Death of Queen Eleanor of Castile

On 28th November 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (age 49) died at Harby Manor. Her viscera were buried at Lincoln Cathedral [Map]. Her heart was buried at Blackfriars, City of London on the 19th December 1290 where her son Alfonso Plantagenet had been buried eight years beforew.

Her corpse was taken from Harby, Nottinghamshire [Map] to Westminster Abbey [Map]. At each of the locations at which her body rested overnight King Edward I of England (age 51) commissioned the building of an Eleanor Cross. Three remain at Geddington, Northamptonshire [Map], Hardingstone, Northamptonshire and Waltham Abbey, Essex [Map].

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On 4th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Grantham [Map].

                    On 5th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Queen's Cross, Stamford.
                
                    Source Stamford Local History Society, Ken Coles  1980.
                
                    Stamford's cross stood for approximately 350 years, and to confirm this we have two eye-witnesses.  The first was Captain Richard Symonds of the Royalist army, who visited Stamford briefly on his way from Newark to Huntingdon on Saturday August 22nd 1645. He wrote the following in his diary, "In the hill before ye into the towne stands a lofty large cross, built by Edward I in memory of Eleanor whose corps rested there coming from the north. Upon the top of this cross these three shields are often carved: England; three bends sinister; a bordure (Ponthieu); Quarterly Castile and Leon".  
                
                    The second eye-witness is Richard Butcher, Town Clerk. In his survey of Stamford of 1646 he says the following: "Near unto the York highway and about twelve score paces from the town gate which is called Clement Gate, stands an ancient crosse of freestone of very considerable fabric, having many ancient scrutcheons or arms insculped in the stone about it as the arms of Castille and Leon quartered being the paternal coat of the King of Spain and divers other hatchments belonging to that crown which envious time hath so defaced that only the ruins appear to my eye and therefore not to be described by my pen"
                
                    Later Evidence On January 16th 1745 William Stukeley wrote to a fellow antiquarian: "Our surveyor of the turnpike road opened up a tumulus half a mile north of Stamford on the brow of a hill by the roadside and there discovered the foundations of the Queen's Cross, the lower most tier of the steps in tact and part of the second, tis of Barnack stone, hexagonal, the measure of each side thirteen feet so the diameter was thirty feet. It stood on a grassy heath called by the towns people Queens Cross."
                
                    In another letter dated 21st December 1754 he wrote that Mr Wying surveyor of the turnpike, was opening a quarry on the left hand side of the road from Stamford to Great Casterton and that he took away a carved stone from part of the pinnacle and other pieces which he put in his Barnhill garden.  He says the cross ‘stood on a delicate eminence called Anemone Hill'. He also wrote to the Mercury quite soon after this, on December 26th 1745, reporting the discovery of the remains of a cross ‘on a grassy cliff on the left hand from Stamford to Brigcasterton'. 
                
                    In 1993 a fragment of Purbeck marble with a rose carved on one of its surfaces was found in the garden of Stukeley House, 9 Barn Hill, Stamford, the home in the 1740s of noted antiquary, William Stukeley. The appearance of this fragment accorded with a description of the upper shaft of the Stamford Eleanor Cross Stukeley claimed to have found in December 1745 on Anemone Hill (upper Casterton Road). Further research confirmed the fragment to be part of Stukeley's find and that he had almost certainly discovered the site of the Stamford Eleanor Cross. This discovery places the Stamford Eleanor Cross in the Foxdale area of Casterton Road, map reference TF01910758 +/- 20 m. and not at the junction of Empingham and Casterton Roads as previously thought.

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On 6th December 1290 and/or 7th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Geddington, Northamptonshire [Map].

On 8th December 1290 or 7th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Hardingstone, Northamptonshire.

On 9th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire [Map]. The cross here was built between 1291 and 1293 by John of Battle at a total recorded cost of over £100.

On 10th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Woburn, Bedfordshire. Work on the cross here started in 1292 and was complete in ealy 1293.

On 11th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Dunstable Priory [Map]. See Annals of Dunstable.

On 12th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at the Market Square, St Albans.

On 13th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire [Map].

