Royal Marriage Secrets Read online

  Robert’s son, William the Conqueror, married his wife, Matilda of Flanders, before he became King of England, but the precise date of their marriage is a matter of interpretation. Negotiations for their union took place in 1049, but in October of that year, at the Council of Rheims, Pope Leo IX forbade the marriage contract. The wedding went ahead, nevertheless, in defiance of papal authority, in the early 1050s – probably in 1053. However, it was not until 1059 that papal approval for the marriage was finally granted. Thus the first five children of William and Matilda – including the future King William II – were all born in a kind of matrimonial limbo.

  Their third son, the future King Henry I, was more fortunate than his elder brothers, Robert, Duke of Normandy and King William II. Henry’s birth date of 1068 means that his parents were undoubtedly married by the time he was conceived. Following the childless death of his brother, William II, Henry seized control of the English royal treasury and assumed the Crown. At that time he was still unmarried, and one of his first priorities once he became king was to find a suitable consort. He chose Matilda (also known as Edith) of Scotland – a descendant of the pre-Norman English royal house of Wessex. By this means he strengthened his claim to the English throne. But this marriage also ran into some initial problems, for it was claimed that Matilda (Edith) was a nun, and thus unable to marry. The case was carefully investigated by the ecclesiastical authorities, but they finally concluded (as she herself had already stated categorically) that Matilda (Edith) had never taken vows as a nun, and that therefore the couple was free to marry. The marriage was celebrated at Westminster Abbey on 11 November 1100, by Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury, the wedding being followed by Matilda’s coronation as queen consort. The wedding probably took place outside the west door, after which the couple would have processed into the church for the new queen’s coronation.

  The questions raised about the marriages of William I and Henry I are instructive. Both cases clearly show that the authority to judge the validity of the marriage rested entirely in the hands of the Church. And at this period ‘the Church’ in western Europe meant the Catholic Church, for there was then no other Church in existence in Europe apart from the Orthodox Church in the east.1

  As we have seen, for the Catholic Church marriage was (and is) a sacrament. It is a union which reflects the oneness between God and his Church. At this early period marriage was not a civil contract, and the secular authorities had no jurisdiction whatever in matters of matrimonial dispute. The only legal element associated with matrimony was not the marriage contract itself but, in the case of families which owned property, peripheral issues relating to such matters as the bride’s dowry and jointure.2

  Since no mass media existed at this early period, the only ‘public opinion’ which could express itself about a royal marriage comprised the very limited views of the court or the immediate entourage of the royal couple. Thus the context of a royal marriage was very different a thousand years ago than it is today. Although in the modern age the Church (nowadays, in England, the Anglican Church) may still play some role in deciding contentious issues affecting royal marriage – as it did, for example, in the case of the marriage of HRH the Prince of Wales to Camilla Shand – the Church is no longer the sole authority. Both the law of the State and public opinion have become its powerful rivals.

  Incidentally, the historical situation raises, perhaps, the interesting question of whether the civil authorities really need to have any involvement or jurisdiction in marriage, even today. For except in so far as it concerns ownership of property, care of children, and shared financial rights and obligations, marriage is arguably a purely private affair between two individuals: a matter in which government interference is neither required nor appropriate!

  Following the unfortunate death of their son, William,3 the only surviving legitimate heir of Henry I and Matilda (Edith) of Scotland was a daughter, also called Matilda. Although she eventually secured control of the duchy of Normandy, Matilda was never crowned Queen of England, and spent the whole of her ‘reign’ involved in a civil war against her cousin, Stephen. In her struggle for the throne, Matilda was ably assisted and supported by her illegitimate half-brother, Robert, Earl of Gloucester.

  The existence of this powerful bastard half-brother reminds us of another significant aspect of the royal matrimonial situation – the fact that kings not infrequently had extra-marital relationships and illegitimate children. These irregular partnerships, and the families which sometimes resulted from them, are an important part of the context within which the phenomenon of disputed and questionable royal marriages must be understood. We shall explore the history of royal mistresses more fully in Chapter 5.

