Medieval Monarchy on the Move – A Cautionary Tale

Guest Post by Lee Swanson –

It is the first day of October of the year 1278, and the protagonist of your newest historical fiction novel journeys to London, seeking to petition King Edward I. So, your Sir Richard sets off to Westminster Palace and . . . no wait, the king is not there. Windsor Castle? London Tower? Not there either. Well, where in the name of the Blessed Virgin might he be?

An annual royal progress was a common occurrence for the itinerant courts of Europe’s medieval era. Except in times of war, sickness, or serious civil strife, it was customary for English kings, queens, and their courts to undertake prolonged journeys about their realm in the spring and summer months to display and consolidate their royal authority, providing them greater management and control over local magnates. Traveling throughout the realm also resulted in an economic advantage. Food and other resources due the government could be collected and consumed at the places where the court temporarily resided, a much simpler means than marketing them for transportable coin to convey to the royal treasury in London.

Edward I was a particularly enthusiastic participant in this practice. Although, by the time of his reign, the Palace of Westminster was recognized as the royal seat of government, the king spent little time there outside of the biannual meetings of parliament. According to archive records, Edward resided for five days at Westminster in January 1278, returning for another thirty-five in May and June to preside over the springtime parliament. He did not return to Westminster until the autumn parliament in October and November, where he stayed for another twenty-four days. Adding these sixty-four days to sixteen spent at London Tower in January and another twenty-six at Windsor Castle throughout the year leaves most of eight months in which the king resided outside the environs of London. Remarkably, nearly one hundred of his stays in the countryside were for only one or two nights.

This demanding itinerary must have been particularly exhausting for Edward’s queen, who shared many of his travels. 1278 began tragically for Queen Alienor (Eleanor) as she gave birth to a child at Westminster around the 3^rd of January who soon died. After an abbreviated laying-in period, she joined the king’s progress through Kent, probably by early February. The two shared a March hunting holiday at Quenington in the Cotswolds before traveling on to Glastonbury for Easter. There, both Edward and Alienor took part in the ceremonial exhumation and reinternment of two bodies purported to be the legendary King Arthur and Queen Guinevere of Camelot fame. In October, the royal couple were in Worcester for the marriage of Prince Llewellen of Wales and Eleanor de Montford. In late November, the king and queen attended the dedication of Norwich cathedral before wending their way to Windsor to observe Christmastide.

But Queen Alienor had an additional motivation for travel. Not only was her avaricious pursuit to accumulate vast land holdings unprecedented among English queens, but she was keenly interested in their management once they became hers. This resulted in an ambitious schedule of visitations to her estates whenever an opportunity presented itself.

After departing Glastonbury on the 21^st of April, 1278, Alienor visited her holdings in northern Somerset and the New Forest, most notably her manor at Lyndhurst where she remained for five days. In September and early October, she had an extended stay on her dower lands at Macclesfield and other nearby Cheshire properties. The queen combined her November journey to Norwich with inspections of her Cambridgeshire holdings of Soham and Dillingham, while her return to London allowed her to visit her newly acquired Norfolk properties at Burgh, Scottow, and Aylsham along the way. By the time Alienor returned to Windsor for a family Christmas and New Year, she was six months pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter, Mary, at Woodstock in March 1279, the twelfth of her children. Clearly, this was a woman who did not allow the discomfort and perils of near continuous pregnancy to dissuade her from her travels, which were conducted predominantly on horseback.

It is important for every writer of medieval historical fiction to keep in mind the itinerant nature of the period’s monarchs and their courts; not just in England, but elsewhere in Europe as well. This was particularly true in the Holy Roman Empire, where the imperial progress often encompassed long journeys to separate countries. Nor did the practice disappear in later centuries. Queen Elizabeth I of England was particularly fond of a yearly summertime progress, as was the Emperor Charles V. Careful research will avoid the embarrassment of your characters encountering a king or queen in a particular setting when he or she was, in actuality, somewhere else.