On 14th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at the site of the Cheapside Cross [Map] where, thereafter, a Cross was constructed. The Cross, built at an original cost of £300, was one of the most elaborate of the twelve Eleanor Crosses.

On 15th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) body rested at Charing Cross [Map].

On 17th December 1290 Eleanor of Castile Queen Consort England (deceased) was buried at the Chapel of St Edward the Confessor, Westminster Abbey [Map].

                    Archaeologia Volume 29 Section XIII. On the Death of Eleanor of Castile (age 48), Consort of King Edward the First (age 50), and the Honours paid to her Memory. By the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A.
                
                    Read 11th March, 1841.
                
                    The Society has already published, in the third volume of the Vetusta Monumenta, engravings of the three Crosses which alone remain of the twelve that were erected by the King in memory of his Queen. An historical discourse is also there given on the circumstances under which these beautiful structures were erected, the work of Mr. Gough, assisted by Sir Henry Englefield. This discourse contains nearly everything which was then known on the subject, and has been the source from whence later accounts have been derived. What I now propose to do is to make some material additions to what was then known on the subject, and to correct some important misconceptions; and, in doing this, to make some small addition to the knowledge we possess concerning the arts and artists of the period, and particularly to assert for England, against Walpole and others, the claim of having produced by the hands of native artists most of the beautiful works of sculpture and architecture which are connected with the name and memory of this Queen.

Annals of Dunstable. In the same year, on the 5th day before the Kalends of December [27th November 1290], Eleanor (age 49), Queen of England and consort of the king, of Spanish descent, died, who had acquired many and excellent estates. Her body passed through us [Dunstable Priory [Map]], and she rested for one night. And two precious cloths, namely baudekins, were given to us. We received twenty-four pounds and more of wax.

Eodem anno, quinto kalendas Decembris, obit Elianora regina Angliæ et consors regis, Hyspana genere, quæ plura et optima maneria adquisivit. Corpus ipsius per nos transiit, et una nocte quievit. Et dati sunt nobis duo panni pretiosi, scilicet baudekyns. De cera habuimus quater-viginti libras et amplius.

Chronicle of Robert Fabyan [-1512]. In this. xx. yere, and begynnynge of the mayres yere, and also of y kynges. xx. yere, that is to meane upon the euyn of seynt Andrewe, or the. xxix. day of Nouembre [Note. Most sources say 28th November 1290; see Discussion in Archæologia 29], dyed quene Elyanore (age 49) the kynges wyfe, and was buryed at Westmynster, in the chapell of seynt Edwarde, at ye fete of Henry the thirde, [where she hathe, ii. wexe tapers brennynge upon her tumbe, both daye and nyglu, whiche so hath contynued syne the day of her buryinge to this present daye.] This geutyll waman, as before is towched in the. xxxviii. yere of kynge Henry the thirde, was suster unto the kyng of Spayne: by whom kynge Edwarde had. iiii. sones, that is to saye, lohn, Henry, Alphons, and Edwarde (age 6), whiche Edwarde succedyd his fader, by reason that the other, iii. dyed before theyr fader; also he had by her v. doughters: the firste, Elianore (age 21), was maryed unto Wyllyam [Henry] erle of Barre (age 31); the seconde, lohane of Acris (age 18), was maryed as before is sayd unto y erle of Glouceter (age 47); the thirde, Margarete (age 15), was maryed to the dukes sone of Braban (age 15); the iiii. Mary (age 11) by name, was made a menchon at Ambrysbury; and the v. named Ely/abeth (age 8), was maryed unto y erle of Holande (age 6); and after his deth she was maryed unto Humfrey Boherum erle of Hereforde (age 14).

                    Rymer's Fœdera Volume 1. Concerning praying for the soul of Eleanor, formerly Queen of England.
                
                    The king to the man of venerable religion, the abbot of Cluny, sincere greeting and love in Christ.
                
                    God, the maker and creator of all things, who by the deep counsels of heaven arranges, calls, directs, and recalls the creatures subject to His providence, has summoned from this present world, as it has pleased Him, our most serene consort Eleanor, formerly Queen of England, born of royal lineage, on the fourth day before the kalends of December [28th November 1290]. We announce this to you not without great bitterness of mind.
                