  Henry I’s daughter, Matilda, married twice. Her first marriage, at the age of 11, was to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, and took place in Mainz on 7 January 1114. Matilda may have borne a son to the emperor, but if so the boy died very young, and Emperor Henry V himself died on 23 May 1125, leaving Matilda a childless widow. She then returned to her father’s court in England. Henry I subsequently arranged a second marriage for her, with Geoffrey Plantagenet, the future Count of Anjou. The wedding between the 26-year-old Matilda and the 14-year-old Geoffrey took place in Rouen, on 17 June 1128. It was a troubled union – not surprisingly, perhaps, given the age gap between the couple – but it did produce three sons, the eldest of whom, Henry, known as ‘Fitzempress’ (born at Le Mans on 5 March 1133), ultimately succeeded to the English Crown as Henry II.4

  Henry Fitzempress married at the age of 19. It was the death of his father, the Count of Anjou, in 1151, which seems to have encouraged him to give serious thought to his own marriage, and to the provision of heirs. His eyes were focused upon Eleanor of Aquitaine. Unfortunately, at that time Eleanor was Queen of France, having married King Louis VII at Bordeaux Cathedral on 25 July 1137. The marriage of Eleanor and Louis had not proved a success, however, despite considerable early enthusiasm on the part of the bridegroom. The marriage had failed to produce any male heirs and the couple had gradually drifted apart.5 Eleanor herself had sought to have the marriage annulled by the pope, initially without success. But an annulment was finally granted on 11 March 1152, on the grounds of consanguinity (the couple being related in the fourth degree). Interestingly the annulment specifically declared that the daughters of the marriage were legitimate, and custody of these little girls was granted to their father.

  Eight weeks after the annulment, on 18 May 1152, Henry Fitzempress married Eleanor of Aquitaine. Their wedding was private, and without ceremony. Ironically, Eleanor was more closely related to Henry than she had been to Louis VII, so the validity of the new marriage could easily have been questioned. It certainly caused ill feeling and conflict between Henry and King Louis!

  On 25 October 1154, Eleanor’s new husband succeeded to the English throne, making Eleanor a queen for the second time. Her coronation as Queen of England, on 19 December 1154, made up for her quiet and private wedding to Henry. The couple eventually had a total of eight children, including five sons, but Henry was by no means faithful to Eleanor, and their marriage was tumultuous. After major conflicts, Henry II would ultimately find it necessary to imprison his wife.

  The next English king, Richard I, was only the third son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine (see Family Tree 2), and he was not at first expected to succeed to the throne.6 The heir in England should have been his elder brother, Henry, ‘the young king’. On 2 November 1160 the young Henry was married to Margaret, one of the daughters of Louis VII of France by his second wife. At this time the plan was that Richard would marry one of the daughters of Count Ramon Berengar IV of Barcelona. However, that marriage never took place and subsequently Richard was betrothed to Alys of France, another daughter of Louis VII. However, this second proposed marriage also never took place, having been ruled out chiefly by the fact that Richard’s father, Henry II, reputedly took Alys as his mistress, thereby creating a problem of consanguinity (among
other things!)

  Meanwhile, however, ‘the young king’ Henry died childless in 1183, moving Richard up in the order of succession, with the ultimate result that when his father died at Chinon on 6 July 1189, it was Richard who succeeded Henry II as King of England. Richard spent little time in his new kingdom, but while in Cyprus he finally married, his chosen bride being not Alys of France (to whom he was still officially betrothed) but Berengaria of Navarre. The wedding was a grand occasion, with great public celebrations. As part of the ceremonial following the wedding itself, Richard was crowned King of Cyprus, while his bride was crowned Queen of Cyprus and England.

