Anglo-alien Marriages in Thirteenth-Century England 1

Anglo-alien Marriages in Thirteenth-Century England1 Michael Ray This paper looks at over one hundred marriages between the upper echelons of English society and those born abroad; the so-called aliens during the thirteenth century. In 1984 Sir James Holt entitled his presidential address to the Royal Historical Society ‘The heiress and the alien’ but he dealt with only one ‘alien marriage’ in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.2 He did examine the processes by which these marriages were achieved and the concept of disparagement but I believe that such marriages, in a time of increasing hostility to foreigners, need more in-depth analysis. Part One sets out who these alien husbands and wives were and the impetus for the various waves of marriages. It considers both alien brides and grooms. It also looks at the areas from whence came the alien marriage partners. Anglo-Welsh marriages have not been included as they are better considered in the context of the relationship between England, Wales and the March. One hundred and three marriages have been investigated. There are thirty-five examples of alien grooms with fully identified brides and another seven where only the forename of the bride is known. There are forty-six marriages of alien women. The marriage partners rank from royalty to humble household knights. Where it is possible, an assessment of who promoted the marriages over the century has been made. 3 1 A much-abbreviated version of this paper was given to the International Medieval Congress held at Leeds on 14 July 2009. I am grateful for the comments received. Amongst those who gave me more information and/or saved me from errors were Dr Ruth Blakely, Dr Richard Cassidy and Barbara Wright. I am indebted to Professor Nicholas Vincent for drawing my attention to his article ‘Who’s Who in Magna Carta Clause 50?’, Le Médiéviste et la Monographic Familiale: Sources, Méthodes et Problematiques, ed. M.Aurell, (Turnhout, 2004), 235-264, and to Dr Marc Morris for his help on the Bigod marriages. 2 J.C.Holt, ‘Feudal Society and the family in Early Medieval England, iv, The Heiress and the Alien’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fifth series, xxxv (1985), 1-28. 3 An appendix setting out the names all the spouses and the best estimate of the date of their marriages is posted separately on the Academia web site. !1 Part Two looks at the mechanisms by which these alien marriages were achieved. It considers the context of alien marriages before and after Magna Carta which brought, in theory, more protection to potential spouses. Resistance to proposed marriage partners is set out as well as a consideration of the problems associated with the re-marriage of widows. This Part also searches for evidence as to the success or failure of alien marriages particularly in relation to where the partners chose to be buried, their gifts of piety in favour of their partners and displays of shared allegiance on their armorial seals and documents. Finally I consider the impact of these alien marriages on English political, social and cultural life. PART ONE England’s Plantagenet Kings were more cosmopolitan than most of their subjects. Although they had some English blood, through Henry I’s wife, they were French in descent and culture. They had no hesitation in acting as patrons to men from their Norman and Angevin lands across the Channel as well as those from other areas associated with their European relatives. In the aftermath of the Conquest, when the ruling class was overwhelmingly foreign, this patronage caused few problems for those ruling and administering England at this time. By the thirteenth century, however, times had changed. In 1204 the Anglo-Norman realm was disrupted by the fall of Normandy to Philip II of France and cross-channel landholders had to decide where their best interests lay; they could not owe allegiance to two kings. As Michael Prestwich has written ‘Hostility to foreigners was a recurrent theme in the crises of the thirteenth century’.4 The magnates and their supporters objected to the plums of patronage such as land grants, the custody of under-age heirs and their marriages, which were rewards for royal service, being given to new incomers. Royal marriages There were a number of motives, sometimes overlapping, for the Anglo-alien marriages during the reigns of John, Henry III and Edward I. The royal alliances were often welcomed for their intrinsic value or as a way of obtaining new lands and 4 M.Prestwich, English Politics in the Thirteenth Century (1990), 82. !2 resources. John’s marriage to Isabella of Angoulême and Edward I’s to Eleanor of Castile brought lands in France. In the first case John gained control over an important county in the gap between the northern and southern Plantagenet lands in France. Eleanor of Castile brought with her the right to succeed to the county of Ponthieu but the alliance with the King of Castile halted the Castilian claims to Gascony. By marrying Eleanor of Provence, Henry III became the brother-in-law of Louis IX of France. The marriage of Edward to his second wife, Margaret of France, grand in 1299, was an indication that hostility with France was at an end. The brides of non-royal Englishmen could also be seen as part of the strengthening links with foreign countries. The marriages of English princesses to continental nobles has not been considered.5 Anglo-Scottish marriages Anglo-Scottish relations were good for most of the thirteenth century. Two English princesses, Joanna and Margaret, travelled north to become queens of Scotland whilst Hubert de Burgh and Roger Bigod III married Margaret and Isabella, daughters of William I of Scotland. Marc Morris has shown that the origins of these last two marriages can be traced back to the Treaty of Norham in 1209 when it was agreed that two daughters of the King of Scotland should marry the future Henry III and his brother, Richard of Cornwall. But, in 1221, this scheme was amended and Henry’s sister, Joanna, married Alexander II of Scotland whilst his sisters were to have husbands of high rank from the English aristocracy. Hubert de Burgh’s marriage followed but Isabella did not find a husband until 1225 when Roger Bigod was selected.6 One of William Marshal’s sons, Gilbert, was married to Margaret, sister of 5 Isabella, the daughter of King John became the last wife of the Emperor Frederick II. Of the daughters of Henry III, Beatrice married John, Duke of Brittany. Whilst John played an important rôle in the national and international affairs of England, he was hardly an alien as his family had held Richmond intermittently since the eleventh century. John was given the earldom of Richmond in 1268, when the then holder of the honour of Richmond, Peter of Savoy, died. Finally Edward I’s daughters included Eleanor, Countess of Bar and Margaret, Duchess of Brabant. 6 M.Morris, The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century, unpublished D Phil thesis, Oxford University, (2003), 5; also see D.A.Carpenter, The Minority of Henry III (1990), 243-6. !3 Alexander II of Scotland, with ‘the good will and licence of the King’ and the marriage being ‘well pleasing to the King’.7 Anglo-Norman marriages Before the loss of Normandy in 1204 great magnates with lands on both sides of the Channel would not have felt it unnatural to marry a wife from the King’s French lands. Thus Ranulph, Earl of Chester, having divorced his English heiress wife, took as his second wife, Clemence de Fougères,8 whose family were his neighbours on the Breton-Norman frontier. But, more often, a marital alliance stemmed from the need to establish new aliens with a permanent source of wealth in England. During John’s reign, those who had lost lands in Normandy when it fell to the King of France needed recompense so a marriage to an English heiress was one way of achieving this. John also needed to ensure the loyalty of his alien soldiers; hence the hurried marriage of Margaret FitzGerold with Falkes de Bréauté in November 1216. Brothers and associates of Falkes also benefited from his service to John. Falkes’s brother, William, married Alice de Marley, widow of John de Wahull9 and his knight, Walter de Goderville, had three English brides: Joan de Meinill, widow of Philip de Oldcoates (perhaps he too was an alien),10 Isabella, sister of Joan, wife of Robert Musard,11 and Hilaria Malmeins.12 Two more of Falkes’ brothers had English wives: 7 CPR, 1247-58, 126. 8 Complete Peerage, iii, 168. 9 CCR, xi, no.702. 10 CLR 1240-50, 322. 11 CFR 1225-6, 209; Isabella was dead by 1231-3, Memoranda Rolls; 16-17 Henry III preserved in the Public Record Office, ed. R.A.Brown (1991), no.1340 but she was still listed as a defendant in a case heard in 1235, The 1235 Surrey Eyre, ed. C.A.F.Meekings and D.A.Crook, Surrey Record Society, xxxi and xxxii (1979-83), 558. Musard’s wife, Juilana, was married to two other men before him, CR, 1231-4, 275. 12 The Cartulary of Bradenstoke Priory, ed. V.C.M.London, Wiltshire Record Society, xxxv, (Devizes, 1979), 510. !4 John married Emma of Northampton, widow of Robert of St Paul,13 and Gilbert found a wife in the Essex heiress, Joan de Marcy.14 Tourangeau and German marriages Andrew de Chanceaux, Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1240, was a member of an alien family proscribed by chapter 50 of the 1215 Magna Carta. He paid for the marriage of his sister, Susanna, to the Herefordshire knight, Walter de Baskerville.15 Andrew’s brother, Giles, married the daughter of Robert St John.16 Not only French-speaking knights benefited but the extensive German family of Teutonicus was also a beneficiary. The senior member, Waleran’s wife, Sybilla, was probably a Huntingfield and a widow.17 Waleran’s brother, Everard, did even better when he wed Rainetta, the heiress of John le Viscount, a major Northumberland baron, but the marriage was short; Everard died within three years of his wife’s inheriting from her father, leaving no children. Some of John’s foreign troops gained hereditable lands in England via marriage to heiresses as a reward for their service with lords other than the King. Thus Baldwin Teutonicus, who went on the Fifth crusade with John de Lacy, later Earl of Lincoln, was given the marriage of the widow of John’s steward, Gilbert de Notton. Early Anglo-Poitevin marriages Not all of John’s ‘new men’ lost their French lands; some had deliberately surrendered them. An example was Peter de Maulay, a Poitevin, who was granted lands in Loudon (Poitou) by John in 1202. He might have been the murderer of Arthur of Brittany which would have been a good reason for his migration to England after the fall of Normandy in 1204. His first wife was Constance, daughter and heiress of William de Sutton and, after she died, he became the husband of the 13 VCH, Oxfordshire, xi, 149. 