Eleanor in England

On 19 December 1154, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury crowned Henry Curtmantle as King Henry II of England. His wife, the former queen of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was present. It is not recorded if she were also crowned, but it is undeniable that she was now Queen of England, and one of the most wealthy and powerful women of the Middle Ages.

Her wealth grew, as Henry granted her possessions and a generous financial gifts. She used her money to become a patron of the arts, supporting troubadours and authors of stories of courtly love. Many writers Wace was one) dedicated their works to her.

Henry traveled away from home frequently, putting down rebellions or establishing closer ties to his people. Eleanor sometimes traveled with him, and sometimes traveled around separately with their children. When he was gone and she at home, she acted as regent, sometimes with the help of the justiciar. Although contemporary historians did not write much about her life, we can see how busy she was from all the writs and court documents she signed as regent, signing herself Alienor Dei Gracia Regine Anglorum "(Eleanor by the Grace of God Queen of England").

Their first child, William, was born prior to their coronation in England. He was named William IX, Count of Poitiers. Their second child, Henry (later named "The Young King") was born 28 February 1155. She was pregnant again when Henry left England for a long absence on 10 January 1156. Not long after, the eldest son died, not yet three years old. Eleanor's pregnancy resulted in their third child and first daughter, Matilda. She took the children to France to be with their father, but they all came back to England which resulted in their fourth child, Richard (later "Lionheart") born on 8 September 1157.

Eleanor's first husband, Louis VII, had re-married and produced a daughter, Marguerite. His apparent inability to produce a male heir gave Henry the idea of joining their two kingdoms with an eye eventually to ruling both. He went to France to negotiate with Louis and to take Marguerite to foster until she was old enough to marry. Meanwhile, Eleanor had another son, Geoffrey.

When in England, Eleanor mad decisions for the court. In May 1165 she acted as his regent for Anjou and Maine while Henry as negotiating marriages with hi daughters to cement his relations with Frederick Barbarossa. Not long after, she became less involved in the affairs of state.

All their time apart from each other inspired stories of Henry's affairs. He had illegitimate children, whom he acknowledged. His eldest out of wedlock, Geoffrey of York, for instance, ultimately became an archbishop and joined the court of one of his half-brothers. Henry's best-known lover was Rosamund Clifford, the relationship with whom he acknowledged in 1174.

Although some romantic spark might have faded between the king and queen, she remained important for decades, even after moving from England and spending years apart. I'll explain tomorrow.

The King's Ward/Mistress

Little is known about Ida de Tosny, but she was likely the daughter of Ralph de Tosny (c.1130 - 1162) and Margaret Beaumont. Orphaned at a young age, she was lucky enough to be given to the protection of the King, Henry II.

She first enters the public record in Christmas 1181, when she is married (quite advantageously for her) to Robert Bigod, the 2nd Earl of Norfolk. Robert's father had joined Henry's sons when they rebelled against their father inn 1173-74, so the family lands had been confiscated. The estates—Acle, Halvergate, and South Walsham, all in Norfolk—were returned to Robert (who had remained loyal to Henry) upon his marriage. He did not, however, get his father's earldom until 1189.

Robert and Ida were loyal to the royal family, and provided several (four boys and two girls) loyal children. Their eldest, Hugh, became the third Earl of Norfolk and married a daughter of the powerful William Marshall.

Ida doesn't really become more interesting until long after her death, when a charter is discovered connected to William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury; it refers to Comitissa Ida, mater mea ["Countess Ida, my mother"]. William was known to be an illegitimate child of Henry II, but his maternity was not known prior to this stray comment. It had been assumed (but the rumors came long after his lifetime) that his mother was Rosamund Clifford, Henry's best-known mistress. Clearly, Henry treated Ida as something more than a ward.

And that's all the historical significance we can find for Ida de Tosny, except that she does become, with her husband, a character in the historical novels of Elizabeth Chadwick, most notably The Time of Singing. Immortality can come from very small occurrences, sometimes.

Fair Rosamund

Fair Rosamund's Well today.

Blenheim Palace is of fairly recent vintage—the early 1700s is "recent" in the context of a blog devoted to the Middle Ages—but the site contains some much older features. A spring on the property fills a well that existed at least as far back as 1166, when royal accounts list a building project designed to enclose the spring, known at the time as Everswell. The name can be accounted for by a local legend that says it never runs dry. Nowadays, it has a different name; from the 16th century on, it has been referred to as "Rosamund's Well."

The Rosamund of the name is Rosamund Clifford, who would have been unknown to history but for an event that pushed her into prominence. Daughter of Walter Clifford, she was born sometime before 1150. Her father's position in government was sufficient that the king had reason to call on him. Sometime in 1163 (according to best guesses), Henry II did just that, stopping at Clifford Castle on the River Wye on his way to deal with a Welsh problem. That is likely where and when he first met Rosamund...

...and when they fell in love.

Henry was married—Eleanor of Aquitaine had divorced the king of France in 1152 and married Henry in 1154—but kings never let marriage stop them. There is much gossip and legend surrounding "Fair Rosamund," but there are a few things we can say for certain. One is that she was a very patient lover: given Henry's campaigns in England and on the continent, between 1163 and her death in 1176, they would not have been able to be in each other's presence for more than 2-3 years total. Stories that she traveled with him can not be substantiated by contemporary evidence.

The likelihood that she bore children for Henry is slim. Later suggestions that his son Geoffrey was hers make no sense, given that she would have had to been pregnant with Geoffrey while she was a baby.*

It is very likely that Henry kept her in Woodstock, which at the time was essentially a hunting lodge about 10 miles north of Oxford. The legend that he built a maze around it to keep her safe is untrue. It is possible, I suppose, that she really did bathe at Rosamund's Well. Blenheim Palace is just west of Woodstock, built on the grounds that once were part of the Woodstock lodge and the enclosed deer park.

She went to live in seclusion among the nuns at a monastery in Godstow in 1176, once her status as the king's mistress became known. She died shortly thereafter, and the king contributed to a family-built  tomb for her at Godstow. In 1191, the bishop of Lincoln found that her tomb, situated in the choir of the church, had become a popular site for locals to leave flowers. Shocked at the veneration given to a mistress, he had her tomb moved outside the monastery. Like so many other sites, it was destroyed by another Henry known for mistresses: Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries.

*The illegitimacy of Geoffrey is not an invention; Eleanor was not his mother. The chronicler Walter Map (1140 - c.1209) claims Geoffrey's mother was someone named Ykenai.