Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England (24 page)

During June and July, while Earl Simon attempted to counter the Lord Edward’s forces in the Welsh Marches, Eleanor presided over the castle and garrison of Dover, in the company of the acting constable, Sir John de la Haye, a man with a long history of service to Earl Simon.
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Eleanor looked to improve the defence of the castle, purchasing arms and accommodating, at the end of July, Master William the Engineer.
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As a domestic establishment in a time of war, the countess’s household continued to function reasonably smoothly. Eleanor’s accounts in the months leading up to August betray few signs of serious disruption to the functioning of Eleanor’s administration, even in the fast-changing political climate of 1265. At mealtimes, the countess usually dined in the hall, at the high table, in the presence of her family and her guests, so that all who served her might thus be reminded of her authority over them.
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The countess’s officials continued, as we might imagine they had done for many years before, to account each day for the grain, wine and other foodstuffs and victuals consumed by Eleanor, her household and her visitors. Considerate of the fact that she was a guest in her son Henry’s castle at Dover and also perhaps in preparation for a siege, Eleanor kept careful records of provisions, including red wine, taken by her household from his stores.
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At the same time, the compilers of her wardrobe accounts kept meticulous records of payments for messengers and tradesmen employed on the countess’s business, as well as for various items that were purchased for the countess’s own use, and that of her children, servants and supporters. In order to feed the large entourage that accompanied Eleanor to Dover in the summer of 1265, the countess’s officials purchased oats, corn and wine from the nearby port of Sandwich, thirteen and a half miles away, and fish from the port of Hythe, fourteen and a half miles from Dover. They obtained further provisions from Eleanor’s Kentish manor of Brabourne, situated approximately seventeen to eighteen miles from Dover.
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On 8 July 1265, for example, the manorial reeve accounted with Eleanor for sheep with which he had supplied her household from this estate.
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Boats were also hired to transport essential items such as peat, firewood, salt and corn to Dover.
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Although the identity of Eleanor’s household steward remains clouded in obscurity, the surviving records preserve the names of other officials in her service. On 9 May, it was Richard of Havering, Earl Simon’s steward, who made payments at Oxford on the countess’s behalf for her daughter’s breviary and to a chaplain for prayers on Simon junior’s behalf.
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Sir William de Wortham was another senior officer, to judge from Eleanor’s frequent correspondence with him and the payments that he authorized on her behalf, recorded in her accounts.
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Wortham, a landholder with estates in Bedfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, possessed long-standing connections with the Montforts and in the 1250s had also been associated with Grosseteste, their former friend.
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His sister Hawise served as one of the Countess of Leicester’s damsels in 1265 and was trusted to make payments on behalf of her mistress.
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Sir Fulk Constable, a Yorkshire landholder who was later captured by the royalists at Kenilworth, William the clerk of Leicester and John the Scot, the countess’s almoner, had all presided over the countess’s offerings during Lent.
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Fulk and John were of sufficient seniority within the countess’s staff to have grooms, whose expenses in late April were also met from Eleanor’s purse.
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Other officials, servants and agents frequently figure in Eleanor’s accounts, men like Hicqe the Tailor, who often journeyed between London, Odiham, Kenilworth and Portchester on the countess’s business.
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The services of men like William the Carter, who transported food and goods from one place to another, were invaluable,
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as were those of Petronilla, who served as the household’s laundress.
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Eleanor’s regular stream of correspondence with her husband, kin, friends, acquaintances and petitioners necessitated a group of reliable messengers: Bolett,
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Gobithest,
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Diqon,
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Picard,
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Slingawai
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and Wilecok
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were among those who travelled constantly on their mistress’s behalf. Eleanor’s accounts refer to other men such as Colin the Farrier, who received a stipend from the countess,
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S. the Cook,
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Garbag, who served in Eleanor’s kitchen at Dover,
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Andrew the Butler and Colin the Marshal,
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as well as various unnamed grooms who performed a variety of tasks for her.