                    Therefore, since we do not cease to love our said consort, whom we dearly cherished while she lived, even after her death, and since it is considered a holy and beneficial work, according to the teaching of Holy Scripture, to pray for the dead that they may be released from the bonds of their sins…
                
                    We have judged that your fatherly charity should be stirred by our heartfelt prayers and more earnestly implored, so that, celebrating with all devotion the funeral rites of our said consort in solemn manner, you may specially commend her soul, by the chanting of masses and by the other ecclesiastical sacraments, to the living God, who takes away the spirit of princes; aiding her yourselves, and also causing her to be helpfully assisted by priors, monks, clerics, and others subject to you, through the suffrages of the sacraments, alms, and other works of charity. So that, if any stain not yet cleansed in her perhaps remains, whether through a failing of remembrance or in any other way, it may be wiped away by the helpful support of your prayers, according to the fullness of divine mercy.
                
                    We therefore ask that you take care to inform us by your letters about the number of masses and other suffrages which you shall have decreed to be offered for our aforesaid consort, so that from this we may be able to judge what kind and what measure of thanks we ought rightly to owe to your devotion for the foregoing.
                
                    Given at Ashridge, on the fourth day of January [1291].
                
                    De orando pro animo Alianoræ, quondam Regina Angliæ.
                
                    Rex venerandæ religionis viro, abbati Cluniacensi, salutem & dilectionem in CHRISTO Sinceram. 
                
                    DEUS omnium conditor & creator, qui cœlestis profunditate consilii ordinat, vocat, disponit, & revocat subjectas suæ providentiæ creaturas, serenissimam consortem nostram Alianoram, quondam Reginam Angliæ, ex regali ortam progenie, quarto kalend' Decembris de præsenti seculo, quod vobis non sine multâ mentis amaritudine nunciamus, sicut sibi placuit, evocavit.
                
                    Cùm itaque dictam consortem nostram, quam vivam carè dileximus, mortuam non desinamus amare, ac opus sanctum & salubre, juxta divinæ scripturæ sententiam, censeatur pro defunctis, ut à peccatorum solvantur nexibus, exorare; 
                
                    Paternam caritatem vestram affectuosis precibus duximus excitandam, & instantiùs implorandam, quatinus, ipsius consortis nostræ exequias, cum omni devotione solempniter celebrantes, animam ejus, cum decantatione missarum, & aliis ecclesiasticis sacramentis Deo vivo, qui aufert spiritum principum, specialiter commendetis, adjuvantes eandem, ac etiam facientes à prioribus, monachis, clericis & aliis, brevibus, subditis in sacramentorum suffragiis, elemosinis, cæterisque operibus caritatis salubriter adjuvari: ut, si quid maculæ, non purgatæ in ipsâ, forsan oblivionis defectu, vel alio modo, remansit, per utilia orationum vestrarum præsidia, juxta divinæ misericordiæ plenitudinem, abstergatur. 
                
                    Quæsumus igitur ut de missarum & aliorum suffragiorum hujus numero, quæ pro præfatâ consorte nostrâ decreveritis facienda, per vestras litteras nos curetis reddere certiores, ut ex hoc metiri possimus, ad quales quantasque grates & gratias, ob præmissa, devotioni vestræ teneri meritò debeamus.
                
                    Dat' apud Asherugg', quarto die Januarii.

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                    Archaeologia Volume 29 Section XIII. It appears from two circumstances that the Queen's (age 49) death took place in the evening. First her anniversary was celebrated on the eve of the feast of Saint Andrew, which according to the ordinary mode of calculation would be the 29th of November; while the King's letter to the Abbot of Clugni, published in the Foedera, which is by far the most authoritative evidence for the day of her death, states that she died on the 4th of the kalends of December, which would be the 28th of Novemberf; but if the ecclesiastical day is to be reckoned from evening to evening, then the eve of Saint Andrew would include the evening of the 28th. Secondly, there are writs tested on the 28th, as if public business was transacted on the morning of that day. Then public business for a time ceased. No writs are found tested on the 29th or 30th, or on the 1st day of December.
                
