ELEANOR OF PROVENCE,

SURNAMED LA BELLE,

QUEEN OF HENRY III.

ELEANOR of Provence was perhaps the most unpopular queen that ever presided over the court of England. She was unfortunately called to share the crown and royal dignity of a feeble-minded sovereign, at an earlier age than any of her predecessors; for, at the time of her marriage with king Henry, she had scarcely completed her fourteenth year, a period of life when her education was imperfect, her judgment unformed, and her character precisely that of a spoiled child, of precocious beauty and genius-perilous gifts! which in her case served but to foster vanity and self-sufficiency.

From her accomplished parents the youthful Eleanor inherited both a natural taste, and a practical talent for poetry, which the very air she breathed tended to foster and encourage. Almost before she entered her teens, she had composed an heroic poem in her native Provençal tongue.

This work is still in existence, and is to be found in MS., in the royal library at Turin. The composition of this romance was the primary cause, to which the princess, or (as she was then styled) the infanta of Provence, owed her elevation to the crown-matrimonial of England. Her father's major-domo and confidant, Romeo, was the person to

whose able management count Berenger was indebted for his success in matching his portionless daughters, with the principal potentates of Europe. No doubt, to Romeo's sagacious advice the following steps taken by young Eleanor may be attributed.

She sent to Richard, earl of Cornwall, Henry the Third's brother, a fine Provençal romance of her own inditing, on the adventures of Blandin of Cornwall, and Guillaume of Miremas, his companion, who undertook great perils for the love of the princess Briende and her sister Irlonde (probably Britain and Ireland), dames of incomparable beauty.

Richard of Cornwall, to whom the young infanta sent, by way of a courtly compliment, a poem so appropriately furnished with a paladin of Cornwall for a hero, was then at Poitou, preparing for a crusade, in which he hoped to emulate his royal uncle and namesake, Richard I. He was highly flattered by the attention of the young princess, who was so celebrated for her personal charms that she was called Eleanor la Belle; but as it was out of his power to testify his grateful sense of the honor, by offering his hand and heart to the royal Provençal beauty in return for her romantic rhymes, he being already the husband of one good lady (the daughter of the great earl protector Pembroke) he obligingly recommended her to his brother Henry III. for a queen.

Henry discreetly made choice of three sober priests, for his procurators at the court of count Berenger. The bishops of Ely and Lincoln, and the prior of Hurle; to these were added the master of the Temple. Though Henry's age more than doubled that of the fair maid of Provence, of whose charms and accomplishments he had received such favorable reports, and he was aware that the poverty of the generous count her father was almost proverbial, yet the king's constitutional covetousness impelled him to demand the enormous portion of twenty thousand marks, with this fairest flower of the land of roses and sweet song.

Count Berenger, in reply, objected on the part of his daughter, to the very inadequate dower Henry would be able to settle upon her during the life of his mother queen Isabella. Henry, on this, proceeded to lower his demands from one sum to another, till finding that the im

poverished but high-spirited Provençal count was inclined to resent his sordid manner of bargaining for the nuptial portion, and being seriously alarmed lest he should lose the lady, he in a great fright wrote to his ambassadors, "to conclude the marriage forthwith, either with money or without, but at all events to secure the lady for him, and conduct her safely to England without delay."

The contract was then joyfully signed by count Berenger, and the infanta Eleanor was delivered, with all due solemnity, to the ambas sadors.

When the royal bride commenced her journey to England, she was attended on her progress by all the chivalry and beauty of the south of France, a stately train of nobles, ladies, minstrels, and jongleurs, with crow's of humble followers. She embarked for England, landed at Dover, and, on the 4th of January, 1236, was married to King Henry III. at Canterbury, by the archbishop, St. Edmund of Canterbury.

The most sumptuous and splendid garments ever seen in England were worn at the coronation of the young queen of Henry III. The peaceful and vigorous administration of Pembroke and Hubert de Burgh had filled England with wealth and luxury, drawn from their commerce with the south of France. The citizens of London wore at this splendid ceremony garments called cyclades, a sort of upper robe, made not only of silk, but of velvet worked with gold. Henry III., who was, like his father, the greatest fop in his dominions, did not, like king John, confine the orders of his wardrobe rolls to the adornment of his own person; but liberally issued benefactions of satin, velvet, cloth of gold, and ermine, for the appareling of his royal ladies. No homely dress of green cloth was ordered for the attire of his lovely queen; but when a mantle lined with ermine was made by his tailors for himself, another as rich was given out for Eleanor.

