‘A Vineyard Without a Wall’: The Savoyards, John de Warenne and the Failure of Henry III’s kingship

Andrew M. Spencer

The Benedictine priory of St Martin at Dover was a convenient resting place for those just arrived in England. On 6 March 1263 the priory’s chronicler noted the arrival from France of three young men of the highest pedigree: John, Earl Warenne, Henry of Almain, son of Richard of Cornwall, and Henry de Montfort.1 The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (Rolls Series, 1880), ii, p. 219; A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c. 550–c.1307 (London: Routledge, 1974), pp. 422–3. This trio of young nobles heralded the return, seven weeks later, of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, which, in turn, precipitated a protracted but violent descent into civil war the following year. What is really surprising about this incident, however, is not that Earl Warenne and Henry of Almain ended up fighting against Henry de Montfort and his father in the civil war of 1264-5 but that they were ever minded to go against the king in the first place. The political grouping which Warenne and Henry of Almain headed, that of the former friends of the king’s son, Lord Edward, has long been recognised by historians as one of the powerful factions in English politics during the period of Reform and Rebellion, and their role in precipitating Montfort’s return has been likewise acknowledged.2 H.W. Ridgeway, ‘The Lord Edward and the Provisions of Oxford (1258): a Study in Faction’, TCE, i, pp. 89–99 at 97–8; M.C. Prestwich, Edward I, 2nd edn. (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 33–4, 37–9, 41; J.R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 226; M. Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 147, 148, 155, 163, 175-6, 191–4, 198–9; D.A. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery: Britain, 1066–1284 (London: Penguin, 2004), p. 374; A. Jobson, The First English Revolution: Simon de Montfort, Henry III and the Barons’ War (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), pp. 37–8, 84. Their immediate motive for doing so was the political isolation imposed on them in 1261 by the queen and the Savoyard faction at court which she led, a culmination of a tug of war over the affections of Lord Edward which had been waged since the mid 1250s.3 Ridgeway, ‘Lord Edward’, 97–8; Howell, Eleanor, pp. 187–8, 194. This grouping of young English lords around Edward has, in turn, been linked to the factional struggles at Henry III’s court between the Savoyard relatives of his queen and his own Lusignan half-brothers from Poitou.4 Ridgeway, ‘Lord Edward’; Howell, Eleanor, pp. 146–8.

What will be argued in this article is that for Warenne, the wealthiest and most prominent member of this faction, his antagonism towards the Savoyards stretched back much further, to the early 1240s, and that it was caused by the manner of Henry III’s settlement of the Savoyards in England. The crisis which overwhelmed Henry’s kingship in 1263 had thus been brewing for over twenty years and was the direct result of his own policies. Linked to this, the article will suggest that Henry’s very introduction of the Savoyards to England was profoundly damaging to his kingship in both foreign and domestic policy and was symptomatic of the broader failure of his rule. This contrasts with existing interpretations which tend to see the Savoyards as successfully assimilated into the English political community and focus instead on the obvious failure of Henry’s later introduction of the Lusignans.

There is no doubt that the Savoyard faction was stunningly successful in establishing itself in England following the marriage of Eleanor of Provence to Henry III in January 1236. Savoyards did not begin to arrive in earnest until the winter of 1240–1, but the conditions for their successful settlement were laid down by the presence after 1236 of Queen Eleanor and her maternal uncle William of Savoy, bishop-elect of Valence.5 E.L. Cox, The Eagles of Savoy: the House of Savoy in Thirteenth-Century Europe (Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 49–51, 59–62; H.W. Ridgeway, ‘The Politics of the English Royal Court, 1247-65, With Special Reference to the Role of Aliens’ (Univ. of Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 1984), p. 28; R.C. Stacey, Politics, Policy, and Finance Under Henry III, 1216–1245 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), pp. 96, 99, 100–1, 115. Eleanor was born in 1223, the second of four daughters of Raymond Berengar V, count of Provence, and Beatrice of Savoy, herself the daughter of the prolifically fruitful Count Thomas I of Savoy.6 Howell, Eleanor, p. 2. Upon her marriage in January 1236, Eleanor was dowered with the customary lands of the queen of England but the terms of this original grant were significantly enhanced in 1243, 1253 and again, at the peak of her power, in 1262, leaving her as one of the richest people in England, with an income of around £4,000 p.a.7 Ibid., pp. 13, 37, 112, 190.

Eleanor offered an almost guaranteed introduction to the open purse of England’s king for her relatives and others from her parents’ homelands of Provence and Savoy. The most prominent and richly rewarded of those who took advantage of this were Eleanor’s maternal uncles, the remarkable sons of Count Thomas of Savoy. First to arrive was William of Savoy, bishop-elect of Valence, who accompanied the twelve-year-old Eleanor to England for the marriage.8 Ibid., p. 14. William had obtained benefices in England before the wedding, but, on his arrival, he quickly established himself in Henry’s confidence, much to the annoyance of the chronicler Matthew Paris and, the latter claimed, the English magnates and prelates.9 Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., iii, pp. 362, 387; Ann. Mon., iii, pp.145–6; Stacey, Politics, p. 96; Howell, Eleanor, p. 25. The rewards that accompanied Henry’s confidence were considerable; approximately £1,200 p.a.10 Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 235. After William left England in 1238, the king tried unsuccessfully to obtain for him the bishopric of Winchester, England’s most valuable see.11 Chron. Maj., iii, pp. 491, 493–5, 622. His plans were thwarted by the Winchester monks, who refused to bow to his pressure, and any further generosity was curtailed by William’s early death in 1239.12 Howell, Eleanor, p. 25.

Any hopes that Matthew Paris may have had that this would mark the end of the influence of the queen’s relatives in England were cut short. As with the heads of the Hydra, the loss of one Savoyard uncle led only to the emergence of two more. The lordship of Richmond, the custody of which was previously given to William, was now transferred to Peter of Savoy, the seventh of Count Thomas’s sons, who had arrived at the English court at Christmas 1240 and was knighted by Henry on 5 January 1241.13 N. Vincent, ‘Savoy, Peter of, count of Savoy and de facto earl of Richmond (1203?–1268)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22016, accessed 23 Nov 2012]; Chron. Maj., iv, 85-6. See Antonia Shacklock’s essay in this volume for the significance of this date. In addition to Richmond, Peter was also provided with a uniquely powerful position on the south coast.14 See below, pp. 00–00. According to Huw Ridgeway, Peter’s landed position in England was worth around £2,000 p.a, – a huge endowment for a stranger to receive within just a few months of first setting foot in the country.15 Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 235.

While Henry had failed to convince the monks of Winchester to elect William of Savoy in 1238–9, he found those of Canterbury to be more persuadable. They duly chose Boniface of Savoy as archbishop in February 1241, though the newly-elected primate did not arrive in England for another three years.16 Howell, Eleanor, p. 30; Cox, Eagles, pp. 135–7. Paris suggested that Henry’s efforts on Boniface’s behalf were prompted by Queen Eleanor, a sign of her taking a more prominent role in promoting the cause of her relatives.17 Chron. Maj., iv, pp. 103–5, 259.

Yet another brother, Thomas, became count of Flanders in right of his wife, Joanna, in 1237.18 Cox, Eagles, pp. 56–7. Thomas visited England in August 1239 and used the customary position of Flanders as an ally of England to extract the traditional 500-mark fee the count received from the king in return for his homage.19 Howell, Eleanor, p. 29; Cox, Eagles, p. 98. He continued to receive the fee until 1259 – fourteen years after his wife died childless and he had returned to Italy.20 Cox, Eagles, pp. 154-5; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 240. Philip of Savoy, another clerical brother, received benefices in England worth up to 1,000 marks a year, while the head of the Savoyard clan, Count Amadeus V of Savoy, was granted a 200-mark annual fee by Henry as part of the Anglo-Savoyard Treaty of 1246, which he enjoyed until his death in 1253.21 Ibid., p. 235. For Amadeus’s death, see Cox, Eagles, p. 226. The final member of Count Thomas’s brood to benefit from Henry III’s generosity was Queen Eleanor’s mother, Beatrice of Savoy, countess of Provence. On her visit to England in 1244 Henry granted her an annual fee of 400 marks which she received for thirteen years.22 Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 235; Howell, Eleanor, p. 39.

These Savoyards have dazzled modern historians almost as much as they did Henry himself. Historians have been impressed with their personal abilities, their wise counsel and the remarkable diplomatic network which they created in the mid thirteenth century which spanned England, the Low Countries, France, the Empire and Italy. Even R.F. Treharne, perhaps Henry III’s sternest critic, could find no fault with Henry’s choice of Peter of Savoy as a counsellor, describing the Savoyard as ‘capable and respected’, and others have been equally laudatory.23 R.F. Treharne, The Baronial Plan of Reform, 1258–1263, 2nd edn. (Manchester University Press, 1971), p. 33. Howell, Eleanor, pp. 2, 24-5, 30-2, 39; Stacey, Politics, pp. 115–16, 181–2; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 29, 32, 56–7, 59–60, 62–3, 66; Prestwich, Edward I, p. 20; D.A. Carpenter, ‘King Henry III’s “Statute” Against Aliens: July 1263’ in D.A. Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (London: Hambledon, 1996), p. 268; Carpenter, Struggle for Mastery, p. 342; F.M. Powicke, King Henry III and the Lord Edward, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1947), i, pp. 249–50, 363–4; Jobson, Revolution, p. 8. Cox, Eagles, is almost unrelentingly positive about the Savoyards’ qualities. Even Matthew Paris, detest the Savoyards though he might, could not help but recognise their abilities.24 See, for instance, his comments on Peter of Savoy: Chron. Maj., iv, pp. 85–6, 88. The comparison with the opprobrium heaped on the Lusignans is stark, but what is less frequently remarked upon by historians is the effect that the Savoyards’ undoubted ‘manipulation of Henry III’s patronage’ had on the success or failure of his personal rule.25 Howell, Eleanor, p. 31. For criticism of the Lusignans see, for just two examples among many, Maddicott, Simon de Montfort, pp. 127–8; Jobson, Revolution, pp. 10, 17.

