Eleanor of Aquitaine (46 page)

After his marriage was annulled, John looked around for an advantageous alliance, and by early 1200 had sent envoys to ask King Sancho I of Portugal for the hand of his daughter;27 this was either Theresa, whose seven-year marriage to Alfonso IX of Leon had been annulled in 1198, or-- which is more likely-- Berengaria, who was unwed.

* * *

In the middle of June, Eleanor visited Philip at Tours and swore fealty to him for Poitou and Aquitaine, underlining the independence of these fiefs from the Angevin empire and shrewdly preempting any schemes the French King might have had for setting up Arthur as their ruler.28 The chroniclers record few details of the meeting, although they do state that Philip gave Eleanor the kiss of peace. There is no record of Eleanor meeting her grandson Arthur.

The Queen resumed her progress, travelling south to Bordeaux, which she reached on 1 July. Three days later, "she inspected the charters granted by her father and her dearest son Richard, King of England, in favour of Sainte-Croix of Bordeaux, which charters she now confirms."29 She also visited the nearby abbey of La Grande-Sauve, where she was shown a deed of privilege to which was attached the seal of Thomas Becket, as chancellor. Eleanor now granted a new charter renewing those privileges, recalling in it how the late King Henry, our very dear husband of gracious memory, and we ourselves long ago took the monastery of La Grand-Sauve under our special protection. But that Henry, as well as our son Richard, having both since died, and God having left us still in the world, we have been obliged, in order to provide for the needs of our people and the welfare of our lands, to visit Gascony. We have been brought in the course of our journey to this monastery, and we have seen that it is a holy place. For this reason we have commended both ourselves and the souls of those kings to the prayers of this community; and that our visit may not have been unserviceable, we hereby confirm the ancient privileges of this foundation.30

Upon leaving Bordeaux, she followed the course of the Gironde north to Soulac before crossing the river to Royan. She may then have returned briefly to Fontevrault, pausing on the way to settle a dispute in favour of the nuns of nearby Montreuil. Sometime after the end of May, she issued a charter "to the blessed Mary and the nuns of Fontevrault," granting an annuity of £100 "for the weal of her soul and of her worshipful husband of sacred memory, King Henry, of her son King Henry, of goodly memory, and of that mighty man King Richard, and of her other sons and daughters, with the consent of her dearest son John."31

Having completed her grand progress, during which she is estimated to have travelled over a thousand miles, Eleanor temporarily closed her chancellory at Vienne and went north to Rouen, where she met up with John on 30 July. Thanks to his mother's efforts, John's position was more secure than it might have been, and he acknowledged his debt to her, and his trust in her, in a decree proclaiming that the Queen was to retain Poitou and Aquitaine for the rest of her life; furthermore, it was proclaimed, "we desire that she shall be lady not only of all those territories which are ours, but also of ourself and of all our lands and possessions."

During August, John and Eleanor were joined at Rouen by Joanna, who was in the last months of pregnancy and clearly unwell. Count Raymond was refusing to pay his absent wife an allowance, so on 26 August, to save her from destitution, John gave "his dearest sister Joanna 100 marks of rent, by the advice of his dearest mother and lady, Eleanor, Queen of the English."32 In view of Joanna's state of health, he also assigned her "3,000 marks for making her will, according to the disposition she shall make for distribution by the hands of the most reverend Eleanor their mother, to be paid at the four terms which the Queen and archbishops shall set."33 In her will, Joanna asked Eleanor to divide those three thousand marks "among religious houses and the poor";34 she directed also that a donation be made in her name for the nuns' kitchen at Fontevrault.

Early in September it became painfully apparent that Joanna was dying. Realising this, the anguished Countess begged to be veiled as a nun of Fontevrault, that she might set aside the vanities of her rank and end her life in poverty and humility. This was a very unusual and astonishing request, since she was a married woman and about to give birth, and it was also forbidden by canon law, but when Eleanor and others tried to dissuade her, the Countess insisted that it was what she wanted. It was customary in such unusual cases to consult the Abbess of Fontevrault, who had the power to commute the rules. Abbess Matilda was duly sent for, but Eleanor, fearing that Joanna might not live until she arrived, asked Hubert Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who happened to be in Rouen at the time, to do the veiling. This was most irregular, and the Archbishop counselled the Queen to be patient and await the coming of the Abbess. He also visited Joanna and tried to divert her from her purpose, but she was adamant in her resolve.