  Curiously, Richard seems to have had little hope or expectation of producing a son with his new bride, for while he was in Cyprus he also formally recognised his nephew, Arthur of Brittany (son of Richard’s deceased younger brother, Geoffrey) as heir to the English throne. Perhaps this measure was some kind of tacit admission of Richard’s sexual predilections (see above).7 At all events, no children were ever born to the royal couple, despite the fact that Berengaria subsequently accompanied Richard throughout his crusade. In fact she never visited England until after her husband’s death, because Richard himself spent so little time in his northern kingdom, which he reportedly characterised as cold and wet.

  Prince John, the youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, married much earlier than his brother Richard. On 28 September 1176 he wedded his cousin, Isabel of Gloucester, at Marlborough Castle, Wiltshire.8 However, this marriage fell within the prohibited degrees of kinship, and no papal dispensation for it had been granted, so it was declared null and void by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who placed the lands of the couple under interdict. Subsequently the pope did grant a dispensation permitting the marriage – but only on the rather curious condition that the couple refrain from sexual intercourse. Not surprisingly, perhaps, when he ascended the throne, King John therefore chose to have the marriage formally annulled by three French bishops. A year later he married the beautiful 12-year-old Isabelle of Angoulême. This second marriage was celebrated in Bordeaux, after which Isabelle of Angoulême was given a splendid coronation at Westminster. After King John died, in 1216, Isabelle married again. Her second husband was Hugh de Lusignan. Isabelle married Hugh without waiting for the necessary permission of the royal council. As a result her lands were confiscated and her pension stopped for a time, until eventually an agreement was reached with the royal council.

  King John had succeeded to the English Crown in April 1199, on the death of his brother Richard. Actually, as we saw earlier, in Cyprus, Richard had formally acknowledged as his heir his nephew, Prince Arthur, Duke of Brittany. Arthur (born 1187, died 1203?) was the posthumous son of Richard’s younger (and John’s elder) brother, Geoffrey (died 1186). However, on his deathbed Richard apparently decided that Arthur was too young for the responsibility of the English Crown, and he set the boy aside in favour of his own youngest brother, John.

  John subsequently seized Arthur, and the boy disappeared mysteriously while he was in his uncle’s custody. It is said that John, inflamed by strong drink and by the haughty attitude of his nephew, murdered the lad with his own hands. There are several contemporary sources for Arthur’s murder – but they give different accounts. They are the Margam Annals (from Margam Abbey, Wales), the Chronicon Anglicanum of Ralph of Coggeshall, and the Gesta of William the Breton. The Margam Annals give the following version:

  After King John had captured Arthur and kept him alive in prison for some time, at length, in the castle of Rouen, after dinner on the Thursday before Easter, when he was drunk and possessed by the devil, he slew him with his own hand, and tying a heavy stone to the body cast it into the Seine. It was discovered by a fisherman in his net, and being dragged to the bank and recognized, was taken for secret burial, in fear of the tyrant, to the priory of Bec called Notre Dame de Pres.9

  A medieval Breton folk song about the murder tells a similar story:

  Arthur Plantagenest

  To the Englysshe kynge yclept Lackelande

  Haþ Arþure ynto ambusshe yfallen.

  Yslayn bye þe Englysshe kynges sworde

  Is Arþur ynto the Seyne ycasten.

  Alas! Alas! Playe ye Mvsickers,

  All Brettanie is mvrnynge hedaye

  ffor here ydrouned Prynssë

  Arþure, in hys sixtenþe yere off lyffue.

  Þe Seyne is redde wiþ hys blvde.

  Soe maye Gvde damne warre.10

  Arthur’s elder sister, Eleanor, was undoubtedly kept in prison for her entire life at Corfe Castle, Dorset. This unfortunate princess, whose claim to the English throne was arguably better than that of King John and his descendants, finally died at Corfe in 1241.