Ridgeway has described the Savoyard network as a ‘pyramid structure converging on the queen and her uncles’.26 Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 48. Beneath them were over 200 Savoyards with links to England. Approximately sixty per cent of these were clerics, and as many as a quarter of all Savoyards were absentees.27 Ibid., p. 35. By contrast, the Poitevins, who arrived in force after 1247, numbered around forty at the height of their influence in 1256.28 Ibid., p. 75. The Savoyards were thus more numerous and better provided for than their Poitevin rivals.29 H.W. Ridgeway, ‘Foreign Favourites and Henry III’s Problems of Patronage’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989), 590–610 at 591. Thirty-eight Savoyards received lands, fees or benefices worth over 100 marks a year from Henry, compared with twenty-six Poitevins.30 Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 235–7. Thirteen Savoyards were knights of King Henry’s household at one time or another, nearly twice as many as the seven Poitevin royal knights.31 Ibid., pp. 36, 75.

Henry’s generosity towards the House of Savoy and their clients has rightly been described as ‘spectacular’: all the more so given the lack of any established link between Savoy and England.32 Ridgeway, ‘Patronage’, 593. Huw Ridgeway has done most to chronicle Henry’s bounty towards both the Savoyards and the Poitevins and, in his article on Henry’s patronage problems between 1247 and 1258, he casts these as being the result of an unfortunate set of circumstances which deprived Henry of the necessary resources to integrate the Poitevins into the political community in the way he had been able to do for the Savoyards in the early 1240s.33 Ridgeway, ‘Patronage’. Henry is described by Ridgeway as ‘simply unlucky’ that the combination of high-value escheats and wardships which fell into his lap in the years around 1240 did not recur in the 1250s.34 Ibid., 596. It would seem closer to the mark, however, to suggest that Henry was simply lucky in the 1240s thanks to the unexpected and unprecedented ‘mortality of the earls’ which occurred just around the time the Savoyards first arrived in force.35 Powicke, Henry III, i, pp. 142–3 Once the normal flow of wardships and escheats was resumed in the 1250s, the unsustainability of Henry’s policy was laid bare and it ultimately collapsed humiliatingly around him. Such extravagance towards one, foreign, grouping at his court was not wise and was always likely to lead to trouble once another group of foreigners, with even greater claims on Henry’s kinship and generosity, arrived with expectation of similar treatment. In setting up men from overseas in England, Henry III was not necessarily diverging from previous Norman and Angevin practice, but in doing so he was going against the grain of post-Magna-Carta politics. The Charter itself repeatedly stressed the rights of native-born men over foreigners, and the explosion of anti-foreign violence and legislation in the 1260s reinforce this point. Henry failed to adapt and to offer leadership to his native nobility, rewarding their good service, as Edward I and other successful late medieval monarchs were to do. Instead, his ‘chequebook kingship’ was always doomed to fail sooner or later, whenever the money ran out: Henry was only fortunate that the windfall of the 1240s meant it was later rather than sooner.36 The phrase is Professor Christine Carpenter’s.

Henry’s foreign relatives had interests on the Continent that neither he nor they could ignore. As the rightful lord of Poitou, the intractable quarrels of Poitevin politics were Henry’s concerns as much as they were those of the Lusignans, but the same could not be said of the political interests of the Savoyards. Savoyard interests were much broader than those of the Poitevins. As will be seen, the ambitions of the House of Savoy were not always aligned with the best interests of Henry III. Two ways of measuring Savoyard influence on Henry will be used here. First, the extent of their attendance upon the king in comparison to others and secondly, the way in which Henry’s policy was shaped to suit Savoyard interests.

The best way to measure a man’s attendance upon the king in the thirteenth century is through the witness lists to royal charters.37 The Royal Charter Witness Lists of Henry III (1226–1272) From the Charter Rolls in the Public Record Office, ed. M. Morris, 2 vols. (List and Index Society, 291–2, 2001). For a discussion of reliability of witness lists, see The Royal Charter Witness Lists of Edward I (1272–1307) From the Charter Rolls in the Public Record Office, ed. R. Huscroft (List and Index Society, 279, 2000), pp. xi–xvi. It is not possible, of course, to draw a straight line between regular charter witnessing and influence with the king but F.W. Maitland surmised that frequent witnesses of royal charters might be taken as royal counsellors and there seems little reason to doubt this.38 F.W. Maitland, ‘History From the Charter Roll’, English Historical Review, 8 (1893), 726–8 at 726. The reliability of witness lists has always been a matter for debate and Dauvit Broun has recently cast doubt on their reliability for private deeds but he admits that ‘no-one has offered a serious challenge to Maitland’s observation that the actual presence of those named is the only way to account for the “rapid variations in the lists of witnesses”.’ See D. Broun, ‘The Presence of Witnesses and the Making of Charters’, in D. Broun and others (eds.), The Reality Behind Charter Diplomatic in Anglo-Norman Britain (Glasgow University Press, 2011), pp. 236–290, quotation at p. 237.

Table 1 lists all those laymen who witnessed more than 100 royal charters in England in 1236–7, the first regnal year after the king’s marriage, and 1256–7, the last full year of Henry’s personal rule before the revolution of 1258. Those highlighted in bold were foreigners, and of these only Peter of Savoy and Imbert Pugeys were Savoyards. Most of the names near the top are of Henry III’s English household knights, which is what one would expect, given that they were presumed to be in attendance on the king much of the time unless employed elsewhere on royal business. At first sight, then, the Savoyard presence at court may seem to have been exaggerated. Savoyard influence, however, was present in other, more subtle, ways. Those whose names are italicised were household knights of the queen and therefore able to represent Savoyard interests at court even when Peter of Savoy or the queen herself was absent.39 Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 410–12. Robert Walerand, though not in the queen’s service, was a reliable friend and ally, while John Fitz Geoffrey was a long-standing Savoyard ally at court and trusted by the queen to act as Lord Edward’s chief councillor in 1254.40 For Walerand see, for instance, Howell, Eleanor, pp. 142, 162. For Fitz Geoffrey see, ibid., p. 145.

Moreover, when one looks at charter witnessing by the earls and the most powerful of the Savoyards and Lusignans, all men whose power was to a greater or lesser degree independent of the king thanks to their landed inheritance and/or their interests overseas, then the influence of foreigners during Henry’s personal rule appears stronger. Table 2 shows that, among the magnates, it was the foreigners who dominated; six out of the ten most frequent magnate witnesses were foreigners.41 Simon de Montfort has been designated as a foreigner for the purposes of this discussion. This is because for much of the period in question, if not perhaps all, he was regarded as such. See Chron. Maj., iii, pp. 412, 476; Maddicott, Montfort, pp. 75–6, 361–2. This is not wholly surprising. The foreign magnates relied more heavily upon Henry’s continuing goodwill, which meant that when they were in England they were more likely to spend time at court than on the estates that he had granted them. Having acknowledged their greater dependency, however, the fact that foreign magnates were at court more frequently than the native-born earls means that they were in a position to influence Henry more often. Despite Peter of Savoy’s frequent absences abroad after his first appearance in England in 1240, he still managed to witness more royal charters than any English earl save Cornwall and Gloucester and he was not very far behind them. Even more remarkable, given his late arrival, is the witnessing level of William de Valence, who witnessed 249 charters in the decade after 1247, 28.42 per cent of the total number of charters made in England in these years.42 There were 876 royal charters enrolled on the charter rolls between 1246–7 and 1256–7.

Much has been made of Henry III’s attempts to win the acquiescence of the native English nobility.43 D.A. Carpenter, ‘Kings, Magnates and Society’ in D.A. Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (London, 1996), pp. 81–2, 88–90; Stacey, Politics, pp. 254–6; Jobson, Revolution, p. 7. David Carpenter in particular has argued that Henry refused to pursue their debts, did not put pressure on their liberties, and allowed them a freer hand in the localities.44 Carpenter, ‘King, Magnates and Society’. What the charter witness evidence appears to show, however, is that Henry’s efforts appear to have cut little ice with the nobility. His court was not a place where many of them were prepared to spend much time. The comparison with comital witnessing under Edward I is striking.45 For a list of comital witnessing under Edward I see, A.M. Spencer, Nobility and Kingship in Medieval England: the Earls and Edward I, 1272–1307 (Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 46. Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester, witnessed the most charters among the native English earls in this period, 217 from his accession to the earldom in July 1245 until October 1257.46 Witness Lists of Henry III, pp. 145, 304. This represents a witnessing rate of 19.8 per cent of all royal charters granted in England during these years.47 There were 1,096 charters between 1244–5 and 1256–7. No fewer than twelve earls had higher witnessing percentages than this under Edward I, all of whom had witnessing rates above 30 per cent. This disparity demonstrates the fragility of Henry’s success in reconciling the English magnates to his policies. Given the lengths he went to in order to win them over, it seems unlikely that the relative absence from court of the English earls was what he wanted. Rather, it probably represents a feeling that their counsel was not being taken seriously and that their voices were not being heard on crucial matters of foreign policy, where Henry was instead listening to the advice of his foreign relatives.

Such an idea about the strength of Savoyard influence is corroborated by looking at the outcomes of Henry’s deliberations over policy. Here Savoyard influence is most obvious. Robert Stacey has written that ‘between 1236 and 1241 it is not too much to speak of Henry pursuing a consciously ‘Savoyard’ diplomatic strategy’.48 Stacey, Politics, p. 182. It is possible, however, to go well beyond this and say that much of Henry’s diplomatic policy for virtually the whole of his personal rule was hostage to and directed by Savoyard interests. This was very often to Henry’s own detriment though he seemed incapable of grasping this.

The chief aim of Henry’s diplomacy, indeed of his whole kingship during his personal rule, was, of course, somehow to re-establish or replace the possessions and prestige lost by his father. It is hard to see how the Savoyard alliance itself or any of the policies subsequently promoted by them helped Henry achieve this aim. In demonstrating this, the natural place to start is with the king’s marriage itself, promoted by William of Savoy.49 Howell, Eleanor, p. 11. The potential marriage certainly served Savoyard-Provençal interests very nicely as, thanks to Henry’s position in Gascony, it provided Raymond Berengar and the Savoyards with a powerful ally in southern France. It is harder, however, to discern any tangible benefit to Henry from the marriage, other than the access it provided to the formidable diplomatic skills of the Savoyard network.