14 Early Charters of the Cathedral Church of St Paul, London, ed. M.Gibbs, Camden Society, third series, lviii (1939), 241. 15 R.Coplestone-Crow, ‘The Baskervilles of Herefordshire 1086-1300’, Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, xliii (1979), 29; Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus in Turri Londinensi asservati tempore Regis Johannis, ed. T.D.Hardy (1835), 512-3. 16 Vincent, ‘Who’s Who in Magna Carta Clause 50?’, 244. 17 The Chertsey Cartularies, i, Surrey Record Society, xii (1933), nos.147-8. !5 heiress, Isabella de Thornham. This was in 1213, two years after the death of her father, the former Seneschal of Poitou, Peter de Thornham. 18 Henry III’s favoured Curiales’ marriages As Henry III’s reign progressed and the rupture of 1204 became a more distant memory, the need to compensate aliens for the loss of their lands was not such a crucial issue. Henry wanted to foster the career of household knights whom he had come to rely on, or he simply liked. The career of John de Plessis, an obscure Norman knight, is a good example. He was granted the marriage of Christian de Sandford, whose father was killed during the rebellion of Richard Marshall and, when Christian died, that of Margery de Newburgh, Countess of Warwick in her own right.19 The King also provided heiresses for John’s two sons. 20 Closely associated with John were other men who began as household knights, Drogo de Barentin and Nicholas de Bolleville. Drogo, who was to become Warden of the Channel Islands and Seneschal of Gascony as well as Steward of the Royal Household, was married to Joan but her parentage is not known.21 Nicholas, who was the progenitor of a baronial family, married an alien, Avice, sister of Falkes de Bréauté, although she had already been married to two English men first, William FitzMartin and William de Torrington.22 Relatives of other men who had done well in England appeared somewhat later and were able to obtain English brides. Thus Mathias Bezill, who was to become the 18 Chronica Monasteri de Melsa, ed. E.A.Boyd, RS, xliii (1866-88), i, 96 and 105; ODNB, xxxvii, 425; RLP, i, 113b. 19 ODNB, xliv, 577-8; Complete Peerage, x, 545-6. 20 Hugh; CPR 1232-47, 269; Excerpta e Rotulis Finium in Turri Londinensi asservatis Henrico Tertio Rege 1216-1272 (1835-6), i, 362; CFR 1248-49, nos.71, 72 and 115. Robert, CR 1237-42, 257; CPR 1232-47, 240; Excerpta, i, 333; CFR 1240-41, no.102. 21 CLR 1251-60, 228; CPR 1266-72, 26; Michael Ray, The Good Companions; The impact of three Norman knights in the thirteenth-century England and the establishment of their families. Paper published on the Academia web site. 22 Complete Peerage, viii, 532-3; Michael Ray, The Good Companions. Paper published on the Academia web site. !6 Steward of the Queen’s household,23 was a relative of the Chanceaux family from Touraine banned by Magna Carta. He first appeared in 1233 during the ascendancy of Peter des Roches, another man from Touraine. 24 Eleanor of Provence’s stewards, William de Chaeny, was first noted in the Charter rolls in 1239. 25 He was a kinsman of Philip de Albaniaco, (Aubigny)26 who held lands in Brittany. So perhaps, William was a Breton. His wife, of whom there is no record of her christian name, was the sister of Ralph de Greynvill.27 Early Anglo-Savoyard marriages As John Maddicott has explained so clearly, the marriage of Simon de Montfort to Henry III’s widowed sister, Eleanor, was highly controversial.28 But Henry agreed to their secret marriage and providing for his relatives was one of Henry III’s policies. In 1236, when his bride, Eleanor of Provence, came to England she was accompanied by her mother’s relatives from the comital house of Savoy. Eleanor and her uncles were anxious to promote Savoyard links.29 In this process Peter of Savoy was as important as the Queen herself. Her mother was the daughter of the Count of Geneva and aunt of Ebal and Peter de Geneva who gained English wives. The bride of Peter was Maud de Lacy, a wealthy heiress with vast lands in the middle of the Welsh March centred on Ludlow30 and lands in County Meath in Ireland. Another heiress with lands in Ireland, Christiana de Marisco, was provided31 for Ebal, even 23 M Ray, ‘Three Alien Royal Stewards in Thirteenth-Century England; The Careers and Legacy of Mathias Bezill, Imbert Pugeys and Peter de Champvent’, Thirteenth Century England X, The Proceedings of the Durham Conference 2003, eds. M Prestwich, R Britnell and R Frame (Woodbridge, 2005), 51-67. 24 TNA:PRO C60/32 m.3. 25 The Royal Charter Witness Lists of Henry III (1226-1272), ed. M.Morris, List and Index Society, 291, (2001), i, 171. 26 CPR 1232-47, 107. 27 CR 1247-51, 449. 28 J.R.Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, 1994), 21-29. 29 M.Howell, Eleanor of Provence; Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1998), 52-4. 30 Excerpta, i, 445; Chronica Majora, v, 90. 31 Excerpta, ii, 50. !7 though she was under-age.32 Christiana, or a woman of the same name, might have previously been married to another alien, Fulk de Chateauneuf, in 1243. He was a relative of the King’s33 and could have been part of the kindred of Queen Isabella. The sister of Peter and Ebal, Eleanor, became the wife of the northern baron Alexander Balliol in about 1270 and, when he died soon afterwards, she married Robert de Stouteville.34 In the aftermath of the Anglo-Savoyard treaty of 1246, Peter of Savoy arrived with Alice, daughter of Manfred III, Marquis of Saluzzo and granddaughter of Peter’s brother, Amadeus. Her marriage to Edmund de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, took place35 and, six years later in 1253, her sister Agnes was married to another Northerner, John de Vescy I.36 Yet another relative of Eleanor’s, Alice, had a short marriage with Richard de Burgh, the heir to Connaught; Richard died soon after coming of age in 1248.37 More success for the Anglo-Savoyard matchmakers occurred during the 1257-8 period. First, Thomas of Savoy, Count of Flanders, provided his daughter, Margaret, to be the bride of Baldwin de Redvers, Earl of Devon38 and, then, Eleanor’s cousin, Boniface de Montferrat, married Isabel de Clare in 1258.39 The Genevilles from Champagne also benefited from royal patronage in England as they were the half-brothers of Peter of Savoy’s wife, Agnes de Faucigny. Her mother was Beatrice of Burgundy, who married firstly Simon de Joinville and then Aymon de Faucigny.40 Geoffrey’s marriage to Maud de Lacy, widow of Peter of Geneva, was granted by the King in 1252.41 32 TNA:PRO C 60/46 (33 Henry III – 28 October 1248 – 27 October 1249), m.9, 147. 33 CPR 1232-7, 412; CR 1242-7, 498. Fulk died in 1247, Aspilogia II, Rolls of Arms:Henry III (1967), 30. 34 CCR 1272-79, 173; Complete Peerage, ii, 161; Early Yorkshire Charters, ix, The Stuteville Fee, ed. C.T.Clay, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, (1952), 60-61. 35 Complete Peerage, vii, 681. 36 Complete Peerage, xii/2 279; Excerpta, ii, 181 and 187. 37 Alice’s surname is unknown, Complete Peerage, xii/2, 171. 38 Complete Peerage, iv, 319-21; Chronica Majora, v, 616. 39 Complete Peerage, v, 701. Richard agreed to pay a dowry of 4,000 marks, CChR 1257-1300, 4. 40 D.Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln, xiv (Marburg, 1991), tafel 70. 41 CPR 1247-58, 325. !8 Chroniclers commented harshly on the Savoyard brides; Matthew Paris wrote that they were ‘some unknown ladies’ and that their marriages were ‘evidently annoying and unpleasant to many of the native nobles of England, who considered that they were despised’. He continued that the brides ‘were united to the nobles against their will’. But Matthew was ill-informed about the Savoyards; he thought that Peter of Geneva was of ‘humble origin’.42 Later Anglo-Poitevin marriages Following the conquest of Poitou by the King of France in 1247, the children of Isabella of Angoulême, by her second husband, arrived in England. Through the King’s generosity, the Poitevin Lusignans, both men and women, did well. William de Valence’s spouse was Denise de Munchesney, one of the co-heiresses to the vast Marshal inheritance. This marriage came at the same time as the Savoyard alliances of Edmund de Lacy and Richard de Burgh and sparked angry comments from the native English.43 Lusignan women also benefited from the King’s intervention; Alice and Mary married Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester,44 and Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby, respectively.45 Later on, Agnes de Valence, widow of Maurice FitzGerald, wed the northern baron, Hugh de Balliol, between 1268 and 1270.46 Some years earlier, another Lusignan, Maud, the daughter of Raoul, who was to become Count of Eu, was the first wife of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, but she was dead by 42 Chronica Majora, iv, 598 and 628, v, 90. The translations are by J.A.Giles, Matthew Paris’s English History from the year 1235 to 1273 (1953), ii, 207, 231 and 322. 43 Flores Historiarum AD 1067-1264, ed. H.R.Luard, Roll Series, xcv (1890), ii, 339 and 346. 44 Complete Peerage, v, 707; Flores Historiarum AD 1067-1264, ii, 381. 45 Complete Peerage, iv, 201-2; CChR 1226-57, 554; G.W.Watson,’The families of Lacy, Geneva, Joinville and La Marche’, The Genealogist, ns, XXI (1904), 80. 