Although, in common with other comital households, most of Eleanor’s staff were men, she retained a small but significant group of women within it, as she had done in her youth.
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In addition to Petronilla the laundress, nurses who were employed to care for Eleanor’s young daughter and William de Briouze junior feature in the roll.
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The two Eleanors, mother and daughter, enjoyed the company of a select body of damsels who saw to their personal needs and provided companionship.
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Alongside Hawise de Wortham, a damsel by the name of Christiana de Craiwell served Eleanor and made purchases for her mistress at Dover.
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The countess paid Christiana’s expenses for undertaking a pilgrimage from Odiham to Chichester, although it remains frustratingly unclear whether this spiritual journey was at Christiana’s or, in fact, Eleanor’s behest.
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The same Christiana received new shoes from the countess when the household was in residence at Dover.
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Eleanor’s responsibility for the health and welfare of her damsels is conveyed by an expense of 2s. 8d. incurred when the countess summoned a barber from Reading to bleed a damsel, who had apparently been taken ill at Odiham.
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The spiritual needs of Eleanor and her household were met through the services of the countess’s chaplain, his assistants and John the Scot, her almoner.
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A ‘G. the chaplain’ numbered among those for whom horses were borrowed during Eleanor’s June flight to Dover.
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John the Scot presided over the countess’s offerings, ensuring that Eleanor as a noblewomen fulfilled her charitable responsibilities to the poor.
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In addition to the offerings of 7s. 4d. made at Lent (22 February to 5 April in 1265),
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he oversaw the distribution of 19s. 1d. for the period between 5 April and 8 June.
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A more modest sum of 7s. 5d. was spent during the twenty-one days from 15 June to 5 July, and a further 7s. 5d. in the ensuing period up to 30 July.
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During the months covered by the roll, John was provided with an average of 4d. per day for the poor, a pretty generous amount if it is borne in mind that the offerings of a churchman, Bogo de Clare (d. 1294), a notorious pluralist who was the brother of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, typically amounted to just 1d. on great feast days.
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C. M. Woolgar has calculated that Eleanor maintained between fourteen to fifteen poor per day in her household in early May 1265, but it is clear, that, at other times, Eleanor provided bread for more than twenty-five paupers.
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On 28 June, the vigil of Saints Peter and Paul, for example, Eleanor fed forty-five paupers, while on 11 July 1265, the vigil of St Benedict of Nursia, the countess fed twenty-five paupers in one day.
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On 14 April 1265, nine days after Easter, Eleanor fed an unprecedented eight hundred poor.
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The importance of religious observances for Eleanor’s household were also reflected in its strict observance of abstinence during Lent, when meat and poultry were omitted from the daily fare, as they also were on Fridays and Saturdays, and sometimes on Wednesdays, throughout the year.
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Individual clergymen who visited the countess, like Richard the chaplain of Kemsing, one of Eleanor’s Kentish manors, also catered for the countess’s religious interests. Richard was in attendance upon his mistress at Odiham from Saturday 25 April to Saturday 9 May; upon his departure Eleanor sent him away with a gift of wine.
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It is probable that he was the ‘Richard the chaplain’ who was in the service of the countess when she took up residence at Dover Castle; he was among those men who dined with her there in June.
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Other men in religious orders who figure in Eleanor’s accounts include Brother Gregory of Coventry, Brother Walter of Coventry, Brother G. Boyon, who oversaw the production of a breviary for Eleanor’s daughter,
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and Brother J. Angeli, who received personal gifts from the countess.
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William the clerk, who was presumably in minor orders, had visited London on Eleanor’s behalf at Pentecost.
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DOVER CASTLE

Eleanor did not wait passively for the coming storm during the summer of 1265. In an astute political manoeuvre, she turned her flight across south-eastern England and her residence at Dover Castle into an exercise in public relations for her husband’s regime, especially among the Montfortian sympathizers of the Cinque Ports. Just before she arrived in Dover, for example, she entertained the burgesses of Winchelsea.