Impressed by her fervour, and taking pity on her state and that of her anguished mother, Hubert Walter convened a committee of nuns and clergy, who all agreed that Joanna's vocation must be inspired by Heaven. On their advice, the Archbishop set aside protocol and his scruples and admitted Joanna to the Order of Fontevrault in the presence of Eleanor and many witnesses. Joanna was so weak that she could not stand to make her vows, and died shortly afterwards.35 Her infant was born minutes later-- possibly cut out of her lifeless body, since there is no mention in the sources of her being in labour, although it is possible that she did die in childbed-- but survived only long enough to be baptised with the name of Richard.36

Eleanor arranged for Joanna and her son to be buried at Fontevrault, near Henry II and Richard I. Once again, she found herself mourning the loss of a child. Of the ten she had borne, only two yet lived: John, and Eleanor, who was in far-off Castile.

After Joanna's death, Eleanor informed her vassals in an open letter that she had "gone to Gascony, taking with her the original of the testament of her dearest daughter, Queen Joanna, that the Count of St. Gilles
[sic]
may see it." The Queen begged her bishops "to carry out its provisions, according to the transcript of it she sends them, in the presence of William, Prior of Fontevrault, as they love God and her."37

On her return from Gascony, Eleanor formally ceded Poitou and Aquitaine to "her very dear son John as her right heir," while retaining sovereignty and a life interest for herself, and commanded her vassals to receive him peacefully and do him homage.38 It is likely that she had made up her mind to do this before paying homage to Philip in June, and there was nothing that Philip, having accepted that homage, could do about it, since she had every right to make her son her heir, and no one could deny that she was getting rather old to rule such wide and troublesome domains. But her gift meant that John, having inherited these domains, might prove as formidable an adversary as Richard had been, and a jealous Philip could now view his former ally only as a threat to his ambitions and therefore a potential enemy.

By this time, however, a rift had developed between Philip and Arthur. Philip had garrisoned many of the castles loyal to Arthur in Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, but there was mounting resentment against this on the part of Arthur and his friends, who feared that the French King meant to occupy those castles on a permanent basis. A disaffected William des Roches now switched his allegiance to John, and called upon Aimery of Thouars to act as mediator. With his help, and without Philip's knowledge, William, Arthur, Constance, and Guy of Thouars stole away from Paris and made for Brittany.

Warned of their flight, and determined to lay his hands on Arthur, John lay in wait for them near the ruined city of Le Mans. Leaving Arthur and his mother in a safe place, the three barons attempted to parley with John, but finding that he was not prepared to negotiate, managed to warn the Duchess that an ambush was planned. Constance, Guy, and Aimery fled back to Paris with Arthur,39 and John immediately dismissed Aimery from his stewardship of Chinon for his "treachery," an unwise step that alienated a powerful vassal who might otherwise have remained loyal. Only William des Roches was reconciled to the King-- at Eleanor's persuasion, it is said. John forgave him and made him hereditary seneschal of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine in place of Aimery. Based at Chinon, he had regular contact with Eleanor when she was at nearby Fontevrault, and witnessed at least one of her charters.

The loss of such a valuable ally was a blow to Philip, who was involved at this time in a bitter conflict with the papacy over his matrimonial tangles, which would lead to his excommunication. He sued for peace, and after Christmas concluded with John a five-year truce, whereby, in return for a payment of thirty thousand silver marks,40 payable upon confirmation of these terms by a treaty, Philip abandoned Arthur and, in his name, relinquished all his dynastic claims and recognised John as King Richard's heir. He also agreed that Arthur would do homage to John for Brittany. In return, John ceded the Vexin and the Norman county of Evreux to Philip. What Philip would not agree to do, however, was surrender the young Duke into the custody of his uncle. Nevertheless, the meeting ended with the two kings "rushing into each other's arms."41