There were, indeed, several drawbacks to the match.50 Howell, Eleanor, pp. 11–12. Henry and his advisers had been casting around unsuccessfully for a marriage for some time, culminating in a failed attempt to marry Joan, heiress of the county of Ponthieu in north-east France in 1235.51 For details of a potential Scottish match, see Chron. Maj., iii, p. 206. For two French marriages, wrecked by Blanche of Castile’s intervention, see Howell, Eleanor, pp. 10–11. See also, D. d’Avray, ‘Authentication of Marital Status: English Royal Annulment Process and Late Medieval Cases from the Papal Penitentiary’, English Historical Review, 120 (2005), 987–1013. It was in the wake of the crushing of his matrimonial ambitions in Ponthieu that Eleanor of Provence suddenly emerged as a realistic possibility. As the second of four daughters and with no living brothers, Eleanor was a potential co-heiress of the wealthy county of Provence and, as a vassal of the emperor rather than the king of France, her father could not be pressured by the French as fathers of other potential partners had been. There was, however, a significant problem. Eleanor’s elder sister, Margaret, was already married to no less a person than Louis IX of France himself.52 For the negotiations surrounding Louis’ marriage see J. Richard, Saint Louis: Crusader King of France, ed. S. Lloyd, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 62–4. At the marriage in 1234 Margaret had been given away by her uncle, William of Savoy, the man now entrusted with bringing Eleanor to England.53 Howell, Eleanor, p. 9. Henry may have hoped that by marrying Eleanor he would negate the strategic advantage gained by the Capetians through Louis’ marriage and even lay claim to Provence himself when the time came. In the end, however, Provence descended, with the connivance of both Count Raymond and Countess Beatrice, to the Capetians thanks to the marriage of their youngest daughter to Louis’ youngest brother, Charles of Anjou.54 J. Dunbabin, Charles I of Anjou: Power, Kingship and State-Making in Thirteenth-Century Europe (London and New York: Longman, 1998), pp. 41–54. Moreover, as William of Savoy’s intimate involvement in both marriages indicates, the Savoyards and Provençals were always playing a double game with Henry. A war of reconquest by Henry III was never in the interests of the House of Savoy.

Two further diplomatic disadvantages accrued to Henry thanks to his marriage to Eleanor. First, prior to the marriage, Henry’s chief ally in the south of France was Raymond, count of Toulouse, the principal regional rival of the count of Provence.55 For the Toulouse alliance, see Howell, Eleanor, p. 12. By marrying the latter’s daughter, Henry sacrificed his alliance with Toulouse to the extent that in 1241 it was considered one of the main threats to the security of Gascony, and it was not until it was too late in the war of 1242–3 that an alliance between England and Toulouse against Louis could eventually be concluded.56 Stacey, Politics, pp. 179–80. Secondly, the Provençal marriage and Savoyard alliance eventually negated the expensive but tangible diplomatic triumph Henry had secured in 1235 by marrying his sister Isabella to Emperor Frederick II.57 Ibid., pp. 43, 98, 126. The Savoyards were always keen not to commit themselves too far in the cataclysmic dispute between the emperor and the papacy but, led by the ecclesiastical brothers, first William and then Philip, they began to lean increasingly towards the papacy as the years went on.58 Cox, Eagles, pp. 64–76. Henry’s marriage to Eleanor thus made little strategic sense and smacks of panic on the part of the king and his advisers in the wake of the collapse of the Ponthieu match. Henry was twenty-nine, still unmarried, without an heir of his body, and finding every potential door closed in his face for one reason or another. Personally and dynastically, of course, the marriage was a great success but strategically it was a failure.

The Savoyards proceeded to milk Henry for all they could get over the next two decades while never fully committing themselves to his cause against the Capetians. Thanks to the commercial ties between England and Flanders, the count had been a traditional ally of the Norman and Angevin kings against their feudal overlords, the kings of France.59 For a study of the relations between Flanders and the Anglo-Norman realm between the Conquest and King John’s death, see E. Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World, 1066–1216 (Cambridge University Press, 2012). The previous count, Ferdinand, for instance, had been captured at Bouvines in 1214 and spent the next thirteen years as a captive of the French crown.60 J. Bradbury, Philip Augustus, King of France, 1180–1223 (London and New York: Longman, 1998), p. 313. When Thomas of Savoy became count of Flanders he extracted from Henry as much money and diplomatic advantage as he could. In return, he provided Henry with important, though expensive, military support in advance of a prospective campaign against Scotland in 1244 but was not prepared to aid Henry militarily against Louis in 1242.61 Around £3,000 was paid to Count Thomas’s Flemish knights for the Scottish campaign. See Stacey, Politics, p. 245. Cox suggests that Thomas did serve with Henry against Louis (Eagles, p. 116) but appears to mistake Thomas’s presence at Saintes on 5 July 1242 (CPR 1232–1247, pp. 310, 311) as meaning that he was part of Henry’s forces there. Instead, he appears to have been acting as a trusted intermediary for Henry in diplomatic matters with Louis and Frederick II but not to have committed himself against his feudal lord. Thomas did not witness any of Henry’s royal charters issued on campaign.

Perhaps the most blatant manipulation of Henry, however, was practised by Queen Eleanor’s mother, Beatrice of Savoy, countess of Provence. Countess Beatrice visited England in 1243–4 in the company of her third daughter, Sanchia, who married Richard of Cornwall at Westminster in November 1243.62 Howell, Eleanor, p. 38. The marriage itself suited Savoyard-Provençal strategic interests far better than Plantagenet ones. Margaret Howell is right to dismiss earlier suggestions that the marriage had no political connotations and was merely the result of Richard of Cornwall’s susceptibility to a pretty face.63 Ibid., pp. 33–4; Cox, Eagles of Savoy, p. 114; N. Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall (Oxford: Blackwell, 1947) p. 50. Howell regards the marriage as a ‘well-judged Savoyard coup’ perpetrated by a ‘pretty coherent pressure group’ consisting of the count and countess of Provence, Peter and Philip of Savoy, Peter of Aigueblanche and, no doubt, Queen Eleanor herself.64 Howell, Eleanor, p. 34. On the face of it, everyone gained from the marriage apart from Henry, who lost the diplomatic opportunity to make a new alliance that Richard’s remarriage offered. Richard and Sanchia gained the promise of an extra £500 p.a. of land in England and, in the meantime, 1,000 marks a year in cash from the exchequer.65 CPR 1232–1247, p. 437. Eleanor and Peter of Savoy, as the chief guardians of the welfare of Lord Edward, secured Edward’s rights in Gascony and neutralised Richard as a threat to his and their interests, thus strengthening further their position in England.66 Howell, Eleanor, p. 34. As for Raymond Berengar and Beatrice, they had made a brilliant match for their third daughter which cost them nothing since Henry agreed to pay £3,000 as a marriage portion. It strengthened their links with England and offered them yet further access to Henry’s liberality.

This was the second purpose of Countess Beatrice’s visit to England. Besides settling her daughter there, she aimed to secure financial aid for her husband. Henry duly loaned her 4,000 marks in return for the security of five castles in Provence.67 Foedera, I, i, p. 254. Margaret Howell has seen this as an attempt by Henry to secure a foothold in Provence in advance of Count Raymond’s death, in order to provide himself with a position from which he could stake claims to the county.68 Howell, Eleanor, pp. 39–40. In the event, Countess Beatrice did keep these castles for Henry until 1257, when he finally released her from her promise, and she had duly pocketed £400 a year from the English exchequer in the process.69 Ibid., p. 47; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 235. Howell is almost certainly correct in thus divining Henry’s motive for his grant but it turned out to be a complete waste of money, as was always likely given the strategic disadvantages Henry faced in trying to assert his position in Provence. As Howell states, Henry was aware of the terms of Raymond Berengar’s will, made in 1238, which provided for his youngest daughter, also named Beatrice, to inherit the whole of Provence as heiress. Given his distance from Provence, it was never likely that Henry would be able to exert much influence on the ground when the time came. Indeed, it was Beatrice of Savoy and her Savoyard brothers who betrayed the Plantagenet interest in Provence when Raymond Berengar died in August 1245.70 Howell, Eleanor, p. 46. Beatrice, Philip of Savoy and Archbishop Boniface facilitated the marriage of the younger Beatrice to Charles of Anjou. The plot was hatched by Louis IX and his mother together with Pope Innocent IV to facilitate the papacy’s vendetta against Frederick II and the Capetians’ need to maintain their southern power.71 Cox, Eagles, pp. 146–9. The House of Savoy was quite prepared to sacrifice Henry III’s interests when there were bigger fish to fry.

Given the rank ingratitude shown towards him by the Savoyards, particularly on the part of Boniface for whom Henry had fought so hard to obtain Canterbury, one might have expected the king to have cooled toward them. The Savoyards closest to Henry, however, namely Peter of Savoy and Peter Aigueblanche, the bishop of Hereford, were able to claim ignorance of the circumstances of the settlement of Provence and therefore to maintain their position in England. Queen Eleanor, indeed, continued, forcefully if fruitlessly, to press her rights in Provence for years to come.72 Howell, Eleanor, pp. 40, 295. The sheer extent of the Savoyard diplomatic networks helped them, since different members of the dynasty could ally themselves to opposing factions in European geo-politics and benefit from each faction without the need to commit themselves wholly to any.

Remarkably, within just a few months of the blatant betrayal over Provence, Henry concluded a treaty with Amadeus, count of Savoy, the head of the pan-European Savoyard network.73 Ibid., p. 47; Cox, Eagles, pp. 149–52. The treaty, negotiated by the Savoyard bishop of Hereford, gave Count Amadeus a cash gift of £1,000 and an annual grant of 200 marks a year in return for the count becoming Henry’s vassal in respect of four castles which controlled the Mont Cenis and St Bernard passes through the Alps. While the benefits to the House of Savoy from this alliance are obvious – further diplomatic links with Henry, yet more English money and, thanks to the feudal bond created, a theoretical commitment to defend these castles should Amadeus be attacked – there is not much which can be said in favour of the treaty from Henry’s perspective, as he had no direct stake in Italian politics at this stage. Cox claimed that Henry was trying to win Amadeus’ support in his negotiations over Provence, but the Savoyards were already committed to Charles of Anjou’s possession of the county. From the outset it threatened to – and eventually it did – entangle Henry in Italian politics, a web from which he was unable or unwilling to cut himself loose over the next decade and which contributed materially to the political revolution of 1258.

