For the love of a Queen
Dene Bebbington looks back at the life of King Edward I’s beloved wife and Queen of England, Eleanor of Castile, who died on a journey to Lincoln.
In England you’ll find statues of various ancient and modern monarchs. Perhaps none was so beloved by her king and deeply mourned after her death than Eleanor of Castile, who married King Edward I becoming queen in the late 13th century. Despite her resting place being in the capital’s Westminster Abbey, she has a notable connection to Lincolnshire.
On what would have been a long and arduous journey at that time, the king and queen, along with their entourage, set off from Nottinghamshire planning to meet Scottish nobles over the border. Their route initially took them east to Lincoln, but a looming winter promised cold and wet weather. Worse still, possible floods necessitating detours and further delays made November 1290 a bad time to embark on travels far north. Eleanor soon sickened from a fever, something that had happened to her before and wasn’t an immediate cause for worry.
The caravan’s progress slowed when Eleanor’s bouts of fever worsened. Because her health deteriorated quickly, they only made it to Harby, a few miles from Lincoln – close to the modern county border. Without medical treatments that we take for granted, both she and Edward knew death’s grip was imminent. Aware of this finality, they sent a messenger to fetch Oliver Sutton, Bishop of Lincoln, for him to come and administer the last rites.
Eleanor didn’t pass away peacefully. Troubled about what awaited her on the other side of mortality, she prayed for a mercifully short spell in purgatory before ascending to heaven. Yet, in life, this queen had a mixed reputation.
While showing a pleasant face to her family and as a supporter of literature, crafts and garden design, she also had a temper, possessed political nous and engaged in financial dealings which caused antipathy in some quarters. Her final moments were presumably a mental and physical shock when, looking terrified, she gasped her last breath.
Losing Eleanor devastated Edward who, after a period of intense prayer and sorrow, decided that she’d live on not just in his heart, but would be uniquely remembered across parts of England.
Her body was sent to St Katherine’s Priory in Lincoln to be embalmed by nuns before it could be taken to Westminster Abbey for burial. The cortege’s first stop on this unexpected and sombre journey was the Greyfriars Franciscan Friary at Grantham. Respectful commoners saw them and news of the queen’s death spread. Poor ordinary folk may have been surprised and impressed by the king choosing to walk rather than ride horseback, to avoid sore feet as endured by others in the party.
Eleanor’s monuments
Stopping points on the route back to London later hosted the Eleanor crosses. King Edward, subsumed in grief and prayer for his deceased wife and queen, wanted her to be publicly venerated, even by future generations. Inspiration for the crosses came from his French uncle, King Louis IX, whose funeral cortege passed through places later memorialised by stone markers known as montjoies.
Eleanor’s monuments were to be very special, standing out to locals and travellers alike.
Of 12 crosses erected, three of them were in Lincolnshire: at Lincoln, Grantham and Stamford. Standing about 50ft high, they would be dwarfed only by churches, castles and other grand buildings. An expensive project, it spanned several years until completion, with construction of the first crosses, including Lincoln’s, beginning in 1291.
Mounted on a stepped plinth, these ornate structures were carved to high standards by master stonemasons following a general design specified by the king. Although not all 12 were exactly the same, most rose up in four tiers.
The lower tier depicted figures, above which were Queen Eleanor’s coat of arms and other heraldic shields inset in a window shape. Above that open sections held statues of Eleanor. The third tier is a noticeably narrower and plainer version of the bottom section. The fourth tier is narrower still containing smaller statues of the queen. Finally, that’s topped by a small spire section on which a decorative cross is mounted.
Unfortunately, none of Lincolnshire’s crosses survived more than a few centuries. Lincoln’s, built by Richard of Stow and located at Swine Green by St Katherine’s Priory, fell victim to the destructive English Civil War of the mid-17th century. But around 200 years later, part of an Eleanor statue was found and rescued to be preserved in Lincoln Castle’s grounds.
Enduring love
Grantham’s cross is thought to have been built a couple of years after Lincoln’s, and sited at St Peter’s Hill. It too got torn down during the civil war. The town hasn’t forgotten Eleanor; a modern stone plaque on the Guildhall’s wall has carvings of both her and Edward.
About 20 miles south, Stamford’s cross fared little better than its northerly neighbours’ did.
Apparently situated on the Great North Road, according to antiquarian Richard Symonds writing in 1645, ‘In the hill before ye into the towne stands a lofty large crosse, built by Edward I in memory of Elianor his queene, 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.’
Writing a hundred years later, antiquarian William Stukeley believed that Stamford’s cross had stood on the Casterton Road when he unearthed a base of six or eight sides. Residents in recent centuries probably didn’t know much about the town’s original cross, but a monument erected in 2009 at the Sheep Market is a new remembrance. Less elaborately shaped and carved then the original, it is made from stone tapering to a point like a large needle. Stone benches placed around it offer passers-by a chance to rest and contemplate its purpose.
Though none of Lincolnshire’s crosses survived to remind the county of Edward’s devotion to his wife, thankfully, a fragment was recovered. A bigger reminder of the queen can be found in the city’s cathedral, where a tomb in which her viscera, apart from the heart, were buried is topped by an effigy of her wearing a crown and lying in repose, head resting on cushions.
Whether or not we’d consider the Eleanor Crosses to be an ostentatious project, they remind us of the distant past and a king’s enduring love for his queen.
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