn, having first received assurances for the safety of those in her service whom she left behind.
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On 26 October 1265, two days before her departure to France, Edward wrote to Walter Giffard, the royal chancellor, providing him with the names of those who had been received into his favour, ‘at the instance of his very dear aunt’.
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In spite of the bitterness after Evesham, Eleanor and the Lord Edward proved capable of maintaining family appearances. What is more, Edward apparently kept his word to Eleanor with regard to the wellbeing of her followers who remained in England. On 9 November 1265, for example, the sheriffs of Kent, Lincolnshire, Surrey, Sussex and Northamptonshire were all ordered to restore the lands of the former rebel, Sir John de la Haye, ‘who was with the countess in the munition of Dover Castle’.
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ELEANOR AND THE WAR

During the spring of 1265, however, this still lay far in the future. The dramatic events that unfolded after the Lord Edward’s escape from Hereford on 28 May can be traced within Eleanor’s accounts, as can her role in the war against the resurgent royalists.
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Their contents hint at the scale of the political crisis which engulfed her family, culminating in Evesham, widowhood and her eventual exile to France. The strength of her relationship with, and her importance to, her husband were strongly conveyed by the speed with which Earl Simon dispatched the news of Edward’s flight to her at Odiham; his messengers reached her by 1 June when the countess and Simon junior left this castle in great haste, travelling by night and covering approximately forty-two miles in just one day until they reached the greater protection afforded by Portchester Castle.
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They remained at Portchester, where Eleanor received another messenger from Earl Simon, until 11 June.
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Here their ranks were swelled by Simon junior’s men-at-arms and various supporters (the number of horses in Eleanor’s stable rose dramatically from twenty-eight on 30 May
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to eighty-four on 12 June
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) before continuing on to the greater safety of Dover Castle, which they reached on 15
June.
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The urgency of Eleanor’s journey was demonstrated once again when her household managed to cover thirty miles a day.
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When the countess and her son reached Dover, their combined retinue was so large that it initially proved impossible to accommodate all their followers within the castle. While Eleanor, Simon junior and their knights dined at the castle, their esquires and other followers ate in the town.
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Simon junior’s departure for London on 16/17 June, taking with him one hundred horses, considerably eased this cramped situation (and the number of horses in Eleanor’s stable shrank to twenty-six).
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