It was, of course, the Sicilian Business, the name given to Henry’s plot to have his second son Edmund placed on the throne of Sicily, that was one of the key causes of Henry’s downfall in 1258. Treharne described Henry’s involvement as an ‘unforgiveable folly’ which ‘stamps [him] as vain, selfish, obstinate, credulous and silly beyond redemption’ and it is hard to argue with such an assessment.74 Treharne, Baronial Plan of Reform, p. 50. For a more positive view of the Sicilian Business see B. Weiler, ‘Henry III and the Sicilian Business: a Reinterpretation’, Historical Research, 74 (2001), 127–50. On the surface the scheme seems plausible. The conquest of Sicily and its removal from the hands of the Hohenstaufens was possible and, indeed, it was accomplished in 1266 by Charles of Anjou.75 S. Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1958), pp. 78–95. The Sicilian Business was a Savoyard scheme from the start.76 Howell, Eleanor, pp. 130–5. David Carpenter has recently discussed the cynical approach of the Savoyards to the project.77 D.A. Carpenter, ‘Henry III and the Sicilian Affair’, Fine of the Month, February 2012, [http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/redist/pdf/fm-02-2012.pdf, accessed 29 March 2018]. They knew it was ‘a high-risk project which might not succeed. But…[t]here was nothing to lose’ at the outset. Through the marriage of Manfred to the daughter of Amadeus of Savoy, the Savoyards retained ‘a foot in both camps’ according to Carpenter, and Thomas of Savoy was negotiating with the pope on behalf of Conrad in February 1254, at the very moment Henry was accepting the first papal offer of Sicily. The decision to accept the punitive terms in 1255, however, was Henry’s alone, and the Savoyards were not closely involved in that fateful decision. Savoyard interest in the project was further diminished by the capture of Thomas of Savoy at Asti in February 1255.78 Howell, Eleanor, p. 143. The formidable diplomatic resources of his family were then diverted towards obtaining his release. The king and queen of England both pledged money which they could not afford, money which, in Eleanor’s case, left her without funds when her son Edward came asking in the autumn of 1257 to continue his fight in Wales.79 Ibid., pp. 143–4. Her refusal threw Lord Edward into the arms of the willing Lusignans, one of the short-term catalysts for the revolution of 1258.80 Ridgeway, ‘Lord Edward’, 94–5.

Henry’s involvement with the Savoyards had brought him little material benefit, cost him many thousands of pounds in revenues and cash that he had granted away, and prompted his disastrous involvement in the morass of Italian politics which sucked the life out of his kingship in the 1250s. Given all this, one is forced to ask why Henry pursued these Savoyard connections with such fervour? The answer would seem to be three-fold. First is the king’s obvious devotion to family, one of Henry’s more attractive qualities. Richard of Cornwall, Eleanor and Simon de Montfort, the Lusignans, his sickly daughter Katherine and his sister Joan were all beneficiaries of this in one way or another, and Henry appears simply to have accepted his wife’s family as his own.81 Henry’s generosity to Cornwall, Queen Eleanor and Montfort are obvious and well known. For Joan see K. Stringer, ‘Joan (1210–1238)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14820, accessed 5 Aug 2013]; for Henry’s devotion to Katharine see Chron. Maj., v, pp. 632, 643. Second, there was Henry’s desire to strut the European stage like his Angevin predecessors. By tying the Savoyards and, later, the Poitevins to him, Henry believed that he could use them to pursue his grand strategic aims of restoring his dynasty’s prestige. In the end, however, it was the Savoyards who used him rather than the other way around.

Finally, however, by introducing the Savoyards and then the Poitevins into England Henry was gradually trying to re-forge the English nobility in his own image. Henry had little trust in or affinity with his native nobility. The English nobility had, after all, imposed Magna Carta on his father at the point of a sword and then, when King John attempted to overturn his concessions, tried to replace him with a Capetian prince. It was this nobility which had engaged in bitter factional struggles during Henry’s minority.82 N. Vincent, Peter des Roches: an Alien in English Politics, 1205–1238 (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 327–39, 363–71, 375–455. In 1238 some of its members, headed by Richard of Cornwall and Gilbert Marshal, earl of Pembroke, ousted another set of Henry’s trusted ministers, William of Savoy and William de Ralegh.83 Stacey, Politics, pp. 118–21, 123–4. It was this English nobility which in 1244 discussed the possibility of imposing further restrictions on their king in the so-called Paper Constitution, restrictions far more constrictive of Henry’s freedom than those of Magna Carta.84 276 English Historical Documents, 1189–1327, ed. and trans. H. Rothwell (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1975), pp. 359–60. For discussion of the Paper Constitution see, N. Denholm-Young, ‘The “Paper Constitution” Attributed to 1244’, English Historical Review, 58 (1943), 401–23; C.R. Cheney, ‘The “Paper Constitution” Preserved by Matthew Paris’, English Historical Review, 65 (1950), 213–21; Stacey, Politics, pp. 249–50; D.A. Carpenter, ‘Chancellor Ralph Neville and Plans of Political Reform’, in Carpenter, Reign of Henry III, pp. 61–74. It was the nobility who, in parliament after parliament following the grant of a thirtieth in 1237, refused to give Henry another tax on movables.85 G.L. Harriss, King, Parliament and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), p. 29.

Looked at from this perspective Henry had little reason to trust his nobility. As early as 1240 Matthew Paris reported the words to the pope of Simon the Norman, a former household clerk of Henry III then in exile at the papal curia: ‘There is at this time not one Englishman of approved fidelity that the king can trust’.86 Chron. Maj., iv, p. 64. Regarding the English titled nobility at this time, there is charter evidence which lends credence to this bold claim. Between 8 January 1240, when William, Earl Warenne, witnessed his final royal charter before his death, and 14 May 1241 when Hugh d’Aubigny, earl of Arundel, witnessed a royal charter at Westminster, only three English earls witnessed any of Henry’s charters.87 Witness Lists of Henry III, pp. 174–80. These were Gilbert Marshal, earl of Pembroke, who witnessed four (including two on the same day, 3 March 1241), Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, who witnessed five (also including two on 3 March 1241) and Baldwin de Redvers, earl of Devon, who witnessed a single charter on 8 February 1241.88 Ibid., p. 179. There were fifty-four royal charters enrolled between 8 January 1240 and 14 May 1241, of which just seven, or 13 per cent, were witnessed by earls. Under Edward I, 86.5 per cent of charters were witnessed by at least one earl, while the average for charters witnessed by one earl or more for the years 1236–57 under Henry III is 42.55 percent.89 Spencer, Nobility and Kingship, p. 45. The figure for 1236–57 is taken from my study of charter witnessing in this period referred to above. This period of extremely low comital witnessing and, by inference, comital attendance at court coincided with the arrival in England of Peter of Savoy, the promotion of Peter of Aigueblanche to the see of Hereford and also with the beginning of the so-called ‘mortality of the earls’, a series of events which offered Henry a chance to reshape the nobility and landholding at the top of society on lines agreeable to him.

Seemingly dissatisfied with the nobility he had inherited, Henry slowly set about trying to change it by infiltrating it with the foreign relatives and associates of himself and his wife. This was to be achieved not only by the significant grants to foreigners of lands or the marriages of heiresses within England, Ireland and Wales but also by the marriage of foreign ladies to the heirs of many English magnates. Among the foreigners endowed in the first category were William and Peter of Savoy, William de Valence, Peter and Ebule of Geneva, Geoffrey de Joinville and Ingram de Fiennes.90 Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 235–7. In the second category, the male heirs to the earldoms of Devon, Gloucester, Warenne and Lincoln were all married off to relatives of either Henry or Eleanor before 1258, with the heirs of the earldoms of Arundel and Hereford following in the 1260s and 1270s.91 Chron. Maj., v, p. 514.

There was little precedent for such a policy. As Matthew Paris, speaking through the reported words of Richard of Cornwall in 1238, acidly observed, Frederick II had sent packing the English entourage of Henry’s sister, Isabella, ‘without bestowing on one of them either lands or money’, while Louis IX had done the same to the Savoyard relatives of Margaret of Provence. Henry, on the other hand, had ‘fattened all the kindred and relatives of his wife with lands, possessions and money…and England becomes, as it were, a vineyard without a wall, in which all who pass along the road gather grapes’.92 Ibid., iii, pp. 477–8. So pleased was Paris with this metaphor that he reused it several times.93 Ibid., iii, p. 527; iv, pp. 10, 84; v, p. 37. Paris’s criticisms of these marriages, and of Henry’s open-handedness to foreigners in general, have perhaps become dulled by their repetitiveness and familiarity but, as the Petition of the Barons in 1258 makes clear, the reformers were prepared to pander to such concerns about the king’s policy.94 Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, ed. and trans. R.F. Treharne and I.J. Sanders (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), no. 4; J. Peltzer, ‘The Marriages of the English Earls in the Thirteenth Century: a Social Perspective’, TCE, xiv (2013), pp. 61–85 at 67. See P. Brand, Kings, Barons and Justices: The Making and Enforcement of Legislation in Thirteenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 20–4, on the diverse elements of political society whose views were represented in the petition. The petition demanded that female wards in the king’s custody should not be married ‘in such a way as to disparage them – that is to men who are not true-born Englishmen’, suggesting that Paris was far from alone in his opinion.

Paris’s description of the marriage between the son and heir of Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester, and the daughter of Henry’s half-brother, Guy de Lusignan, arranged by Gloucester and the king in 1253, is particularly useful in understanding both the king’s policy and how he was able to persuade individual nobles to go along with it in spite of the general dislike in political society of what the king was doing.95 For the following paragraph and any quotations, see Chron. Maj., v, pp. 363–4. Paris writes of Henry as the ‘scheming supplanter of the natives of England, wishing all the nobles of his kingdom to degenerate and thus to destroy the whole legitimate stock of the English, to their utter destruction, and to mix their blood with the scum of foreigners’. Leaving aside Paris’s more than usually hyperbolic description of the king’s malign motives (seemingly caused by his affront that the king tried to get St Albans to stand as surety for Henry’s financial inducement to Gloucester to take the girl for his son), one is left with the conclusion that this marriage was part of a wider and deliberate policy on the king’s part to reshape the English nobility. Paris also provides the reasons for Gloucester’s acceptance. Besides the money which Henry offered Gloucester, which the chronicler probably erroneously believed was the chief inducement, the king is reported to have played on the social prestige of the prospective bride, a ‘lady of regal extraction’. Gloucester recognised, and was flattered by, the opportunity of an alliance with the king’s family. The special status Gloucester enjoyed in the last years of Henry’s personal rule were surely a reflection not just of his position as one of the most powerful among the native nobility but of his marriage alliance with the king’s family.96 Carpenter, ‘King, Magnates and Society’, pp. 82–3, 94, 104. The social and potential political advantages of allying oneself with the royal family were not lost on the English earls, which is why so many of them were happy to accept the wives offered them from the conveyor belt of Henry and Eleanor’s continental relatives.