46 It has been suggested that the grant of Dervorguilla’s manor of Driffield, which she and John made to Hugh sometime before his father’s death in 1268, was in anticipation of his forthcoming marriage; M. Drexler, ‘Dervorguilla of Galloway’ ,Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 3rd series,lxxix, (2005), 124). If this was so, and the bride was already known to be Agnes de Valence, it would mean the marriage was being planned within a few weeks of her first husband’s death, CIPM , i, no. 691. Hugh died before 10 April 1271 when an extent was made of his lands for the purpose of assigning dower to his widow ‘the king’s niece’. CDIS, i, no. 2600; CIPM, i, no. 773. !9 1241.47 Although she was not related to Constance of Béarn, Eleanor of Provence began planning Constance’s marriage to Henry of Almain in 1265.48 Lesser Poitevins such as Elias Rabayn were also provided for when he married Matilda, heiress of John de Bayeux.49 Later Anglo-Savoyard marriages It was not only Savoyard and Poitevin relatives of the King and Queen who needed financial security but also their associates. Thus from Savoy, Ebal de Mont, Imbert Pugeys and, later on in the reign of Edward I, William de Grandson and John de Stradling were all provided for. Known in English records as Ebulo de Montibus, the royal steward, Ebal de Mont, was given the hand of Joan de Somery, the widow of the important curialis Geoffrey de Crowcombe.50 Another royal steward, Imbert Pugeys, found a bride in the widow of Ralph FitzBernard. By birth she came from the Sussex family of Aguillon.51 Stephen de Salines’ abortive marriage is dealt with later. The younger of two co-heiresses, Sybilla de Tregoz’s marriage with William de Grandson was a reward for his service to Edmund of Lancaster, Edward I’s brother 52 whilst his cousin John de Stradling (Strattlingen), was the husband of Maud de Wauton.53 John’s brother, Peter, also won the hand of an heiress, Joan de Hawey.54 Anglo-French marriages arising from the arrival of Queen Eleanor of Castile Another royal marriage stimulated a wave of alien marriages. There is no evidence that Eleanor of Castile in 1254 promoted Anglo-Spanish marriages but her 47 Complete Peerage, vi, 461-2. 48 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 229. 49 CPR 1247-58, 62; CLR 1260-67, 38. 50 CPR 1247-58, 220. 51 CPR 1258-66, 247. 52 Complete Peerage, vi, 61-2; M.Ray, ‘The Savoyard cousins; a comparison of the careers and relative success of the Grandson (Grandison) and Champvent (Chavent) families in England’, Antiquaries Journal, 86, (2006), 155-56. 53 J.C.Parsons, The Court and Household of Eleanor of Castile in 1290: an edition of British Library, additional manuscript 35294, (Toronto, 1977), 74. The Queen gained the wardship, CCR 1279-88, 432. 54 Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (1939), 925. !10 Francophone relatives from North-East France were favoured over a long period. There are at least eleven examples.55 Her grandmother, Joanne de Ponthieu, was married to Simon de Dammartin and his sister was the mother of Enguerrand de Fiennes. In addition, Enguerrand’s son, William, was the husband of Blanche of Brienne whose grandmother was the sister of Eleanor’s father. The Fiennes family was singled out for Eleanor’s patronage. Maud, the daughter of Enguerrand, was married to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, in 127556 whilst Joan and Margaret, the daughters of Enguerrand’s son, William, were wed to John Wake57 and Edmund Mortimer58 in, or about, 1285. Giles de Fiennes, the younger son of Enguerrand, became the husband of Sybil Filliol.59 In addition, the children of Enguerrand’s nephew, William de la Plaunche, were provided for; Alice de la Plaunche married John de Montfort in 128760 and her brother, John de la Plaunche wed Matilda de Haversham in 1289.61 The Queen’s hand was also behind the marriages of Giles de Fiennes children, John and Eleanor. They might be regarded as second-generation aliens. Their spouses were Joan le Forester and Richard Vernon.62 The Queen’s relationship with the Brienne family triggered Eleanor’s involvement in the marriage of Isabel de Beaumont to John de Vescy I in 1279.63 Isabel’s father, Louis de Beaumont, was a younger son of John de Brienne and Isabel’s sister, Marie’s daughter; Clemence d’Avagour became the wife of John’s nephew, John de Vescy II.64 These marriages took place in 1280 and 1290. A more distant relative 55 Parsons, The Court and Household, 41-53; J.C.Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, Queen and Society in Thirteenth Century England (New York, 1995) 274, note 148. 56 Complete Peerage, vi, 465-6. 57 Complete Peerage, xii/2, 301-2; Parsons, The Court and Household, 44-6. 58 Complete Peerage, ix, 283. 59 Parsons, The Court and Household, 53. 60 Complete Peerage, ix, 128. 61 CCR 1288-96, 11; Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 160. 62 Parsons, The Court and Household, 53. 63 Complete Peerage, xii/2, 280. 64 Complete Peerage, xii/2, 283-4. !11 was Marie de Pécquigny, the daughter of the Vidame of Amiens. She was a descendant of John, Count of Ponthieu and married to Almaric de St Amand in 1287.65 Four of the brides were ladies-in-waiting of Eleanor in 1290.66 Richard de Burgh married a relative of Eleanor of Provence, whilst his nephew, another Richard, Earl of Ulster, married Margaret de Guines, a cousin of Edward I’s queen in about 1280.67 Later Anglo-Scottish marriages In the light of what was to come in the fourteenth century,68 it seems astonishing that the Anglo-Scottish border should have been an area of harmony and interaction for so long. Marriages between English barons and Scottish women including heiresses were not particularly noteworthy at the time. In the thirteenth century, nine of the thirteen Scottish earls had English lands so perhaps Anglo-Scottish marriages were not regarded as alien alliances.69 Such marriages included those of Gilbert d’Umfraville with Maud, Countess of Angus,70 and the marriage of the Galloway heiresses to William, Count of Aumale,71 Roger de Quency, Earl of Winchester,72 and John Balliol.73 But Countess Maud’s second husband, Richard of Dover, possibly owed his marriage to his position as a grandson, albeit illegitimate, of King John.74 The sister of Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, was married across the border to Roger, the son of John FitzRobert of Warkworth.75 Another Devorgilla of Galloway, sister of Alan of 65 Complete Peerage, xi, 298; Parsons, The Court and Household, 50-2. 66 Parsons, The Court and Household, 41-53. 67 R.Frame, ‘Historians, Aristocrats and Plantagenet Ireland,1200 -1360,’ in C.Given-Wilson, A.Kettle and L.Scales eds., War, Government and Aristocracy in the British Isles, c1150-1500 (Woodbridge, 200), 137. Complete Peerage, xii/2, 176 for the date. 68 C.McNamee, The Wars of the Bruces; Scotland, England and Ireland 1306-1328 (East Linton, 1997). 69 R.Frame, The Political Development of the British Isles 1100-1400 (Oxford, 1990), 59. 70 Complete Peerage, i, 146. 71 Complete Peerage, i, 355. 72 Complete Peerage, xii/2, 753. 73 Complete Peerage, i, 385. 74 Complete Peerage, i, 146. 75 A.B.W.MacEwen, ’The Dunbar Pedigree’, The Genealogist, vol. 9, no. 2 (1988), 229-41. !12 Galloway, married Nicholas de Stouteville in around 1214-5.76 Marriages were also made between Scottish barons and English women. Earl Patrick was part of a double marriage when he wedded Roger FitzRobert’s sister. At least another seven Scottish-English marriages, most of comital rank, are known.77 Marriages with unidentified partners The uncertainty surrounding the identity of Joan, the wife of Drogo de Barentin,78 underlines the difficulty of accurately establishing the full identity of the wives of a number of the aliens. In some cases just their christian name is known. These include two brothers of Falkes de Bréauté: Elynoth married Isolde 79 and Theobald was the husband of Matilda.80 Matthew Paris, in his entries for 1248, describes the alien Guichard de Charron as ‘a beastly clerk’ and as a “glutton and a drunkard,’ but he must have married as his son and namesake married the widow, Isabella de Ryhull. As she had a son by her first husband, it is very likely that she was English. 81 When Aimery de Chanceaux was mentioned in a court case in 1239 his wife, Extranea, was the widow of a man called Andely and was the mother of his son, Walter de Andely.82 His brother?, Philip de Chanceaux, also married a widow, Agnes, 76 C.T.Clay, ‘Two Dervorguillas’ EHR, lxv (1950), 89-91. 77 Alan of Galloway married two Lacy women; Robert de Brus V wed Isabel de Clare, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester: Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, was the husband of Elizabeth, daughter of Roger de Quency, Earl of Winchester; David Strahbogie, Earl of Atholl, married Rose of Dover who later married Alexander de Balliol of Cavers; John Comyn of Badenoch’s wife was Eleanor de Balliol, daughter of John. This information is from Dr Ruth Blakely. 78 Michael Ray, The Good Companions. Paper published on the Academia web site. 79 Curia Regis Rolls, xv,(1972), 920. 80 Rotuli Hugoni de Welles Episcopi Lincolniensis, ed. W.P.W.Phillimore, Canterbury and York Society, (1905-1907), ii,111. 81 Chronica Majora, v, 31-2,; H.H.E.Craster, The History of Northumberland, ix, The Parochial Chapelries of Earsdon and Horton (Newcastle, 1909), 249-51. Isabella and Guichard made a concord with their son, Guichard, so that he could inherit the manor of Horton (Northumberland) which had been given to them by William de Valence, Three Early Assize Rolls for the County of Northumberland’, Surtees Society, lxxxviii (1891), no.168. and p.262; CChR 1257-1300, 149. 82 CRR xvi, no.693; Vincent, ‘Who’s Who in Magna Carta Clause 50?’, 247-8. !13 whose first husband was Hamelin de Torrington.83 Aimery de Chanceaux’s brothers, Andrew and Guy,84 must have married as they had descendants. Waleran Teutonicus’s brothers, Francus and Henry,85 and the Franch-Comtois, Peter de Cusance, all had children.86 In almost all these cases it is likely that the brides were English. Inter-alien marriages It should not be assumed that alien curiales always had English wives or that some alien women had English husbands. When Geoffrey de Grandimonte (Grammont) died, his widow, Henriette, remarried another alien, Imbert de Montferrand, and Ridgeway assumed that she was English.87 However, Imbert’s motives were directed towards his Vaudois homelands and Henriette de Grandson-la Sarraz was the heiress of La Sarraz.88 Geoffrey’s brother, Hugh, was in England but there is no record of any marriage before he returned home to serve as Peter of Savoy’s constable of Chillon castle.89 Ridgeway also believed that Peter de Champvent, future Steward and Chamberlain to Edward I, found a rich heiress in the 1260s.90 But it is clear that Champvent’s wife, Agnes, brought him no lands and, when he died, it was disclosed that all the lands acquired and held by her husband on his 83 CRR, xi, no.177. 84 Vincent, ‘Who’s Who in Magna Carta Clause 50?’, 240-2 and 254-6. 85 Francus; mention of his son, Francus II, CPR 1247-58, 375 and Henry, Complete Peerage, xii/2, 101-102. 86 G.Castelnuovo et C Guilleré, ‘Les Finances et l’Administration de la Maison de Savoie au Xiiie Siecle’, Pierre de Savoie, ‘Le Petit Charlemagne’ († 1268) ed. B Andenmatten, A.P.Baglioni and E Pirbiri, Fondation Humbert II et Marie José de Savoie; Cahiers Lausannois d’Histoire Mediévale, 27 (Lausanne, 2000), 86; L.Wurstemberger, Peter der Zweite, Graf von Savoyen, Markgraf in Italien, Sein Haus und seine lande, i-iv (Berne and Zurich, 1856-8), iv, nos. 418, 448, 513 and 629. 