The elegant fashion of chaplets of gold and jewels, worn over the hair, was adopted by this queen, whose jewelry was of a magnificent order, and is supposed to have cost her doting husband nearly £30,000; an enormous sum if reckoned according to the value of our money. Eleanor had no less than nine guirlands, or chaplets, for her hair, formed of gold filagree and clusters of colored precious stones. For state occasions she had a great crown, most glorious with gems, worth £150C

at that era; her girdles were worth 5000 marks; and the coronation present given by her sister, queen Marguerite of France, was a large silver peacock, whose train was set with sapphires and pearls, and other precious stones, wrought with silver. This elegant piece of jewelry was used as a reservoir for sweet waters, which were forced out of its beak, into a basin of silver chased.

Henry did not forget his own apparel, when he endowed his queen so richly with jewels; he was noted as the first prince who wore the costly material called baudekins, and, arrayed in a garment of this brilliant tissue of gold, he sat upon his throne, and "glittered very gloriously," when his young and lovely queen shared his third coronation.

The expenses of Eleanor's coronation were enormous. So great was the outlay beyond the king's resources, that Henry expended the portion of his sister Isabella, just married to the emperor of Germany, for the purpose of defraying them.

In the fourth year of her marriage Eleanor brought an heir to England. The young prince was born on the 16th of June, 1239, at Westminster, and received the popular name of Edward, in honor of Edward the Confessor; for whose memory Henry III. cherished the deepest veneration.

One great cause of the queen's unpopularity in London, originated from the unprincipled manner in which she exercised her influence to compel all vessels freighted with corn, wool, or any peculiarly valuable cargo, to unlade their cargoes at her hithe, or quay, called Queenhithe ; because at that port (the dues of which formed a part of the revenues of the queen-consorts of England), the tolls were paid according to the value of the lading. This arbitrary mode of proceeding was without parallel on the part of her predecessors, and was considered as a serious grievance, by the masters of vessels, and merchants in general. At last Eleanor, for a certain sum of money, sold her rights in this quay to her brother-in-law, Richard, earl of Cornwall, who for a quit-rent of fifty pounds per annum, let it as a fee-farm to John Gisors, the mayor of London, for the sake of putting an end to the perpetual disputes, between the merchants of London and the queen.

Ladies' head-dresses were singularly elegant, in the youth and middle of this beautiful queen. The hair was gathered up under a golden

network, over which was thrown the veil, or coverchef. Those women who ventured to walk in the street with only the caul, garland, and bandeaus, without the sheltering veil or coverchef, were deemed improper characters, and liable to insult. The unmarried females wore their hair flowing in ringlets on the shoulders, or, if their tresses were very long and luxuriant, braided in two tails, and tied with ribbons, or a knot of gems, at the ends. The veil, surmounted with a bandeau, was assumed when they rode or walked in the open air. The queen is sometimes represented with the homely gorget or wimple, in illuminations of that time. The gorget fashion imitated, in cambric or lawn, the knight's helmet, with an aperture, cut like the vizor, for the face to peep through; and very lovely that face must have been which did not look ugly through so hideous an envelope.

When Henry III. appointed Eleanor regent of England, he left the great seal in her custody, but enclosed in its casket, sealed with the impression of his own privy seal, and with the signets of his brother, Richard earl of Cornwall, and others of his council. It was only to be opened on occasions of extreme urgency.

No sooner had queen Eleanor got the reins of empire in her own hands, unrestrained by the counterbalancing power of the great earl of Leicester, who had volunteered his services to king Henry against the insurgent Gascons, than she proceeded to play the sovereign in a more despotic manner, in one instance at least, than had ever been attempted by the mightiest monarch of the Norman line.

The arbitrary proceedings of the queen-regent were regarded with indignant astonishment by a city governed by laws peculiar to itself— London being, in fact, a republic within a monarchy, whose privileges had hitherto been respected by the most despotic sovereigns.

In the beginning of the year, Eleanor received instructions from the king to summon a parliament, for the purpose of demanding an aid for carrying on the war in Gascony. But finding it impossible to obtain this grant, queen Eleanor sent the king five hundred marks from her own private coffers, as a new year's gift, for the immediate relief of his more pressing exigences. Henry then directed his brother to extort from the luckless Jews the sum required, for the nuptial festivities of his heir.