  John’s own son and heir by Isabelle of Angoulême was Henry III, who came to the English throne on the death of his father. It was twenty years before Henry took a wife, Eleanor of Provence, in January 1236. The marriage was celebrated at Canterbury Cathedral – but probably not inside the church, rather at the great west door. We must remember that it was not the norm at this period for marriages to be celebrated inside churches.11 The chronicler and artist, Matthew Paris (c.1200–59), Benedictine monk of St Alban’s Abbey, has left us a representation of this royal wedding, which shows only the bride and groom (see Plate 1).12 Eleanor is wearing a crown but no wedding veil (see above), and Henry is giving her a wedding ring. He appears to be touching the ring to the index finger of Eleanor’s right hand. Presumably he is enacting the traditional ceremony which was described earlier, whereby the ring is touched to the fingertips as the groom says ‘In the name of the Father/and of the Son/and of the Holy Spirit/Amen’. The ring is touched in turn to the tip of the thumb, the index finger, and the middle finger as the three persons of the Trinity are named. Finally it is slid onto the fourth (ring) finger at the word ‘Amen’.13

  Eleanor’s wedding ring seems to have been a plain circle of gold, similar to a modern wedding ring. This may have been the normal kind of ring for weddings of royalty and members of the aristocracy. However, later in the Middle Ages fede (‘faith’) rings, showing hands clasping one another, seem to have been popular, and it is thought that these may have been used for weddings or betrothals. Fede rings were often made of silver gilt, or plain silver, and solid gold can hardly have been in normal use for all social classes. Economic factors will have militated against this, and later there were also legal restrictions upon the wearing of gold,14 though it is known that the sumptuary laws were not always rigorously enforced in England.

  At Henry and Eleanor’s wedding there appears to have been no wedding ring for the bridegroom. Only a single ring for the bride is depicted.15 It is also interesting that the ring is being placed on the right hand. This is still the practice in some countries, and it was the traditional Catholic practice in England until the eighteenth century. However, the norm in England today is for a wedding ring to be worn on the left hand.

  Henry and Eleanor’s eldest son, Edward [I], then aged 14, married his first wife, the Infanta Eleanor of Castile, on 1 November 1254 at the Abbey Church of Santa María la Real de las Huelgas in Castile.16 This marriage seems to have been very successful and happy, and it lasted for thirty-six years. But Eleanor died in 1290, and at the age of 60 the widowed Edward married for the second time, his second wife being Margaret of France, the 17-year-old daughter of King Philip III. Edward’s second marriage, like that of his parents, was celebrated at Canterbury Cathedral. It took place on 8 September 1299.

  It was Edward I’s son and heir by his first wife, Eleanor, who ultimately succeeded to the throne as Edward II. Edward II and his bride, Isabelle of France, were married on 25 January 1308 at the pilgrimage church of Notre Dame, Boulogne-sur-Mer. This church, dating from 1100, housed the shrine and miraculous image of Our Lady of the Sea.17 The marriage was not a happy one. Edward was reputed to have male lovers (including Piers Gaveston, and later Hugh Despenser). Perhaps not surprisingly, Isabelle did likewise, h
er lover being Roger Mortimer. In the end Isabelle and Mortimer deposed and imprisoned Edward II, who is reputed to have been murdered in a particularly gruesome manner.

  The new king, Edward III, was only a boy when he succeeded his deposed father. Plans for his marriage to Philippa of Hainaut began in 1323, when the Bishop of Exeter visited Hainaut to broker this match. Edward was first married to Philippa by proxy in Valenciennes (the second most important city in the county of Hainaut) in October 1327. The Bishop of Coventry acted as Edward’s proxy on that occasion.18 The marriage was ceremonially re-enacted – this time with both partners present – at York Minster on 24 January 1328.

  The subsequent marriages of Edward III’s children show changes from the royal marriage pattern which we have traced so far. We shall consider these changes – and most particularly the marital histories of the eldest son, and heir to the throne, Edward, the Black Prince, and of his younger brother, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, in Chapter 7. The general history of royal marriages from the fifteenth century onwards will then be considered progressively, as the background and context for the disputed royal marriages which comprise our main theme.

  Meanwhile, let us briefly summarise the picture of English royal marriage practice that has emerged so far. Of the thirteen post-Conquest royal marriages we have considered, the majority (nine) were celebrated in public, and in some cases it is recorded that they were celebrated with considerable pomp.