The policy of remaking the nobility might have worked were it not for the fatal flaw at its heart: that the two principal groups of foreigners, the Savoyard relatives of the queen and the king’s Lusignan brothers, loathed each other. The English nobles allied themselves with one faction or the other and this feud helped to tear apart Henry’s court. The Lusignans have always been regarded as most culpable in this.97 See, for instance, Treharne, Baronial Plan, pp. 32–3; Howell, Eleanor, pp. 67–8; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 133; Their outrageous behaviour provoked many of the English nobility, including Montfort, Norfolk and, eventually, Gloucester to side with the Savoyards against them and the king in 1258.98 D.A. Carpenter, ‘What Happened in 1258?’ in Carpenter, Reign of Henry III, p. 194. It would be wrong, however, to overlook the role that the introduction of the Savoyards played in creating the unsustainable tensions at Henry’s court and in the country at large. It is in illuminating this aspect of Henry’s rule that the story of John de Warenne is so helpful, for it demonstrates that Henry’s patronage of the Savoyards was not only disastrous for his foreign policy but also served to destabilise his rule domestically.

* * * * *

John de Warenne was the only son of William, Earl Warenne, and Matilda Bigod, daughter of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, and widow of Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk.99 For a summary of Warenne’s life and deeds see S.L. Waugh, ‘Warenne, John de, sixth earl of Surrey (1231–1304)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28734, accessed 9 Dec 2012]. For that of his father see N. Vincent, ‘Warenne, William (IV) de, fifth earl of Surrey (d. 1240)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28739, accessed 9 Dec 2012]. William de Warenne died around 27 May 1240 when his heir was aged just nine and John therefore came into the king’s custody. This left the prospect of a long minority during which the king or someone designated by him could enjoy the fruits of one of the great earldoms. The family had four main centres of power on the eastern side of the country. In south Yorkshire the honour of Wakefield was centred on the castle of Sandal and, together with the castle of Conisbrough near Doncaster, consisted of thirteen manors.100 For a discussion of the Warenne estates, see Spencer, Nobility and Kingship, pp. 23–5. Some way down the Great North Road, in Lincolnshire, were the twin towns of Grantham and Stamford which had been granted to William de Warenne by King John in compensation for the loss of the family’s estates in Normandy. Further south and east lay the third centre of Warenne power, at Castle Acre in Norfolk. The oldest, wealthiest and, for the purposes of this story, most important of the Warenne lands were in the south-east, where the earls held the honour and rape of Lewes in central Sussex which consisted of the town and castle of Lewes itself, along with three other boroughs and fifteen demesne manors.101 David Crouch has recently argued that Norfolk was the family’s ‘heartland of power’ and gaining control of Thetford certainly appears to have been a primary ambition for the earls in the second half of the twelfth century: D. Crouch, ‘The Warenne Family and its Status in the Kingdom of England’, in T. Huthwelker, J. Peltzer and M. Wemhöner (eds.), Princely Rank in Late Medieval Europe: Trodden Paths and Promising Avenues (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2011), pp. 281–307, esp. pp. 282, 288–91. The close blood relationship with the Bigods (Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk [d.1270] and Hugh Bigod [d.1266] were half-brothers of John de Warenne through their mother and relations were mostly friendly) seems to have calmed tensions in Norfolk in Henry III’s reign and redirected the family’s interest south to Sussex. The marriage of John de Warenne’s elder sister, Isabella, to Hugh d’Aubigny, earl of Arundel (d.1243), resumed the established practice of the Warennes of intermarriage with Sussex families, while the events described below ensured that Sussex, along with the recovery of Stamford and Grantham were the primary concerns of John de Warenne’s early career. See Early Yorkshire Charters: the Honour of Warenne, ed. C.T. Clay and W. Farrer, Yorkshire Archaeological Record Series, Additional Series, 8 (1949), pp. 21, 22–3; K. Thompson, ‘Lords, Castellans, Constables and Dowagers: the Rape of Pevensey from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 135 (1997), 209–20 at 214. Appended to their Sussex holdings were lands in Surrey, the castle and town of Reigate, together with the borough of Dorking, the manor of Betchworth and some property in Southwark. The earldom was probably worth in the region of £2,500 p.a., placing it towards the front of the second rank of English earldoms.102 Spencer, Nobility and Kingship, p. 25, where the value of the earldom is put at around £3,000, which includes the lands added during Edward I’s reign. Given the earldom’s wealth and the length of the heir’s minority (up to twelve years), Henry had numerous tempting options concerning what to do with the wardship.103 See S.L. Waugh, The Lordship of England: Royal Wardships and Marriages in English Society and Politics, 1217–1327 (Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 146–56.

At first, he appears to have proceeded with exemplary caution and concern for the heir’s well-being. While most of the inheritance was kept in the king’s hand for nearly two years after Earl William’s death, the lands in Sussex and Surrey, the heartland of Warenne power and wealth, were granted to William de Monceux on 13 June 1240, barely two weeks after the earl’s death, to hold ‘for as long as it pleases the king’.104 CFR 1239–40, no. 102. Monceux, lord of Herstmonceux in Hastings Rape, was a Sussex man, one of the late earl’s executors, and could be expected to act in the best interests of the young heir while the boy was in the king’s custody.105 CPR 1232–1247, p. 267. The following year, however, saw a significant change of policy by Henry, one which threatened the Warennes’ position as the dominant noble family in the south-east.

In May 1241 Henry began his extensive patronage of Peter of Savoy by granting him the honour of Richmond in North Yorkshire.106 Ibid., p. 251. On 25 September 1241 Henry augmented this already generous grant with the keeping, ‘during pleasure’, of the honour of Pevensey and the lands of John de Warenne in Surrey and Sussex.107 Ibid., p. 259. Three days later, William de Monceux was ordered to hand over Lewes Castle to Peter with immediate effect.108 Ibid., p. 260. The first sign of Henry’s change of heart regarding the Warenne wardship had been on 2 June 1241, when he had ordered Monceux to deliver Reigate to Bernard of Savoy, a close relative of Peter (either an illegitimate son or brother) and a knight of the royal household.109 Ibid., p. 252; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 38; Howell, Eleanor, p. 32. The addition of Rochester, Dover and the Cinque Ports and the shrievalty of Kent in October and November represented nothing less than the takeover of the strategically vital south-east by a man who had only been in the country a few months.110 CPR 1232–1247, pp. 261, 266; List of Sheriffs of England and Wales from the Earliest Times to AD 1831, List and Index Society, 9 (1963), p. 67. Henry does not seem to have realised how dangerous upsetting the tenurial balance of power might be. Peter himself was more conscious than his patron and, when faced with complaints about his sudden promotion and aware of the imminent return from crusade of Richard of Cornwall, proved willing to relinquish some of his spoils.111 Chron. Maj., iv, pp. 177–8. This was merely a crisis delayed, however, not avoided, for Peter wholly retained his position in Sussex.

Henry’s grant in February 1242 of the keeping of Warenne’s lands in Yorkshire and East Anglia to his mother may well have been an attempt to ameliorate what had happened in Sussex, where the decision to remove Monceux from control over the family’s principal residence and to replace him with a foreign interloper was controversial and potentially foolhardy.112 CPR 1232–1247, pp. 271, 288; CR 1237–1242, pp. 476–7. The proper maintenance of estates in wardship had been addressed in Chapters Four and Five of Magna Carta.113 J.C. Holt, Magna Carta, 2nd edn. (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 450–2, 311–14. Any fears that young Warenne, his mother or the family’s associates may have had about the treatment of his lands proved to be justified. In June 1243, when Henry was abroad on his ill-fated Poitou expedition, the archbishop of York, acting as regent, ordered an inquisition into alleged wasting of Warenne’s estates by agents of Peter of Savoy. The Sussex and Surrey juries reported widespread wasting, especially in Warenne’s woods. Over 200 oaks and more than 500 beech trees had been cut down and sold, burnt or taken into Pevensey Rape, damage worth hundreds of pounds.114 Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, 8 vols. (London, 1916–2003), i, no. 16. The Sussex jury stated boldly that, if sales of timber were to continue until Warenne came of age, then ‘the whole forest, woods and park would be almost devastated’. It was only when Henry was abroad that such an investigation could be launched against one of his foreign favourites, and there is no evidence that Peter was punished for this blatant infringement of Magna Carta.

This was only the beginning of Warenne’s denigration at the hands of the Savoyards. On 29 May 1243, while Henry was in Bordeaux and hundreds of miles from those able to make representations on the part of the Warenne family, the king granted the marriage of Isabella d’Aubigny, the newly widowed countess of Arundel and Warenne’s elder sister, to Peter of Geneva, son of the count of Geneva and a Savoyard knight of Henry’s household who had only arrived in England the previous year.115 CPR 1232–1247, p. 377. Henry may have intended that Peter of Geneva should marry the young countess, who held extensive estates in dower and jointure, but, relying on her rights in Magna Carta, she remained steadfastly single until her death in 1282.116 For her dower and jointure estates and widowhood see J.A. Nicholas, ‘Warenne, Isabel de, countess of Arundel (1226x30–1282)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60821, accessed 5 Aug 2013]. Even so, the grant of his sister in marriage to a Savoyard can hardly have calmed Warenne’s fears about Savoyard control over his family and their threat to his interests.

Other Savoyards were also obtaining land in Sussex in the early 1240s.117 Bernard of Savoy, for instance, was granted the manor of Binderton, near Chichester, in August 1243: CPR 1232–1247, p. 392. He was also Peter of Savoy’s constable of Warenne’s castle of Reigate between 1241 and 1247. See Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 38. Most prominent of these was Boniface of Savoy, elected archbishop of Canterbury in 1241. He took control of the extensive Sussex estates of the archbishopric in 1244, while in 1249 Peter’s interests in Sussex were further enhanced by the grant of Hastings Rape.118 CPR 1247–1258, p. 52; CFR 1248–9, no. 561. The previous year Warenne’s mother had died and, while the young lord was able to enter most of his lands early, Peter’s hold over the Sussex and Surrey estates was confirmed until 1252, when Warenne reached his majority.119 CPR 1247–1258, pp. 11, 14, 29.