The truce also provided, among other things, for the marriage of Philip's twelve-year-old heir Louis to one of John's Castilian nieces, a union that John hoped would check Philip's territorial ambitions. The princess would have as dowry lands taken by King Richard from Philip.42 The English barons felt that John had made far too many concessions to Philip, and disparagingly bestowed upon him the nickname "Softsword," which unfortunately stuck.43

It was decided that, because John had to go to England to raise the thirty thousand marks, Eleanor should travel to Castile to select one of the princesses, and then convey her back to France.44 This was a strenuous task for an old lady of seventy-seven, but Eleanor may have welcomed the opportunity of being reunited with her daughter and namesake, whom she had not seen for nearly thirty years.

After the truce was agreed,45 the Queen set off from Poitiers, accompanied by Elie of Malemort, Archbishop of Bordeaux, and the mercenary Captain Mercadier, on whom she obviously placed great reliance. Her journey was not without adventure, for just south of Poitiers she was ambushed and taken prisoner by her turbulent vassal Hugh de Lusignan, who threatened to hold her captive until she had ceded to him the rich county of La Marche. This fief had long ago been sold by his forebears to Henry II, and had been retained by Richard I, who did not want subversive lords using it as a power base. Hugh had long desired to recover La Marche, but it was also claimed by Count Aymer of Angouleme, a powerful, independent-spirited, and untrustworthy baron who had allied himself to King Philip against Richard. Realising that the Castilian marriage was of greater importance than a disputed fief, and deciding that Hugh-- who had been one of Richard's friends and had distinguished himself during the crusade-- was a more worthy claimant, Eleanor capitulated, and was set free to continue her journey south towards Bordeaux.

Once more the Queen crossed the Pyrenees, this time in the depths of winter, then travelled through Navarre and the kingdom of Castile to either the capital Toledo or the city of Burgos, arriving before the end of January in the year 1200.

Of their twelve children, King Alfonso VIII and Queen Eleanor had two46 remaining unmarried daughters, Urraca and Blanche, who were both beautiful and dignified. Urraca, as the elder, was the obvious choice as a bride for the heir to France, but, according to the late Spanish chronicle of Pedro Nino, Eleanor rejected her, ostensibly on the grounds that the French would never accept a queen with such an outlandish name, and chose Blanche instead. It was a wise choice, for Blanche of Castile would prove almost as formidable a queen as her grandmother had been, and would keep France stable during the minority of her son, the future saint, Louis IX. It is possible that Eleanor perceived that Blanche possessed extraordinary qualities, even at the tender age of sixteen.

There was no need to hurry back, since marriages were not solemnised during Lent, so Eleanor stayed for nearly two months at the sophisticated Castilian court, which-- due to the influence of its queen-- had embraced the culture and architecture of the south, yet offered Moorish luxuries reminiscent of the courts of the East. In his verses, the troubadour Pierre Vidal refers to the younger Eleanor keeping her husband elegant company in his gracious court,47 while another poet, Ramon Vidal, gives us a brief glimpse of "Queen Leonore modestly clad in a mantle of rich stuff, red, with a silver border wrought with golden lions."48

Late in March, Eleanor, accompanied by Blanche, journeyed through the pass of Roncesvalles into Gascony, and was back in Bordeaux by 9 April. Then something terrible happened. "While she was staying at the city of Bordeaux on account of the solemnity of Easter, Mercadier came to her"; it was decided that he would escort the Queen and princess north through Poitou. But "on the second day in Easter week, he was slain in the city by a man-at-arms in the service of Brandin,"49 a rival mercenary captain. This avoidable tragedy was too much for the elderly Queen, who was "fatigued with old age and the labour of the length of her journey." Unable to continue to Normandy, she rode in easy stages with Blanche to the valley of the Loire, where she entrusted her granddaughter to the care of the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who would escort her to King John. Her duty done, an exhausted Eleanor "betook herself to the abbey of Fontevrault, and there remained."50

21. "The Brood of the Wicked Shall Not Thrive"

It would seem that Eleanor now intended to live out her remaining days at Fontevrault. Here, she was attended by her chaplain, Roger; her secretary, Guy Diva; her clerks, Joscehn and Renoul; and "her dear maid, Aliza, Prioress of Fontevrault," to whom in that year, 1200, she made a gift of £10 Poitevin.1 Abbess Matilda had long been a good friend.