87 H. Ridgeway, ‘The Politics of the English Royal Court 1247-65 with special reference to the role of the Aliens’, Unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University (1983), 50. 88 J.P.Chapuisat, ‘Au service de deux rois d’Angleterre au XIIIe siècle: Pierre de Champvent’, Revue Historique Vaudoise, lxxii, (1964), 162n; P.M.L. de la Charrière, Les Dynastes de Grandson jusqu’ au XIIIe Siècle , (Lausanne, 1866), table Grandson-La-Sarra. 89 Wurstemberger, Peter der Zweite, iv, nos. 418, 448, 513 and 629. 90H. Ridgeway, ‘The Politics of the English Royal Court’, 218. !14 death were held jointly with her.91 At one time, A J Taylor suggested that Agnes might have been Agnes de Grandson and that Peter married her when her husband, John de Bonvillars, was killed at the siege of Dryslwyn in 1289.92 But Agnes de Champvent was already Peter’s wife in 1278.93 Perhaps she was a Vaudoise as Agnes was a favourite name in the Pays. Dulcenia, wife of Bernard of Savoy, Constable of Windsor, a Savoyard, who ‘by the King’s special command has come to England’ and was granted 20 marks annually, ‘so long as she be in England by the King’s will’.94 Bernard was probably the brother of Guichard de Charron.95 The Poitevin pantler, William de Sancta Ermina, received a handful of wardships but he sold them.96 The only evidence for his own marriage to an unnamed woman comes from only one record97 and, as William returned at least twice to Poitou, it is possible that she was a fellow country person. Like her sister-in-law, Margaret de Sancta Ermina, she is known from only one record but she was to have robes and a cape of scarlet on her marriage which suggests that she was at court and was being married to an unknown Englishman.98 A first mention of Agatha, wife of Engelard de Cigogné, dates from 121699 but, as he had a career in France before coming to England, perhaps Agatha was an alien. William de Cicon had a son, John,100 but again he might have been married before coming to England. 91 CIPM, iv, no. 152. 92 Information from J-P.Chapuisat, private letter, 16.8.1998. 93 TNA:PRO CP 40/26 m.cxxiiiid. 94 CPR 1232-47, 280. 95 Chronica Majora, v, 31-2; Craster, The History of Northumberland, ix, 249-51. 96 M.Ray, Alien Courtiers of Thirteenth-Century England and their Assimilation ‘Unpublished PhD thesis, University of London (2003), 154-5. 97 CR 1264-8, 345. 98 CR 1256-9, 61. 99 PR 1216-25, 2. 100 CPR 1307-13, 358. !15 Statistical analysis of alien marriages and individuals Table 1 Numbers of marriages Alien women Marriages 46 Marriages of fully identified women and men 44 Brides 42* Unidentified Groom 1 Bride known only by christian name 1 Alien men Marriages 57 Marriages of fully identified alien men and English women 35 Grooms** 53 Brides known only by christian name 7 Unidentified brides 8 Alien men who married alien wives 7 Total marriages 103 Total aliens 95 * Four alien women married more than once ** Three alien men married more than once !16 Table 2 Known provenance of the aliens France Men Angoulême 1 Béarn 0 Boulonnais 2 Brittany 1 Champagne 1 Flanders 0 French Royal Family 0 Île de France 1 Normandy 10 Picardy 0 Poitou 7 Touraine 7 Total French 30 Holy Roman Empire Franche Comté 2 Geneva 2 Germany 5 Provence 0 Savoy 12 Thun 2 Total Holy Roman Empire 23 Scotland Comital 0 Royal family Total Scotland Spain Castile Total Spain Total Women 1 1 5 2 1 1 2 0 1 2 6 1 23 Total 2 1 7 3 2 1 2 1 11 2 13 8 53 0 1 1 2 5 0 9 2 3 6 2 17 2 32 6 5 0 0 3 9 3 9 0 0 1 1 1 1 53 42 95 In some cases this analysis can be misleading. For instance, the Franch-Comtois, William de Cicon and Peter de Cusance, secured their preferment as part of Otto de Grandson’s extended Savoyard circle which served Edward I. !17 Royal promoters of alien marriages King John probably did not regard such marriages as alien. Although he was the first member of the royal family to marry someone born in England,101 he was only one thirty-second English himself; he had an equal amount of Hungarian blood. The alien brides and grooms, for whom he arranged marriages, were his people and it was natural to reward his servants especially those who had suffered in his cause. A more pro-alien policy was put in place by Henry III and his wife. This involved extending their trans-marine family links and supporting their servants. Henry’s support for John de Plessis and Simon de Montfort was based on friendship. Eleanor of Castile followed her in-law’s example but it is striking that Edward I did not. Of course, Edward I acquiesced in his wife’s match-making but, apart from his own second marriage, only those of three Savoyards, William de Grandson and John and Peter de Stradling, might have emanated from him. However, the grooms might have won their heiress brides through the influence of Edward’s close friend, Otto de Grandson. He was the brother of William and the cousin of John. But, particularly in the case of Henry III’s reign, the curial circle might have made many of the marital decisions with the tacit consent of the King and the level of his direct involvement has sometimes to be guessed at. However, Henry and the Queen are likely to have taken more interest in the marriages of their personal servants such as their stewards, Mathias Bezill and Imbert Pugeys. Another assumption is that most of the Anglo-Scottish marriages of the early thirteenth century were made as a reflection of the permeability of border society. Perhaps the main conclusion is that the rôle of the Queen was vital in many decisions and, indeed, without Eleanor of Castile, the alien marriage would have ceased to be significant after 1272. In the statistical analysis (Table 3) of the royal promoters of alien marriages the most likely attribution has been made in some cases. No attempt at attribution has been made in the case of married aliens where no clue to the identity of their spouses has been found. The total does not include alien-to-alien marriages arranged in England. 101 His first wife, Isabella of Gloucester. !18 Table 3 Instigators King John or with his assistance 15 Henry III personally 14 Eleanor of Provence and/or Peter of Savoy 11 Eleanor of Provence (after the death of Peter of Savoy) 3 Henry III with Eleanor of Provence’s assistance 1 Henry III’s curial circle 18 Edward I 1 Eleanor of Castile 11 Edward I’s curia probably via Otto de Grandson 5 Assistance as a member of a non-royal affinity 2 Private Initiative 14 Unknown 1 Total 96 PART TWO Mechanisms by which alien marriages were achieved The mechanism by which marriages could be arranged for alien in-comers by kings and tenants-in-chief required no new rules. There were well-established practices. Because the King had a crucial interest in the holding of lands and the feudal obligations to him, he had the right to ensure that the marriages of the children of tenants, who held land directly from him and were not of age, were to people whom he could trust. As far back as 1130, there is evidence ‘of a vigorous marriage market under the direction of the crown’. This involved the making of bids for the hand of an heiress or widow. Whilst these might be made by family members desirous of retaining control over family lands,102 it was also a way in which men, sometimes ‘new men’, could obtain valuable financial benefits which could then become a permanent endowment for their families through hereditable land. King John milked the system by charging very high prices and widows paid large sums to avoid being forced to remarry, or to marry whom they wished. One concern of the families of heiresses and widows was to ascertain that the future marriage partner was not of a 102 J.C.Holt, Magna Carta (second edition, Cambridge, 1992), 53. !19 lower status thus disparaging the bride. In the Articles of the Barons, drawn up in 1215, chapter 17 sought protection for widows.103 James Holt saw the protections for heirs and widows in chapters 6 and 8 of Magna Carta as the codification of principles already working in practice.104 Although the Great Charter was soon revoked by the Pope, it was reissued again in 1216 with modifications, and then again in 1217. The final text, that of the 1225 issue, retained the protections.105 In practice, though, these protections were not always robust when the King or his major magnates were determined to have their way. Where royal marriages were being arranged, negotiations were carried on as a matter of state craft. Scott Waugh has written extensively about the impact of royal wardships and marriages on English society. 106 For non-royal subjects there were various methods of achieving marriages almost all involving the Crown. The King, using his feudal rights, could award a marriage to someone he favoured, encourage the parties to agree to a match or put in place a chain of events that would lead to a marriage. This was by granting the rights to a wardship or marriage or allowing a prospective groom or father-in-law to buy such a grant. A further twist was, when a fine for a grant had been agreed, the King could remit or cancel part, or all, of the debt. During the reigns of Henry III and the first two Edwards over a third of baronial widows remarried.107 Another significant feature is that, within the lower order, firstgeneration aliens tended to marry widows. In a study of fourteen alien families, of the fourteen wives whose parentage is known, ten were previously widows.108 There is no evidence that Henry III sought any financial payment for the marriage of John de Plessis to Countess Margery of Warwick. In some cases, the King would excuse 103 Holt, Magna Carta, 434. 104 Holt, Magna Carta, 55. 105 Holt, Magna Carta, 503-4. 106 S.L.Waugh, The Lordship of England; Royal Wardships and Marriages in English Society and Politics 1217-1327 (Princeton, 1988). 107 Waugh, The Lordship of England, 46-7. 108 Ray, Alien Courtiers of Thirteenth-Century England, 246-7. !20 a widow of her promise not to remarry without his consent, providing that she married whom he nominated. Beatrice de Bassingham found herself in this position vis-à-vis Mathias Bezill.109 In return for a proffer of 7000 marks, Peter de Maulay was granted the marriage and lands of Isabella de Thornham. 