Warenne’s grievances against the Savoyards did not end in Sussex. While the loss of Lewes and Reigate was only ever going to be temporary, the young man’s long minority led to the permanent loss of two of his most valuable possessions, and he appears correctly to have held the Savoyards personally responsible. These were the Lincolnshire towns of Stamford and Grantham, strategically situated on the Great North Road and therefore highly valuable, having a combined worth of nearly £400 a year in the third quarter of the thirteenth century.120 Stamford was valued at £220 a year in 1274/5, while Grantham produced £148 for Lord Edward in 1256/7. See Stamford in the Thirteenth Century: Two Inquisitions From the Reign of Edward I, ed. D. Roffe (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1994), p. 58; Prestwich, Edward I, p. 19 The towns had been granted to John de Warenne’s father by King John after the loss of Normandy to compensate for the loss of the family’s Norman estates, and they were still in his hands at his death in 1240.121 Stamford, ed. Roffe, p. 10. Initially, as in Sussex, the interests of the young heir were protected and in January 1242 two royal grants connected with Stamford indicate that the town was still being held in wardship for Warenne.122 CPR 1232–1247, pp. 269, 270. In 1248, however, when Warenne was given control of his father’s lands, these towns were not included.123 CPR 1247–1258, p. 14. Crouch does not seem to have noticed the loss of Stamford and Grantham in his article on the Warennes, stating simply that they passed to John in 1240. See Crouch, ‘The Warenne Family’, p. 286. Henry, influenced by his wife, seems to have had other plans for them. In July 1253 Stamford and Grantham were included in new arrangements for Queen Eleanor’s dower with the intention that they should eventually be included in the appanage of Lord Edward as part of a ‘perpetual union with the crown’, a phrase which seemingly closed the door on any prospect of recovery for Warenne.124 Howell, Eleanor, p. 113. TNA C 47/9/1. My thanks to Huw Ridgeway for this reference to the charter on Peter of Savoy’s roll. Warenne’s subsequent friendship with Lord Edward suggests that he did not regard the young prince as responsible for the denuding of his inheritance and that it was the Savoyards whom he blamed. Despite the finality of the language in the royal charter, the recovery of Stamford and Grantham was to be one of Warenne’s key aims in the years after he came of age and a major grievance against the Savoyards, not surprising given their value of nearly £400 a year.125 Spencer, Nobility and Kingship, p. 25.

Given Warenne’s mounting injuries at the hands of the Savoyard faction at court, he must have been alarmed by the treaty agreed between Henry III and Amadeus, count of Savoy, in January 1245.126 CPR 1232–1247, p. 469. One of the provisions of the treaty was a proposed marriage between the count’s granddaughter and either John de Warenne or Edmund de Lacy, heir to the earldom of Lincoln, who was also in custody at Henry’s court. In the end it was Lacy who married Alice de Saluzzo in 1247.127 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, p. 53. In the same year Warenne, now sixteen, was married to Alice de Lusignan, Henry III’s uterine sister and a member of the latest foreign faction to arrive at Henry’s court.128 Chron. Maj., iv, p. 629.

On one level Henry’s decision to marry Warenne to Alice was a sensible extension of his policy of trying to reshape the nobility in his own image, and he was clearly extending a great honour to the young nobleman by linking him so closely with the royal family. Certainly the marriage must have boosted Warenne’s pride, but its principal result was to deepen the divide between him and the queen by throwing him into the arms of a group who quickly established themselves as the Savoyards’ chief rivals for Henry’s favour.

It did not take too long for Warenne to align himself with the Poitevins, and his temperament seems to have matched theirs. The first time Warenne appeared in the chancery records, outside the context of his minority or the arrangements following his father’s death, was in November 1249.129 CFR 1249–1250, no. 51. The fine rolls record an order to seize Warenne’s East Anglian estates and for the sheriff to keep them in his hands until told otherwise in response to Warenne’s participation in a tournament at Brackley.130 The location of the tournament is not mentioned in the writ concerning Warenne but Brackley is mentioned in the context of Guy de Rochford, who was punished for the same transgression. See CR 1247–1251, p. 245. Two others similarly punished for participation in this tournament were the Poitevin knight Sir Guy de Rochford and Warenne’s brother-in-law, William de Valence.131 CFR 1249–1250, nos. 52–3. Matthew Paris does not note Warenne’s appearance at the tournament but he does complain that the earl of Gloucester, ‘who had always made it a practice to oppose the foreigners and to espouse the cause of the natives of England’, sided with the foreigners against the ‘bachelors of England’.132 Chron. Maj., v, p. 83; J.R.V. Barker, The Tournament in England, 1100–1400 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1986), pp. 48–9. That Warenne and Gloucester, two of the leading natives from the new generation of English nobles, had allied so publicly with the Lusignans heralded a significant realignment of English politics and demonstrates that they were as capable of winning friends among the English nobility, as least in the early days, as were the Savoyards. Warenne’s lands were restored within three weeks of their confiscation and Henry’s punishment did not diminish the enthusiasm of the brothers-in-law for tourneying. They are recorded as going overseas to participate together in tournaments in 1252 and 1256, on the former occasion with Gloucester as well, further cementing the bond between them created by Warenne’s marriage to Alice de Lusignan.133 CR 1247–1251, pp. 247-8; W.H. Blaauw, ‘On the Early History of Lewes Priory and Its Seals, With Extracts From an MS Chronicle’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 2 (1849), 26–7.

Nor was their violence restricted to the tourney field. Warenne participated in the infamous Lusignan raid on Archbishop Boniface’s Lambeth Palace on 3 November 1252.134 Chron. Maj., v, p. 359. This raid is now well known in the narrative of the rivalry between the Lusignan and Savoyard factions at court, and its potential for dividing the native English aristocracy down factional lines has also been recognised.135 Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 119–33; Howell, Eleanor, pp. 66–9. Warenne’s involvement in the raid, however, was as much down to his own grievances against the Savoyards as to any factional loyalty to the Lusignans.

Warenne’s political attitude in Henry III’s reign has been seen as wayward because of the number of times that he changed sides during the period of Reform and Rebellion after 1258.136 See, for instance, Waugh, ‘Warenne’, ODNB. In fact, Warenne’s actions are actually quite easy to follow: whichever political position the Savoyards adopted before the autumn of 1263, he took the opposite. Political positioning on the basis of what one’s enemies were doing was one of the key drivers of behaviour during the years of Reform and Rebellion.137 See, for instance, the reasons for the Savoyards’ abandonment of Henry III in 1258 in order to destroy the Lusignans, in Ridgeway, ‘Lord Edward’, 93–5. It was only in the autumn of 1263, with civil war fast approaching, that the interests of the Savoyards and the group of Lord Edward’s English associates, of which Warenne was one of the leaders, coalesced and they finally found themselves on the same side.

As their most prominent associate among the native English nobility, Warenne seems to have been an important conduit for Lusignan influence in England and to have played a significant role in strengthening the Lusignans’ relations with both Lord Edward and Henry of Almain, Richard of Cornwall’s son. He was knighted with Edward at Burgos in 1254 and travelled with Henry of Almain to Germany in the train of Richard of Cornwall in 1257.138 Blaauw, ‘Early History of Lewes Priory’, 26; CPR 1247–1258, p. 589. Warenne was thus the first nobleman not under Savoyard influence to find his way past the ring of steel which the queen had thrown up around her son to protect her influence over him.

By the beginning of 1258, therefore, Warenne had established himself as the Lusignans’ chief ally among the native English nobility and, not coincidently, as the Savoyards’ most dangerous native English opponent. The mutual antagonism between Warenne and the Savoyards was an important subplot in the destabilisation of English politics over the next five years. Warenne and Henry of Almain were the only members of the native nobility to oppose the Lusignans’ banishment in 1258, while in October 1259, just as the Savoyards were turning against reform, Warenne was alongside Edward in supporting Montfort.139 Documents of the Baronial Movement, no. 4. That Warenne and his friends were among the last to abandon the provisions in late 1261 was probably less to do with any great commitment to their contents but rather because they could see no role for themselves in a court dominated by their enemies.140 CPR 1258–1266, p. 195; CR 1261–1264, p. 95. Their supposition proved to be correct. Although Warenne, unlike Roger de Leybourne, was too powerful to attack directly, his virtual disappearance from all chancery records in 1262 illustrates the extent to which he had been frozen out of favour at court.141 Warenne appears just twice in the three main chancery rolls in 1262. Once in February having quittance of the eyre, CR 1262–1264, p. 109, and once in November when he is mentioned in connection with a case of trespass against him brought by the prior of Thetford, ibid., p. 267. See also Kathryn Faulkner, ‘Leybourne , Sir Roger of (c.1215–1271)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16624, accessed 13 April 2012].

This vindictiveness in victory on the part of Queen Eleanor only served to drive her son’s former friends into the arms of Simon de Montfort, as has been seen at the very outset of this essay, and in 1263 their vengeance was felt all the more harshly by the Savoyards.142 Howell, Eleanor, pp. 187–8. In Sussex, the lands of Peter of Savoy were overrun and placed in the safe-keeping of John de la Warre, Earl Warenne’s steward.143 CPR 1258–1266, p. 295. For Warre as Warenne’s steward see Select Cases of Procedure Without Writ Under Henry III, ed. H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, Selden Society 60 (1941), p. 126. It was perhaps fortunate for Peter that he was abroad at the time, but Warenne’s satisfaction must have been increased by the grant, on 7 August 1263, of the custody of his old guardian’s castle of Pevensey.144 CPR 1258–1266, p. 274. Warenne had finally established his pre-eminence in his native county.

Montfort’s coalition was already beginning to break apart, however, under the weight of the contradictory aims of its members. Just three days after being awarded Pevensey, Warenne was granted Stamford and Grantham by Lord Edward, gaining control for the first time of his father’s possessions that had been snatched away from him by the queen during his minority.145 Placita de Quo Warranto (London, 1818), p. 429. This was part of a wider move by Edward aimed, the Dunstable Annalist says, at ‘[winning] over very many who were previously on [Montfort’s] side, by giving them manors of his’.146 English Historical Documents, iii, p. 203. The annalist makes it sound like simple bribery but Edward’s former friends had aimed all along to regain Edward’s favour. This, and breaking Savoyard control over him, was what they had used Montfort to achieve. By readmitting Warenne to royal favour, by restoring Stamford and Grantham to him and by recognising his dominant position in Sussex, Henry III, Lord Edward and the queen belatedly recognised their error in casting out Warenne and his friends in 1261 and the turbulent earl went on to be one of the chief royal supporters in the Barons’ Wars.

