Queen Eleanor of Castile. by H

Queen Eleanor of Castile. BY H. M. M. LANE. HOSE going to and fro in St. Albans are rich in T possession of the lovely glimpse of the Abbey Tower from St. Peter's Street. For nearly four centuries, however, they were richer still, as in contrast to the unadorned strength of the Tower, there stood in the Market Place, the sculptured beauty of the stately Eleanor Cross : the one, a symbol of the renewed vigour the Normans brought to the English in the eleventh century ; the other, of the fruition of the mingling of the two peoples in the thirteenth century, in which science and art were combined to perfection." The empty site of the Cross is a reminder that in the seventeenth century Parliamentary Government only look final root in England at the cost of a civil war. After the outbreak of this, the Parliament in London passed an ordinance in 1643, which led to a wholesale destruction of those pictures, statues and crosses, the influence of which the Puritans dreaded. Tradesmen no longer dared to use the customary cross in their books as a mark of payment. In Cheapside in 1643, the Eleanor Cross was torn down and burnt " while members of both Houses and the Scottish Commissioners sang the eighty-fifth psalm." By the end of 1647, the Eleanor Crosses in Charing, Lincoln, Grantham, Stam- ford, Stony Stratford, Dunstable and possibly Woburn, as well as the beautiful tomb of Queen Eleanor in Lin- coln Cathedral, had all been destroyed by members of the Puritan party. As Parliamentary troops were quar tered in St. Albans both in 1643, and in 1647, and Army officers met in council there in both 1647 and in 1648, it is unlikely that the St. Albans Cross would escape some mutilation. All that is known is that in the Mayor's Accounts there is on entry in 1701-2 : '' Paid to Robert Lemon for room in the Christopher Yard to lay the stone and rubbish that belonged to the old Cross." and that in 1703 the Corporation ordered that the Market Cross '' be built and set upon the waste ground where the old 256 ST. ALBANS AND HERTS ARCHITECTURAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. Cross lately stood near to the Clock House." This Market Cross stood until 1810. Later a pump stood on or near the site. In 1868 a stone dug up near by was engraved with the word " ELEANOR " and placed on the High Street side of the pump.1 This stone now stands outside the County Museum. Mr. ]. Harris records in the Herts Advertiser of June 25th, 1870, That on Monday, June 20th, 1870, some workmen laying a pipe for a surface drain at the Market Cross, St. Albans, came upon the south foundation wall of the Eleanor Cross which was erected in 1291." Lately since accelerated traffic, has necessitated the removal of the drinking fountain, the gift of Mrs. Worley, the St. Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society have placed a tablet on the Clock Tower to pre- serve the memory that near by, Edward, one of England's greatest kings, placed a memorial to the de- voted wife, " in whom living he had delighted and dead could never cease to love," as he wrote to the Abbot of Cluny from Ashridge early in the January after her death. Reminded constantly of Queen Eleanor, it is tantalising to find that the more detailed accounts of her and of the memorials Edward erected to her are not very accessible. Part of the Accounts of her Executors,2 transcribed by Mr. Beriah Botfield with a sketch of the chief circumstances of her life, are to be found in '' Manners and Household Expenses of England in the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries," edited by Mr. T. Hudson Turner and published by the Roxburghe Club in 1841. The following year, a full account of Edward's memorials to her, written by the Rev. J. Hunter, F.S.A., appeared in Vol. XXIX. of cc Archaeologia." It is per- haps more tantalising still to find that nearly a century later little more can be learnt of her personality from printed sources and histories. But Mr. Lethaby's ex- pression of surprise in his fascinating " Westminster Abbey Re-examined," that the most lovely effigy of her in Westminster has not attracted someone to write her life may even now be bearing fruit. A member of the royal families of Castile and Leon, 1 Notes for Eleanor Crosses, by J. Bailey (in the Herts County Museum). 2 A facsimile of some twenty-five lines of these accounts was published in the Souvenir of St. Alban's Pageant," p. 22. QUEEN ELEANOR OF CASTILE. 