110 The arrangement, whereby Alice de Saluzzo became Countess of Lincoln, was made in a treaty with the Count of Savoy which involved payments by Henry III to the Count in exchange for the custody of strategic castles in Savoy.111 Marriages were made to ensure that control was gained over wardships. Kings, such as Richard I and John, may not have regarded fines offered for wardships as payment. They were obligations that could be adjusted depending on the offerer’s behaviour. Henry III and his successors pardoned over half of 19 fines investigated by Waugh.112 In some cases, there was a deliberate decision to remit the cost of ‘buying’ a wife but in others the Exchequer seemed to be relaxed about pursuing for payment. Walter de Goderville was due to pay the large sum of 200 marks for Philip Oldcoates’ widow, Joan de Meinill, but, as late as 1245, he had not paid although the marriage had taken place over twenty years earlier.113 When Guichard de Charron paid 500 marks for the wardship of the heirs of Thomas de Ryhull, he married his widow, Isabella.114 For the greater prize of the wardship and marriage of Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby, Eleanor of Provence and her uncle, Peter of Savoy, agreed to pay 6,000 marks to the Lord Edward.115 Robert, himself, 109 CPR 1232-47, 478. 110 ODNB, xxxvii, 425; RLP, i, 113b; RLC, i, 466b. 111 CPR 1232-47, 469. The agreement stated that one of Amadeus Count of Savoy’s granddaughters would marry either Edmund or John de Warenne, E.L.Cox, The Eagles of Savoy; the House of Savoy in ThirteenthCentury Europe (Princeton, 1974), 149-150. 112 Waugh, The Lordship of England, 171. 113 CLR 1240-50,322, The Cartulary of Blyth Priory, ed. R.T.Timson, Thoroton Society record series, xxvii, (1973) xliii-xliv. 114 Three Early Assize Rolls, p.168; CPR 1266-72, 63. 115 CPR 1247-58, 554. !21 was given £100 pa by the King.116 Peter of Savoy arranged Baldwin de Redvers’s marriage after his niece had obtained Baldwin’s wardship. 117 It was through a wardship that Elias Rabayn obtained the Bayeux heiress as his wife.118 Resistance to marriage There is some evidence of resistance to marriage to aliens. The pace of events following the death of the teen-age Baldwin de Redvers, heir to the earldom of Devon, was hectic. It is not known where Baldwin was when he died on 1 September 1216 but a writ confirms that, within ten weeks of Baldwin’s death, his widow, Margaret FitzGerold, was married again. Her new husband was Falkes de Bréauté.119 It is possible that the marriage might actually have taken place even earlier as the writ says the marriage was given to Falkes as a gift of the King who died on 19 October 1216. This was confirmed by Matthew Paris who added to Roger of Wendover’s text that John granted the marriage as he was ‘quite under the power of Falkes and he wished to increase the rage of the barons against himself’.120 It is not surprising that the King moved quickly as Margaret’s father had defected to his enemies. The Redvers were major lords in the Isle of Wight and Devon and Margaret herself was co-heiress to lands in Somerset. Margaret was to complain that she had been forced to marry Falkes. There can be little doubt that, if she had wanted to resist, King John could not have contemplated allowing the vast Redvers lands held by her aged father-in-law, who might die at any time, to pass into the nominal hands of Margaret, daughter of a land-holding rebel, and her son a mere child. More evidence of resistance to marriage to aliens can be found. The case of Margery de Newburgh, who became Countess of Warwick in her own right on her 116 CChR 1226-57, 345. 117 CPR 1247-58, 148. 118 Whose marriage he received through her wardship, CPR 1247-58, 62. She was the niece of John de Bayeux; CLR 1260-67, 38. 119 RLC, 1, 293b; Michael Ray, Margaret FitzGerold, wife of Baldwin de Redvers, heir of the Earl of Devon, and of Falkes de Bréauté: a tragic life? Paper posted on the Academia web site. 120 Chronica Majora, ii, 638. !22 brother’s death in 1242, has been well-documented.121 She was the wife of John Marshal but it is not known whether she married some time before her brother died or soon after he died. However, before late October 1242, Marshal was dead. 122 On Christmas Day, John de Plessis was granted her marriage and a fine that was payable if she declined him and wished to marry someone else. 123 Despite spirited resistance, she was forced to marry Plessis, a foreigner of obscure origins and low birth. The best hypothesis as to the timing of Margery’s first marriage is that Margery had married Marshal whilst she was a ward of Thomas Basset. Instead of being a young defenceless girl, she might have been at least thirty-seven and a childless wife for some time before her brother’s death when she was urged to marry Plessis. This makes much more sense of Plessis’s desire to secure Margery's lands and the comital title. 124 When Falkes de Bréauté was stripped of his lands and exiled in 1224, his wife, Margaret, FitzGerold, sued for divorce alleging that she had been forced to marry Falkes during a time of war.125 The war was certainly under way but were there other possible reasons for the marriage? Did she agree to marry Falkes for security? It would have been understandable that she sought protection for herself and her child during a time of war when her father was a rebel. Was she dazzled by Falkes? Despite Falkes’s origins and the activities he had pursued on behalf of John, David Carpenter has written ‘Falkes had always been more than the brutal disobedient soldier of his enemies’ caricature. His letters to Hubert (de Burgh) have a sinuous cleverness’.126 He was a man who retained the loyalty of his men even when he was in difficulty; his constable of Plympton castle refused to surrender even after the 121 Michael Ray, The Lady doth protest; the Marriage of John de Plessis and Margery, Countess of Warwick 1243; Michael Ray, The Good Companions; Papers published on the Academia web site. 122 Excerpta, i, 387. He was alive on the 2 and 3 October, Excerpta, i, 385-6. 123 Rôles Gascons, i, no.720. It was made in Bordeaux. 124 For this argument see Michael Ray, The Lady doth protest; the Marriage of John de Plessis and Margery, Countess of Warwick. 125 Chronica Majora, iii, 87-8. 126 Carpenter, The Minority of Henry III, 368. !23 capitulation of Falkes’s garrison at Bedford castle. 127 But whilst he could keep the loyalty of his men, he could not keep that of his wife. Her request for a divorce was rejected. Huw Ridgeway drew attention to two women who married Englishmen, without permission, so as to avoid being forced to marry aliens although there are other cases where the evidence is less clear. In 1256, the Savoyard, Peter de Champvent, was granted Joan, the widow of John de Mohun’s marriage, only for her to elope with Robert Aguillon. Robert had to pay Peter 200 marks compensation. 128 Another Savoyard, Stephen de Salines, was granted the marriage of Joan, widow of Paulinus Peyvre, in 1251 but she too eloped, with John de Grey. John was fined and forced to leave court for a short while.129 But it is possible that both Salines and Champvent had regarded these marriage grants as financial benefits and always intended to sell their rights, rather than marry the ladies concerned themselves. Champvent had already done this twice, allowing the widows of Theobald le Botiller and Robert FitzGerald to remarry for a price.130 Likewise, Salines had received the wardship of Isabel de Montacute in 1247/8.131 Another escapee from a Savoyard marriage was the very wealthy Isabel de Warenne, the widow of Hugh Daubigny, Earl of Arundel, who died in 1243. Thereupon, her marriage was granted to Peter of Geneva. This grant was subject to the proviso that she could pay him if she wished to stay unmarried. She took this option and survived, as a widow, until 1282.132 Much to his fury, Edward I’s own daughter, Joan of Acre, who was widowed on the death of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, defied her father. He was arranging for her to marry Amadeus, Count of Savoy, but she secretly wed a mere knight, Ralph de Monthermer, in 1297.133 127 TNA: PRO SC1 2/184. 128 CPR 1247-48, 495. 129 CPR 1247-48, 104; Annales Prioratus de Dunstaplia, Annales Monastici, iii, Roll Series, xxxvi, ed. H.R.Luard, iii (1866), 182-3; ODNB, xxiii, 859. 130 CPR 1247-58, 180 and 337; CR 1253-4, 275; Rôles Gascons, i, 3458 and 4121. 131 CPR 1232-47, 505; CPR 1247-48, 21. 132 ODNB, lvii, 394-5. 133 Complete Peerage, v, 709; CPR 1292-1301, 243. !24 Nicholas Vincent argued that Mathias Bezill had difficulty in persuading an English heiress to marry him.134 He was granted the marriages of Reginald Basset’s daughter, Roger de Norton’s heirs,135 Constance de Ponte Arche136 and Margery de Rivers.137 In 1246, Beatrice, widow of John de Bassingham, was excused her oath not to marry without the King’s consent providing she took Mathias as her husband.138 She might have married Robert de Luffwyke instead.139 But, whether she did or not, by 1249 Beatrice was married to Mathias.140 The case for reluctant brides might not be as persuasive as Vincent suggested and the marriage grants might have been ways of giving Mathias financial benefits. One of the potential brides Vincent mentioned, Katharine de Montacute, 141 had nothing to do with Mathias and it is not certain that there was a Notton heiress. There is no evidence that Constance or Margery paid not to marry Mathias. If Beatrice de Bassingham did pay for a free marriage so that she could marry Luffwyke, she still ended up married to Mathias. But, if we accept that Mathias had been looking for a bride since 1233, Vincent’s overall view is sound. Before jumping to the conclusion that these potential brides had taken a principled stand against aliens, we should consider that they might have objected to being pressurised into marrying anyone or that it was the particular alien who did not appeal rather than they had an aversion to aliens in general. Thus, in 1253, when Margery, widow of William de Eccingham, paid Geoffrey de Grandi Monte 134 N.Vincent, Peter des Roches; An alien in English Politics 1205-1238 (Cambridge, 1996), 414. 135 CR 1237-42, 258. 136 CPR 1232-47, 475. 137 CPR 1232-47, 375. 138 CPR 1232-47, 478. 139 W.Farrer, Honors and Knights Fees, i-iii (1923-5), ii, 410; Final Concords of the County of Lincoln from the Feet of Fines 1244-1272, ii, ed. C.W.Foster, Lincoln Record Society, xvii (1920), 38. Luffwyke is Lowick (Northamptonshire). 140 Vincent, Peter des Roches, 265. For proof of her identity see TNA:PRO C66/57 m.5. 