All this antagonism could have been avoided had Henry acted differently. It was entirely of his own making and had been over twenty years in the gestation. Had Henry not sacrificed Warenne’s interests during his minority to satisfy the appetites of the Savoyards for royal patronage, and had he then not thrown Warenne into the arms of the Lusignans, the Savoyards’ principal rivals at court, then at least some of the disasters of 1258 to 1263 might not have happened and the destabilising influence of Warenne’s character and actions on English politics in these years might have been neutralised. More broadly though, this failure was symptomatic of the wider failure of Henry’s kingship.

Henry had learnt all the wrong lessons from his father’s reign and his minority. Like his father, Henry never trusted the English nobility and they, in turn did not trust or respect him. Rather than offer his native nobles leadership, as Edward I was to do, he tried instead to build up supporters from abroad, men who were wholly dependent on his generosity for their prosperity within England. Henry turned to his own relatives and those of his wife because of his desire to restore his dynasty’s power in Europe. In doing so he made commitments that ultimately his purse could not meet and he dragged himself into a morass of European intrigue from which he could not escape. Henry’s indulgence of the Lusignans has often been seen as instrumental in the failure of his personal rule, and so it was, but his kingship had been set on a path to disaster from the moment he failed to follow the example of his brother-in-law, Louis IX, and send his wife’s relatives packing. The Savoyards were the unwitting poison at the heart of Henry III’s kingship, a poison which he had willingly drunk without realising its terrible consequences.

 

1      The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. (Rolls Series, 1880), ii, p. 219; A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c. 550–c.1307 (London: Routledge, 1974), pp. 422–3. »

2      H.W. Ridgeway, ‘The Lord Edward and the Provisions of Oxford (1258): a Study in Faction’, TCE, i, pp. 89–99 at 97–8; M.C. Prestwich, Edward I, 2nd edn. (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 33–4, 37–9, 41; J.R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 226; M. Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 147, 148, 155, 163, 175-6, 191–4, 198–9; D.A. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery: Britain, 1066–1284 (London: Penguin, 2004), p. 374; A. Jobson, The First English Revolution: Simon de Montfort, Henry III and the Barons’ War (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012), pp. 37–8, 84.  »

3      Ridgeway, ‘Lord Edward’, 97–8; Howell, Eleanor, pp. 187–8, 194. »

4      Ridgeway, ‘Lord Edward’; Howell, Eleanor, pp. 146–8. »

5      E.L. Cox, The Eagles of Savoy: the House of Savoy in Thirteenth-Century Europe (Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 49–51, 59–62; H.W. Ridgeway, ‘The Politics of the English Royal Court, 1247-65, With Special Reference to the Role of Aliens’ (Univ. of Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 1984), p. 28; R.C. Stacey, Politics, Policy, and Finance Under Henry III, 1216–1245 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), pp. 96, 99, 100–1, 115. »

6      Howell, Eleanor, p. 2. »

7      Ibid., pp. 13, 37, 112, 190. »

8      Ibid., p. 14. »

9      Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., iii, pp. 362, 387; Ann. Mon., iii, pp.145–6; Stacey, Politics, p. 96; Howell, Eleanor, p. 25. »

10      Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 235. »

11      Chron. Maj., iii, pp. 491, 493–5, 622. »

12      Howell, Eleanor, p. 25. »

13      N. Vincent, ‘Savoy, Peter of, count of Savoy and de facto earl of Richmond (1203?–1268)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22016, accessed 23 Nov 2012]; Chron. Maj., iv, 85-6. See Antonia Shacklock’s essay in this volume for the significance of this date. »

14      See below, pp. 00–00. »

15      Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 235. »

16      Howell, Eleanor, p. 30; Cox, Eagles, pp. 135–7. »

17      Chron. Maj., iv, pp. 103–5, 259. »

18      Cox, Eagles, pp. 56–7. »

19      Howell, Eleanor, p. 29; Cox, Eagles, p. 98. »

20      Cox, Eagles, pp. 154-5; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 240. »

21      Ibid., p. 235. For Amadeus’s death, see Cox, Eagles, p. 226. »

22      Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 235; Howell, Eleanor, p. 39. »

23      R.F. Treharne, The Baronial Plan of Reform, 1258–1263, 2nd edn. (Manchester University Press, 1971), p. 33. Howell, Eleanor, pp. 2, 24-5, 30-2, 39; Stacey, Politics, pp. 115–16, 181–2; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 29, 32, 56–7, 59–60, 62–3, 66; Prestwich, Edward I, p. 20; D.A. Carpenter, ‘King Henry III’s “Statute” Against Aliens: July 1263’ in D.A. Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (London: Hambledon, 1996), p. 268; Carpenter, Struggle for Mastery, p. 342; F.M. Powicke, King Henry III and the Lord Edward, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1947), i, pp. 249–50, 363–4; Jobson, Revolution, p. 8. Cox, Eagles, is almost unrelentingly positive about the Savoyards’ qualities. »

24      See, for instance, his comments on Peter of Savoy: Chron. Maj., iv, pp. 85–6, 88. »

25      Howell, Eleanor, p. 31. For criticism of the Lusignans see, for just two examples among many, Maddicott, Simon de Montfort, pp. 127–8; Jobson, Revolution, pp. 10, 17. »

26      Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 48. »

27      Ibid., p. 35. »

28      Ibid., p. 75. »

29      H.W. Ridgeway, ‘Foreign Favourites and Henry III’s Problems of Patronage’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989), 590–610 at 591.  »

30      Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 235–7. »

31      Ibid., pp. 36, 75. »

32      Ridgeway, ‘Patronage’, 593. »

33      Ridgeway, ‘Patronage’. »

34      Ibid., 596. »

35      Powicke, Henry III, i, pp. 142–3 »

36      The phrase is Professor Christine Carpenter’s. »

37      The Royal Charter Witness Lists of Henry III (1226–1272) From the Charter Rolls in the Public Record Office, ed. M. Morris, 2 vols. (List and Index Society, 291–2, 2001). For a discussion of reliability of witness lists, see The Royal Charter Witness Lists of Edward I (1272–1307) From the Charter Rolls in the Public Record Office, ed. R. Huscroft (List and Index Society, 279, 2000), pp. xi–xvi. »

38      F.W. Maitland, ‘History From the Charter Roll’, English Historical Review, 8 (1893), 726–8 at 726. The reliability of witness lists has always been a matter for debate and Dauvit Broun has recently cast doubt on their reliability for private deeds but he admits that ‘no-one has offered a serious challenge to Maitland’s observation that the actual presence of those named is the only way to account for the “rapid variations in the lists of witnesses”.’ See D. Broun, ‘The Presence of Witnesses and the Making of Charters’, in D. Broun and others (eds.), The Reality Behind Charter Diplomatic in Anglo-Norman Britain (Glasgow University Press, 2011), pp. 236–290, quotation at p. 237. »

39      Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 410–12. »

40      For Walerand see, for instance, Howell, Eleanor, pp. 142, 162. For Fitz Geoffrey see, ibid., p. 145. »

41      Simon de Montfort has been designated as a foreigner for the purposes of this discussion. This is because for much of the period in question, if not perhaps all, he was regarded as such. See Chron. Maj., iii, pp. 412, 476; Maddicott, Montfort, pp. 75–6, 361–2. »

42      There were 876 royal charters enrolled on the charter rolls between 1246–7 and 1256–7. »

43      D.A. Carpenter, ‘Kings, Magnates and Society’ in D.A. Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (London, 1996), pp. 81–2, 88–90; Stacey, Politics, pp. 254–6; Jobson, Revolution, p. 7. »

44      Carpenter, ‘King, Magnates and Society’. »

45      For a list of comital witnessing under Edward I see, A.M. Spencer, Nobility and Kingship in Medieval England: the Earls and Edward I, 1272–1307 (Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 46.  »

46      Witness Lists of Henry III, pp. 145, 304. »

47      There were 1,096 charters between 1244–5 and 1256–7. »

48      Stacey, Politics, p. 182. »

49      Howell, Eleanor, p. 11. »

50      Howell, Eleanor, pp. 11–12. »

51      For details of a potential Scottish match, see Chron. Maj., iii, p. 206. For two French marriages, wrecked by Blanche of Castile’s intervention, see Howell, Eleanor, pp. 10–11. See also, D. d’Avray, ‘Authentication of Marital Status: English Royal Annulment Process and Late Medieval Cases from the Papal Penitentiary’, English Historical Review, 120 (2005), 987–1013. »

52      For the negotiations surrounding Louis’ marriage see J. Richard, Saint Louis: Crusader King of France, ed. S. Lloyd, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 62–4.  »

53      Howell, Eleanor, p. 9. »

54      J. Dunbabin, Charles I of Anjou: Power, Kingship and State-Making in Thirteenth-Century Europe (London and New York: Longman, 1998), pp. 41–54. »

55      For the Toulouse alliance, see Howell, Eleanor, p. 12. »

56      Stacey, Politics, pp. 179–80. »

57      Ibid., pp. 43, 98, 126.  »

58      Cox, Eagles, pp. 64–76. »

59      For a study of the relations between Flanders and the Anglo-Norman realm between the Conquest and King John’s death, see E. Oksanen, Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World, 1066–1216 (Cambridge University Press, 2012). »

60      J. Bradbury, Philip Augustus, King of France, 1180–1223 (London and New York: Longman, 1998), p. 313. »

61      Around £3,000 was paid to Count Thomas’s Flemish knights for the Scottish campaign. See Stacey, Politics, p. 245. Cox suggests that Thomas did serve with Henry against Louis (Eagles, p. 116) but appears to mistake Thomas’s presence at Saintes on 5 July 1242 (CPR 1232–1247, pp. 310, 311) as meaning that he was part of Henry’s forces there. Instead, he appears to have been acting as a trusted intermediary for Henry in diplomatic matters with Louis and Frederick II but not to have committed himself against his feudal lord. Thomas did not witness any of Henry’s royal charters issued on campaign.  »

62      Howell, Eleanor, p. 38. »

63      Ibid., pp. 33–4; Cox, Eagles of Savoy, p. 114; N. Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall (Oxford: Blackwell, 1947) p. 50.  »

