Tag Archives: Eleanor of Brittany

Eleanor of Brittany – lifelong ward…guest…prisoner

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Eleanor of Brittany was a grand daughter of King Henry II born in about 1184. She was the eldest child of Henry’s son Geoffrey and Constance, sure jure Countess of Brittany.  Geoffrey, who was older than his brother John, was killed during a tournament in Paris in August 1186.  His only son, Arthur, was a posthumous child. With the arrival of Arthur, Eleanor was no longer such a good catch as a bride because the duchy would pass to her brother. Her grandfather kept Eleanor in protective custody from the time she was two-years of age. King Philip II demanded that the girl should become his ward but Henry refused to consider the possibility. 

            With the death of Geoffrey, Richard became his niece’s guardian. The king offered her as a bride to Saladin’s brother when her aunt Joanna of Sicily refused. After Richard’s imprisonment on his way home from the 3rd Crusade by Duke Leopold of Austria she was betrothed to the duke’s son. The death of Leopold before she could be handed into his care meant that the betrothal was broken. There were other betrothal negotiations but none came to fruition. Then in 1199 Richard died unexpectedly. In 1201, Eleanor’s mother Constance, who had petitioned for her daughter’s return into her custody on several occasions, also died. 

            Arthur, Eleanor’s brother, had a good claim to the throne. He was, after all, the son of John’s elder brother but John was an adult who was not a pawn of the French in the way that Arthur became. In 1202 Arthur was captured after he laid siege to his grandmother Eleanor of Aquitaine at Mirebeau. Arthur disappeared from the historical record during Easter 1203, believed to have been murdered by his uncle John in a drunken rage. Eleanor, who was in England, was a threat by association but bumping off his niece would be far too suspicious.

            Technically as an unmarried female she was John’s ward and she would remain his dependent for the rest of his life. If she was freed, permitted to rule as the duchess of Brittany and married then her husband would have had a claim to the throne – although after the experience with the Empress Matilda no one was keen on the idea of a female monarch. By keeping her in custody the possibility of civil war was removed as was any possibility of her taking an active political role. Even so, the possibility of a marriage was considered. A woman with legitimate royal blood was a useful bargaining chip. In 1208, John created her Countess of Richmond and permitted her to come to court by then her younger half-sister was Brittany’s duchess. She may also have accompanied her uncle on campaign in 1214 when John sought to regain at least part of his father’s empire.

Throughout it all Eleanor was treated as a royal kinsman, she had ladies, good food and royal robes but she was not free to come and go as she wished either in John’s life time or during the reign of his son King Henry III. By 1225 she had a small household and an allowance for almsgiving, but it did not represent the income from the earldom of Richmond and even worse Henry removed the title from her in order to bestow it elsewhere.  Over the years she was moved around the countryside. She stayed at Corfe in Dorset but travelled to Bowes and Burgh as well as Marlborough and Gloucester. It seems that her guards were changed regularly in order to prevent any escape plots being hatched.

She died at Bristol Castle in 1241 after 39 years as a prisoner having never plotted against a king of England.

Seabourne, Gwen, Imprisoning Medieval Women, (Ashgate Publishing, 2013)

Seabourne, Gwen, ‘Eleanor of Brittany and Her Treatment by King John and Henry III’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 51 (2007), 73–110

Geoffrey of Brittany – “son of perdition.”

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Geoffrey2I’ve blogged about John’s brother Geoffrey in a much earlier post.  However, as I’m looking at John I thought it would be useful to reappraise myself of his siblings. Geoffrey Plantagenet was the fourth son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine (third surviving son). Henry’s problem was that he had too many sons to provide for when they grew to maturity. Geoffrey’s oldest surviving brother Henry was to have the lands that belonged to Henry – the patrimony- so Anjou, Maine, Normandy and England. Richard, the second surviving son, was to have his mother’s inheritance – Aquitaine. Henry also had plans for Geoffrey.

Henry, being an astute sort of monarch and land-grabber, arranged a marriage between Geoffrey and Constance of Brittany. Constance was, conveniently for Henry, the only child of Conan IV, Duke of Brittany. Her mother Margaret of Huntingdon was William the Lion’s sister. The problem for Conan was that he was also the Earl of Richmond and the Britons were a pretty bolshie lot so needed a firm hand. In short, Conan needed Henry more than Henry needed him. Henry claimed to be Brittany’s overlord and Conan was required to make his vassals see sense. The Bretons disagreed. Henry simply went to war and won in 1169 forcing Conan to abdicate and the Bretons to accept eight-year-old Geoffrey as the new Count by virtue of being Constance’s spouse. They ultimately married in 1181 when she was twenty-one.

Hapless Conan died in 1171. Geoffrey, aged all of eleven-years-old, became not only Count of Brittany but also Earl of Richmond. Henry, naturally, wielded all the power until his son came of age.  The problem was that Henry II was not good at giving up power once it was in his grasp.

This fermented resentment as Young Henry, Richard and Geoffrey grew older. It was all very well having titles but they wanted power as well. In 1173 when Geoffrey had reached the ripe old age of fifteen he rebelled against his father along with his brothers. Ironically it was little brother John who triggered the family row. Henry sought to provide territory for his youngest son and granted John three castles in Young Henry’s territory to demonstrate that John had property to bring to a proposed marriage. Young Henry was furious, refused to yield the castles, demanded to be allowed to rule one of the territories that he would one day inherit and took himself off to the French court where his brothers joined him.  Eleanor attempted to join her sons but was caught and found herself locked up for many years- though she was allowed to come to court for Christmas more often than not.