257 Eleanor inherited stirring memories. Her great-grand- father, Alfonso VIII. of Castile, whose wife was Leonora of England, had won a notable victory over the Muslims at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, thus retrieving the terrible disaster of 1196. Her father, Ferdinand III., King of Castile and Leon from 1230, had con- quered Cordova from the Muslims in 1236, and by 1248 had succeeded in wresting Seville from them, thus leaving them little more than the tributary kingdom of Granada at his death in 1252. It was largely owing to the wisdom and self- denial of her grandmother, Berengaria, that her father had been able to unite the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. That grandmother's sister, Blanche, became Queen of France and mother of St. Louis. Such traditions must have been invaluable when two years after their father's death, Alfonso the Wise, for political reasons, arranged that hishalf-sister,'' Alianora," should marry Edward, the heir of Henry III. of England. Edward was only fifteen and Eleanor certainly younger, hence it was wise of Alfonso to stipulate that Edward should fetch his bride. Henry III. accordingly sent his Queen, Eleanor of Provence, with Edward and a train of attendants, to Burgos in August, 1254. Fortunately Edward won golden opinions from all, and with manv others was knighted by Alfonso with much ceremonial. The mar- riage probably took place in October, and was solemnised 111 the convent church of Las Huelgas founded by Leonora, Edward'sgreat-aunt. Alfonso presented Edward with a charter renouncing any claims he might have inherited from Leonora to Gascony, and Henry III. sent Eleanor a charter settling on her the revenue from the towns and castles of Tickhill, Grantham, Stamford and the Peak, promising to add other lands if this did not provide her with a yearly income of a thousand pounds. Edward and his youthful bride returned with Queen Eleanor to Bordeaux, where they were welcomed by Henry III. Edward had been given as an appanage, the Earldom of Chester, and his father's lands in Wales, Ireland and France, seemingly a rich provision, but Edward found that the income that it yielded was quite inadequate for the work that he had to do, in spite of 258 ST. ALBANS AND HERTS ARCHITECTURAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. his own personal economy, a difficulty that pursued him to the end of his life. Nevertheless, Eleanor must be considered fortunate, for her husband's family were united by unusually strong bonds of affection, and Edward never failed in his devotion to her or to his parents. Eleanor first came to England in October, 1255, land ing at Dover. Henry III. began to make preparations for her arrival in July, when he sent orders to his gold- smith, William of Gloucester, to make her a silver alms dish. He also directed Edward of Westminster to pur- chase twelve silken cloths, six of arras and six of gold, and to send them without delay to Dover, that they might be ready for Eleanor to offer as oblations at the various monasteries she would visit on her journey to London. Two golden fermails (brooches) were also ordered for her to offer at the shrines of St. Thomas of Canterbury and of Edward the Confessor. The King sent Reginald of Cobham to meet her and her attendants, and conduct them to London, arranging for her to stay two nights at Canterbury that she might observe the anniversary of Edward the Confessor with due solemnity. Her entrance into London took place on St. Etheldreda's Day, Sunday, October 17th. She was met by the King and Court, the Clergy, the Mayor and the citizens, who con- ducted her to Westminster " with songs and music and other joyful devices," London being decorated in her honour. Through her brother's care (the Archbishop Elect of Toledo was in London on an embassy to Henry III.) she found her rooms adorned with hangings and carpeted after the Spanish custom. The Londoners who associated costly hangings only with churches, murmured at this luxury. King Henry usually ordered the rooms in his palaces to be painted green, and if not decorated with Biblical scenes to be starred or scintillated with silver or gold. He used herbs and rushes for the floors. Edward, when King, sending to Paris for mantles for the Queen and himself to wear at the great tournament held in Windsor Park in 1278, also sent for foui carpets for his chamber, two green and two red. In the month that elapsed before Edward returned from Gascony, Eleanor would see much of his sister, Beatrice, who was about her own age and who would QUEEN ELEANOR OF CASTILE. 259 initiate her into all the ways of the English Court. But the daughter of a Frenchwoman, her mother being- Countess of Ponthieu in her own right, Eleanor would probably be prepared for the differences in etiquette between the English and the Spanish Courts.

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