64      Howell, Eleanor, p. 34. »

65      CPR 1232–1247, p. 437. »

66      Howell, Eleanor, p. 34. »

67      Foedera, I, i, p. 254. »

68      Howell, Eleanor, pp. 39–40.  »

69      Ibid., p. 47; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 235. »

70      Howell, Eleanor, p. 46. »

71      Cox, Eagles, pp. 146–9. »

72      Howell, Eleanor, pp. 40, 295. »

73      Ibid., p. 47; Cox, Eagles, pp. 149–52. »

74      Treharne, Baronial Plan of Reform, p. 50. For a more positive view of the Sicilian Business see B. Weiler, ‘Henry III and the Sicilian Business: a Reinterpretation’, Historical Research, 74 (2001), 127–50. »

75      S. Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1958), pp. 78–95. »

76      Howell, Eleanor, pp. 130–5. »

77      D.A. Carpenter, ‘Henry III and the Sicilian Affair’, Fine of the Month, February 2012, [http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/redist/pdf/fm-02-2012.pdf, accessed 29 March 2018]. »

78      Howell, Eleanor, p. 143. »

79      Ibid., pp. 143–4. »

80      Ridgeway, ‘Lord Edward’, 94–5. »

81      Henry’s generosity to Cornwall, Queen Eleanor and Montfort are obvious and well known. For Joan see K. Stringer, ‘Joan (1210–1238)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14820, accessed 5 Aug 2013]; for Henry’s devotion to Katharine see Chron. Maj., v, pp. 632, 643. »

82      N. Vincent, Peter des Roches: an Alien in English Politics, 1205–1238 (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 327–39, 363–71, 375–455. »

83      Stacey, Politics, pp. 118–21, 123–4. »

84      276 English Historical Documents, 1189–1327, ed. and trans. H. Rothwell (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1975), pp. 359–60. For discussion of the Paper Constitution see, N. Denholm-Young, ‘The “Paper Constitution” Attributed to 1244’, English Historical Review, 58 (1943), 401–23; C.R. Cheney, ‘The “Paper Constitution” Preserved by Matthew Paris’, English Historical Review, 65 (1950), 213–21; Stacey, Politics, pp. 249–50; D.A. Carpenter, ‘Chancellor Ralph Neville and Plans of Political Reform’, in Carpenter, Reign of Henry III, pp. 61–74. »

85      G.L. Harriss, King, Parliament and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), p. 29. »

86      Chron. Maj., iv, p. 64. »

87      Witness Lists of Henry III, pp. 174–80. »

88      Ibid., p. 179. »

89      Spencer, Nobility and Kingship, p. 45. The figure for 1236–57 is taken from my study of charter witnessing in this period referred to above. »

90      Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 235–7. »

91      Chron. Maj., v, p. 514. »

92      Ibid., iii, pp. 477–8.  »

93      Ibid., iii, p. 527; iv, pp. 10, 84; v, p. 37. »

94      Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, ed. and trans. R.F. Treharne and I.J. Sanders (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), no. 4; J. Peltzer, ‘The Marriages of the English Earls in the Thirteenth Century: a Social Perspective’, TCE, xiv (2013), pp. 61–85 at 67. See P. Brand, Kings, Barons and Justices: The Making and Enforcement of Legislation in Thirteenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 20–4, on the diverse elements of political society whose views were represented in the petition. »

95      For the following paragraph and any quotations, see Chron. Maj., v, pp. 363–4. »

96      Carpenter, ‘King, Magnates and Society’, pp. 82–3, 94, 104.  »

97      See, for instance, Treharne, Baronial Plan, pp. 32–3; Howell, Eleanor, pp. 67–8; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 133;  »

98      D.A. Carpenter, ‘What Happened in 1258?’ in Carpenter, Reign of Henry III, p. 194. »

99      For a summary of Warenne’s life and deeds see S.L. Waugh, ‘Warenne, John de, sixth earl of Surrey (1231–1304)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28734, accessed 9 Dec 2012]. For that of his father see N. Vincent, ‘Warenne, William (IV) de, fifth earl of Surrey (d. 1240)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28739, accessed 9 Dec 2012]. »

100      For a discussion of the Warenne estates, see Spencer, Nobility and Kingship, pp. 23–5. »

101      David Crouch has recently argued that Norfolk was the family’s ‘heartland of power’ and gaining control of Thetford certainly appears to have been a primary ambition for the earls in the second half of the twelfth century: D. Crouch, ‘The Warenne Family and its Status in the Kingdom of England’, in T. Huthwelker, J. Peltzer and M. Wemhöner (eds.), Princely Rank in Late Medieval Europe: Trodden Paths and Promising Avenues (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2011), pp. 281–307, esp. pp. 282, 288–91. The close blood relationship with the Bigods (Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk [d.1270] and Hugh Bigod [d.1266] were half-brothers of John de Warenne through their mother and relations were mostly friendly) seems to have calmed tensions in Norfolk in Henry III’s reign and redirected the family’s interest south to Sussex. The marriage of John de Warenne’s elder sister, Isabella, to Hugh d’Aubigny, earl of Arundel (d.1243), resumed the established practice of the Warennes of intermarriage with Sussex families, while the events described below ensured that Sussex, along with the recovery of Stamford and Grantham were the primary concerns of John de Warenne’s early career. See Early Yorkshire Charters: the Honour of Warenne, ed. C.T. Clay and W. Farrer, Yorkshire Archaeological Record Series, Additional Series, 8 (1949), pp. 21, 22–3; K. Thompson, ‘Lords, Castellans, Constables and Dowagers: the Rape of Pevensey from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 135 (1997), 209–20 at 214.  »

102      Spencer, Nobility and Kingship, p. 25, where the value of the earldom is put at around £3,000, which includes the lands added during Edward I’s reign. »

103      See S.L. Waugh, The Lordship of England: Royal Wardships and Marriages in English Society and Politics, 1217–1327 (Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 146–56. »

104      CFR 1239–40, no. 102. »

105      CPR 1232–1247, p. 267. »

106      Ibid., p. 251. »

107      Ibid., p. 259. »

108      Ibid., p. 260. »

109      Ibid., p. 252; Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 38; Howell, Eleanor, p. 32. »

110      CPR 1232–1247, pp. 261, 266; List of Sheriffs of England and Wales from the Earliest Times to AD 1831, List and Index Society, 9 (1963), p. 67. »

111      Chron. Maj., iv, pp. 177–8. »

112      CPR 1232–1247, pp. 271, 288; CR 1237–1242, pp. 476–7. »

113      J.C. Holt, Magna Carta, 2nd edn. (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 450–2, 311–14. »

114      Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, 8 vols. (London, 1916–2003), i, no. 16. »

115      CPR 1232–1247, p. 377. »

116      For her dower and jointure estates and widowhood see J.A. Nicholas, ‘Warenne, Isabel de, countess of Arundel (1226x30–1282)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60821, accessed 5 Aug 2013].  »

117      Bernard of Savoy, for instance, was granted the manor of Binderton, near Chichester, in August 1243: CPR 1232–1247, p. 392. He was also Peter of Savoy’s constable of Warenne’s castle of Reigate between 1241 and 1247. See Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, p. 38. »

118      CPR 1247–1258, p. 52; CFR 1248–9, no. 561. »

119      CPR 1247–1258, pp. 11, 14, 29. »

120      Stamford was valued at £220 a year in 1274/5, while Grantham produced £148 for Lord Edward in 1256/7. See Stamford in the Thirteenth Century: Two Inquisitions From the Reign of Edward I, ed. D. Roffe (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1994), p. 58; Prestwich, Edward I, p. 19 »

121      Stamford, ed. Roffe, p. 10.  »

122      CPR 1232–1247, pp. 269, 270. »

123      CPR 1247–1258, p. 14. Crouch does not seem to have noticed the loss of Stamford and Grantham in his article on the Warennes, stating simply that they passed to John in 1240. See Crouch, ‘The Warenne Family’, p. 286. »

124      Howell, Eleanor, p. 113. TNA C 47/9/1. My thanks to Huw Ridgeway for this reference to the charter on Peter of Savoy’s roll.  »

125      Spencer, Nobility and Kingship, p. 25. »

126      CPR 1232–1247, p. 469. »

127      Howell, Eleanor of Provence, p. 53. »

128      Chron. Maj., iv, p. 629. »

129      CFR 1249–1250, no. 51.  »

130      The location of the tournament is not mentioned in the writ concerning Warenne but Brackley is mentioned in the context of Guy de Rochford, who was punished for the same transgression. See CR 1247–1251, p. 245. »

131      CFR 1249–1250, nos. 52–3. »

132      Chron. Maj., v, p. 83; J.R.V. Barker, The Tournament in England, 1100–1400 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1986), pp. 48–9. »

133      CR 1247–1251, pp. 247-8; W.H. Blaauw, ‘On the Early History of Lewes Priory and Its Seals, With Extracts From an MS Chronicle’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 2 (1849), 26–7. »

134      Chron. Maj., v, p. 359. »

135      Ridgeway, ‘Politics’, pp. 119–33; Howell, Eleanor, pp. 66–9. »

136      See, for instance, Waugh, ‘Warenne’, ODNB.  »

137      See, for instance, the reasons for the Savoyards’ abandonment of Henry III in 1258 in order to destroy the Lusignans, in Ridgeway, ‘Lord Edward’, 93–5. »

138      Blaauw, ‘Early History of Lewes Priory’, 26; CPR 1247–1258, p. 589. »

139      Documents of the Baronial Movement, no. 4. »

140      CPR 1258–1266, p. 195; CR 1261–1264, p. 95. »

141      Warenne appears just twice in the three main chancery rolls in 1262. Once in February having quittance of the eyre, CR 1262–1264, p. 109, and once in November when he is mentioned in connection with a case of trespass against him brought by the prior of Thetford, ibid., p. 267. See also Kathryn Faulkner, ‘Leybourne , Sir Roger of (c.1215–1271)’, ODNB [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16624, accessed 13 April 2012]. »

142      Howell, Eleanor, pp. 187–8. »

143      CPR 1258–1266, p. 295. For Warre as Warenne’s steward see Select Cases of Procedure Without Writ Under Henry III, ed. H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, Selden Society 60 (1941), p. 126. »

144      CPR 1258–1266, p. 274. »

145      Placita de Quo Warranto (London, 1818), p. 429. »

146      English Historical Documents, iii, p. 203. »