The following year,1174, Geoffrey and his father were reconciled, only for him to fall out in 1183 with his brother Richard over who should control Aquitaine. The Young King having died. Henry rearranged the family assets moving Richard up the pecking order to receive the patrimony and young John to receive Aquitaine. Presumably Geoffrey was left out of the equation because Brittany was his through marriage – to give Geoffrey any of the other lands would have left John as ‘Lackland’ still.  Richard wasn’t keen on handing over Aquitaine having won over his vassals by an uncompromising mix of determined presence in the duchy and brute force. Geoffrey for reasons best known to himself sided with teen-age John and provided an army to try and take Aquitaine from Richard by force.  The next thing that he knew Richard was invading Brittany rather effectively.   Peace was eventually re-established with a public kiss of peace and Geoffrey briefly found himself in his father’s good books being left in charge of Normandy for a while both that it lasted.  Henry II didn’t let any of his sons step into the Young King’s shoes.  After that Geoffrey allied himself with the King of France against his father and his brother – the Plantagenets were not a model for a happy family at this time.

Geoffrey’s relationship with his father was not a good one but he wasn’t overly popular with anyone else for that matter – Roger of Howden described him as a “son of perdition.” Roger was one of Henry II’s clerks and he was also one of the king’s Justices of the Forest – so not altogether unbiased in his approach. Gerald of Wales commented on Geoffrey’s ‘readiness to deceive others.’ And then proceeded with a rather complete character assassination:

“He has more aloes than honey in him; his tongue is smoother than oil; his sweet and persuasive eloquence has enabled him to dissolve the firmest alliances and his powers of language to throw two kingdoms into confusion.”

 

It has been suggested that one of the reasons for Geoffrey’s increasing animosity towards his father and Richard was that Henry II didn’t identify Geoffrey as his heir. The French king, Philip Augustus, made him a senschal of France, encouraged Geoffrey in his discontent – he’d gone to Paris in 1179 to witness Phillip’s coronation and to give homage to the French king.

On 19th August 1186 Geoffrey was in Paris for a tournament – and possibly some heavy duty plotting against his family- when there was a tragic accident and he was trampled to death although some chroniclers also mention a stomach ailment and one chronicler had Geoffrey being struck down by heart failure after daring to conspire against his father.

Geoffrey and Constance had three children. Eleanor who became known as the Fair Maid of Brittany; Matilda who died before the age of five and an heir called Arthur who was born posthumously in 1187. Arthur, being the son of John’s older brother, had a better claim to the throne than John did.  England did not have a salic law so in theory Eleanor also had a strong claim to the throne.  It was for this reason that John held her captive throughout his reign as any marriage would have created a contender to his throne.

https://archive.org/stream/annalsofrogerdeh01hoveuoft/annalsofrogerdeh01hoveuoft_djvu.txt

Geoffrey of Brittany

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Geoffrey2Gerald of Wales described Geoffrey as a “deceiver and a dissembler.”  Roger of Howden described him as a “son of perdition”. However, given that none of Henry II’s legitimate surviving sons could be described as loyal to their father it is perhaps not surprising that Geoffrey as son number three should have been untrustworthy.  He joined the Young King and Prince Richard in their rebellion against their father in 1173.

Nor is it surprising that Henry II used Geoffrey as a political pawn in his empire building strategies.  Henry had supported the subjects of Conan IV of Brittany when they rebelled against him.   Finally Henry was victorious, peace required that Conan was forced to abdicate and his daughter Constance was betrothed to Geoffrey – Geoffrey taking on the title Duke of Brittany (in 1166) which Henry ruled personally, in theory, until Geoffrey came of age.  Geoffrey was required to give homage to the French king, just as Richard was required to give homage for Aquitaine.  It was a neat device that allowed Henry to continue to build his empire without public recognition that Henry was the French king’s vassal.

Part of the problem between father and son in later years was Henry’s inability to relinquish power from his own hands.  In response to the rebellion of 1173 Henry did concede that Geoffrey should marry Constance and have half of the revenues of the duchy, along with the task of quelling the rebellion that he had stirred in Brittany. In November 1179 Geoffrey was in Paris to witness the coronation of King Philip. Geoffrey and Constance married in 1181.

By 1184 unrest stirred again.  The Young King’s death during his rebellion against Henry in 1183 elevated Richard to the role of Henry’s heir.  Henry envisioned a land redistribution with Richard’s duchy of Aquitaine being handed to Prince John.  Richard having been raised in Eleanor’s court and having subdued the region by force was not prepared to hand his territory over so easily.   In the end Richard was obliged to hand the duchy back to his mother who was removed from prison in England and bought to France for the occasion.  In effect this meant that once again Aquitaine was in Henry’s hands.  Geoffrey and Richard remained at loggerheads  about land and position as Henry did not establish any of his sons as heir apparent.

Geoffrey, perhaps recognising the importance of strong allies, became friends with the French King Philip Augustus (Louis VII’s son).  Philip made him a senschal of France.  He died on the 19th August in Paris as the result of an accident that occurred during a tournament.  Chroniclers record that Philip was so distressed that he attempted to climb into Geoffrey’s grave.

Geoffrey’s son, Arthur, was born the following year in 1187.  He also left two young daughters; Eleanor, who was born in 1184 and Matilda, born 1184. Matilda died before she reached her fifth birthday while Eleanor and young Arthur faced uncertain futures in the hands of their Uncle John.