But the world kept intruding into the peace of the abbey.

On 22 May, John and Philip concluded the Treaty of Le Goulet, which enshrined the terms of the truce. Philip formally recognised John as Richard s heir, and John paid homage to him for his continental territories. It was also arranged that Arthur should hold Brittany of John as his vassal and that the young Duke should swear fealty to the uncle he hated.2

The following day, Blanche and Louis were married by the Archbishop of Bordeaux near the Norman border; their nuptials could not be solemnised in France because, as a consequence of Philip's irregular conjugal affairs, Pope Innocent had laid it under an interdict. Philip was barred from the ceremony, but provided lavishly for the celebrations that followed, during which young Arthur of Brittany distinguished himself in a tournament.3 Arthur paid homage to John for Brittany, then returned to France with King Philip and the bridal pair.4 The union of the future Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile, which produced twelve children, would ensure that Eleanors descendants would one day sit on the throne of France.

In early summer Eleanor fell ill with an unspecified complaint and John visited her at Fontevrault. She advised him "to visit immediately his Poitevin provinces and, for the sake of their peace and preservation, she desired him to form an amicable league with the Count of La Marche."5 John took her advice, and in July rode south. He was still in the midst of negotiations for a marriage alliance with Portugal, and that month sent another embassy to Sancho I.6

On 5 July, John arrived at Lusignan Castle, where he attended a ceremonial gathering hosted by Ralph de Lusignan, Count of Eu,7 brother of Hugh le Brun, the new Count of La Marche, with whom John had come to make peace. The King also effected a general reconciliation between himself and the counts of Angouleme and Limoges, who had rebelled against King Richard.8

Among the guests was the daughter and heiress of Count Aymer of Angouleme, a beautiful and precocious thirteen-year-old called Isabella.9 She had been betrothed to Hugh de Lusignan some months earlier-- the exact date is not known-- to cement a reconciliation between their two rival houses. After her betrothal, Isabella had been sent to be trained in the skills of a feudal chatelaine in the household of her betrothed. Her marriage had been deferred because of her youth, but was due to take place soon.

John took one look at Isabella and was smitten.10 "It was as if she held him by sorcery or witchcraft," observed a shocked Roger of Wendover. The thirty-three-year-old King made no secret of his burning desire for her, and her parents, aware that a union with the King would be a far more prestigious alliance than that with a mere count, encouraged his advances.

John immediately broke off negotiations with Portugal and informed Count Aymer that he meant to marry Isabella instead. The Count was only too pleased to give his consent. At that point, John sent an unsuspecting Hugh de Lusignan to England on official business, to get him out of the way.

John should have realised that marrying Isabella would be an ill-advised step-- indeed, political suicide-- since it would make enemies of the Lusignans, who were powerful and potentially troublesome vassals. Yet no one could have predicted just how disastrous the consequences would be.

The chroniclers imply that John was too much in thrall to Isabella's charms to care, yet although they deplore his headlong rush into a marriage based, as they believed, on love alone-- almost unheard of in royal circles in those days-- there were sound political advantages to be gained from such an alliance, of which John was doubtless aware. Not the least of these was securing the friendship of the influential yet fickle Count Aymer and the loyalty of the hitherto unruly fief of Angouleme, which was strategically placed on the approaches to Gascony, and of the neighbouring fiefs allied to it, as well as the succession to Angouleme on Aymer's death.11

It would also seem that John had deliberately gone after Isabella with the intention of breaking her betrothal to Hugh de Lusignan, fearing that the union of two such powerful vassals might in the long run prove detrimental to himself and the stability of the Angevin empire. Yet there is no doubt that he was strongly attracted to her.