                    It may be worth observing how differently the precise day of the Queen's death is stated by different writers:
                
                    Matthew of Westminster and the Annals of Dunstable, 5 kal. Dec. November 27. Thomas Wikes, 4 kal. Dec. November 28.
                
                    Walsingham and Trivet, 4 id. Dec. December 10.
                
                    Holinshed, Saint Andrew's Even.
                
                    Stowe, November 28.
                
                    Gough in the Vetusta Monumenta, November 20.
                
                    This list of diseordances may serve to shew how errors will creep in, and how vain it is to expect the highest conceivable accuracy in the multitude of minute statements of historical writers. There is a general accuracy quite consistent with occasional slight deviations, and honest and honourable men know how to judge of them.

Archaeologia Volume 29 Section XIII. The corpse (age 49) was opened and embalmed. The heart was reserved to be deposited, probably at her own desire, in the church of the Friars Predicants in London. What else was removed was interred in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin in the Minster at Lincoln [Map]. Writs are found tested by the King (age 51) at Lincoln on the 2nd and 3rd of December. On the 5th they are tested at Casterton, which is on the road from Grantham to Stamford; on the 9th at Northampton; on the 13th at Saint Alban's and London. It is manifest, therefore, that the funeral procession, in which the King was personally present, must have set out very soon after the death. It would seem that the body was taken from Hardby to Lincoln, and that the procession set out from Lincoln on the morning of the 4th.

Annals of Oseney by Thomas Wykes. On the 4th before the Kalends of December [28th November 1290], Eleanor (age 49), Queen, wife of King Edward, after suffering from a mild fever, wasting away from the heat, and freed from her prison, paid the fatal debt of death. Her body was carried in stages and buried in London in Westminster Abbey, with the Bishop of Lincoln, on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, conducting the burial rites on the Sunday before the Feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle, that is, on the 16th of December. Indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to attend the funeral rites because, due to a certain dispute between him and the Abbot of the place, he had placed the latter under interdict. Also, another noteworthy event, not to be passed over in silence but rather to be perpetually remembered, occurred this year.

Quarto Kal. Decembris Alianora Regina Domini Regis Edwardi conjux apud Grantham modicæ febris igniculo contabescens, carcere resoluta, fatale mortis debitum solvit; corpus ejus per dietas delatum sepultum est London in Ecclesia Westmonsteriensi, Domino Lincoln vice Domini Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis exequente officium sepulturæ, Dominica proxima ante festum Sancti Thomæ Apostoli, viz. xvi. Kal. Januarii: quippe Dominus Cantuariensis noluit ipsis exequiis interesse, quia in quadam contentione inter ipsum & Abbatem loci supposuerat interdicto. Aliud quoque plerunque notabile non sub silentio prætereundum, sed potius perpetuæ commemorandum memoriæ contigit hoc anno.

Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough. In the same year, Queen Eleanor of England died [28th November 1290] and was honourably buried at Westminster in London. In her special memory, the king himself erected two very beautiful marble crosses in London, one at Charing and the other in Westcheap. On every Wednesday for an entire year, wherever the king happened to be, he ordered that a penny be distributed to each of the poor and to any others willing to receive it. At the end of that year, he assigned a fixed income to the monastery of Westminster under the condition that on the anniversary of her death, forever, a penny would be given to all who wished to receive it, along with a special religious service.

Eodem anno obiit regina Angliæ Alienora, et honorifice sepulta est apud Westmonasterium Londoniis; in cujus memoriam specialem ipse rex duas pulcherrimas cruces et marmoreas Londoniis erexit, unam apud Charryng et alteram in Westchepe; singulis diebusque Mercurii per annum continuum ad quemcunque locum se diverteret, universis pauperibus et aliis recipere volentibus singulis singulos denarios distribui fecit, et in fine anni certum assignavit reditum monasterio Westmonasterii, sub conditione tali, quod die obitus sui in perpetuum universis accipere volentibus singulos distribuant denarios cum servitio speciali.

