Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England by Wilkinson Louise J

Author:Wilkinson, Louise J. [Wilkinson, Louise J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Continuum UK
Published: 2012-03-22T04:00:00+00:00

8

1265

‘the conflict of Evesham’1

In April 1267, Henry III wrote to the sheriff of Northamptonshire, ordering him to restore the lands confiscated from William de St Philibert, a former rebel, during the recent disturbances within the realm. These disturbances, the letter recalled, had drawn to a partial close after the battle of Evesham in 1265 with an ‘ordinance and form of peace’ made at Dover Castle between the Lord Edward, the king’s eldest son, and Eleanor de Montfort, Countess of Leicester, widow of his fallen opponent Earl Simon.2 This fairly innocuous phrasing concealed the full horror for the Montfort family and their supporters of the disastrous events of that year. If the Montforts’ fortunes had been riding high after their success at Lewes in 1264, the summer of 1265 was nothing short of disastrous for Eleanor, Earl Simon and their children. Within the space of less than three months, between late May and the beginning of August, Eleanor witnessed Earl Simon’s hold on government slip away, following the Lord Edward’s dramatic escape from Montfortian custody at Hereford, his rapprochement with Gilbert de Clare, the new Earl of Gloucester, and the rapid collapse of the Montfortian regime in the Welsh Marches.3 The resurgence in royalist fortunes culminated in a pitched battle at Evesham on 4 August 1265, where many Montfortians were slain, including Eleanor’s husband and her eldest son.4 In December 1264, Eleanor presided over her husband’s splendid Christmas court at Kenilworth; by December 1265 she was a widow in exile in France.5

An invaluable insight into Eleanor’s role in 1265 and her response to her family’s changing political fortunes is provided by a large fragment of her household accounts for this year (British Library, Additional MS 8877), the only household roll of Eleanor’s or Simon’s that has survived down to the present day. Eleanor’s household roll was preserved until the early nineteenth century in the archives of the Dominican nunnery of Montargis in France that she entered in widowhood. It is an important source not only in terms of its chronological coverage, but also by virtue of the fact that it is one of the earliest surviving private household accounts from England and it was produced for a woman.6 The thirteen extant membranes, carefully compiled by Eleanor’s clerks Christopher and Eudes, and possibly another, illuminate the functioning of the Montforts’ domestic establishment at a critical stage in the Barons’ War. They itemize the day-to-day expenses of the countess’s household from 19 February to 29 August 1265 on the face, detailing Eleanor’s place of residence, the names of visitors she received and the household’s provisioning, including the numbers of horses for whom fodder and hay had to be found. Lists of wages and other miscellaneous expenses, including messenger accounts covering the period up to 1 October, appear on the dorse. This chapter offers a fresh appraisal of these accounts and the light that they shed on Eleanor’s activities in 1265.

THE MONTFORT HOUSEHOLD IN 1265

Eleanor’s household roll indicates that she spent most of 1265,

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