It was essential that the agreement between John and Aymer be kept secret from the Lusignans. Lying through his teeth, Isabella's father offered some pretext to summon her home to Angouleme. When told of the great marriage that had been arranged for her, the girl wept bitterly and protested loudly, but to no avail. On 23 August, John arrived at Angouleme with Elie, Archbishop of Bordeaux, and Isabella was informed that she must travel south to Bordeaux, where she would be married on the morrow-- the date originally set for her marriage to Hugh de Lusignan.12

On 24 August, John and Isabella of Angouleme were married by the Archbishop in Bordeaux Cathedral.13 King Philip, who may have anticipated that this union would cause divisions in the empire, willingly gave his consent to the marriage.14

The King was "madly enamoured" with his bride: in her "he believed he possessed everything he could desire."15 It was said that he seemed chained to his bed, so hotly did he lust after her. The new Queen was "a splendid animal rather than a stateswoman,"16 but there is little evidence that she returned her husband's love. Within a few years, lust and endurance had degenerated into mutual hatred, and Isabella, who bore John five children, turned into an "evil-minded, adulterous, dangerous woman, often found guilty of crimes, upon which King John seized her paramours and had them strangled with a rope on her bed."17 By then the Poitevins, who had never forgiven her for jilting Hugh de Lusignan, were likening Isabella to Queen Jezebel.

When the Lusignans learned how Hugh had been robbed of his bride, they initially did nothing. Yet the insult rankled and festered, and would in a very short time lead to a deadly conflict that would have far-reaching and tragic repercussions. Hugh accepted the bride chosen for him by John-- the King's ward Matilda, daughter of Count Vulgrin of Angouleme, Aymer's deceased elder brother-- and she bore him a son, who became Hugh X,18 but this was not considered adequate compensation for the loss of so valuable a matrimonial prize as Isabella. Immediately after the wedding, the King and Queen rode north via Poitiers to Chinon, and it is almost certain that, while they were staying there, John took his bride to Fontevrault to meet her mother-in-law. It would appear that Eleanor was impressed: Isabella was a southerner, like herself, the daughter of one of her own vassals, and she had spirit.

Soon afterwards, the old Queen dowered the girl with the cities of Niort and Saintes.

From Chinon, John escorted Isabella to Normandy, taking her on a progress through the duchy, then crossed with his bride to England early in October. Having been acknowledged as Queen of England by the magnates in council at Westminster, Isabella was crowned on 8 October by Hubert Walter in Westminster Abbey.10

Late that year Bishop Hugh of Lincoln died in Lincoln's Inn, London. On his deathbed, he prophesied the ruin of the Angevin dynasty, saying:

The descendants of King Henry must bear the curse pronounced in Holy Scripture: "The multiplied brood of the wicked shall not thrive; and bastard slips shall not take deep root nor any fast foundation," and again, "The children of adulterers shall be rooted out." The present King of France will avenge the memory of his virtuous father, King Louis, upon the children of the faithless wife who left him to unite with his enemy. And as the ox eats down the grass to the very roots, so shall Philip of France entirely destroy this race.20

These predictions were strangely accurate, foretelling not only the events of John's reign but also those occurring in 1483-1485, when the Plantagenet dynasty came to an ignominious end.

During the winter and early spring, the King and Queen went on a progress through their realm; it took them to Lincoln, where John and William the Lyon acted as pallbearers at the funeral of Bishop Hugh. John and Isabella kept their first Christmas court together at Guildford. In February 1201 they were at York, and at Easter they revived the ancient custom of crown-wearing at Canterbury.21

Eleanor was again unwell in the early months of 1201. Whether this was a recurrence of her former illness, or a different disease, is not known, but it did not prevent her from continuing to work behind the scenes in the interests of peace in Poitou, which was being threatened by the Lusignans. Hugh had finally made a formal protest to John about the theft of Isabella, and when John had ignored him, he and his kinsmen had risen in rebellion. In March, in retaliation, John confiscated La Marche and sent in his officers, with an armed force, to take over its administration. Shortly afterwards he bestowed it upon his father-in-law, Count Aymer.

