In the Middle Ages, when both England and France were ruled by personal monarchy, the king’s (and they were all kings) personality, preferences and relationships had a significant influence on political decisions, as the historian Catherine Hanley shows in her new book, Two Houses, Two Kingdoms.
In January of the year 1200, a woman in her late 70s made an arduous journey. She travelled southwards through France, braved the bitter winter weather to cross the snowy Pyrenees, passed through Navarre and then entered the kingdom of Castile.
When she reached the Castilian capital of Burgos she was finally able to rest, enjoying a joyful reunion with the daughter she had not seen for 30 years and meeting her grandchildren for the first time.
The traveller was Eleanor of Aquitaine, who had undertaken the journey on behalf of her only surviving son, John, king of England.
He was involved in negotiations with Philip Augustus of France, following a period of conflict, and the peace treaty was to be sealed by a marriage between the two royal houses.
This was by no means the first such arrangement made between members of the rival dynasties, and nor would it be the last, but it was a profound personal event for the two young people involved that would have far-reaching political consequences.
The identity of the proposed groom was already known: he was Louis, the 12-year-old son and heir of Philip Augustus. But John had no children to put forward and thus needed to look further afield for the bride whose fate was to be a symbol of peace; his gaze turned to his only surviving sister, Leonor, who was the queen of Castile and who had five daughters.
Officially, to fulfil the terms of the treaty, any of them would have done. But the chosen girl would have a hard path ahead of her – she would one day be the queen of France and she would be expected to play a diplomatic and mediating role between the dynasty of her birth and the family she had married into.
Proper thought therefore needed to be given to the selection of the best candidate, and Eleanor (who knew a thing or two about being a queen and the duties the role entailed) agreed to interview the girls in person.
Eleanor had, of course, been separated from all her own daughters when they were very young; she had not seen Leonor since the girl had been sent away as an eight-year-old bride back in 1170. The idea of a reunion therefore probably appealed, and might even have been the primary reason for Eleanor agreeing to undertake the commission.
After several weeks in Burgos and following careful deliberation Eleanor selected the 11-year-old Blanca, Leonor’s third daughter, as the bride and future queen.
The child was notified of her fate, told to bid farewell to her parents and siblings, and incidentally informed that she would henceforward be known as Blanche, the French version of her name.
Then she set off with her grandmother on the long journey into the unknown, to a realm she had never visited and a husband she had never met.
We do not know what Eleanor and Blanche spoke of while they watched the miles pass slowly by, but it surely involved a great deal of good advice, and Blanche would go on to be one of medieval Europe’s great queens, eventually ruling France herself for many years as its regent.
This is just one example of how the personal could influence the political at this time. In the 12th and 13th centuries both England and France were subject to personal monarchy – that is, the king was in charge of his realm and took his own decisions concerning it, rather than working in tandem with a government.
This meant that the king’s personality and character, his likes and dislikes, and the relationships he had with those around him all had a significant influence on the way the kingdom was run and on the lives of the millions of people who lived within it.
When we write about history, it is sometimes tempting to believe that the way events turned out was the way they were always meant to happen.
But this is not the case: we need to remember that we are studying real people living through uncertain times, and it was their actions in response to those uncertain times that formed the past we read and write about now.
The vagaries of infertility, child mortality, illness, accident or simple personal dislike could upset even the best-laid plans, and the way in which people reacted to unexpected events could turn fate, and history, in a completely new direction.
How a king dealt with the tragedy of his son and heir drowning in a ship or being killed by a pig in the streets of Paris – and both of these actually happened in the 12th century, a mere decade apart – could have an enormous effect on the future of his realm.
The kingdoms of France and England in the 12th and 13th centuries are filled with many such personal stories, as the royal houses waged war, made peace and intermarried (sometimes all at the same time!)
If Eleanor of Aquitaine had not decided that she would like to see her long-lost daughter again, and had not travelled to Castile and chosen Blanche as the girl to fulfil the terms of the Anglo-French peace treaty, the history of the two kingdoms could have been completely different.
And that also holds true for a myriad other random chances or seemingly inconsequential personal decisions made over the years: what if Philip Augustus had died of his illness as a young man in the Holy Land instead of surviving to fight against the English royal house?
What if Richard the Lionheart had never decided to besiege that minor castle, what if King John had never taken another man’s affianced bride?
What if Eleanor of Aquitaine had never wanted to marry Henry II?
History is the study of sources, of documents, of evidence… but it is also the study of people, and their individual stories can help us understand a great deal about the past.
Two Houses, Two Kingdoms: A History of France and England, 1100-1300 by Catherine Hanley is published on 12 July, 2022.
It’s a history of the relationship between France and England from 1100 to 1300, told through the stories of the people involved. Read more about this book.
Catherine also writes the Edwin Weaver Mediaeval Mysteries series of historical novels as CB Hanley.
She has written several other features for Historia, including:
Matilda: The greatest king England never had
England’s First Great Naval Victory, when William Marshal defeated Blanche’s husband, Prince Louis of France
The Battle That Saved England, in which Nicola de la Haye resisted Louis
England’s Forgotten King, about Louis’s attempt to be King of England
Magna Carta
Read her Historia interview
You may also enjoy:
Magna Carta’s inspirational women by Sharon Bennett Connolly
To have and to hold: pawns in the medieval marriage game by Anne O’Brien
Lost and found: remembering William Marshal, the Greatest Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick
The Normans: conquest through adaptation and The Other Conquest – 850th anniversary of the Norman invasion of Ireland by Ruadh Butler
Images:
- Blanche of Castile with her son Louis IX (for whom she acted as regent) from the Toledo Moralized Bible of St Louis, c1230: Levan Ramishvili for Flickr (public domain)
- Effigy of Eleanor of Aquitaine at Fontevraud Abbey: Adam Bishop for Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0
- Leonor (Alienore), queen of Castile, from the Genealogical chronicle of the English Kings (BL Royal MS 14 B V): Wikimedia (public domain)
- Coronation of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile at Reims in 1223, miniature from the Grandes Chroniques de France, Jean Fouquet, c1455–1460: Bibliothèque Nationale de France via Wikimedia (public domain)
- Blanche with her newborn son, the future Louis IX (St Louis), miniature from the Grandes Chroniques de France: Library of Congress
- Louis IX of France and his mentor near the feet of his mother Blanche of Castile, miniature by Jean Le Noir from the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre, 1336–40: Levan Ramishvili for Flickr (public domain)