141 CPR 1232-47, 271. !25 (Grammont) so that she might marry who she wished,142 we have no idea of how she felt about Geoffrey and, indeed, whether Geoffrey was free to marry. Had he married his Vaudoise heiress, Henriette de Grandson-la-Sarraz, by then? Re-marriage of widows Using evidence from the Fine Rolls, David Carpenter, Susanna Annesley and I have written about the efficacy of the protection offered to widows by chapter 8 of the 1215 Magna Carta and its reissues.143 This chapter provided that ‘No widow shall be compelled to marry so long as she wishes to live without a husband, provided that she gives security that she will not marry without our (the King’s) consent if she holds from us or without the consent of the lord from which she holds, if she holds from another’. I demonstrated that three years after being widowed, Margaret FitzGerold, having once been pressured into marriage with Falkes, offered 200 marks so she would not be ‘compelled to marry for as long as she will live without a husband, and if she will wish to marry, she is to marry by her will on condition that she does not marry enemies of the king’.144 However, she also gained the right 'to be quit of sending knights with the king at his passage in this, the thirteenth, year, and for having her scutage from the knights' fees that she holds of the king in chief, namely 3 marks per fee for the king's army at the aforesaid passage’. Her saving on these payments could cover the cost of paying the fine. But it is clear she did not feel that she could rely on the Great Charter. Susanna Annesley has shown that the widow’s consent on a proposal of re-marriage was emphasised in some cases but, in others, the payment of a relief to be able to claim their inheritance, meant that widows were under strong pressure to marry whom the King suggested. Difficulties put in the way of obtaining their dower could also be another pressure to acquiesce. But Annesley concluded that ‘When viewed in its entirety, the evidence from the fine rolls, in the first decade after Magna Carta, does appear to show a marked improvement in the quality of 142 PR 1247-58, 185. 143 Fines of the month on the Fine Roll Project; In order, M.Ray, ‘The lady is not for turning: Margaret de Redvers’ fine not to be compelled to marry’, (December 2006); S.Annesley, The Impact of Magna Carta on Widows: evidence from the Fine Rolls 1216–1225 (November, 2007; D.Carpenter, Hubert de Burgh, Matilda de Mowbray, and Magna Carta’s protection of widows. (March, 2008) accessed 2 December 2008. 144 TNA:PRO C 60/28, m.4. !26 widows’ lives following John’s death. However, for all the undeniable benefits of Magna Carta there were still considerable loopholes that the king could exploit and widows often still found themselves at the mercy of a male’.145 David Carpenter concentrated on the case of Matilda de Mowbray who made a fine not with the King but his chief minister, Hubert de Burgh, that she ‘might marry whom she pleases, or else live without a husband if she wishes, and so that he was to make up to her that which had been lacking from her rightful dower of the land and tenements formerly’ of her late husband. He showed that it was unusual to have to pay to reclaim a dower. None of the women, considered in these studies, were aliens but there is no reason to suppose that they would have been treated differently. Overall studies have shown that, whilst the position of widows had improved, pressure to remarry from powerful men including the King was still a real possibility and these pressures were no more or less where aliens were involved. An analysis of the success or failure of alien marriages After more than seven hundred years, it is almost impossible to be sure which of the alien marriages were successful in the long term; there is some contemporary evidence as well as the assessments of historians. Beyond these, three indicators can throw light on these marriages: acts of religious patronage which ask for blessings for the partner, the choice of burial places and the attitudes to family names and arms by the widows of deceased aliens. Matthew Paris noted that when Alice de Lusignan died in 1256, John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, was stricken by grief146 and Agnes de Saluzzo was said to have died of grief when her husband, John de Vescy I was imprisoned in 1265.147 William de Valence’s wife chose to go into exile with him.148 There can be little doubt about the affection and respect that Henry III had for Eleanor of Provence and he trusted her to be regent in England in 1253-4 when he went to Gascony.149 Simon and Eleanor de Montfort’s marriage has been described 145 Annesley, op cit. 146 Chronica Majora, v, 551. 147 Complete Peerage, xii/2, 279. 148 Chronica Majora, v, 726 and 730. 149 Howell, Eleanor of Provence; 22-4 and 112. !27 by John Maddicott as ‘to all appearances, at least, ... a stable and happy one’. 150 However, the biographer of Richard of Cornwall warned that ‘it would be unwise to assume any great degree of affection between’ him and Sanchia of Provence. He was absent when she died and it was Henry III who funded a daily mass for her at the Tower of London and an anniversary at Westminster Abbey.151 But the same author thought that Richard ‘was passionately in love with’ his third wife, Beatrice von Valkenburg, and could not bear to be separated from her, even for a day.152 Although Edward I never allowed her to act as regent, Michael Prestwich wrote with justification that Edward ‘was undoubtedly devoted to his first queen, Eleanor of Castile’.153 He gave a very generous endowment to Westminster Abbey to fund lavish anniversary acts of charity for the poor in her memory. 154 Edward was also ‘delighted’ with his new wife, Margaret of France, whom he married after a decade of widowhood.155 But Marc Morris has suggested that Margaret was ‘perhaps not thrilled at the thought of being led to the altar by a man more than three times her age’.156 Edmund of Lancaster and Blanche of Artois were recorded as being drawn to each other before they married.157 During 1200, King John married Isabella of Angoulême. It is not clear what her attitude was to the marriage but chroniclers commented on John’s infatuation with her. However, an indication of her lack of affection for John might be based on her attitude to her children. In the year after John’s death, she abandoned her children and went back to Angoulême to rule as its Countess. Then, in 1220, she married the son of her former fiancé and had another crop of children. It was not until 1230 that 150 Maddicott, Simon de Montfort, 39. 151 N.Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall (Oxford, 1947), 112-3; CPR 1258-66, 195. 152 Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall, 141. 153 M.Prestwich, Edward I (1988), 123. Marc Morris agreed, ‘Edward had always adored her’, A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the forging of Britain (2008), 231. 154 B.Harvey, Living and Dying in England 1100-1540; The Monastic Experience (Oxford, 1993), 25f. 155 ibid, 129. 156 Morris, A Great and Terrible King, 318. 157 W.E.Rhodes, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, EHR, x (1895), 214 quoting Trokelowe, Annales, 70-1. !28 she saw her son, Henry III, again.158 The resistance of Margery de Newburgh to her marriage to John de Plessis suggests that the marriage was not successful and they had no children. John had children by his first wife but Margery had none from her first marriage either. She died before John, and there are no known acts of religious patronage seeking prayers for him and he did not reciprocate. 159 The marriage of Gilbert de Clare and Alice de Lusignan was a failure. So was Roger Bigod III’s marriage to Isabel of Scotland. Roger repudiated Isabel in 1245, citing consanguinity, but he was forced to take her back in 1253.160 Gilbert was more successful, obtaining a divorce in 1271.161 It is possible to argue that the union of Falkes and Margaret de Bréauté was unsuccessful but the divorce bid came after nearly a decade of marriage and might have been driven by Margaret’s desire to retain her wealth and status when Falkes was ruined. It is unsurprising that Isabella of Angoulême was not buried at Worcester alongside King John, but she did retire to Fontrevault abbey, the traditional resting place of the Plantagenets where she was entombed on her death.162 Eleanor of Provence’s decision not to be buried in her husband’s beloved Westminster Abbey is more noteworthy. Margaret Howell believed that Eleanor had originally intended to join her husband but, in the end, she followed the custom of her fellow nuns at Amesbury by being buried there.163 As well as ensuring the commemoration of Eleanor of Castile though the erection of a series of beautiful memorial crosses, Edward I was buried alongside her at Westminster. It was in Missenden Abbey, of which his first wife’s family had been a patron, that John de Plessis chose to be buried and not in one of the houses to which Countess Margery had family links.164 Richard of Cornwall was 158 ODNB, xxix, 418. 159 The Cartulary of Eynsham Abbey, ed. H.E.Salter, Oxford Historical Society, xlix and li (1906-8); The Cartulary of Oseney Abbey, ed. H.E.Salter, i-vi, Oxford Historical Society, lxxxix-xic, xcvii-viii and ci (1929-36); The Cartulary of St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick, ed. C.Fonge (Woodbridge, 2004). 160 Complete Peerage, ix, 593; Flores Historiarum AD 1067-1264, ii, 387. 161 Complete Peerage, v, 707. 162 ODNB, xxix, 418. 163 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 309-10. 164 Complete Peerage, xii/2, 367. !29 buried with Sanchia at Hailes Abbey whilst Beatrice von Valkenburg, his third wife, chose as her resting place, the GreyFriars in Oxford.165 However, this is where Richard’s heart had been interred.166 It was to the London Greyfriars that Queen Margaret of France167 and Margaret FitzGerold entrusted their bodies.168 It would have been impractical for the latter to ask to be interred at Santo Siriaco in Rome where Falkes de Bréauté was laid to rest but she could have joined her first husband, Baldwin de Redvers, at Breamore Abbey. The London Black Friars was the site of the burial of Hubert de Burgh and Margaret of Scotland.169 Margaret’s sister, Isabel, was also buried there. In view of the attempt at a divorce, it is not surprising that her husband, Roger Bigod, was buried elsewhere at Thetford. But there is evidence that they might have been reconciled as their hearts were buried together at Framlingham.170 The Dominican house at Pontefract was founded by Edmund de Lacy and it was there that his wife, Alice de Saluzzo, together with her sister, Agnes, the wife of John de Vescy, was interred. John’s second wife, Isabel de Brienne, favoured the Scarborough Black Friars.171 Like the Bigods, Edmund de Lacy’s heart was buried alongside his wife’s body at Pontefract.172 Although William de Grandson’s brother, Otto, founded houses in what is now Switzerland and in Ireland,173 William chose the Cistercian abbey of Dore in Herefordshire of which his wife’s family was a founder, to be buried alongside 165 Complete Peerage, iii, 431-2. 