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Once at Dover, she entertained the burgesses of Sandwich in mid June,
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and the burgesses of both Winchelsea and Sandwich again in July.
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En route from Portchester to Dover, Eleanor was accompanied by Montfortian supporters, such as Sir William de Munchensy, who was later captured by the royalists at Kenilworth,
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Sir Ingelram de Balliol, who had spent time as a prisoner of the royalists in 1264,
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and Sir Robert Corbet, a landholder with properties in Sussex, Hampshire and Northamptonshire.
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Although Ingelram and Robert parted company with Eleanor once she reached Wilmington Priory in Sussex, other men appeared in their places. At Dover, Sir John de Mucegros, who had served as constable of Salisbury Castle between December 1264 and 31 May 1265, dined with the countess, a little while after her arrival, in the company of Simon junior and others.
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Once lodged at Dover, Eleanor was joined, at various points between June and August 1265, by men such as Sir Robert de Brus,
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Sir J. of Snave, a Kentish landholder,
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Sir Ralph Haket,
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Sir Fulk Constable, who was with her earlier in the year,
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Sir J. de Burton,
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Sir Peter de Burton and his wife,
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Master J. of London,
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John of Dover and his wife,
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Thomas of Sandwich, a clerk whose loyalty to the Montforts was later pardoned by the Lord Edward,
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Sir Matthew of Hastings
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and Master Nicholas de Hecham.
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In the increasingly troubled and uncertain political situation, Eleanor remained keenly appreciative of her supporters, and took care to bestow small tokens of her esteem on them. She celebrated, for example, perhaps a birthday of the son of Sir John de la Haye by purchasing gold brooches for her daughter Eleanor and her son Amaury to give to the child.
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John was a stalwart supporter of the Montforts who, before he joined the countess at Dover, had served the Earl of Leicester at the siege of Rochester and been appointed constable of Winchelsea and Rye in 1264.
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On 6 July, his wife received for her table half a ‘beast of the chase’ that had been killed during a successful hunting expedition,
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followed later in the month by another two and a half such beasts.
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Another ‘beast of the chase’ was bestowed by Eleanor upon the prior of the hospital of Dover,
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who subsequently assisted Eleanor in the days after Evesham.
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Sir Ralph d’Arcy and his wife, both of whom were frequent visitors to Dover, received other marks of favour from Countess Eleanor.
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On 28 June, for example, the countess sent Ralph’s wife, Philippa, a gift of wine.
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The countess also sent wine to the wife of Thomas Saleqin on 1 July
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and gave her part of a beast caught during a hunting expedition later that month.
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Thomas and his wife dined with the countess at Dover Castle on 20 July
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and Thomas dined there again on 26 July.
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Eleanor’s gift-giving and hospitality had a clear political edge. Significantly, it was also the Countess of Leicester who provided shelter and wine for messengers who arrived at Dover from the king of France that summer.
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In providing hospitality for her guests and in promoting her husband’s regime, Eleanor and her officials made careful use of conspicuous consumption as a means of impressing upon those who visited her household the extent of her family’s wealth, power and prestige. The fare served at the Countess of Leicester’s table was, as Lars Kjær has recently pointed out, particularly fine when she entertained guests. Visitors to her household were often fed with venison.
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The night before the countess arrived in Dover, the burgesses of Winchelsea were treated to a feast that included oxen, mutton, capons and geese.
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When the countess paid host to the burgesses of Sandwich four days later (Wednesday 18 June 1265), they shared a meal with her that included plaice, bream, soles and a variety of other fish as well.
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On Sunday 12 July 1265, another splendid feast was held at Dover Castle, at which Eleanor showed her appreciation to the burgesses of both Sandwich and Winchelsea for their support, and which was also attended by Sir Ralph d’Arcy’s wife, Sir Peter de Burton and his wife and Master J. of London. On this occasion, Eleanor’s guests were served with half an ox, two sheep and one pig, washed down with red and white wine, and the usual ale, a staple of the medieval diet.
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