The Eleanor CROSSES

Three of the twelve monuments left by Edward I in honour of his beloved Queen Eleanor are still standing, but were they really an act of pure romance as tradition has us believe?

- FELICITY DAY

The story of the Eleanor Crosses has to be a contender for the most romantic in British history. A tale of royal love, loss and lifelong devotion, it begins in 1254 with the politically convenient marriage of two teenagers. The groom was a lanky 15-year-old: the future King Edward I of England; the bride chosen for him: a Spanish Princess, Eleanor of Castile, not quite 13.

Yet against the odds, theirs became a true love match. Discovering shared interests in horses, hunting and chess, they were soon inseparable, travelling far and wide together – even on crusade. Eleanor would become not only the mother of Edward’s 16 children but one of his most trusted and influential advisors.

When she died suddenly in November 1290 after contracting a quartan fever (possibly a form of malaria), Edward was distraught. He decided to escort her body back to London in a stately cortège; the route from Harby (near Lincoln) where the couple had been staying seemingly designed to pass close to the Queen’s various land holdings, so that her tenants might pay their respects. It took twelve days in all, the grief-stricken royal party stopping each night, while Eleanor’s body rested in abbeys, monasteries and tiny churches.

On arrival in London, she was given a lavish funeral and a rare triple burial – her viscera were interred in Lincoln Cathedral, her heart in London’s Blackfriars monastery, and her body in Westminster Abbey. Her bronze effigy there is regarded as one of the finest tombs of the medieval period. But Edward’s biggest tribute to her was yet to come. In a display of devotion to his consort and wife of 36 years, he commissioned 12 ornately carved spire crosses – one to stand in each place that her body had lain on its journey home.