The omens at the commencement of Eleanor’s career in England were by no
means favourable, and little indicated the event. At the age of about
nine, Eleanor, a princess of Castile, was married to Edward, the heir to
the English Crown, who had reached the mature age of fifteen years. The
marriage took place in the year 1254, in the ancient city of Burgos, and
was celebrated with the utmost pomp; but the magnificence of the
occasion fails to conceal the features of the hard diplomatic bargain
driven between Henry III, the father of the bridegroom, and Alfonso X of
Leon and Castile, Eleanor’s half-brother. As a condition of this treaty
Alfonso merged all his claims and rights in Guienne and the South of
France in the English Crown; and the marriage, arranged after much
difficulty, placed the seal on this compact, terminating a long period
of petty warfare and intrigue, during which Alfonso had sought to
encourage the Gascons and other Gallic subjects of Henry against their
liege lord.
This Spanish marriage was by no means a popular one amongst the English;
and although in the following year, 1255, when Eleanor came to London,
her reception was marked with much circumstance and great official
cordiality, it is clear that the Londoners had no great love for the
Spaniards. Henry had given sufficient reason for the people’s jealousy
of foreigners; his prodigality and many acts of favouritism already
shown to foreign relations of the royal house and their retainers gave
good earnest that a similar outburst of extravagance on the part of the
King would result from this Spanish invasion. Preceding the arrival of
Eleanor, an embassy led by her brother, Don Sancho, the young Archbishop
of Toledo, had arrived to make certain preliminary arrangements. They
had been greeted with only a modified degree of favour by the London
populace. Their manners were considered to be anything but up to the
London standard. Under an aspect of richness and profusion their habits
were considered to be sordid and mean; one of the complaints made by the
grumbling Londoners was that the Spaniards, not content with hanging the
walls of their lodging with tapestry, must also use tapestry for
covering the floors! The unfortunate young Prelate himself on riding
through the streets of London had ventured to confer his benediction on
the populace with upraised hand—an act which was interpreted with but
little generosity. The hapless ten years old Princess and wife presents
a pathetic picture, for in the midst of all this political intrigue even
the little maiden herself did not escape the animadversions of her
future people. Special notice is taken of the fact that though landing
with a great retinue at Dover, and with much bravery of outward attire,
she had but a very scanty wardrobe (_minus bene munita hernesio_). One
of the first disbursements on the part of Henry for his daughter-in-law
was to remedy this grave defect.[22]
Footnote 22:
Rot. Lit. Claus., 39 Henry III, m. 2. (No. 69).
The young Prince, her husband, appears to have been a headstrong and
undisciplined young man; though nominally in possession of great estates
in France and England, his actual income in money was small, and he and
his friends and retainers seem to have lived on the land as if they were
a band of foreign robbers. Edward’s thoughtlessness and the harshness
and cruelty of those around him are unfavourably commented on at this
time. The hard discipline, which the young Prince received in the years
immediately following, was very necessary to render him the great king
of England which he subsequently became, and many years also were
required before the little Princess acquired the gracious firmness of
character which is recognized in the “Regina bonæ memoriæ” of English
history.