Eleanor knew there was one vassal upon whom she could count in this situation, and that was Count Aimery of Thouars, who came at once to Fontevrault at her summons. After talking with him about the situation, she felt a lot better in every way, and after he had gone she wrote warmly of him to John, determined to effect a reconciliation between them:

I have been very ill, but I want to tell you, my very dear son, that I summoned our well-beloved cousin, Aimery of Thouars, to visit me during my illness, and the pleasure which I derived from his visit did me good, for he alone of your Poitevin barons has wrought us no injury, nor seized unjustly any of your lands. I made him see how wrong and shameful it was for him to stand by and let other barons rend your heritage asunder, and he has promised to do everything he can to bring back to your obedience the lands and castles that some of his friends have seized. I was much comforted by his presence, and through God's grace am convalescent.22

The Queen ordered her secretary, Guy Diva, to write to the King in similar vein, and she also wrote to Aimery, urging him to protest his loyalty in writing to John.23 Both King and Count heeded her advice, and soon afterwards made peace with each other. In this present crisis, John found Aimery a valuable ally.

He was to need many more such. When John ordered Guarine of Clapion, Seneschal of Normandy, to seize Driencourt, a castle owned by Hugh de Lusignan's brother, Ralph, Count of Eu, the Lusignans in-dignandy revoked their oaths of allegiance to John and appealed to King Philip, their ultimate overlord, for justice. Fearing armed French intervention, Eleanor summoned her grandson Arthur to visit her at Fontevrault and wrung from him a promise that he would do everything in his power to preserve the peace in Poitou and Aquitaine. But Philip was in fact in a contrite mood: having recently submitted to the Pope and got the interdict on France lifted, he was reluctant to offend Innocent again by breaking his truce with John. He therefore appealed to the Lusignans to cease harrying their suzerain.

The Lusignans ignored him. They were now in open revolt, and Eleanor and Aimery both urged John to return from England to deal with them. Count Aymer of Angouleme, in gratitude for the gift of La Marche, also offered his support. John sent orders to his officials to pester and plunder the Lusignans and "do them all the harm they could."24 Every castle belonging to them in Poitou and Normandy was either besieged or seized.

On 31 May, John and Isabella crossed to Normandy and took up residence at Chateau Gaillard.25 At the beginning of July they visited Philip in Paris, where they were "honourably entertained" and given gifts and champagne.26 The French King was friendly and offered to act as mediator between John and the Lusignans. He agreed not to demand immediate redress for the Lusignans' grievances, on condition that John agreed that those grievances could be aired in a court presided over by Philip and the peers of France. John consented, and there the matter rested for a time.

Late in July, Philip's mistress, Agnes of Meran, who had been the cause of his conflict with the Pope, died, leaving him in a much stronger position. Free now of matrimonial tangles,27 he was waiting only for Innocent to legitimise his children by Agnes; once that had been accomplished, he would not be so concerned about antagonising the papacy. Already he had begun to devise how he might use John's quarrel with the Lusignans to bring about the fulfilment of his dream to break the power of the Angevins on the continent.

John and Isabella spent the remaining weeks of the summer of 1201 at Chinon with Berengaria, while the rumbles of discontent echoed from Poitou. Thanks to Aymer of Angouleme and Aimery of Thouars, however, Aquitaine lay peaceful. Eleanor remained at Fontevrault; contemporary sources do not record anything of her for the rest of the year.

During the first week of September, Constance of Brittany died in childbirth at Nantes.28 Some sources claim that she had contracted leprosy. Sometime earlier she had made her peace with John and had since identified herself and her son with the Angevin interests, but after her death Arthur came increasingly under the influence of King Philip, and his attitude to King John grew ever more aggressive.

John's arbitrary measures had alienated many of those who might have supported him. By the autumn, several southern barons, among them Raymond of Toulouse and Aimar of Limoges, had defected from their allegiance and joined forces with the Lusignans.

Fearing that Philip would support this formidable coalition, John wished to avoid having the dispute with Hugh le Brun settled by the court of France. In October he suddenly accused the Lusignans of treason and challenged them to a trial by combat, in which both sides would be represented by champions nominated by themselves. The Lusignans refused, and they again appealed most urgently to King Philip and the lords of France for justice. This time Philip was ready to exploit the situation. John was summoned with the Lusignans to appear before the French court in Paris, but although a date for the hearing was agreed upon, he spent the winter cancelling or postponing it.