166 A.G.Little, The Greyfriars in Oxford, Oxfordshire Historical Society, xx (1892), 25; Complete Peerage, (iii, 431) suggested that it was buried at Rewley Abbey, which Richard founded. 167 ODNB, xxxvi, 635. 168 Registrum eorum, qui sepeliuntur in ecclesia et capellis fratrum minorum London. Register of the Inscriptions in the church of the Grey Friars, London, BL Cotton MSS Vitellius, F XII, f274v where she is again called Countess of Devon and The Isle. This register has been transcribed by J.G.Nicholls in Collectanea Topographica e Genealogica, v (1838), 275-290 and 385-98. 169 Complete Peerage, vii, 142. 170 Morris, The Bigod Earls of Norfolk, 106, footnote 293. 171 Edmund’s tomb was at Stanlaw Abbey and John’s at Alnwick; Complete Peerage, vii, 681 and xii/2, 279-80. 172 VCH Yorkshire, iii, ed. W.Page (1913), 271. 173 B.Andenmatten, ‘L’ancienne chartreuse de La Lance’, Revue Historique Vaudoise, Lausanne (2000), 14-18; A. Gwynn and R.N.Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses in Ireland (1970), 241. !30 her.174 Another couple buried together were Humphrey de Bohun and Maud de Fiennes175 and it can be assumed that Walter and Hilaria de Goderville were also buried together.176 Despite having been married three times, Roger de Quency’s tomb was with his first (Helen of Galloway) and second wives at Brackley.177 It was almost fifty years before Alice de Lusignan, who was buried before the high altar at Lewes, was joined by John de Warenne.178 In some cases, joint burial would have been difficult. Simon de Montfort was buried at Evesham Abbey, near where he was killed, but his wife, Princess Eleanor, died in exile and Montargis was her resting place.179 William de Forz died in the Mediterranean and Aveline de Montfichet was buried alone at Thornton Abbey.180 Two other wives died in France: Blanche, the wife of Edmund of Lancaster and, forty years after her husband’s death, Clemence d’Avagour.181 But it was not impossible to transport a body considerable distances when it was deemed necessary. The corpse of the murdered Henry of Almain was brought all the way from Viterbo in Central Italy to Hailes Abbey in Gloucestershire182 and Edmund of Lancaster’s body was brought from Bayonne to be laid in Westminster Abbey.183 Although the families of both brides of the Poitevin, Peter de Maulay, were patrons of Meaux Abbey, he chose to remember Isabella de Thornham. When she died, he built a chapel in the wood at Meaux Abbey and gave it gifts to ensure that her 174 Complete Peerage, vi, 62. 175 Complete Peerage, vi, 466. 176 The Cartulary of Bradenstoke Priory, no.510. 177 His last wife was buried in Kent, the home of her second husband, Complete Peerage, xii/2, 753-4. 178 The Chartulary of the Priory of Lewes, ed. L.F.Salzman, Sussex Record Society, xxxviii and xl (1932 and 1934), ii, 16 and 18. 179 Complete Peerage, vii, 546-7. 180 Complete Peerage, i, 355. 181 Complete Peerage, vii, 386-7 and xii/2, 283-4. 182 Complete Peerage, iii, 432. 183 Rhodes, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, 234. !31 anniversary was commemorated.184 When, in 1238, Isabella of Angoulême, and her second husband, Hugh de Lusignan, made gifts to the Abbey of Montierneuf de Poitiers, she funded anniversaries for her parents but not her first husband, despite retaining the title of Queen of England.185 But she had not forgotten him as, in March 1217, she granted a charter to the church of St Thomas in Acre and the Hospitallers in Berkhamsted ‘for the soul of King John and all my ancestors and heirs’.186 Isabella’s son, Richard of Cornwall, made benefactions in memory of his first wife, Isabella, an Englishwoman, but no record has been found of a gift for the souls of his later alien wives.187 Shortly after the death of Walter de Goderville, his widow, Hilaria, made a gift ‘for the souls of Walter, her husband, her parents and all her relatives at rest’ at Bradenstoke Abbey, of all her land at Burton Latimer.188 Margaret FitzGerold made a grant to the Redvers’ foundation of Breamore Priory for ‘my soul, Earl Baldwin, my son and the soul of Baldwin, my former husband, father of Earl Baldwin, all ancestors and successors’ but for Falkes’s soul, she did nothing.189 William de Grandson gave a valuable relic to his wife’s Dore Abbey.190 Another famous benefactor was Devorgilla Balliol. ‘In 1273 she endowed the Cistercian abbey of Dulce Cor or Sweetheart in eastern Galloway in fond memory of her husband, whose corpse was reburied there, and whose embalmed heart she kept in an ivory casket. On his behalf, she also brought together the endowments and formulated the statutes of Balliol College, Oxford, a house of scholars founded as an indirect result of transgressions committed by her husband against the Bishop of Durham in 1255’.191 184 Chronica Monasteri de Melsa,i, 59-60; CChR 1226-57, 233-4. 185 Recueil des Documents de l’Abbaye de Montierneuf de Potiers 1076-1319, ed. F.Villard, Archives Historique de Poitou, lix (Poitiers,1973), no.144. 186 CChR 1300-26, 399-400. 187 The Beaulieu Cartulary, ed. S.F.Hockey, Southampton Record Series, xvii, (Southampton, 1974), no.250. 188The Cartulary of Bradenstoke Priory, 510. 189 TNA;PRO E 40/A4598. 190 J.Hillaby, ‘Cults, Patrons and Sepulture’, A Definitive History of Dore Abbey, ed. R.Shoesmith and R.Richardson (Woonton Almeley, 1997), 96-8. 191 ODNB, iii, 602. !32 Although his marriage with Alice de Saluzzo appears to have been close, Edmund de Lacy did not mention her in making a grant to Pontefract Priory; he mentioned his own soul and those of his father, ancestors and heirs. 192 Alice’s sister’s husband, John de Vescy, mentioned his own soul but does not record his wife in a grant to the Carmelites at Alnwick.193 She, in turn, does not mention John in her grant to Rievaulx Abbey.194 John de Warenne used the same style as Edmund de Lacy in grants to Lewes Priory195 as did Ranulph, Earl of Chester, to Chester and Dieulacres abbeys.196 Neither Baldwin de Redvers or his wife, Margaret, mentioned each other in their grants to Christchurch Priory.197 Peter Coss and Susan Johns have both demonstrated the importance of evidence from seals to show family allegiances and sentiment.198 Two examples of Margaret FitzGerold’s seals survive. On one, which is in the typical standing female style,199 she uses the name of FitzGerold200 but the arms have been lost. On the other, a secretum, there are two lions passant which Birch believed was an amalgam of the 192 The Chartulary of St John of Pontefract, ed. R.Holmes, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, xxv and xxx, 1898 and 1901 (1899 and 1902), XXVIII. 193 The Percy Chartulary, Surtees Society, cxvii (1911), p318. 194 Cartularium Abbathiae de Rievalle, Surtees Society, lxiii (1889), p.273. 195 The Chartulary of the Priory of Lewes, i, 52; The Surrey portion of the Chartulary of St Pancras of Lewes, ed. D.Harrison, Surrey Archaeological Collections, xliii (1938), 105. 196 The Chartulary of the Register of the Abbey of St Werburgh , Chester ed. J.Tait, Chetham Society, parts 1 and 2, new series, lxxix and lxxxii (1920-3), no.18; The Chartulary of Dieulacres Abbey, Collections for the History of Staffordshire William Salt Society, new series, ix (1906), 311 passim. 197 Christchurch Priory Cartulary, ed. K.A.Hanna, Hampshire Record Series, xviii (2007), 39-42. 198 Coss, The Lady in Medieval England 1000-1500 , 41-5; S.M.Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power in the Twelfth-Century Anglo-Norman Realm (Manchester, 2003), 122-51. 199 Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power, 132. 200 TNA: PRO E 40/6906. !33 lions of her father and her first husband’s arms. 201 Whilst the Redvers arms contained a lion rampant with a queue fourchée, the arms of the FitzGerolds centred on a crowned leopard.202 Warin himself used two passant lions203 as did Margaret although on this second seal she uses the name Redvers. However, in the charter to which the first seal is attached, she is described as the daughter of Warin FitzGerold.204 Susan Johns has also shown how seals can illustrate the life cycle of a noblewoman. A widow might use a seal which had her father’s name on it, whilst referring to her husband in the text.205 Margaret’s first seal corroborates part of this practice as she reverts to her father’s name whilst being a widow. At the top of both of her seals there are estoiles which might conceivably be an echo of Falkes’s cinquefoil arms but this seems very unlikely. For whatever motive, after her split from Falkes, she always used her father’s name or a version of Redvers. In contrast, the widowed Devorgilla Balliol had a seal on which were depicted the arms of her husband, father and two grandfathers.206 Sybil de Grandson used not only her husband’s arms but those of her father and grandfather207 whilst Alice de Lacy, used her late husband’s and her father’s.208 Rainetta Teutonicus had no formal arms on her seal but there is an inclusion of her father’s fleurs-de-lys charge in the design.209 Of these women, only Devorgilla was an alien. 201 Attached to BL Cotton Ch v 66, W.de G. Birch, Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, ii (1894), 430. Another example of this seal is attached to Guildhall Library Ms 25122/747. A seal of Alice de Curcy, Margaret’s mother, has survived, Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power, 221, no39, but it has no visual reference to Margaret’s seal. 202 Aspilogia II, Rolls of Arms: Henry III (1967), 29 and 146. 203 Historic Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of his Grace, the Duke of Rutland, iv, 55. 204 There is no example of Warin’s seal in either the British Library or The National Archives, W.G.Birch, Catalogue of seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, ii (1892), R.H.Ellis, Catalogue of Seals in the Public record Office, Personal Seals, i-ii (1978-81). 205 Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power, 136. 206 W.G.Birch, Catalogue of seals, iv, 15746. 207 Catalogue of Seals in the Public Record Office, Personal Seals, ii, P1463. 208 Catalogue of Seals in the Public Record Office, Personal Seals,, ii, P1636; Birch, Catalogue of seals, ii, 6673. 