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On Tuesday, December 12th [1290], the procession was met at St. Michael's, the entrance of the town, by the monks of the Abbey, clad in their copes, with their Abbot, John of Berkhamstead, only elected the Saturday before. The Queen's body was placed in the Abbey before the high altar, and the monks celebrated "divine offices and holy vigils " through the night.

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Effigy of Eleanor, Queen of Edward the First. ELEANOR, Queen of Edward the First, was the daughter of Ferdinand the Third, King of Castile, and only child of his second wife^a, Joan, daughter and heiress of John Earl of Ponthieu. She was married to him at Bures, in Spain, in 1254, and accompanied him to the Holy Land, where she is said to have preserved his life by sucking the poison out of a wound inflicted on him by the hand of an assassin. She bore him four sons and nine daughters, and died in attending him on an expedition towards Scotland, 27th November, 1290, at the house of Richard Weston, at Herdby, or Harby [Map], in the parish of North Clifton on the Trent, five miles from Lincoln. Her bowels were buried^a in Lincoln Cathedral [Map], and her body was conveyed for interment to the Abbey Church at Westminster. At every stage where it rested the King ordered a Cross to be placed. Fifteen are enumerated as having been erected in consequence. One at Herdby, whence the procession set out; and in the chapel of which place Edward also founded a chantry for her soul. The others at Lincoln, Newark [Map], Grantham [Map], Leicester [Map], Stamford [Map], Geddington [Map], Northampton, Stony Stratford [Map], Woburn, Dunstable [Map], St. Albans, Waltham, Cheapside (London), and at the village of Charing [Map], near the Minster where she was to be entombed. Herdby, Leicester, Woburn, and Cheap, are omitted by some authorities. These Crosses were adorned with statues of the Queen. Those at Geddington, Northampton, and Waltham are extant at this day. In gothic niches in the upper part have been female figures, very similar in style to that on her tomb; on the lower, shields charged with arms of England, Castile and León Arms, and Ponthieu Arms. Edward caused a monument to be erected to her memory near that of his father in the Confessor's Chapel, in Westminster Abbey, on which is placed her recumbent image of copper; and round the verge of the tomb the following inscription, in uncial letters:

ICY GYST ALIANOR IADIS REYNE DE ANGLETERRE, FEMME AL RE EDEWERD FtZ LE RE. OVNTIF DEL ALME DE LI DEV PVR SA PITE EYT MERCI. AMEN.

Sandford informs us that on a tablet of wood, hanging near her monument by an iron chain, were the following verses in Latin:

Nobilis Hispani jacet hie soror inclita regis, [A Spanish noblewoman lies here, the sister of a famous king]

Eximii consors Aleanora thori, [A great companion of Aleanora?]

Edwardi primi Wallorum principis uxor, [The wife of Edward the First, Prince of Wales]

Cui pater Henricus tertius Anglus erat; [His father, Henry the Third, was an Englishman]

Hanc illi uxorem gnato petit; online princeps [He asks her to marry him;? leader]

Legati munus suscipit ipse bono: [He himself undertakes the office of ambassador in good faith]Alphonso fratri placuit felix Hymeneus;

Germanam Edwardo nec sine dote dedit, [Not given to Edward without a dowry]

Dos preciara fuit nec tali indigna marito, [The gift was precious and not unworthy of such a husband]

Pontivo princeps munere dives erat; [? was rich in the role of prince]

Feminaconsilio prudens, pia, proie beata, [A prudent, pious, blessed woman]

Auxit amicitiis, auxit honore virum: [Who increased friendships, increasing the honor of his husband]

Disce niori. [Learn more]

Note a. In a tomb bearing her effigy of brass gilt, similar to that in Westminster Abbey, but destroyed in the Civil wars. On it was the following inscription:

HIC * SVNT * SEPVLTA * VICERA * ALIANORE * QVONDAM * REGINE * VXORIS * REGIS * EDVARDI * FILII * REGIS * HENRICI * CVIVS * ANIME * PROPICTETVR * DEVS * AMEN * PATER * NOSTER *

[Here in this sepulchre are buried the viscera of Queen Eleanor wife of King Edward I son of King Henry whose soul we give to God Amen Our Father]