209 Catalogue of Seals in the Public Record Office, Personal Seals,, ii, P2059; Birch, Catalogue of seals, ii, 6716. !34 The use of names on documents can also be significant. It must be the status of countess which appealed to Margaret of Savoy, for when she re-married Robert Aguillon, she was still referred to as Countess of the Isle, the alternative title of Baldwin de Redvers.210 In a study of Oxfordshire women who were the daughters or wives of knights, Polly Hanchett found that many reverted to their maiden name in widowhood. But there was a solitary example of one adopting the same practice as Margaret FitzGerold.211 In 1227, her sister-in-law, Alice, widow of William de Bréauté, was sued under her maiden name of Merlay. But it is understandable that she would not wish to be reminded of her husband who had been hanged three year’s earlier after the siege of Bedford.212 In 1270, two years after Mathias Bezill’s death, it was as Beatrice de Bassingham, the name she enjoyed when she was first married, that Bezill’s widow received a grant of trees.213 How difficult would it have been for aliens to function in England? Almost all of the aliens would move in circles where French was spoken and those from France would have been reasonably at home. At first glance, the high proportion of those coming from the Holy Roman Empire might have experienced some difficulties but the majority came from Francophone regions. Only the Teutonicus brothers and Beatrice von Valkenburg would have had German as their first language. The Stradlings, from Strattlingen on Lake Thun, would also have been German speakers but they came from near the language divide and were closely related to the French-speaking Grandsons. Eleanor of Castile might have been bilingual before she arrived in England, using Spanish but also her mother’s French. The Scottish brides probably knew both English and French. 210 CPR 1266-72, 348. 211 P.Hanchett, ‘Women in Thirteenth-Century Oxfordshire’, Unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, (2006), 142-4. 212 ‘Roll of the Justices in Eyre at Bedford, 1227’, ed. G.H.Fowler, Bedfordshire Historical Record Society, iii (1916), p.41; no.119. 213 CR 1268-72, 229. !35 Alien brides tended to be reserved for those of high status, the royal family, earls and the higher ranks of the baronage where they might fit in more easily. Eleanor of Provence arranged the marriage of the daughter of her lady, Willelma d’Attalens, to the heir of John fitzHugh, a former King’s steward.214 It is possible that other ladiesin-waiting or other female servants were married to Englishmen of lower status. But, in general, alien grooms, those of comital rank to household knights and esquires, came from a much wider spectrum than alien brides. Alien marriages and their effect on English social and political life The impact, in both the short and long term, of the alien marriages could be far reaching or minimal. The royal alliances were often ways of obtaining new lands and resources for the crown. The cost of John’s marriage to Isabella of Angoulême was that it gave an excuse for King Philip II to intervene. This in turn, led to the loss of the Northern lands from 1204. Roger of Wendover recorded that Henry III had contemplated marrying a Scottish princess in 1231 but there was opposition as she would have been the younger sister of the Countess of Kent. 215 Ten thousand marks’ dowry was Henry III’s only tangible benefit from his marriage to Eleanor of Provence.216 Provençal influence was slight although Henry III and Louis IX’s union with two daughters of the Count of Provence might have been one of the factors that brought the two kings close together and paid dividends when Louis made his judgement in the Mise of Amiens against the barons in favour of Henry. But Eleanor of Provence’s Savoyard connections brought England into the main stream of European politics and the support that was given by the Savoyards to the ‘Sicilian Business’, when the Pope offered the crown of Sicily to Henry III’s younger son, was a major contributor to the collapse of royal power during the Barons’ Wars. Whilst Henry’s opponent, the forceful Simon de Montfort, who was the husband of Eleanor, the equally forceful sister of Henry, caused problems in the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris in 1259. He used them as a bargaining counter in their plea for an 214 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 104-5. The Savoyard Attalens family were also known as Oron. Her cousin was Peter d’Oron, Stammtafeln, xv, tafel 32. 215 Roger of Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum, ed. H.O.Coxe, iv, (1842), 227. 216 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 40. !36 enhanced dower for Eleanor.217 Edward I gained an easement of a potential threat to Gascony from the south because of his Castilian marriage. Whilst Eleanor of Provence was granted a 10,000 mark dowry by her father, Eleanor of Castile had none but she brought the strategically placed county of Ponthieu to the English crown.218 Edward’s second wife, Margaret of France, brought better relations with Philip IV. Royal marriages of the king’s brothers and nephews were also helpful. Richard of Cornwall, Henry III’s brother, became the husband of Sanchia of Provence making him a brother-in-law to the French and English queens. However, his third wife, Beatrix von Valkenburg was chosen to enhance his position as King of the Romans and potential Holy Roman Emperor. His eldest son, Henry of Almain, made a potentially valuable match when he wed Constance, the heiress of Béarn, as it strengthened the Plantagenet hold on the southern borders of Gascony.219 But it might have also been one of the motives for the murder of Henry at Viterbo less than two year’s later as his murderers, Guy and Simon de Montfort, had hereditary interests in the Vicomté.220 When Edmund of Lancaster, Edward I’s brother took Blanche of Artois, Countess of Champagne, as his wife, he secured her rights in the county and in the kingdom of Navarre. This was to make him the stepfather of Philip IV of France. The alien marriages had a major impact on the higher nobility. In the middle years, leading up to and during the period of Baronial Reform, the Countesses of Cornwall, Lincoln, Surrey, Derby, Gloucester and Devon were all aliens. In addition Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, was an alien and the Countess of Warwick’s marriage to the alien, John de Plessis, resulted in his being accepted as Earl in his wife’s right. Earlier in the century, although never styled Earl, Falkes de Bréauté was granted all 217 She claimed Normandy, Flores Historiarum AD 1067-1264, ii, 425. 218 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 14. 219 CPR 1266-72, 323. 220 R.Studd, 'The marriage of Henry of Almain and Constance of Béarn', P.R.Coss and S.D.Lloyd, ed., Thirteenth-century England, III: proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne conference, 1989 (Woodbridge, 1991), 161-79 especially 177. !37 the privileges of the Earldom as guardian of his wife’s infant son, Baldwin de Redvers, Devon’s Earl. From a political view point the Poitevin marriages were more significant. His affection for Alice de Lusignan kept John de Warenne in the Poitevin camp even when they were driven out in 1258. Was Gilbert de Clare’s unhappy marriage to Alice’s niece, another Alice de Lusignan, one of the spurs to his opposition to the Poitevins?221 Overall, of the twenty earldoms recognised in England and Ireland during the thirteenth century, fourteen had alien countesses, another four were held by aliens, and only two had no alien marriage alliance. 222 But there is little evidence that, apart from the years of tension between the barons and the crown, that the alien marriages were of any real concern amongst the nobility. Holt remarked that the opposition to Falkes de Bréauté’s marriage was the first time that objections had been raised to a Norman groom but this relies solely on the evidence of Falkes’ enemy, Matthew Paris.223 For most of the curial circle, it would have been an acceptable match in a realm which still had an Anglo-Norman tradition. As Waugh has shown, the hostility to Henry III’s marriage policies stemmed from a perception, which is demonstrably true, that wardships were restricted overwhelmingly to an exclusive clique. Whilst many of the recipients were foreigners, ‘their foreignness was of less importance in arousing animosity than the perception that they monopolized royal favour’.224 This perception must have been behind the demand in the Petition of the Barons of 1258 that ‘in the matter of marriages pertaining to the lord King, that the (women) shall not be married in such a way as to disparage them - that is, to men who are not true-born Englishmen’.225 Culturally, there is little evidence that the marriages had any lasting impact. Eleanor of Provence’s predilection for the Franciscans and Eleanor of Castile’s for the Black Friars would have helped both orders. Eleanor of Castile was criticised for her 221 A thought shared by Michael Prestwich, Plantagenet England 1225-1360 (Oxford, 2005), 94. 222 Oxford and Salisbury. Although Peter of Savoy was not formally recognised as Earl of Richmond, he held the honour. 223 Holt, ‘The Heiress and the Alien’, 27. 224 Waugh, The Lordship of England; 243. 225 DBM, no.3, clause 6. !38 Castilian dress when she arrived in England but she changed her style to fit in with the prevailing fashions of the English court. However, her love of gardening and the introduction of carpets may have been of persisting significance.226 Whilst a few alien men kept links with home,227 no evidence has been found that the children of alien brides maintained connections with their mother’s original lands and families. Whilst clear resistance to aliens has been found, it should be noted that Princess Eleanor was so enthusiastic about marrying Simon de Montfort, that she reneged on her vow of chastity. In a time when marriage choices were not as free as a reading of Magna Carta would suggest perhaps, in many cases, an alien mate was no more objectionable than a native. Bu assimilation was not always complete. Aymer de Valence was the son of the Poitevin William de Valence to whom there had been so much hostility when he married Joan de Munchesney. However, although his family was by now fully accepted into English society, Aymer chose to marry not one but two French ladies.228 21 August 2009. Revised October 2016 226 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 64. She bought pomegranates in 1289, Records of the Wardrobe and Household 1286-1289, ed. B.F.Byerly and C.R.Byerly (1986), no.3222. 227 M.Ray, The Savoyard cousins, 161-2. 228 Complete Peerage, x, 381-388. !39